GoDaddy auction problem: GoDaddy charged me $920 without my consent

[centreurope]

Hello,
I would please need your help on how to handle a problem with Godaddy.
I've reported by phone a bug for a domain name auction, where my proxy bid was... $424k!
The person told me that he could no cancel my bid and that I would need to contact by email the auction department. Which I did the next minute.
Of course I won the auction, at a final price of 920usd. I've not paid for this domain name I did not want, but Godaddy has debited the amount from my Credit Card.
3 days after my request to cancel the auction or/and handle the domain to the 2nd bidder, a person from the support sent me a stupid copy and paste answer. I tried to explain that it is a problem with the platform and that I don't want the domain but they don't care. Any advice on how to solve this?
thanks

 

[centreurope]

So to be clear you are saying that something not you bid on this domain? You never placed any bid?

I don't remember having bidded on this domain name at all. So it surprises me that I could have bidded such a strange amount : $425048. And then confirmed it at the next step.
But I'm not 100 % sure I did not do it. As everybody else, I do many things without being very concentrated. Placing an auction on Godaddy (most of the time 12 usd of 15usd) if one of the least important things I do throughout the day, so my brain is not fully dedicated to this action. I would be very surprised I did it, but I can not ignore this possibility. As well as the support can not ignore that there can a problem with the auction system.

 

[davidc1]

it's not normal that a cat on your keyboard could cost you 400k

 

[centreurope]

it's not normal that a cat on your keyboard could cost you 400k

Excellent!
when I was thinking about what could have happened. I thaught about the cats, which sometimes sit on the computer. But what surprises me is the confirmation. For this, I think that there has been a problem with the auction system.

I suppose you all have the same problem: when I click on "place bid", VERY often, the 1st screen is: "We're sorry, the domain name is no longer available blablba". Then I need to click on "search for domain names" and a window that allows me to bid appears. Or not.
This happens to me several times a day, and other similar things. The auction system is clearly deficient.

 

[centreurope]

Last thing, I thaught at first that the support would immediately cancel the auction because of the amount of the bid: 425,048. For me it was obvious that it was a computer bug. With namejet, dropcatch, Sedo, etc. you can not bid over a certain amount (1k or 10k) before being certified. I was convinced it was the same with Godaddy.
The fact that the system lets bid a 6 figure amount with a simple account is simply unbelievable. Especially when they charge your credit card without your consent.

 

[jalsoftware]

You're right, it seems to me that GoDaddy ought to have a verification requirement in place as does Namejet. At the very least for bids >$10k.

+1 here

I really hope they cancel this auction ASAP. If they don't then I guess I'll have no other choice but to leave GD. And so will my 2500+ domains.

 

[Nitaky]

There is a bid confirmation before it is accepted.

You don’t feel that $425048 is really a very strange number!!! And it’s surely a machine mistake! I can’t believe that Centreurope or any other human can use such number!

 

[NoBS]

Which includes the real risk of losing all the domains he has registered with Godaddy. So I'd say this is not good advice.

Don't worry it won't happen. At worst you'll be locked out of your account and need to arrange transfer out with support. Of course it's not worth it over $1,000 as you loose access to an exclusive stream of names.

 

[Joe Styler]

Again we do have a comfirmation screen for bids. Any size bid for that matter. We also do have a verification process for bids through your account over a certain amount which I believe is over 2500. I’m flying right now with bad WiFi so it takes forever to look it up but it’s certainly under 3k.
I’ve also asked for a pm with the domain name so I could look into it which I have not received.
I’m happy to look into it more.
I do not think that our bidding system is error prone or hard to navigate. We have a bid confirmation check on bids so you’d have to enter a very large number and then confirm that number and be a verified bidder to bid that amount. That’s three checks. We don’t make it easy to make a bad bid by mistake and we get almost no complaints about someone making a mistaken bid. I’ve never seen a mistaken bid for an amount even close to this before so I do not think the system is broken or troublesome for our bidders. We sell thousands of names a day on the platform without incident.

 

[centreurope]

At last, probably thanks to Joe Styler's intervention, the support sent me a message stating that the auction was cancelled and my money refunded. Apparently, the bidding IP did not match mine.

 

[tonyk2000]

the bidding IP did not match

Was it a bug on GD end then?

 

[centreurope]

apparently a security problem, they have asked me to change my password

 

[Nitaky]

Nice to hear that! Bravo Godaddy, happy for you Centreurope

 

[bluemeteor]

At last, probably thanks to Joe Styler's intervention, the support sent me a message stating that the auction was cancelled and my money refunded. Apparently, the bidding IP did not match mine.

Godaddy probably should fire some lazy ***