GoDaddy / NameFind Bad Faith - Took Domain Away

[Seasoned]

I won a GoDaddy/ NameFind auction. I paid for it right away. Was very excited and already drawing up plans for the website.
They removed it from my won auctions 2 days later and straight up LIED to me that they hadn't caught the domain in time.
Complete and totally lie. As namefind has owned it and still owns it, this is disgusting behavior.
(GoDaddy owns the namefind portfolio)
Plus no email from GoDaddy explaining any of this. I have been a GD customer for 5 years and spent xx,xxx in that time. Beyond furious.
Has anyone had similar experience ?
I emailed [email protected] since phone support was nice but clueless to help.
No reply and not even email explaining their actions.
Does anyone from GD ever chime in here ?

 

[wwwweb]

Another scenario is the current registry allowed the owner to move the domain while it was expired via auth code, in that case when godaddy did the transfer another year was added, and it was pulled from expiry, in turn ending your auction thru their partner channel.

 

[Seasoned]

Another scenario is the current registry allowed the owner to move the domain while it was expired via auth code, in that case when godaddy did the transfer another year was added, and it was pulled from expiry, in turn ending your auction thru their partner channel.

Probably not since the registrant at the time I won the domain (GD's words) is MIA. His website was shuttered months ago and his email for that account seems dead.

More likely:

Spoke to very helpful support as FastDomain who was utterly confused why the registrant record changed since he did not see a renewal by previous registrant or an inter domain transfer.

Fun conversation w/ FastDomain. They apparently sold it to NameFind on the 6th. Support directed me to their FAQ.

FastDomain.com:
"If the domain is not renewed, it is considered abandoned. We may exercise the right to auction, sell, delete or dispose of the name at any time.
As early as 31 days after expiration, your domain name will enter a holding period and may be purchased by a third party. If a third party purchases the domain name during this time, the domain name will NOT be available for you to renew."
So I won the domain on day 35 but apparently GoDaddy's Namefind took possession on day 37 and cancelled the sale.
How vile.

tl:dr
Won domain on GoDaddy auction, paid for it. Apparently, GoDaddy's Namefind branch buys directly from Registrar and then takes it for themselves instead 2 days later.

As I already stated, I am well aware of the procedure. The issue here is that it was not the previous owner renewing their domain.

As GoDaddy's rep clarified on this thread, GD/Namefind are the same entity.

So GoDaddy had me pay for domain they told me that I won and then appear to have bought it directly from the domain registrar, FastDomains for themselves even though they knew I as a 3rd party had already won and paid for it.

Methinks, if it had a bunch of bidders for it on the GD expired auction and went for a decent amount instead of a measly 12 bucks, Namefind wouldn't have *apparently* gone directly to FastDomain 2 days AFTER I already paid for it to keep it for themselves.

 

[Seasoned]

Paul Nicks at GoDaddy and I emailed a short while ago.
He basically stated that he has nothing to add from what Styler wrote.

Neither has denied my final assertion that after they emailed me I had won a GoDaddy Expired Domain auction, paid for it, that two days later GD/NF bought it directly for themselves from the registrar [not the domain name registrant), Fast Domain. A registrar who is part of Endurance Group, who Styler pointed out is their new GD partner.

Since GoDaddy is poised to become even more of a behemoth of a monopoly, it is very concerning to see the lack at ethics play here. With the purchase of Host Europe Group for nearly 2 billion dollars, its chilling to see a company act in such a caviler manner.

 

[Seasoned]

Paul Nicks updated me again and I have a good feeling about him and feel a lot better about things working out.

 

[Seasoned]

Update:
So I heard from Paul on Friday and he said they would give me the domain. Don't see it yet.
I notice the same situation has also transpired with another domain that should be in my GoDaddy account as of today. It still shows as won and should be in my regular domain section by now.
Getting upset again, what a headache.

 

[Joe Styler]

Even though this name has our info on it in the WHOIS it was not at any time in our possession. We are working very hard to acquire the domain name for you from the other company who has it. We are trying to help you as a customer we always try as hard as we can to help. Once we are able to get possession of the name we will move it to you.

 

[wwwweb]

Even though this name has our info on it in the WHOIS it was not at any time in our possession. We are working very hard to acquire the domain name for you from the other company who has it. We are trying to help you as a customer we always try as hard as we can to help. Once we are able to get possession of the name we will move it to you.

@Seasoned You can't really get a better answer than that.

 

[namezest]

I am not aware of us redeeming any names that expire from the namefind protfolio. From time to time we do get customers upset with us for that but in the ones I have investigated this is what happened.
Original owner lets domain expire -> renews domain during time we are buying portfolio -> whois gets updated to our name. Those are the only situations I have seen at this point.

About time some body said it so I will.

What I find hard to deal with is how when icann rules specifically say in registrar agreements that they (the registrars) should hold no domains, ie a portfolio as it could lead to unfair advantage, eventual market dominance that would lead to price fixing. Therefore a breach of icann accreditation agreement that would result in the registrar/s loss of business . Yet time and time again it is seen. Sorry Joe but Godaddy is the worst when it comes to useage of multiple sites to move domains around that eventually end up in secondary markets partnered or owned by Godaddy. Deny this if you like but the fact Godaddy has a portfolio is and has been for a long time a serious breach of icann rules. Average Joe who has no idea of such things would have little more than an excuse and money back where the domains end up again on secondary market. One reason there milk the market. People want transparancy. Icann has a lot of explaining to do also for a non profit they sure made a lot of money before saying that was to change. I think Godaddy is going to be doing a rebrand because I can see a boycott coming on along with a fed investigation.

 

[.NJ]

I'm confused on one part.

1. Godaddy purchases portfolio.
2. Portfolio now belongs to GD.
3. GD changes who.is because they now control the domains.
4. Old owner renews after ownership is transfered?

As far as I know you cant change whois details without ownership of the domain.

How did the past owner renew if GD already took ownership of the name and changed the who.is?

I fully support GD as I have used them for years.

Im just confused here.

If the whois changed this means GD had control of the name.

How did past owner regain control to renew?

Kevin

 

[Seasoned]

I'm confused on one part.

1. Godaddy purchases portfolio.
2. Portfolio now belongs to GD.
3. GD changes who.is because they now control the domains.
4. Old owner renews after ownership is transfered?

As far as I know you cant change whois details without ownership of the domain.

How did the past owner renew if GD already took ownership of the name and changed the who.is?

I fully support GD as I have used them for years.

Im just confused here.

If the whois changed this means GD had control of the name.

How did past owner regain control to renew?

Kevin

Paul at GoDaddy stopped and listened to me. It was completely his help alone that resolved this.
What I stated happened, happened with both names. Won them both in expired auctions.
The registrants who were the registrants at the time never renewed.
They're both nice little names and Namefind happened to get them directly from the domain registrar after I was already paid at GD.
But the domain registrar Fast Domain does have a policy that a 3rd party can buy a domain that has been expired for 31 days directly from them. There appears to have been overlap in my bids, namefind purchase.
All's well that ends well and I have the domains and everything worked out.

 

[Seasoned]

About time some body said it so I will.

What I find hard to deal with is how when icann rules specifically say in registrar agreements that they (the registrars) should hold no domains, ie a portfolio as it could lead to unfair advantage, eventual market dominance that would lead to price fixing. Therefore a breach of icann accreditation agreement that would result in the registrar/s loss of business . Yet time and time again it is seen. Sorry Joe but Godaddy is the worst when it comes to useage of multiple sites to move domains around that eventually end up in secondary markets partnered or owned by Godaddy. Deny this if you like but the fact Godaddy has a portfolio is and has been for a long time a serious breach of icann rules. Average Joe who has no idea of such things would have little more than an excuse and money back where the domains end up again on secondary market. One reason there milk the market. People want transparancy. Icann has a lot of explaining to do also for a non profit they sure made a lot of money before saying that was to change. I think Godaddy is going to be doing a rebrand because I can see a boycott coming on along with a fed investigation.

Fed investigation ? Seriously? LOL.
USA gave all power over to ICANN recently and the domain world is taking a turn back to the Wild West days of 2000.
Average end user/consumer is happy to hand register their domain or happy to bid on a domain they want.
They may whine about prices, but they're not giving it a lot thought/
Parsing the facts about domain registrars and deleting/expiring domains and the rights to those names is too much for them to wrap their heads around.
And anyone who gets into domain speculation becomes pretty darn cynical and understands this business is murky at best.

 

[wwwweb]

This happend to me today also.

The domain still shows as expired, original registrant is someone who only owns 8 domains, I purchased via TDNAM expired, now they take the domain back, and it goes into NameFinds inventory?

The domains URL goes to default expired page still, has not been renewed.

@Joe Styler can you please explain why this is happening? How is NameFind reclaiming after the domain has sold thru tdnam, many days ago, and domain has expired, and has not been renewed?

 

[Joe Styler]

This happend to me today also.

The domain still shows as expired, original registrant is someone who only owns 8 domains, I purchased via TDNAM expired, now they take the domain back, and it goes into NameFinds inventory?

The domains URL goes to default expired page still, has not been renewed.

@Joe Styler can you please explain why this is happening? How is NameFind reclaiming after the domain has sold thru tdnam, many days ago, and domain has expired, and has not been renewed?

I am not sure you will have to give me a domain name to look into.

 

[brianbrytus]

I just figured out that the domain was never renewed by previous registrant.
I won the domain 36 days after it expired. I paid for it.
Now it has been awarded to Namefind by Fastdomain 2 days after I paid for it.
This is bad faith and I want answers from Namefind / GoDaddy (NYSE: GDDY).
I am filing complaints against FastDomain [owned by the poorly rated EIG] presently.

Same thing just happened to me too. I am filing complaints too and moving all of my portfolio elsewhere. I'm not stopping until they resolve this and do the right thing. I'll never use godaddy again after being a customer for 18 years. This is pretty low for them. I'm contacting every domain name news soure/site/blog and not stopping until I get my stolen domain name back. @Joe Styler @Paul Nicks please help fix this. Thanks

 

[dragtastic]

hope this issue gets resolved for you..

 

[brianbrytus]

Thanks. It just showed up in my account today. Not sure if it's from the emails and post I made or would have eventually been transferred away. Just glad it's in my account now

 

[John Napoletano]

Hi Guys. This happened to me with and Expired Auction at GoDaddy.com. The domain name is Axium.co and I was the only bidder on 11/24. From what I can see in the Whois the parties involved are Afternic, NameFind, FastDomain. The domain is currently in pending delete status. GoDaddy says it was "from a partner registrar and they informed us that that domain would no longer be becoming available."

Anyone know anyone at the three companies mentioned?

 

[brianbrytus]

Hi Guys. This happened to me with and Expired Auction at GoDaddy.com. The domain name is Axium.co and I was the only bidder on 11/24. From what I can see in the Whois the parties involved are Afternic, NameFind, FastDomain. The domain is currently in pending delete status. GoDaddy says it was "from a partner registrar and they informed us that that domain would no longer be becoming available."

Anyone know anyone at the three companies mentioned?

Hmm, afternic is owned by godaddy and fastdomain is a godaddy reseller.. I am jus grateful I got my domain in my account. All godaddy domains expired should go to godaddy auctions and fastdomain is a godaddy reseller, they shouldn't be allowed to give it directly to namefind if they want. That's theft. Let me know if it goes into your account.

 

[John Napoletano]

Let me know if it goes into your account.

As of yesterday the transaction was "canceled" by GoDaddy. So unless someone with authority steps in to question the transaction and review the logs it will not go to my account. I posted this in hopes that someone has access to the logs and will take a look. If someone at either company is cherry picking then they should be delt with.

 

[wwwweb]

As of yesterday the transaction was "canceled" by GoDaddy. So unless someone with authority steps in to question the transaction and review the logs it will not go to my account. I posted this in hopes that someone has access to the logs and will take a look. If someone at either company is cherry picking then they should be delt with.

Maybe it got renewed, which would be viable in regards to their TOS

 

[John Napoletano]

Maybe it got renewed, which would be viable in regards to their TOS

TOS says " ...the original registrant has the right to reclaim the Expired Domain Name." By original I would think name and address have to match? Not to mention we're in the new 12/1 GoDaddy promise time though this was a 11/24 win.

Whois says today 12/5:

Registrant Name Afternic Transfer Service - Transfer Pending
Registrant Organization NameFind LLC

Any whois ninjas out there that can track this for me before and after? I'm super curious to watch it. Message me here or on LinkedIn for a small fee. Thanks.

 

[wwwweb]

TOS says " ...the original registrant has the right to reclaim the Expired Domain Name." By original I would think name and address have to match? Not to mention we're in the new 12/1 GoDaddy promise time though this was a 11/24 win.

Whois says today 12/5:

Registrant Name Afternic Transfer Service - Transfer Pending
Registrant Organization NameFind LLC

Any whois ninjas out there that can track this for me before and after? I'm super curious to watch it. Message me here or on LinkedIn for a small fee. Thanks.

Looks to me like they are transferring it over to you. Have patience don't read to much into the whois you might be surprised. They own one of the largest portfolios out there, they don't want to get a bad rep by stealing a single domain from a client purchase, they don't need to. Give it 5 days, and see what the whois says.

 

[John Napoletano]

Looks to me like they are transferring it over to you.

Please don't say that it's not true. The transaction was canceled and refunded. I called support as well. It's up to anyone here to investigate if they wish to satisfy my curiosity. It's a black box when transactions fail, no transparency. 12/1 is supposed to change that.

 

[wwwweb]

Please don't say that it's not true. The transaction was canceled and refunded. I called support as well. It's up to anyone here to investigate if they wish to satisfy my curiosity. It's a black box when transactions fail, no transparency. 12/1 is supposed to change that.

Please don't say what, read the thread, I dealt with the same situation a year ago. Why would it be pending transfer, I saw the same thing, and the name did show up in my account. Some of these new steps even some of the customer reps aren't even aware of when it comes to the cross platform auctions. Why are you freaking out then, they gave you your money back, if you read your TOS they are allowed to claw it back. Having gone thru this, and seeing the same thing you saw, I did get a Domain Transfer Confirmation email a few days later.

Actually 12/4 was the day to change all that.

.co registrations do not work like .com, but I have a feeling you might be getting the domain in a few days if it is pending transfer over into Godaddy. You have nothing to lose at this point. Having gone thru the same thing, and seeing the exact same thing, I was pleasantly surprised. Otherwise backorder it.

 

[anf]

Wow, it seems that the same thing happened to me recently. At first i thought that the original owner renewed the name, but now... The domain name is NakedHeart.com. I won the GD auction, paid for the domain, but got refund couple of days later.

Here is the 2017-10-15 whois:

Spoiler

Domain Name: NAKEDHEART.COM
Registry Domain ID: 91187595_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.alpinedomains.com
Registrar URL: http://alpinedomains.com
Updated Date: 2017-10-14T10:44:03Z
Creation Date: 2002-10-14T09:48:43Z
Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2017-10-14T09:48:43Z
Registrar: Alpine Domains Inc.
Registrar IANA ID: 1432
Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited
Registry Registrant ID: Not Available From Registry
Registrant Name: Margarita
Registrant Organization: Ustimenko
Registrant Street: 41 Whitehall
Registrant City: London
Registrant State/Province: London
Registrant Postal Code: SW1A 2BY
Registrant Country: GB
Registrant Phone: +44.7551591831
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax:
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email: [email protected]
Registry Admin ID: Not Available From Registry
Admin Name: Margarita
Admin Organization: Ustimenko
Admin Street: 41 Whitehall
Admin City: London
Admin State/Province: London
Admin Postal Code: SW1A 2BY
Admin Country: GB
Admin Phone: +44.7551591831
Admin Phone Ext:
Admin Fax:
Admin Fax Ext:
Admin Email: [email protected]
Registry Tech ID: Not Available From Registry
Tech Name: Margarita
Tech Organization: Ustimenko
Tech Street: 41 Whitehall
Tech City: London
Tech State/Province: London
Tech Postal Code: SW1A 2BY
Tech Country: GB
Tech Phone: +44.7551591831
Tech Phone Ext:
Tech Fax:
Tech Fax Ext:
Tech Email: [email protected]
Name Server: exp1.alpine-dns.com
Name Server: exp2.alpine-dns.com
DNSSEC:Unsigned
Registrar Abuse Contact Email: [email protected]
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.6042887779
URL of the ICANN WHOIS Data Problem Reporting System: http://wdprs.internic.net/

Here is the current whois:

Spoiler

Domain Name: NAKEDHEART.COM
Registry Domain ID: 91187595_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.alpinedomains.com
Registrar URL: http://www.alpinedomains.com
Updated Date: 2017-11-19T10:00:21Z
Creation Date: 2002-10-14T09:48:43Z
Registry Expiry Date: 2018-10-14T09:48:43Z
Registrar: Alpine Domains Inc.
Registrar IANA ID: 1432
Registrar Abuse Contact Email:
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone:
Domain Status: ok https://icann.org/epp#ok
Name Server: EXP1.ALPINE-DNS.COM
Name Server: EXP2.ALPINE-DNS.COM
DNSSEC: unsigned
URL of the ICANN Whois Inaccuracy Complaint Form: https://www.icann.org/wicf/

Domain Name: NAKEDHEART.COM
Registry Domain ID: 91187595_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.alpinedomains.com
Registrar URL: http://alpinedomains.com
Updated Date: 2017-11-19T10:00:21Z
Creation Date: 2002-10-14T09:48:43Z
Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2018-10-14T09:48:43Z
Registrar: Alpine Domains Inc.
Registrar IANA ID: 1432
Domain Status: OK https://icann.org/epp#OK
Registry Registrant ID: Not Available From Registry
Registrant Name: Afternic Transfer Service - Transfer Pending
Registrant Organization: NameFind LLC
Registrant Street: Main St. Suite 1120
Registrant City: Cambridge
Registrant State/Province: Massachusetts
Registrant Postal Code: 02142
Registrant Country: US
Registrant Phone: +1.7813736856
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax:
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email: [email protected]
Registry Admin ID: Not Available From Registry
Admin Name: Afternic Transfer Service - Transfer Pending
Admin Organization: NameFind LLC
Admin Street: Main St. Suite 1120
Admin City: Cambridge
Admin State/Province: Massachusetts
Admin Postal Code: 02142
Admin Country: US
Admin Phone: +1.7813736856
Admin Phone Ext:
Admin Fax:
Admin Fax Ext:
Admin Email: [email protected]
Registry Tech ID: Not Available From Registry
Tech Name: Afternic Transfer Service - Transfer Pending
Tech Organization: NameFind LLC
Tech Street: Main St. Suite 1120
Tech City: Cambridge
Tech State/Province: Massachusetts
Tech Postal Code: 02142
Tech Country: US
Tech Phone: +1.7813736856
Tech Phone Ext:
Tech Fax:
Tech Fax Ext:
Tech Email: [email protected]
Name Server: exp1.alpine-dns.com
Name Server: exp2.alpine-dns.com
DNSSEC:Unsigned
Registrar Abuse Contact Email: [email protected]
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.6042887779
URL of the ICANN WHOIS Data Problem Reporting System: http://wdprs.internic.net/

For more information on Whois status codes, please visit https://icann.org/epp
Registration Service Provided By: NAMEFIND LLC

So, the original owner did not renew the domain, but it looks like that GD kept the name for themselfs.

@Joe Styler , could you please clear the issue