I need some help with serious GoDaddy/Afternic issue!

[indiegrind]

I'm extremely pissed off right now.

Yesterday morning I randomly got an email that a domain I own was canceled from my GoDaddy account.

This happens sometimes when a domain is sold through afternic. Domain is just moved from my account and I get that email, then get the afternic domain sold email a few hours later. This time, a day later I never got a sold email. The domain was not due to expire and I didn't see anything in my afternic account.

Today I call my GoDaddy account rep, she looks into it. And finds out my domain sold apparently through afternic.

She reaches out to someone,don't know who, but eventually find out that someone else listed the domain in afternic for $295 dollars and it sold, and was moved out of my GoDaddy account via fast transfer.

This was a domain I wouldn't have sold for less than high 4 figures. Anyway, they let someone sell it who didn't even own it and took it out of my account, and I imagine preparing to pay the other person.

I was on the phone for about an hour trying to get to the bottom of this and get it resolved.

My GoDaddy rep comes back and tells me I need to contact afternic. So I do. On the phone and back and forth on hold about another 45 minutes. Then after talking to the afternic legal department, afternic rep came back with someone from legal on the line and told me I need to go back to GoDaddy, because afternic isn't the registrar and have them escalate the situation.

I bought the domain at GoDaddy expiring auction in September. Never even listed it through afternic myself. Afternic sold it through someone's listing who wasn't the owner and GoDaddy took it out of my account.


Now I can't get it resolved and being sent around in a circle to get my domain that was taken.

Who do I need to talk to to get this resolved. I do not have time nor should I need to get runaround about this!


Already had an extremely frustrating day at my main job, then had to spend a couple of hours on this and got nowhere and sent in a complete circle.

 

[indiegrind]

So this looks to be what has happened here. Somebody has listed your domain for Fast Transfer and you clicked the opt in email, because as you point out, the opt in email does not identify anything regarding who's afternic account/username they are being approved for.
And this is quite worrying, when clicking on an email of this kind, where your domain can be transferred instantly to someone's else in a second and without your intervention.

I definitely believe I will no longer use fast transfer after this. Until the last year, I never priced on 3rd party sales platforms, but thought I would give it a go for awhile to see how it performs.

 

[bmugford]

I would like to know more about what happened here. There can obviously be potential issues with fast transfer if the ownership verification breaks down.

Brad

 

[D Haynes]

What's just as (if not more) scary than someone else being able to sell your name is the fact that GD and Afternic can't communicate with each other behind the scenes to sort the situation. They're probably sat in the same office yet they give you the run around and get you ring one then the other. Unfortunately it's a fact of life that when a company gets to a certain size their customer care goes out the window. Then they get smaller.

 

[Abdillahi Abdillahi]

And this is the downside of fast transfer and GoDaddy/Afternic. People will routinely add your names to afternic and then the fast transfer emails start. Its not the last owner,its fraudsters. I get fast transfer requests often on names I never listed there and have owned for years. For those occasions when it is a past owner you need to make sure your name is not allready listed on Afternic when you get it. If you see your name on there you tell them to remove it. Then you can re add it.

They do nothing to combat fraud and have an embarrassingly archaic 1990 website. In your situation the question becomes who authorized that fast transfer because it sounds like it wasn’t you or your account would get the money.

I would like to know more about what happened here. There can obviously be potential issues with fast transfer if the ownership verification breaks down.

Brad

I have seen such case before though not sure how it ended. Normally what happens is that the domain(s) was/were previously approved for fast transfer. This stays in Afternic and all it needs for this to happen is for a sale to happen and domain be in Godaddy or the participating registrars.

Afternic can deal and avoid such situations if along with Godaddy they scan or check domain onwerships and changes that happen with accounts.

I hope @indiegrind gets the name back regardless of how much the name got sold for.

 

[HotKey]

I didn't know whether I had listed the domain in afternic myself or not. I got an email not too long after acquiring the domain about opting in .

Sry indiegrind, trying to clarify here;
Given the deeper digging, if you think there is a remote chance that you had listed the domain, and are not absolutely sure that you didn't, than that changes everything.

We have to eliminate the possibility of human error on your end before assuming the worst, because otherwise until this is resolved more of your domains and anyone else's for that matter is at risk of being taken.

 

[indiegrind]

Sry indiegrind, trying to clarify here;
Given the deeper digging, if you think there is a remote chance that you had listed the domain, and are not absolutely sure that you didn't, than that changes everything.

We have to eliminate the possibility of human error on your end before assuming the worst, because otherwise until this is resolved more of your domains and anyone else's for that matter is at risk of being taken.

I did not list the domain in afternic. It was never in my afternic account.

Domains that are in my afternic account after being sold remain in the account as "sold". We verified that it had been listed in someone else's account and not mine.

 

[carob]

I did not list the domain in afternic. It was never in my afternic account.

Domains that are in my afternic account after being sold remain in the account as "sold". We verified that it had been listed in someone else's account and not mine.

In that case GD should reverse it - they do have the power to grab domains back.

Fast transfer is inherently unsafe for several reasons. And no 2FA at Afternic - someone can log in and change the sale price of your domain, then fast transfer it out.

It is a really good idea to keep frequent export spreadsheets of your Afternic listings.

 

[ABDELDJALIL]

Maybe you opted-in fast transfer by mistake in your registrar account.
Afternic is a must for me but your story make me think twice now before i list any there.

 

[carob]

Anyone considering enabling fast transfer should read this about what happened to me:
https://www.namepros.com/threads/pr...rt-problems-here.1006373/page-47#post-7345852

You may change prices and find that your price change never took effect and you had no way of knowing it.

The only way to dis-able fast transfer is ask Afternic to disable it. If you delete a fast-transfer enabled name and relist it, they just re-enable fast-transfer without telling you.

Some people don't use fast transfer, others use it only for low-value domains.

 

[indiegrind]

I still have no respone from my last email yesterday, didn't hear back from my account rep today. I have been working all day and not able to call since 7:00 am and just left the office at 8pm.

 

[King]

This is terrifying.

They get 20% from domain sales, 3-4x the price on registrations and renewals with privacy compared to other places, all of the sneaky upsells, yet they can't provide support in less than 45 minutes (let alone waiting 3-4 days for email responses). Absolutely ridiculous. I can hop onto a chat with other registrars and get a response within seconds, why won't godaddy invest more in support? Why do we continue to put up with this?

Just like any other near-monopoly as long as they're getting paid their billions they don't care. Just look at how many domains are registered at GD & their subsidiaries compared to the competition. They hire overseas support who take advantage of people, they've registered my domains for themselves.

About Afternic, their security is a joke, I've seen many domains of established businesses for sale on there. Their verification is something a high schooler would set up because they started the site as a hobby, just take a screenshot of your "ownership" & boom it's your domain now! The only reason I list my domains on there with their disgusting UI is so other scumbags don't list them which I saw was happening before I joined & listed them myself.

 

[7363824]

Just like any other near-monopoly as long as they're getting paid their billions they don't care. Just look at how many domains are registered at GD & their subsidiaries compared to the competition. They hire overseas support who take advantage of people, they've registered my domains for themselves.

About Afternic, their security is a joke, I've seen many domains of established businesses for sale on there. Their verification is something a high schooler would set up because they started the site as a hobby, just take a screenshot of your "ownership" & boom it's your domain now! The only reason I list my domains on there with their disgusting UI is so other scumbags don't list them which I saw was happening before I joined & listed them myself.

For the most part I agree. But the main reason I list on Afternic, even beyond listing my names so someone else doesn't is for all their problems getting into the registrar path I think is very useful. Yes you can do so with Sedo, but for obvious reasons Godaddy only shows Afternic names and for as much as I don't liek them they are still the largest registrar and for many end users who simply don't know any better they are viewed as essentially the only place to get a domain.

 

[indiegrind]

Look at this bs! This is not acceptable! Afternic sent me back to my premiere services rep, and here is her response.

Rod,



Thanks for your email. While I appreciate your feelings, as mentioned in our last call, the sale of the domain and for how much would need to be discussed with Afternic. If I was to make an assumption the domain was accepted into the Fast Transfer network by you. And so the sale will be honored. I don’t think you can get the domain back but you will be paid the amount it was sold for which is over 200% of what you paid for it. From my recall, the domain was never listed on Afternic for anything but what it sold for.

Keeping in mind this is all based on our last communication with the department communicating with Afternic. I recommend if you have any more questions about it, speak to Afternic as there is NOT anything else I can say or do to change what has happened. I hope that helps. Please let me know if there’s more I can do.



Be well,



Theresa Downs Barkley – Premier Services

 

[indiegrind]

My reply just now:

Theresa, afternic sent me back to you and said you need to escalate and said hat this should have been handled on the GoDaddy end. This is not acceptable that GoDaddy and Afternic are passing me around for a domain I owned and did not list for $295.

I did not sell this domain through afternic and I did not set this price, but this is my domain that I own and was taken from my account, that I didn't even list in my afternic account.

 

[bmugford]

I did not list the domain in afternic. It was never in my afternic account.

Domains that are in my afternic account after being sold remain in the account as "sold". We verified that it had been listed in someone else's account and not mine.

If that is the case then GoDaddy obviously needs to reverse it. They can't just sell your domain, without permission, because some other party listed it before.

If they are going to have fast transfer as an option, then they are liable for making sure it works properly. If it doesn't, it is solely their responsibility to fix.

Brad

 

[bmugford]

My reply just now:

Theresa, afternic sent me back to you and said you need to escalate and said hat this should have been handled on the GoDaddy end. This is not acceptable that GoDaddy and Afternic are passing me around for a domain I owned and did not list for $295.

I did not sell this domain through afternic and I did not set this price, but this is my domain that I own and was taken from my account, that I didn't even list in my afternic account.

Getting the runaround between GoDaddy and Afternic support is not helpful.

I contacted @Joe Styler about this. Hopefully he can figure out what happened here.

Brad

 

[indiegrind]

Getting the runaround between GoDaddy and Afternic support is not helpful.

I contacted @Joe Styler about this. Hopefully he can figure out what happened here.

Brad

I'm furious right now. I just emailed Joe as well. Thank you.

 

[7363824]

That's absolutely insane. You obviously do a fair amount of business with GoDaddy to have an account rep and that's the best they are going to do for you?

Unfortunately I doubt Joe is active over the weekend. Hopefully first thing Monday though he will see this and step in to fix this.

 

[indiegrind]

That's absolutely insane. You obviously do a fair amount of business with GoDaddy to have an account rep and that's the best they are going to do for you?

Unfortunately I doubt Joe is active over the weekend. Hopefully first thing Monday though he will see this and step in to fix this.

Yes, GoDaddy gets well into five figures a year from me, and right now I am looking at moving my business to dynadot.

 

[7363824]

Yes, GoDaddy gets well into five figures a year from me, and right now I am looking at moving my business to dynadot.

I don't blame you. I haven't had a positive image of GoDaddy for awhile. About 11 years ago someone I know had their domain name for their business expire when his card was expired and he never got an email from Godaddy letting him know. Someone else got it on the drop and today it sits in the portfolio of a large well known domainer with a nearly 20k price tag. Since then I've had a low view of Godaddy and more recent experiences both first hand and stuff like this hasn't helped that at all.

Dynadot would be a big improvement over GD in my opinion, they are my second favorite registrar after Epik.