[RESOLVED] - GoDaddy Stolen Live Domain From Account

[tbelfort]

I've been with GoDaddy for years and never had any issues up until now, but on the 11th of April I received an email saying "a domain you have cancelled has been removed from your account"

I have a receipt for a 1 year renewal on the domain from July 2024, so it wasn't due to expire.

Every time I contact support I get a different story.

One support guy even told me I need to buy it again at auction.

Another told me to email auctions.

Another told me that I transferred it to another account, but they can't tell me who it's been transferred to. This is impossible because my account is 2FA secured, plus, I haven't had a need to login to my account as everything is on autorenewal. I sent them a screenshot of my last logins, which showed the last login to the account was February 1st 2025 until I logged in on the 11th of April after getting the email.

I've spent about 50 euros in support calls at this stage and made 10+ support requests on the web. I can't get anywhere.

This is an active live domain in my business, and I have over 120 other domains on this account with them. How can they just steal a domain from my account and ignore me?

Does anyone know anyone I can contact to get help, because the standard numbers are of no use. They just tell me they can't help and give me someone to email, and so far everyone I've emailed has ignored me.

One person even told me my domain is currently listed for sale on the auctions.

This is pretty disgusting. I don't see how it's possible at this stage to run a business on any domains on godaddy if they can just take them without your permission and with no recourse.

And this isn't even just a throwaway domain. It's an auction domain I paid a lot of money for. I have $100's of thousands worth of auction domains with godaddy in fact, so I am potentially at risk of them just taking any domain they please at any time. I have owned this domain since 2023 and have an active business on it.

 

[Future Sensors]

Tagging @GoDaddy

 

[kool1]

We can be more helpful if you list the name. If it was an active website, there's no reason to keep that from members here who might be able to help.

GL.

 

[DN_Hunter]

I'm just adding a coincidence that on the same day (April 11), I posted (here) that 7 names went missing from my Afternic account. I know it's not apples-to-apples (yours is GoDaddy while mine is Afternic) -- but GoDaddy owns Afternic and something happened on the 11th. I have not heard any reason why the names went missing from my Afternic account.

EDIT TO ADD
Also earlier on that same day (April 11), GoDaddy and Afternic had a Service Outage as reported by several members here, and acknowledged by GoDaddy (here)

 

[Future Sensors]

The original poster is moving swiftly, sharing this across various forums and social media platforms at the same time.

 

[Jannes]

The original poster is moving swiftly, sharing this across various forums and social media platforms at the same time.

I actually recognized the name from BlackHatWorld, an influential (and generous) member there. Those guys register/buy lots of domains, so this is very bad publicity for GoDaddy.

 

[tbelfort]

We can be more helpful if you list the name. If it was an active website, there's no reason to keep that from members here who might be able to help.

GL.

Thanks, but unfortunately I can't disclose the domain as it's used for SEO purposes, so it could hurt me.

I'm just adding a coincidence that on the same day (April 11), I posted (here) that 7 names went missing from my Afternic account. I know it's not apples-to-apples (yours is GoDaddy while mine is Afternic) -- but GoDaddy owns Afternic and something happened on the 11th. I have not heard any reason why the names went missing from my Afternic account.

EDIT TO ADD
Also earlier on that same day (April 11), GoDaddy and Afternic had a Service Outage as reported by several members here, and acknowledged by GoDaddy (here)

Hm, that is a weird coincidence. It could be related to the outage. Some sort of bug perhaps that caused the domain to be detached from my account.

I really always have had no issues with GoDaddy and would rather be able to continue doing business, so this is quite frustrating. I hope it is just down to something like this, but the main problem is their support really needs an overhaul.

I actually recognized the name from BlackHatWorld, an influential (and generous) member there. Those guys register/buy lots of domains, so this is very bad publicity for GoDaddy.

Thanks, appreciate that!

 

[BaileyUK]

I hope this is not just another one of those badly or mistimed renewals. The detail that this was a domain purchased at an Auction makes you wonder if the renewal date wasn't in sync with the the OP taking ownership.

When owners talk about outages you do wonder if they were pushing that renewal date to it's max. I'm not pre-judging anything and I truly hope the OP has all the proof that he needs to recover the name. I suppose the good thing if He/she has picked-up on it so quickly, The domain not going to be going anywhere soon.

I just wish that these stolen posts gave us some definitive and verifiable proof at the time of posting, they all seem to have a rational explanation once someone digs a little deeper. For a start what month is showing on Whois as the renewal date - Does that confirm a July renewal ? (That's irrespective of whether another year has been added by the register)

I appreciate this of course may have been a genuine hacked transfer, but then Godaddy wouldn't be directing you to their resale/auction site.

 

[kool1]

....wish that these stolen posts gave us some definitive and verifiable proof at the time of posting, they all seem to have a rational explanation once someone digs a little deeper......

Yep. We can only guess w/o a domain.

And no, SEO has no impact if you give us ' sp*rts cars dot king '

 

[BaileyUK]

Given Jannes comments. I'm guessing it's what you might call a 'Black - Hat' domain, which may not attract the sympathy of the membership

 

[Grilled]

Like everyone else has said, without knowing the domain, logs, or the whois information, it's going to hard for anybody to publicly assess. Best case, the @GoDaddy rep see's this and can help connect you to the right department of hoops to jump through.

 

[Jannes]

Given Jannes comments. I'm guessing it's what you might call a 'Black - Hat' domain, which may not attract the sympathy of the membership

Yeah but it's none of GoDaddy's business if someone is not adhering to Google's webmaster guidelines.

 

[GoDaddy]

Hi @tbelfort,
While we can't provide support via a third-party forum, we're happy to connect with you to learn more. We'll DM you.

 

[Grilled]

Yeah but it's none of GoDaddy's business if someone is not adhering to Google's webmaster guidelines.

I think @BaileyUK was referring to namePros members not being too sympathetic to a stolen black hat domain. For instance, if OP wanted help recovering a domain like Micr0s0ft.com (which ironically redirects to a GoDaddy for sale landing page) then nP members might not be to keen on helping.

Fortunately @GoDaddy responded to this thread, so hopefully OP can now be directed to the super secretive but extremely competent section of GoDaddy support

 

[BaileyUK]

Indeed Grilled, Still the OP has got the attention of a Godaddy rep, It's great that they involve themselves these days. I somehow doubt we will get any update on this particular thread though.

As more services play around with their Grace period we are definitely going to see more of these 'Stolen domain' threads without a doubt.

 

[Jannes]

I think @BaileyUK was referring to namePros members not being too sympathetic to a stolen black hat domain. For instance, if OP wanted help recovering a domain like Micr0s0ft.com (which ironically redirects to a GoDaddy for sale landing page) then nP members might not be to keen on helping.

Got it. Since I was the one who brought this up, I want to emphasize that this is probably just common gray hat SEO stuff (white hat is futile).

 

[tbelfort]

I hope this is not just another one of those badly or mistimed renewals. The detail that this was a domain purchased at an Auction makes you wonder if the renewal date wasn't in sync with the the OP taking ownership.

When owners talk about outages you do wonder if they were pushing that renewal date to it's max. I'm not pre-judging anything and I truly hope the OP has all the proof that he needs to recover the name. I suppose the good thing if He/she has picked-up on it so quickly, The domain not going to be going anywhere soon.

I just wish that these stolen posts gave us some definitive and verifiable proof at the time of posting, they all seem to have a rational explanation once someone digs a little deeper. For a start what month is showing on Whois as the renewal date - Does that confirm a July renewal ? (That's irrespective of whether another year has been added by the register)

I appreciate this of course may have been a genuine hacked transfer, but then Godaddy wouldn't be directing you to their resale/auction site.

Yep. We can only guess w/o a domain.

And no, SEO has no impact if you give us ' sp*rts cars dot king '

I understand. Here are images showing the first tld, first 3 letters of the name. That should serve as proof enough. First, here's the email showing them saying they've removed it from my account.

Now here is the whois.

As you can see here, the expiry date is 12th July 2026. It WAS 12th July 2025, but it's been renewed a year by whoever has taken it. Updated on 10th of April, so you can see this happened just recently. Now, here's my receipt showing I renewed it for a year in July 2024. (And all my domains are on auto-renew with paypal as the primary payment and a corporate card on backup, with that account having 5 figures minimum at any time.)

So as you can see it was renewed automatically on the 13th of July 2024. Finally, here's a screenshot of the last logins to my account, which proves this wasn't a security issue nor did I transfer it out. For transfers I would have received emails anyway, but the only email I ever got for this was the one in the first image.

If you check the date/time of the cancellation email you'll see it's 11th April at 1:22am. Then a login at 3:47am on the 11th of April after I got that email. Before that, my previous login was 1st of Feb at 11:01am. There wasn't even anyone in the account who could have transferred the domain out.


As I said, I have everything on auto-renewal as I have 100's of domains across multiple registrars. Nothing is manual. I've been managing 100's of domains without ever losing a domain for the past 10 years now. Hopefully this services as ample evidence to backup my claims and show that this is not simply another person who has lost a domain at auction, or failed to renew and complaining. I 100% owned this domain.

Given Jannes comments. I'm guessing it's what you might call a 'Black - Hat' domain, which may not attract the sympathy of the membership

I think @BaileyUK was referring to namePros members not being too sympathetic to a stolen black hat domain. For instance, if OP wanted help recovering a domain like Micr0s0ft.com (which ironically redirects to a GoDaddy for sale landing page) then nP members might not be to keen on helping.

Fortunately @GoDaddy responded to this thread, so hopefully OP can now be directed to the super secretive but extremely competent section of GoDaddy support

It's absolutely not a blackhat domain. It's simply a site I rebuilt from auction, ranked and make money from ads + selling links on. There's nothing illegal, scammy or shady at all. Obviously "link selling" is not whitehat SEO, but this is not 'blackhat' like described above.

I just can't disclose the full domain because it's a bit sensitive and people could find people who buy links from me, and also damage the site. It's tied to my name, and I do have many people/competitors who dislike me and would be happy to destroy my sites.

Hi @tbelfort,
While we can't provide support via a third-party forum, we're happy to connect with you to learn more. We'll DM you.

Thanks so much. I will pm you my account email so you can reach out there.

I'll also update this thread once it gets resolved.

 

[bmugford]

I understand. Here are images showing the first tld, first 3 letters of the name. That should serve as proof enough. First, here's the email showing them saying they've removed it from my account.

Now here is the whois.

As you can see here, the expiry date is 12th July 2026. It WAS 12th July 2025, but it's been renewed a year by whoever has taken it. Updated on 10th of April, so you can see this happened just recently. Now, here's my receipt showing I renewed it for a year in July 2024. (And all my domains are on auto-renew with paypal as the primary payment and a corporate card on backup, with that account having 5 figures minimum at any time.)

So as you can see it was renewed automatically on the 13th of July 2024. Finally, here's a screenshot of the last logins to my account, which proves this wasn't a security issue nor did I transfer it out. For transfers I would have received emails anyway, but the only email I ever got for this was the one in the first image.

If you check the date/time of the cancellation email you'll see it's 11th April at 1:22am. Then a login at 3:47am on the 11th of April after I got that email. Before that, my previous login was 1st of Feb at 11:01am. There wasn't even anyone in the account who could have transferred the domain out.


As I said, I have everything on auto-renewal as I have 100's of domains across multiple registrars. Nothing is manual. I've been managing 100's of domains without ever losing a domain for the past 10 years now. Hopefully this services as ample evidence to backup my claims and show that this is not simply another person who has lost a domain at auction, or failed to renew and complaining. I 100% owned this domain.







It's absolutely not a blackhat domain. It's simply a site I rebuilt from auction, ranked and make money from ads + selling links on. There's nothing illegal, scammy or shady at all. Obviously "link selling" is not whitehat SEO, but this is not 'blackhat' like described above.

I just can't disclose the full domain because it's a bit sensitive and people could find people who buy links from me, and also damage the site. It's tied to my name, and I do have many people/competitors who dislike me and would be happy to destroy my sites.




Thanks so much. I will pm you my account email so you can reach out there.

I'll also update this thread once it gets resolved.

Well, it seems like you have the receipts.

Many times you get these "GoDaddy stole our domain" type posts, and there is some misunderstanding.

In this case, @GoDaddy needs to figure out how and why the domain was removed from your account.

Brad

 

[BaileyUK]

Wow, Thanks for taking the time to substantiate everything you have said, Not often do we see this amount of proof for domain ownership. Hopefully you now have the Direct message from the Godaddy rep who I'm sure will resolve this matter to your satisfaction.

Thanks again for taking the time. On the plus side you now have compiled everything that the Godaddy rep could possibly ask for. Look forward to your update

 

[tbelfort]

Wow, Thanks for taking the time to substantiate everything you have said, Not often do we see this amount of proof for domain ownership. Hopefully you now have the Direct message from the Godaddy rep who I'm sure will resolve this matter to your satisfaction.

Thanks again for taking the time. On the plus side you now have compiled everything that the Godaddy rep could possibly ask for. Look forward to your update

You're welcome. I appreciate everyone's time here to help me and raise attention.

I will absolutely update here and everywhere else with the final outcome.

 

[Future Sensors]

I will absolutely update here and everywhere else with the final outcome.

Welcome to the forum

 

[Yanosh]

Well , i think you proved enough
Hope it ends well and you get back your domain with an explanation from GoDaddy

 

[dirk]

Interesting case given provided documentation. Following. Good luck @tbelfort !

 

[tbelfort]

Welcome to the forum

Thank-you! I'll keep my membership active and stick around. It's a great and very friendly forum.

 

[kool1]

Looks like there was a whois update on 4/10 the day before it was deleted.

The GoDaddy rep will know best.

Maybe an ICANN dispute regarding invalid whois?

Check your associated junk mail around that same date.

GL