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.

 

[Embrand]

That is indeed scary. I hope you get the name back.

I have always been a bit afraid of using the fast transfer service. Even though we all know GoDaddy has the biggest reach, Afternic is really a joke when it comes to the user interface.

They don't even have 2FA, and what I fear is that someone gains access to your account, changes the price of some of your premium names that have fast transfer enabled and then immediately buys at a ridiculously low price.

I find it incredible that GoDaddy can spend millions on purchasing Uniregistry and large domain portfolios, but won't spend anything on improving Afternic...

 

[bmugford]

I am going to withhold judgement until there is more research into what happened here, but clearly if this was listed by a previous party then Afternic/GoDaddy would have no legal authority to sell the domain after the ownership has changed.

In that case any contract or TOS would have been agreed to by the party that owned the domain at the time, and Afternic/GoDaddy. Any new owner would not be a party to that agreement.

Brad

 

[indiegrind]

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.

Yes, dynadot is the only other registrar I use currently and have enough there to maintain bulk pricing. I've used them for about 5 or 6 years now without issue.


I don't think I have ever even had to contact customer service with them.


I've also held a good amount of names at namesilo, uniregistry, and name.com in the past, but I buy most of my names at GoDaddy auctions so it was convenient to consolidate as much as possible.

 

[xynames]

For what you describe to happen:
Having it listed for sale by someone else is not enough. The domain must also be opted into fast transfer wherever it is registered.

Whether this opting in is somehow linked or must be linked to a specific for sale listing - I don’t know.

 

[7363824]

Yes, dynadot is the only other registrar I use currently and have enough there to maintain bulk pricing. I've used them for about 5 or 6 years now without issue.


I don't think I have ever even had to contact customer service with them.


I've also held a good amount of names at namesilo, uniregistry, and name.com in the past, but I buy most of my names at GoDaddy auctions so it was convenient to consolidate as much as possible.

Can't blame you there. As much as I don;t like GD I am active on their auctions. Fortunately I recently discovered the have an API to shows me when a domain is eligible to be transferred away, and allows me to unlock it and get the auth code. So I am able to automate the consolidation, unlock and get the auth code after 60 days, then make an API call to Epik to start the transfer. I haven;t look too closely at the Dynadot API though to see if you can initiate a transfer automatically with them or not though. I really just have my DD account for their auctions.

For what you describe to happen:
Having it listed for sale by someone else is not enough. The domain must also be opted into fast transfer wherever it is registered.

Whether this opting in is somehow linked or must be linked to a specific for sale listing - I don’t know.

Dosen't matter who lists it, as soon as it is listed the registrar who controls the domain emails the owner, and as someone who myself is always getting opt in emails, I can understand how one can simply assume its from their listing and approve fast transfer. The result someone else lists it for sale, sets the price, and gets paid upon sale for your domain. Afternic could have a better system, but they don't.

 

[bmugford]

For what you describe to happen:
Having it listed for sale by someone else is not enough. The domain must also be opted into fast transfer wherever it is registered.

Whether this opting in is somehow linked or must be linked to a specific for sale listing - I don’t know.

I guess my question is if Party 1 owns the domain and lists it on Afternic with fast transfer, then down the road Party 1 sells the domain to Party 2. What happens with the Afternic listing?

Does Afternic know when ownership changes hands and the listing is removed or is that listing still active, and someone purchasing that domain @ Afternic would then have it removed from Party 2's account without permission.

Hopefully Joe can clarify. If that is the case, it is a massive issue.

Brad

 

[indiegrind]

The thing is, I didn't buy it from whoever had it listed, and I still don't know if the person who listed in afternic ever actually owned the name, or if they listed it before or after I acquired it.

I bought it at a GoDaddy expiring auction.
I never listed it in my afternic account.
And Afternic confirmed it was not sold from my account.

Now afternic and GoDaddy are pointing me back and forth to each other.

That's where we are. I am going to wait to hear from Joe.

 

[Ategy]

Sigh .. GoDaddy is a raging disaster on a few things. Their website/platform is *NOT* secure .. and has not been secure for at least 4-5 YEARS !!! I reported the security issue at least 4 years ago, before I even started actually actively domaining .. lol .. and it's still there.

But the real root of the problem here is their absolute disaster of their automated emails. So much of it is wrong, incomplete, unclear, inconsistent, outdated information. It's been like that for as long as I can remember. The only word to describe it is "shameful".

I get those "action required" emails all the time .. but as mentioned above, it never even confirms if the domain is in my actual account or someone else's. It also says: "The following domain names have been requested for sale through the Afternic Premium Network:" .. but then there's never anything beyond that, it seems it's not an actual inquiry that triggers that email. What's worse is that these emails come from "GoDaddy" and not Afternic. Then I go to check at afternic, and like in this situation, it seems to be already listed at a low price I most certainly never set. Forget calling in .. as in this case .. GoDaddy tells you to contact Afternic and Afternic tells you to contact GoDaddy. So the end result is simply to never trust an automated email coming from GoDaddy and never click on any link in any of their emails. It's a colossal disaster. The problem persists for YEARS because ultimately each company and department blames a different one .. and so nobody ever takes responsibility to actually address the situation.

Each separate department at GoDaddy works fine .. but the moment anything overlaps with a different department it simply falls into a black hole for YEARS !!!

I've crossed bugs that make this look like a pimple compared to Mt Everest. I was forced to pay for auctions I didn't bid on .. I was then able to give a detailed report in how to duplicate the bug .. the end result .. NO action .. NO fix .. and a polite reminder that if I didn't pay for the domains (that I didn't bid on) that I would be banned from their auctions platform. But even that is nothing .. there was stuff that likely cost domainers literally countless millions of dollars in auctions. What's worse is that I'll continue to say GoDaddy isn't evil and they are NOT doing this on purpose. It's just bigger than any one person or department .. so any hopes of ever seeing things get better simply gets lost as the issue gets pushed around to the next department and the next department .. etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc and on and on and on ...


Sigh .. ok .. rant over .. lol .. almost ..

IMO the opt in email SHOULD INCLUDE the AFTERNIC USERNAME that listed the domain. That would make it much clearer to prevent accidential opt ins.

I have said that multiple times for years! Seems like at least a very simple quick fix. But since it would require coordinating Afternic data with GoDaddy email templates I'd say it's probably a 5 year job! At the very least if they can't coordinate, then they should send one email from afternic and one from the registrar the domain is at and have you confirm at each before the domain is able to change status.

Better yet would be to have a unique Afternic code associated with your individual registrar account, so that if you changed the settings within your registrar, that code would get sent to Afternic, who in turn would put it in the email (or even better on the confirmation page at Afternic after you click the link in the email AND after you log into Afternic)

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.

I quoted this to answer .. but it's pretty much most of what I wrote above .. lol

 

[HotKey]

I've crossed bugs that make this look like a pimple compared to Mt Everest. I was forced to pay for auctions I didn't bid on .. I was then able to give a detailed report in how to duplicate the bug .. the end result .. NO action .. NO fix .. and a polite reminder that if I didn't pay for the domains (that I didn't bid on) that I would be banned from their auctions platform. But even that is nothing .. there was stuff that likely cost domainers literally countless millions of dollars in auctions. What's worse is that I'll continue to say GoDaddy isn't evil and they are NOT doing this on purpose.

Not really a pimple, Ategy, more like a tumor. Having a domain taken from your account is pretty much the Mt. Everest of fear of climbing.

But what you do you mean you were "forced" to pay for auctions you didn't participate in? At first glance that makes as much sense as a pickled pudding palindrome. I'm sure there's more to the story..

 

[Ategy]

Not really a pimple, Ategy, more like a tumor. Having a domain taken from your account is pretty much the Mt. Everest of fear of climbing

Sorry .. I'm totally not trying to belittle what what is going on here .. as I mentioned above it is very serious. Just saying there are some really serious issues with GoDaddy's platform. Many have since been randomly paved over, not because they were fixed in a timely manner, but because every couple of years they upgrade their platform. One of the issues I was able to figure out (before I started getting serious about domaining) would have literally cost all of you sums completely off the charts. 1000x worse than the "being forced to pay for domains I didn't bid on" bug.

Even today their platform is not secure .. and it's something I reported at least 4 years ago!
(Don't ask me how .. it's not in anyone's interest for me to share information on an open bug/security hole)

But what you do you mean you were "forced" to pay for auctions you didn't participate in? At first glance that makes as much sense as a pickled pudding palindrome. I'm sure there's more to the story..

Nothing more .. exactly that ... long story short: Their system applied my bid for Domain B on Domain A. Then after detailing to them how it happened, I was told I still had to pay for Domain A.

Longer story: I generally make a point not to post bugs for obvious security reasons. But since this bug in question has since been randomly paved over (it was never actually fixed) when they upgraded the entire platform a couple years ago, then I can tell you it was something that happened if you had multiple tabs open and then also opened a specific type of auction page. When you placed a bid on that page, the bid would be applied on a previous auction you had opened. It likely wasn't something most casual bidders would encounter unless biddng on multiple auctions at the same time AND had multiple tabs open AND was using another specific page to bid on. It sounds complicated .. and it was a bit .. but I was able to duplicate and document and explain. I was likely given GoDaddy's typical "thanks, we'll pass it on to the proper department .. bla bla" and then never to be heard of again (I couldn't count the number of times I've encountered that .. I used to report so many bugs that I actually started some emails to my rep with an apology for taking up so much of his time .. lol). But after that, I still was told I needed to pay for those domains (there were 2 I think .. maybe a couple more, but at least 2) or my auctions account would be .. (I forget the actual wording, but it was clear that I would no longer have access to GD auctions if I didn't pay for the domains.. not sure if they said my account would be closed or if I'd be banned .. end result is the same thing though). I wasn't told that in a bad way .. but more in that the level I was talking to simply couldn't do anything about it at that point and that I needed to make a decision before the auction platform closed my account due to non-payment.

ADDED: Again .. I want to stress that I don't think GoDaddy is inherently evil .. nor out to get domainers as many people here at NP somehow believe. It's more simply that their platform is way too big to be managed efficiently. Most of their staff are really good people .. who know things within the scope of their department. But ultimately when there are things that involve multiple departments, nobody seems to be responsible .. and things simply just get lost in the shuffle. What's worse is that if you talk to any person at GoDaddy even half-casually off the record .. the ones who've been there for a while all know how much of a mess it is .. and the ultimate irony is that it's just as frustrating to them as it is for us. Because they know that when we complain .. we are usually right .. but it's simply that their hands are tied .. the issues are bigger than them .. and they know they regardless if they report it or not .. it'll almost never get fixed.

 

[BrandCollectors.com]

previous owner was BuyDomains.com?

 

[kandyan]

I hope you're able to recover your domain.

I had an incident where some body listed one of my domain's at afternic to GD auction, luckily I received an email asking me to authorize the listing,

I replied them to remove the listing, as I did not list it for auction,

This's there response;

" Dear Customer,

Thank you for letting us know. We have gone ahead and removed the listing and issued a warning to the attempting listing party.

Regards,

Jess L.
Aftermarket Support "

 

[infosec3]

“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.”

What a response! Why should she care about what you paid for the domain? The only thing that should matter here is whether GoDaddy or Afternic operated correctly or not.

 

[Ategy]

Yeah .. I wonder what they would have said if you actually build out the domain into a website?

I keep some of my domains for my own person usage .. in those cases the domains are effectively priceless.

 

[karmaco]

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

what a haughty answer. If you did not list it for that price or at all they need to fix it. I bet they wouldn’t tell MikeMann or another big boy stop your whining it sold for 200% what you paid for it. What you paid is irrelevant. GD/Afternic IS the devil. They have no standards or desire to improve because they being the huge known monopoly— don’t have to. No matter what crap policies or crap interface people will continue to give them money.

 

[Josh R]

This is one of many issues.

I still can’t believe that 2FA isn’t an option on Afternic. That should be a top priority for GoDaddy.

No 2FA scares the crap out of me.

 

[King]

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

Do it sooner than later

 

[bmugford]

what a haughty answer. If you did not list it for that price or at all they need to fix it. I bet they wouldn’t tell MikeMann or another big boy stop your whining it sold for 200% what you paid for it. What you paid is irrelevant. GD/Afternic IS the devil. They have no standards or desire to improve because they being the huge known monopoly— don’t have to. No matter what crap policies or crap interface people will continue to give them money.

Yes, I would be rather annoyed if this was the response I received from my account rep. The tone seems dismissive.

The part about doubling your money is irrelevant. Is GoDaddy willing to sell any domain they bought in large portfolios for only 2x what they paid?

I have had situations between Afternic/GoDaddy in the past and my account reps (Deron, then Brook) have always been extremely helpful in getting to the bottom of the situation.

I am sure next week Joe will take a look at this. It is probably going to require a little more deep research to figure out what exactly happened here.

Brad

 

[Peak.Domains]

Skip this message if you don't want to hear a godaddy rant that you've already heard 100 times.

"you will be paid the amount it was sold for which is over 200% of what you paid for it."

GoDaddy hates domainers with a seething contempt.

That's why their homepage is tricky nonsense like "$2.99 for .com! You just need to buy two years at a time, and year two is $25..." (in Canadian dollars, mind you.) This just isn't cool, everybody knows it isn't cool. It's for small biz owners who don't know any better, it's certainly not for domainers. These tactics are just not what user-friendly businesses do. It's like sneakily adding "EXTRA SUPER DUPER DOMAIN SAFETY" into someone's cart, or sneaky high renewals on hosting, or "free trials" in the cart, etc. It's just not cool to do, and everyone know it isn't cool, but huge corps will try cos they can.

It's why they have insane prices for privacy when domainer-friendly registrars give it for free, not to mention renewals. You buy a closeout domain for the minimum price, make it private, renew, and all of a sudden you're staring down the barrel of $30, $40...

It's why they make us cancel privacy before transferring a domain, just to be like "Screw you, this is what you get for leaving us. You paid $15 to keep your email and address out of the whois? Tough luck, bucko." One hand, "privacy is so important, protect it by paying us a $15 yearly tax on each domain!" on the other hand "You gotta turn privacy off to transfer, lol, get rekt."

It's why we have to wait days for a response to emails or 45 minutes on hold, only to tell us we're talking to the wrong people, only to have to explain it all again, only to tell us we need to explain everything to the first department again, only to be told that there's nothing they can do, only to tell us we need to speak to X Y Z again, only to tell us we've waited too long. It's literally WEEKS until it even feels like someone's actually read what you typed and stops sending back copy/pasted responses.

On top of that, they sell our expired domains for so damn much in their auctions that it's literally in their best interest for us to drop dead. Maybe that's why they make their support process so damn STRESSFUL?

Anyways, back to OP's problem...

I'm curious to see what GoDaddy's own appraisal tool values this domain at.

If they sold a domain that wasn't theirs to sell for a price that OP never accepted, using their own appraisal tool seems like a fair watermark for them to eat the difference and pay OP.

Obviously, removing any of their service fees as well because they don't get commissions for sales that weren't authorized, when the owner has tried to alert them again and again that the sale should not proceed.

Unlikely tho, right? They can use their powers to reverse sales many weeks or months later and claw back domains when it serves them with no notice, no explanation, every support staff giving different reasons and bs guesses - like when their fraud protection fails and they accept bad payments so they just take the names back and leave their customers holding the bag, but god forbid GoDaddy would ever take a relatively tiny haircut to make things right for someone like OP.

 

[carob]

Hi if you did not list the domain for sale in your Afternic account, you are NOT the party offering it for sale., and GD cannot impose the sale on you. If it is your name in the whois, you are the domain owner, even if it is in someone else's registrar account. Even if you had agreed in error to fast transfer that is not listing it for sale, if you have not listed the domain for sale you did not agree to the actual sale - you did not offer it or set a price.

Godaddy can and do claw back domains that were wrongly taken - stolen, transferred in error etc - we have many reports of that here. Afternic sellers don't get paid for a week. Does anyone have experience of how quickly buyers get the domain when buying a fast transfer domain? I suspect that despite the promises of getting it at once, they don't really. So domain and payment may well be sitting in a limbo right now.

GD expiring domain purchases that you list on Afternic send you an email after 60 days asking you to authorise the listing. They name the specific domain in the email, but don't seem to mention Fast Transfer. But there is a lot of confusion around managing Afternic listings at GD, the beta interface for that at GD looks easier to use but in practice people are reporting finding it very buggy and finding the Afternic interface better, which itself is full of handicaps - many of them known issues reported long ago at https://www.namepros.com/threads/problems-bugs-and-fixes-at-afternic-report-problems-here.1006373/

I have had Afternic/GD send me a 4 figure offer on a domain I no longer own - was not in my GD or Afternic account - a new owner had it listed with them- offer was way below list price - If I had clicked the yes link in the email agreeing to the sale, I imagine it would have sold, possibly fast transferred, and the seller would have gone ballistic. What would Afternic/GD have done - deny all responsibility? Tell owner their five figure asking price had been unrealistic? give me the money? I just ignored the email, took it to be a glitch.

Can someone post text of typical GD agree to Fast Transfer email?