GoDaddy charged us $29 for trademark violation !

[DomainEmpire.com]

It's the first time someone sues us for a trademark violation at godaddy and, big surprise, they charged our card for US$29 without our authorization, is this normal ?
We'd be seriously tempted to ask for a chargeback and to leave them forever, not for the unauthorized charge but for the fact they charged us with no previous notice, we were unaware of this rule ...

Here's the message they sent us:

***
Dear ---------,

We recently received an inquiry related to your domain name,
---------.xxx. The specific inquiry related to your domain name can be
described as follows:

domain dispute - National Arbitration Forum. Questions to
[email protected]

In accordance with our registration agreeement,
https://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/legal_agreements/domain_registration_GD.asp?p
rog_id=GoDaddy&isc=&se=&from_app=,
we have charged your credit card in the amount of $29.00 for our processing
of this inquiry.

If you have any questions concerning the above, please contact our customer
service center.

Thank you for your continued business,
GoDaddy.com
***

But shouldn't be the complainant to cover all related service fees, at least until the arbitration forum would not have determined who has the right to own such domain ?
I've been really disappointed by their behavior ...

 

[Mark]

That is just odd sounding to me as well .......

 

[Dave_Z]

http://namepros.com/showthread.php?t=60099

To save you the trouble of reading it, though, here's a quote from Go Daddy's
legal fine print:

Go Daddy reserves the right to charge a reasonable service fee for administrative tasks outside the scope of its regular services. These include, but are not limited to, customer service issues that cannot be handled over email but require personal service, and disputes that require legal services. These charges will be billed to the Payment Method we have on file for You.

I once asked them about this, and they said they'll refund the registrant upon
receipt of notice the registrant won.

BTW, I also answered this in dnf.

 

[DomainEmpire.com]

Thanks for this report davezan, from now they'll no longer have any billing info in their files about us and soon no domain too

 

[jmweb]

I applaud Godaddy for this. This will ensure less TM violations.

 

[DomainEmpire.com]

No, this will ensure less customers for them, including us

 

[ianmillar]

i think thats F**ked up Godaddy should not have the right to charge your card even if the TOS says so.

do the charge back and transfer the domain out man

 

[AdoptableDomains]

They did the samething to me on the one and only filing ever done against me, a 3 letter generic acronym. What really irked me was that they don't tell what the fee will be in the TOS until they charge you (as if anyone really reads them word for word). Basically they charge $29 to change the domain from "active" to "transfer prohibited". Also, they charge even if the claim has no basis in reality or is even reverse domain hijacking. I can see charging if arbitration requires them to move the domain to a winning party, but not for just a filing.

I ended up selling the domain to the complainant before going to arbitration with a claim of reverse domain hijacking, so not really "winning" the arbitration, I just had to consider the fee as one of my costs. I don't know how hard it is to get a refund if you win.

Good luck with your case.

 

[WarpFactor]

I don't agree with it. GoDaddy should not have any right to charge you any amount after you have purchased the service. I have a PayPal account and credit card on file at GoDaddy -- I may be forced to remove both of these, as I purchase domains quite frequently for customers of my web hosting service.

 

[deet]

wow, I have never heard of such a thing.

 

[k5000]

$29 just to change the status of a domain sounds very dubious.

 

[infinitomagazine]

thanks for share this information, i dont want to make any bussines with godaddy now. sometimes "reasonable" could be more that $29

 

[Dave_Z]

Thats why you always have to read the fine print. I didn't know about this either.

Unfortunately I didn't know either until Mark (AdoptableDomains) first brought
this up in another thread. Even reading their fine print didn't reveal this tidbit
until it happened to him.

How I darn wish Go Daddy would be specific.

 

[ianmillar]

"DONT USE GODADDY"

damn they suck