GoDaddy Auctions membership suspended

[anantj]

So recently I won an auction on GoDaddy auctions (I think it was for an expired domain). The day after I won the auction (I'm in a timezone that's nearly 9-10 hours ahead of GD Timezone), I was in and out of hospital as my wife was at full term for our 2nd child. Due to being to and from the hospital and taking care of my wife, I did not bother to make a manual payment as I have a default payment method (and 3 credit cards) associated with my GoDaddy account.

I assumed that GD would charge that payment method automatically and as they have done previously. They did that 48 hours after the auction ended. Unfortunately, for reasons unknown to me, the charge attempt failed.

After this failure, they instantaneouly blocked my auctions membership providing me with no means or options to provide an alternate card or payment method and are now trying to get me to pay a penalty to regain the membership. This is pure extortion as the fault was definitely not at my end. I have a valid payment method on file (multiple methods actually) and the charge failure was at their end. It is also interesting to note that I received no notification from my bank about a failed charge attempt which makes me suspicious about GD's statement whether they actually attempted to charge my card.

Spoke to their phone support and the guy was like a robot. The whole call, he'd only keep repeating the same line that we provide 48 hours after the auction end to make a payment. Completely ignored my point about a valid payment method being in the account which failed at their end and they did not provide any time to provide alternate payment

While the "penalty" amount is small and largely immaterial, I refuse to pay it out of principle. Had the fault been at my end, I'd have paid it without questioning it twice. But this is pure extortion for no fault of mine.

Just sharing my experience with GD to add to all the other thread about the shenanigans and the loopholes in GD auctions. Be careful with GoDaddy

 

[spiritfly]

This is exactly what happened to me yesterday. I've been buying like 3-5 expensive godaddy auction domains per day for the past 3-4 months. I've always just left them to get charged auomatically since I just cannot bother to pay for each domian I win every time.

Then it happened. For some reason they couldn't charge me and it just happened to be a saturday. I've instantly lost 3 domains and I'm about to lose 3 more today because they offered it to the second highest bidder and they bought them instantly. Now they want me to pay a $150 fee to re-enable my account which is ridicilous since all they have to do basically is just one click.

I called, but their rep was robotic just like OP says. Did not provide any options whatsoever. She couldn't even get ahold of their auctions department to ask them one basic question I had regarding the situation. She was rude and not understanding at all.

And for the situation to be even more absurd, their auction team is not working during this weekend so I cannot even pay the goddamn fee to get my account re-enabled. So I will lose the domains because of their mistake and get charged a $150 fee. It's insane. It's incredible how they are so big with these scammy policies. GoDaddy is the worst!

 

[forge]

- Edited - because it's unclear why Godaddy "couldn't charge" your card.

Also, the Auctions team does not offer phone support. Your best route is to send an email to [email protected]