GoDaddy Auctions / NameFind.com Scam

[GoWebnames.com]

A small story of the GoDaddy/NameFind malpractices that scammed me out of a Closeout domain I won.

I bought a $5 Closeout domain (3DPrintFarm.com) at GoDaddy on Dec/17, it showed the status of domain in my account as "Expired Domain Ready on Dec/20/2016". The domain previously belonged to a LEO DEARDEN, just as he owned the NET/ORG versions as well. On Dec/22, I still didn't have the domain, so I checked the WHOIS which showed the domain transferred to NameFind.com (the domain agency of GoDaddy) at FastHost. It's obvious that NameFind just misappropriated a domain they liked, AFTER it was sold to me. I wrote to their support seeking explanation as to how a domain I won and paid for could end up with their domaining agency NameFind. They put in a standard reply "the domain is not with us blah blah and under the auctions conditions ....." but when I checked the domain WHOIS again, the WHOIS details were switched back to that LEO DEARDEN.

Now, today I get a Christmas mail from Santa Claus (the Godaddy system) that 3DPrintFarm.com has been deleted from my account. So, I have 3 questions for all to reflect on:

1) How the domain WHOIS showed the details of NameFind when it was won and paid for by me?
2) Why they changed back the WHOIS details to that of LEO DEARDEN when I protested?
3) Why does the Godaddy mail now says that it was deleted from my account?

@Joe Styler , what do you have to say?

Maybe my understanding is not much but, as far as I can guess, it's a case of an attempted misappropriation of an already won domain by NameFind.com (a GoDaddy agency). Has something of this sort happened with you as well?

 

[Keith]

Even though I am sure your payment is fine we still check it. Part of our process is ensuring that the seller gets their money so when we say it is good from that point on it is and we eat the loss if it's not so we check all the payments carefully.
If the seller has the name registered at GoDaddy that doesn't mean they listed it for sale with us. Suppose say they listed it with Afternic which then feeds the listings to GoDaddy they may not have an account with GoDaddy set up to be paid, so they are going to be paid via Afternic. Afternic has to get the ok that the money we collected is good and then get the name pushed to their holding account and then send it to you to accept. As I said it probably won't take that long but they like to quote the longest just in case everything takes a longer time, the payment requires extra inspection, the seller doesn't move the name right away to our holding account etc.
We have some plans to further streamline the process coming this year which will speed things up and make them easier but in the meantime this is a normal timeframe that they would quote anyone.

I believe the listing was also active at afternic. The seller has a godaddy account because it's registered there, that's why the process should be almost instantaneous. Thanks for the feedback!

 

[brianbrytus]

Just had this happen to me with a good name that I purchased in an expired auction with another bidder before me. I won the auction, paid, waited for the "Domain ready on" date and it's still not in my account... It's in namefind.com as the registrar. This is ridiculous. Can a godaddy rep here fix this issue for me? I'm not stopping until they resolve this...

 

[Joe Styler]

Just had this happen to me with a good name that I purchased in an expired auction with another bidder before me. I won the auction, paid, waited for the "Domain ready on" date and it's still not in my account... It's in namefind.com as the registrar. This is ridiculous. Can a godaddy rep here fix this issue for me? I'm not stopping until they resolve this...

If you read the rest of this thread you can see that an expired domain passes through a NameFind account if coming from another registrar before it is awarded to you. We made changes on the WHOIS to make that even more clear based on feedback we had from customers here and elsewhere. I believe the WHOIS is now in your name. The yours on date is an estimate only. Also you are never guaranteed a domain on expired auction, which is stated clearly in our terms of service, although most domains do fulfill without issue like this one.