GoDaddy just stopped me having another expired auction domain that I won and gave no reason... again

[MadAboutDomains]

I'm certain that I'm not the only one that has experienced this from Godaddy, but I participated in an auction for an expiring domain, I won the domain and paid for it and anticipated the domain dropping into my account on the date that they said it's going to be ready.

Then a day or two later after the day has passed that they said it would be ready it mysteriously moved from the 'Won' tab to the 'Didn't Win' column. They don't bother telling me that I can't have the name. I called support and they forced me to email them to [email protected]. It's all completely faceless, done over email.

I emailed them to ask them what was going on with it. I can only assume that they were just going to keep it quiet and keep my money until I go out of my way to ask them what the hell is going on with it... the only response back to my support email to them was an automatically generated email shown below which meant nothing to me:

Upon further inspection of my Godaddy account, I could see that they had now issued me a refund for the £500+ I paid for the domain. They don't even have the courtesy to have a person email back, explaining what's happened or why. This email is completely meaningless, the domain was never in my account, so it didn't mean anything for it to have been 'removed' from my account and they didn't even let me know that they had issued me a refund.

I emailed them again asking why the domain had gone from 'Won' to 'Didn't Win' and they sent me back this bs email:

I thought they were supposed to have "exceptional customer service" but clearly not. The domain is still suspended, the whois reveals it hasn't been renewed and they're telling me that I can't have it.

They really need to get themselves in order with regards to expiring domain auctions. It should be determined whether the domain is "no longer available" before they run the auction. For all I know they could be doing this for all domains that go for a half decent price so that they can hold them back and sell them as premium to someone else. Just wasting everyone's time and energy.

They just seem to get it wrong at every stage and clearly don't feel that it's their duty to inform you about what's going on at any stage, they just do things surreptitiously - emails that mean nothing - moving the domain from 'Won' to 'Didn't Win' and not informing the buyer.

I know that I could just not participate in these auctions and that I agreed to the terms, blah blah blah. It still doesn't make it a good service and it's a real shame because it doesn't need to be the way it is.

 

[NickB]

Seems that with the Chinese now allowed to purchase/develop .co names this is happening quite frequently with this extension, your probably right in that this will now pop up later as a premium name for xxxx

Not only Godaddy doing this......

 

[MadAboutDomains]

@MrAcidic I wondered whether this is a common thing with the .CO extension. Would be interested to hear of any other reports this happening with .CO for others.

 

[NickB]

couple of good threads on the forum discussing this....

https://www.namepros.com/threads/co...es-for-themselves.1090842/page-3#post-6883550

https://www.namepros.com/threads/co-the-official-discussion-showcase-and-sales-report-thread.573976/

 

[Name Trader]

@MrAcidic I wondered whether this is a common thing with the .CO extension. Would be interested to hear of any other reports this happening with .CO for others.

I had an almost completely identical situation with another domain. Which was not a .co domain. I just checked GDN.CO. in the whois. It has not been renewed. I placed a backorder on my domain and caught it on the drop, for cheaper than I originally paid Godaddy for the domain. You should try to do the same. When it drops. Good luck.

 

[MadAboutDomains]

couple of good threads on the forum discussing this....
https://www.namepros.com/threads/co...es-for-themselves.1090842/page-3#post-6883550

Thanks for pointing these out. It's pretty sad if .CO is reserving names and moving to a tiered pricing model. How can they expect good things of their extension, for it to flourish like the success of the .COM if they haven't used the same ingredients. So stupid. The extensions are popular because they're freely available to anyone. Decent extension and low barrier to entry.

 

[sheiky]

I got 2 domain cancellation emails today from GoDaddy. Those domains are the ones I bid and won at GD expiring auction. The default reason from GD was "Domain owner renewed the domain or transferred away"

Unless the domains are with GD they don't have any control over those domains. Nowadays before bidding I do see the whois where the domain resides.

The refund came up before 3 days and got the email today. So whenever I see a refund initiated via PayPal I now know that its a domain I lost from GD auction. I usually see the domains in "Didn't Win" tab and sometimes it will be removed from the bid history.

Thats unfortunate but getting used to it.

 

[cooljub]

If it's up for sale again, how much for?

 

[MadAboutDomains]

If it's up for sale again, how much for?

It's not unfortunately. I paid over $600 USD (£500 GBP) at auction.

 

[NickB]

https://www.whois.com/whois/gdn.co

http://gdn.co

Looks like Name .com might have snapped it up? Maybe....

 

[cooljub]

I don't know if you've seen it, but might this thread be related?
https://www.namepros.com/threads/co...g-delete-domain-names-for-themselves.1090842/

 

[wwwweb]

This happend a lot during this onslaught of .co drops, or maybe not drops. Many of the names moved over to namecheap, looks like others are being reverted back to the registry for a premium pricing model, all in all it makes for a bad consumer experience.

 

[MadAboutDomains]

https://www.whois.com/whois/gdn.co

http://gdn.co

Looks like Name .com might have snapped it up? Maybe....

The name was already with name.com I think. The expiry date hasn't updated it's still expired status.

 

[Satyajit Adhikary]

Happened to me a few times when I purchased from Godaddy Closeouts..!!

Every time this happens, I get a mail from GD : "We have removed a domain for you"

as if done a favor to me and I should be grateful..!!

 

[MadAboutDomains]

Happened to me a few times when I purchased from Godaddy Closeouts..!!

Every time this happens, I get a mail from GD : "We have removed a domain for you"

as if done a favor to me and I should be grateful..!!

Terrible. They could at least knock together an email explaining what it means and that they've issued a refund etc. They need to get their act together. It's a sign that they're making too much money and don't care about their customer journey.

 

[NickB]

The name was already with name.com I think. The expiry date hasn't updated it's still expired status.

It looks like they contacted Godaddy and pulled it back, as the original registrar I can't imagine this is to difficult for them to do - just so you can't own it and they now know it has value and will price it accordingly, as already mentioned this is just really bad practice.

I'm not an expert on time frames with regards to expiry and whois records, would this take a few days to update? Someone with more experience could possibly answer

 

[D Haynes]

I had an almost completely identical situation with another domain. Which was not a .co domain. I just checked GDN.CO. in the whois. It has not been renewed. I placed a backorder on my domain and caught it on the drop, for cheaper than I originally paid Godaddy for the domain. You should try to do the same. When it drops. Good luck.

If I understand correctly, names like this will no longer "drop" as the registry will retain them for their new premium pricing structure. Backordering good .co names will be obsolete I'm guessing.

 

[wwwweb]

It looks like they contacted Godaddy and pulled it back, as the original registrar I can't imagine this is to difficult for them to do - just so you can't own it and they now know it has value and will price it accordingly, as already mentioned this is just really bad practice.

I'm not an expert on time frames with regards to expiry and whois records, would this take a few days to update? Someone with more experience could possibly answer

Name provides I believe 25 days to renew, these would have been well past that deadline. They also charge $250 to pull them out of redemption I believe. A key would be to find out who owned all these domains, maybe a single party, or what not, could just be marketing I have no idea, but there was a lot of drops based on that July 19, 2010 anniversary when it went live. I still have many LLl.co’s I hand registered on that day in my portfolio, at $22 renewals, I don’t enjoy carrying them over, but with a higher renewal, and less sell thru you really have to know what your doing otherwise you will go red quickly.

As for the registry being the domainer, they probabaly overpaid for this registry a few years back, and are looking for a new revenue stream in the face of discounted gtlds.

 

[Name Trader]

The problem with this domain is that it is a 3 char .co and the Registry is grabbing back all 3 char .co domains in order to sell these domains for a premium later. It seems like everybody knows this apart from Name.com and GoDaddy.com. So in theory. No 3-char .co domain should ever be in an expiring domain auction. I think Name/GoDaddy ought to "get with the program" and not have these domains for sale in their expiring auctions. It would also substantially improve GoDaddy's ratio of domains won but cancelled, and refunded.

It seems GoDaddy feel very comfortable offering domains from 3rd party registrars, where it is the wild west, and the 3rd party registrar can withdraw the domain at will. Whilst at the same time, charging their customer, the bidder, at the earliest possible opportunity, for a domain, which isn't technically ever for sale. There seems to be something obtuse about that thinking, from the buyers point of view. IMHO.

And. As I said in another thread. GoDaddy should have only 1 unified contract with all these 3rd party registrars, and any registrar who doesn't get with the program, should not be permitted to auction their domains on GoDaddy's Expiring Auctions. In much the same way as a buyer gets 3 strikes and they're out.

 

[Peak.Domains]

This certainly doesn't build much faith in the .co extension, which unfortunately has been the majority of my sales and still makes up a big portion of my portfolio.

Nor any faith in GoDaddy, but I haven't had that in a long time...

 

[Asfas1000]

How is a registry to take back a domain that did not drop ?

 

[Name Trader]

How is a registry to take back a domain that did not drop ?

That's a trade secret. If I told you. I'd have to kill you They are obviously working with the Registrars themselves.

 

[Acroplex]

Fascinating story. A domain registered at Name.com being auctioned via GoDaddy. It clearly wasn't a drop.

That being said, I recently sold a LLL .co for mid four figures. So I understand your frustration, it would have made a great investment at the price.

 

[enterscope]

I took a shot at a .CO domain at Godaddy auction yesterday and WON. To my surprise, the domain is now in the Didn't Win column and lo-and-behold the domain is at Namecheap.

Will never bid on a .CO at auction ever again or even register one for that matter.

 

[MadAboutDomains]

I took a shot at a .CO domain at Godaddy auction yesterday and WON. To my surprise, the domain is now in the Didn't Win column and lo-and-behold the domain is at Namecheap.

Will never bid on a .CO at auction ever again or even register one for that matter.

I'm sorry to hear that has happened to you too, its very disappointing isn't it.