Received false spam complaint. GD threatening to shut me down. What should I do?

[alexander2]

Hi all,

Sorry for this to be my first post, but someone recommended I check this forum out. I did a search but couldn't find the answer to this, but I apologize in advance if this has been asked before.

Yesterday I received this email:

"Dear Valued GoDaddy.com Customer,

We have received complaints that appear to be legitimate
indicating that you are sending mass, unsolicited (unwanted)
emails, newsgroup posts, or Instant Messenger advertisements
for/from [My Domain].com. Domains By Proxy in cooperation
with your Registrar, requests that you cease this immediately.
Failure to do so may lead to actions such as the suspension
or cancellation of service. "

This has me concerned because 90% of my income comes from the ebook that I wrote and sell through my website.

Apparently a spammer is spoofing my domain in the "from" header of emails. I've even gotten one of the spams that bounced "back" to me!

What exactly can I do to prevent GD from taking away my domain name? I've emailed them a few times but have heard nothing back.

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[FusunMedia]

Interesting, I suggest you give GoDaddy support a call and they should be able to give you a quick response to your problem. Other than that, I'd say look through your logs and see if there is any unusual activity.

 

[Jonathan]

I don't understand... what could GD do? Take your domain name? Do you get hosting from them?

 

[killerid]

no i heard many bad things about go dady and i think support and phone call wont help cause they will just put u on hold for long time even if u get a ring tone. So maybe contact ur lawyer or someone and keep records of all activities taking place off ur server or maybe close website for a day or 2 and note the dates and record them in legit way so they can be produced in court(if during those shutdown days spamm mails were sent u could easly sue godady), to sue godady for not giving u the customer support u deserved.Dont know what else to say but i know go dady really sucks and one should never buy domain names from them .

 

[Chris]

What exactly can I do to prevent GD from taking away my domain name?

Welcome to NamePros.

I've sent you a pm, check your mailbox. :gl:

no i heard many bad things about go dady and i think support and phone call wont help cause they will just put u on hold for long time even if u get a ring tone. So maybe contact ur lawyer or someone and keep records of all activities taking place off ur server or maybe close website for a day or 2 and note the dates and record them in legit way so they can be produced in court(if during those shutdown days spamm mails were sent u could easly sue godady), to sue godady for not giving u the customer support u deserved.

Quite honestly I think your post of bashing Go Daddy is pretty pathetic. If you aren't going to post facts to back up your claims that Go Daddy's support sucks, then don't post at all. You basically discourage people to contact the support at GD, however you then say you could sue them for not providing the support you deserve. If you don't contact them for help, then how can you say you didn't receive the support you deserved if you never contacted them. They aren't pyschics so how can you expect for them to fix a problem if they don't know about it. :blink:

Dont know what else to say but i know go dady really sucks and one should never buy domain names from them .

I've been using their services happily for the past 5 years with no problems at all. I'll state it again, if you don't have the facts to back up your accusations then don't post at all.

BTW, I'd consider your comments to be slander or on the border line. I'd be cautious when saying such crap about a large corporation as you may find yourself in a deep lawsuit for trying to tarnish one's reputation with such crap as what you've posted.

Not exactly sure you're going to come off as honest by having 1910 listed as your birthdate in your profile. :p

 

[RJ]

This kind of situation is what really concerns me about registrars getting proactively involved in shutting down domains that are complained about for spamming. I am against spammers 100%, but would hate to see innocent domain owners unfairly punished for a crime they did not committ. If complaints are not investigated properly, a policy like this GoDaddy's will allow any random spammer or competator to shut down your company.

I'm hoping GoDaddy is smarter than the spammers in this case and doesn't rely only on spoofed headers or content of a spam letter that you have no control over. Try contacting them by phone and see what you can do to get an answer to your question. I do disagree with killerid's post. GoDaddy usually does provide customer service and answer to questions when needed.

If you are an innocent domain owner, my advice is to cancel the Domains by Proxy service and move your domain to a new registrar immediately to avoid any chance of your domain being unfairly disabled.

 

[JoshHendo]

I don't understand... what could GD do? Take your domain name? Do you get hosting from them?

GoDaddy has a antiSpam policy, so if you spam with your domain name they will delete it.


As for this, I think you should move to a registar like enom. I don't think that enom has a anti spam policy. I also believe that it is possible to send a e-mail from any e-mail address that you want if you are using a normal program like outlook, it is easy to work out but i am not going to post here how though :P. I am guessing that is what the spammer is doing. Lots of people do this to shut down compeditors if they are using go daddy.

 

[Dave_Z]

As for this, I think you should move to a registar like enom. I don't think that enom has a anti spam policy.

Unfortunately, enom has also adopted a total anti-spam stance...even if you
aren't using their DNS.

alexander2, welcome to namepros! I'd call them if I were you.

 

[pgiddy]

i don't like godaddy, because the first time i used them and registered 10 domains-- they flagged my account for fraud, didn't call me, cancelled my account, and released all my domains back into the open market. at least call me if you suspect there is a problem, which there should not have been. good luck getting their support lines to believe you. if you can, transfer it to dynadot.com. they are wonderful.

 

[AdoptableDomains]

Spam can't be tollerated, but they should check to see that the complaint(s) are legit. By using the proxy service, you put yourself at additional risk. When someone spams and their are complaints, domains, IP numbers, and hosting services can be blacklisted. This could effect others on your shared server, others in the same IP range or host who provides it, or the name registrant which in this case is domains by proxy that's shared with thousands of other customers and could get the whole bunch blacklisted.

A. get rid of the proxy, it looks like you are hiding something (guilt by association).
B. Have them prove the email was from your IP or domain and not spoofed (they probably can't)
C. Prove to them you haven't been the spammer if you can.
D. As a last resort, move you domain and/or hosting elsewhwere.

 

[True_Snake]

I don't know if this is related, but I got an email which was sent to a group mail address (e.g: [email protected]) and it had a similar message. It said that this e-mail was detected to have been sending out mass spam e-mails, and that the service would be suspended unless the attached word document was not filled out and returned. Well, another person on the mailing list apparently opened it and discovered it was a virus; turned out to be spam itself.

Again, I don't know of the relavancy to this issue, might be related, so I thought I'd share it :tu: !

Thanks, and my apologies if it's unrelated :red: .


True_Snake

 

[Element]

Just contact godaddy and email them the email you got and they should take care of everything. I know alot of people get these kinds of emails.

 

[dsforsaken]

I wa son hold with godaddy b4 for like 20 mins and then the line went dead... that really turned me off from them

 

[Chris]

I wa son hold with godaddy b4 for like 20 mins and then the line went dead... that really turned me off from them

Go Daddy is one of the largest registrars out there so I'm sure they receive hundreds (if not thousands) of emails and calls a minute to their customer support department. I think occasional technical difficulties are inevitable with any company, so I wouldn't really think it should turn you away from them over a technical glitch. I've always had excellent experiences with their support dept. They are a top notch company IMO. :tu: