discuss Scammed on GoDaddy auctions!!

[JudgeMind]

A month ag I won auctions for two LLLL .com domains on godaddy. These were both public auction. I paid for the auctions then I sent the sellers info for transfers. A week and a half went by and I did not hear from the sellers nor did I receive either domains into my godaddy acct. I sent messages to sellers two more times after that. At this point it had been 3 weeks and still no response. I sent an email to godaddy explaining what happened and that I needed their assistance getting my domains or getting a refund. Here is their response:

As we are a payment processing service rather than an escrow service, we hold the funds for a specified period of time, and must release the funds at the end of that period unless we as your agent receive a dispute. As a dispute had not been received during the 15 day period described in the agreement, your funds have already been released to the seller. Any request for return of the funds will need to be made directly to the seller. However, we cannot intervene further. Once the 15-day Transaction Assurance period is completed, the window of opportunity to dispute the transaction has closed and we are limited in ways to help.

 

[Ms Domainer]

I was thinking it could be an ISP issue but I didn't want to cast any blame outside of us.

Well, everything else is working for me, so I can't really blame my ISP (although I do have a lot of issues with my internet provider).

But I'm really experiencing a lot of issues, such as getting kicked off my account after paying for names -- which does not seem to be affected -- but then my account magically appears (without my intervention).

I can get to my panel (sometimes), but when I try to access a domain, it goes into a hanging loop.

Now I seem to have access to my names, so I will see if I can actually manage them.

UPDATE: I can manage my names -- that is, if I want to wait five-ten minutes for each action.

 

[Joe Styler]

I would reach out to your account rep and have them take a look at the account with you on their end so they can see if something strange is happening. I am really sorry it is acting weird for you but hopefully he can see live what is going on.

 

[Ms Domainer]

I would reach out to your account rep and have them take a look at the account with you on their end so they can see if something strange is happening. I am really sorry it is acting weird for you but hopefully he can see live what is going on.

Things seem to be improving for now. But still very, very slow.

I am unable to access my auction page, though.

 

[Name Trader]

How about GoDaddy agreeing to never to pay a seller without the buyer having confirmed they have received the domain. That would immediately put a stop to all these shenanigans.

 

[forge]

Things seem to be improving for now. But still very, very slow.

I am unable to access my auction page, though.

Something screwy is going on with GoDaddy's website. Currently I can't even load their auctions roster.

Off-topic.

 

[djum]

I had problems logging into the Auctions all day today.
Was thinking maybe my browser is giving me sh#$.
But registered few names just fine.

 

[Joe Styler]

Someone on this thread reported an issue with their ISP but on our end we have not noticed any issues with the site.

 

[Name Trader]

Cant you guys having problems with Godaddy website open your own thread rather than gatecrash somebody else's thread.

 

[RevolutionaryDomains]

Cant you guys having problems with Godaddy website open your own thread rather than gatecrash somebody else's thread.

Agreed! This thread should have been closed once OP confirmed his issue had been resolved.

That aside, big thanks to Joe for being so willing to help NP members with their GD issues.

 

[carob]

This is an eye opener as I got my money back even after winning the names and would have been down $700 on 2 occassions.Lucky I got my refund back on my card .Bad service from Godaddy.

Hi glad to hear you got your money back. Sounds like you did a chargeback - is that how you got the refund?

 

[GoWebnames.com]

@JudgeMind, sorry to know about this and THANKS A TON for letting us all know about the 15 day thing.
I didn't know about this f*cking stupid 15-day bullshit. That's an aweful reply on part of a business.

The best thing to get back to GoDaddy is to spread their sh*tty response on all the known forums. I believe, 99% of people using GoDaddy are not aware of the 15-day thing. GoDaddy will refund you when their credibility takes a hit.

I already knew that buying at GoDaddy is not completely safe, but it's unsafe to this extent is what I didn't know.

I always do this precheck for GD domains at BuyNow:

1) Is the domain registrar GoDaddy itself?
>> No problem, go ahead and buy it. GoDaddy will automatically transfer it to your account.
2) Is the domain registrar anything other than GoDaddy?
>> Confirm, Confirm and double Confirm with the WHOIS owner first before hitting the BIN.

About a month back, I recently saw BigMouth.com listed for sale @ $5,000 on GoDaddy anc couldn't believe it was on sale only for $5000. I checked the registrar first, it was not GoDaddy. The website seemed to be live and I mailed the whois contact. One of the partners, Mike, replied back saying they never put it up for sale. I shared the link and told him to contact GoDaddy. Four-five days later, I saw the price dropped to $1000 and someone hit the BIN. Now, it shows as sold but the WHOIS hasn't changed at all till now: https://in.auctions.godaddy.com/trp...link&iphoneview=1&cvosrc=affiliate.cj.4097748

If the buyer gets past the 15 days thinking that it may take time naturally, he is going to lose his money. The same as you. If someone out here bought BigMouth.com, then you may as well join this thread.

 

[Joe Styler]

We have a very low number of issues with customers not delivering domains. We do verify listings, and we did cancel that listing for bigmouth and not pay the seller. We do verify whois and one of the ways we do so is auto deny names that do not match the whois vs the account holder info. If that happens we can send an email to the whois email and ask them if they are listing the name for sale and if so to validate by clicking that they are. I am not saying what happened in this case but it is possible someone clicked a link without reading etc, but the whois contact needed to agree to list it or it would fail to list.
And we are working on something that will enable smoother transfers of domains not registered here which will roll out next year.

 

[GoWebnames.com]

We have a very low number of issues with customers not delivering domains. We do verify listings, and we did cancel that listing for bigmouth and not pay the seller. We do verify whois and one of the ways we do so is auto deny names that do not match the whois vs the account holder info. If that happens we can send an email to the whois email and ask them if they are listing the name for sale and if so to validate by clicking that they are. I am not saying what happened in this case but it is possible someone clicked a link without reading etc, but the whois contact needed to agree to list it or it would fail to list.
And we are working on something that will enable smoother transfers of domains not registered here which will roll out next year.

That's great Joe, cleaning up scamsters will be good for you and your company. What you can do is to shed more light on is HOW such domains can be listed other than by explicit approval from the WHOIS contact !!

Is EMAIL VERIFICATION an absolute MUST for all domains? Because whenever I list a name with GoDaddy, at least I do get mails for approval.

In the case of BigMouth.com, these guys clearly denied it on email having put it up for auction. So, did someone hacked into their email and put it for sale? While they could have as well transferred it away to eName or somewhere else in China?

I may have a few other names like these which I might be able to share here.

Update:

Is it possible someone listed it on GoDaddy through Afternic? I don't think Afternic verifies the domain listings through email, they simply seem to add the domain on a first come first serve basis. Am I right here?

 

[Joe Styler]

I'd prefer not to go through all the scenarios that could potentially happen as I think that would give bad actors more ideas about how to potentially exploit people. I will say that we do verify names pretty thoroughly via account ownership if the name is with us, whois and other methods if not, which make it hard for a person who does not own the domain to list it for sale.

We have very few issues where people don't either get the domain they pay for or their money back when there is an issue, very few as in less than I can count on my hand in a year. And I have been in charge of the auctions support team in the past for years and director of the Aftermarket for years so I have a pretty good handle on it.

So for something like this to happen, you would need to list a domain name for sale that you don't own.
It would have to pass our ownership checks.
It would have to sell.
We would have to miss any suspicious activity by the seller- which we have both automated and manual daily checks on 365 days a year.
The buyer would have to not say anything for weeks after paying for a domain, not getting it and not hearing anything from the seller about moving them the domain.
We would have to make a payment out to the seller we couldn't get back.
We would have to be unwilling to refund the buyer at our loss to make sure the integrity of the auction house stands, which is worth much more than the refund.

All these things would have to happen and at each point there are less and less names that can sneak through each of these steps to the point that this becomes super rare.

When something bad does get through as rare as it is, it is an opportunity to look over everything and make it more secure which we consistently do as new threats emerge.

We do thousands and thousands of transactions per day almost all go through without an issue and the ones that come up as issues we look at to try and improve the experience for everyone.

I can't promise a perfect marketplace but I can promise we will continue to improve and work towards a better experience for everyone and take our customer's concerns seriously.

 

[GoWebnames.com]

That's a good enough response. Appreciate it much.
Will let you know here as and when I find any troublesome listings on Godaddy.

 

[Joe Styler]

Thanks I appreciate the feedback.

 

[Skyvisum]

Hi glad to hear you got your money back. Sounds like you did a chargeback - is that how you got the refund?

Just got it back after i wrote them asking them while I lost the domains when I won auction among a lot of bidders.Right now I am more cautious.

 

[Skyvisum]

Update!!

Thanks to the help @JoeStyler I was able to get reimbursed for my purchases. The individual who took payment without sending the domain names to me has been suspended from godaddy.

Thanks all for the help with this. Hope to never deal with this again.

Great News and Thanks to Joe for a nice job.

 

[JudgeMind]

My issues have been resolved.

@ericlyon can you close this thread please.

Cheers

 

[Name Trader]

I'd prefer not to go through all the scenarios that could potentially happen as I think that would give bad actors more ideas about how to potentially exploit people. I will say that we do verify names pretty thoroughly via account ownership if the name is with us, whois and other methods if not, which make it hard for a person who does not own the domain to list it for sale.

We have very few issues where people don't either get the domain they pay for or their money back when there is an issue, very few as in less than I can count on my hand in a year. And I have been in charge of the auctions support team in the past for years and director of the Aftermarket for years so I have a pretty good handle on it.

So for something like this to happen, you would need to list a domain name for sale that you don't own.
It would have to pass our ownership checks.
It would have to sell.
We would have to miss any suspicious activity by the seller- which we have both automated and manual daily checks on 365 days a year.
The buyer would have to not say anything for weeks after paying for a domain, not getting it and not hearing anything from the seller about moving them the domain.
We would have to make a payment out to the seller we couldn't get back.
We would have to be unwilling to refund the buyer at our loss to make sure the integrity of the auction house stands, which is worth much more than the refund.

All these things would have to happen and at each point there are less and less names that can sneak through each of these steps to the point that this becomes super rare.

When something bad does get through as rare as it is, it is an opportunity to look over everything and make it more secure which we consistently do as new threats emerge.

We do thousands and thousands of transactions per day almost all go through without an issue and the ones that come up as issues we look at to try and improve the experience for everyone.

I can't promise a perfect marketplace but I can promise we will continue to improve and work towards a better experience for everyone and take our customer's concerns seriously.

That doesn't sound anything like the "real" public face of godaddy which replied to @judgemind.

As we are a payment processing service rather than an escrow service, we hold the funds for a specified period of time, and must release the funds at the end of that period unless we as your agent receive a dispute. As a dispute had not been received during the 15 day period described in the agreement, your funds have already been released to the seller. Any request for return of the funds will need to be made directly to the seller. However, we cannot intervene further. Once the 15-day Transaction Assurance period is completed, the window of opportunity to dispute the transaction has closed and we are limited in ways to help.

It shouldn't be necessary to resort to public shaming, to get these problems resolved. And maybe you only had to deal with <5/yr because all the others were scared off by the severity, tone, hopelessness, and finality of GoDaddy's responsiveness. All due to GoDaddy's lousy ToS on this matter. I don't think @JudgeMind would have ever got this resolved without posting here publicly on NamePros. Which says a lot about how GoDaddy treats it's customers. IMHO.

Also. If these problems are really <5/yr, you can afford to just pay all these disputes out without putting the injured party thru this wringer.

 

[Raymond C]

Judgemind reached out to me last night and I started looking into it for him. We don't ever want to have people lose money or not get a domain. We do thousands of seamless transactions a day. This is an edge case and I will assist in it. Thank you for the members who suggested he reach out to me and for those who brought this to my attention.

Judgemind reached out to me last night and I started looking into it for him. We don't ever want to have people lose money or not get a domain. We do thousands of seamless transactions a day. This is an edge case and I will assist in it. Thank you for the members who suggested he reach out to me and for those who brought this to my attention.

Hi Joe Styler,

I had similar problems with Godaddy. I won 3 domain names by auction probably 3-4 months ago. I had paid about $463.74 in total and never get the 3 domain names. How can I contact you by email to resolve the on going problems and show you all my details?

All I want is to get my refunds. It's very upsetting for me when I paid $463.74 and never get my domain names and not even get my refund even I had complained several times to the dispute department.

 

[Shimmy]

Any reason people are not naming the scammer sellers so others can be warned when seeing other listings by them?

 

[Raymond C]

Update!!

Thanks to the help @JoeStyler I was able to get reimbursed for my purchases. The individual who took payment without sending the domain names to me has been suspended from godaddy.

Thanks all for the help with this. Hope to never deal with this again.

I got same problems. I won 3 auction 3 months ago and paid $463.74 in total and never get 3 domain names. How can I contact JoeStyler? Can you give me Joe's email so that I can contact him to request refund? Raymond

 

[DNGear]

You can contact him here @Joe Styler

 

[ninjadomain]

@Joe Styler Sent you a PM regarding a similar situation.

Thanks!