GoDaddy site said domain was available, took money and changed their mind?

[NostraDomainus.com]

Has anyone ever had this happen?

I found a domain, checked GoDaddy and their site said it was available. I registered and paid for it and they came back with an email saying:

The following domain name has failed to be registered:

XXXX.COM

Error: XXXX.COM: cannot register - already registered

We will evaluate this error and retry the registration
if appropriate.

If we are unable to successfully register the domain
name, your account will be credited accordingly. Please
allow one business day for the refund to be processed.

Reminds me of when they screwed up on the .me registrations. Anyway... something sure seems fishy about it!

 

[Name Trader]

GoDaddy's whois lookup isn't a real-time service.

 

[mis_chiff]

Happened a few times, Godaddy, and many other registrars,
but when checked elsewhere - it had actually been gone for years

 

[NostraDomainus.com]

One of those things I guess.... this was a recently expired domain so I suppose there's a bit of overlap (cherry picking) lol

 

[Dave_Z]

Too bad they haven't "fixed" it. Some people have complained about it for years.

 

[mrjohn]

Some of it has to do with the speed they update at on deletion day.

 

[RazorNF]

Yeah it has happened to me a few times. One instance when this can happen is when you try to register an expired domain (originally registered through them) after it has gone through their aftermarket system without any bids. Depending on when you check, it may not have actually deleted yet, but their system will show it as available.

 

[cache]

this is typical godaddy

 

[tricolorro]

Has anyone ever had this happen?

:hi:

This happens often at GoDaddy with fresh dropped domains.

A fresh dropped domain is available.

You proceed to register it.

You click thru all the garbage pages before you get to the checkout page.

You complete payment and there is even a receipt available for you.

You got the domain!

But wait...

Later on you receive that Godaddy email:
"Error: XXXX.COM: cannot register - already registered

We will evaluate this error and retry the registration.blah,blah,blah".

It turns out while going thru GoDaddy's very lengthy and tedious
( and extremely annoying) registration process someone else
registered the domain at a better and faster Registrar.
(i.e. Fabulous, Moniker, Dynadot)

This happened to me several times so now I use "a better and faster Registrar" for fresh domain drops I really want.

GoDaddy registration? :bah: :td:

 

[SpongyBob]

Maybe a bug. Probably better to use a util to do whois lookups, or internic.net if it's a .com or .net. There's sometimes a lag with the public whois though, I've checked the public whois and it's said a domain's available, but there'd be a site already up! I think GoDaddy and the like use the public whois to check if a domain is available, but when they try to reg it, they naturally have to access the more up to date databases for the registration request, then it fails.

Although I think I'd probably regard GoDaddy as one of the companies with poorest reputations around. I certainly don't like alot of their policies like irritating upsells and extra charges if they can get away with them.