The GoDaddy Transfer Issue, An Almost Lost Sale and How We Overcame it

[jideofor]

Greetings to you all.

As some of you know, yesterday, I had a problem that had to do with transferring a domain name from my Godaddy account to my buyer's account.

When I started this deal, one thing was very obvious: buyer thought it was a scam and she instructed her web guy to intervene.

I gave two options initially when they requested for how to transfer the domain name and when it appear that they didn't respond, I expanded the transfer option and included Epik, Sedo and Godaddy.

They told me they will get back to me by this week (deal started last week). I waited for the email to come in and by Wednesday, I followed up. We kicked things off with Epik escrow as their choice.

So they paid and when it was time to transfer the domain name, we hit a brick wall. I first tried to transfer the domain name to Epik's Godaddy account with no luck.

Buyer's web guy later insisted that I transfer the domain name directly to them since they had paid already. The Epik transfer was canceled and I proceeded to transfer to buyer with no luck either. I tried as much as possible to explain that the problem has been on for some time.

I think @Rob Monster could sense they were doubting my claims and so he tried to chime once a while. All these bought us some time.

Then almost 24 hours later with no luck, web guy threatened to pull out of the deal if we can not transfer a simple domain name within its parent registrar (new reg). He said it was looking like fraud already. This was his second threat. The first was him asking @Rob Monster when they will get the domain name because (according to him), there have been a lot of scam hitting the US from NIGERIA and Somalia.

You can imagine how I felt for innocently being accused due to fault of Godaddy's inability to handle transfer that previously took just 3 minutes to complete. The web guy could not believe that the fault is from Godaddy and like the typical stereotype that flew around, my country was roped in. I didn't like that at all but I kept my cool!

I pleaded with him to give me time so that I can get a reply from @Joe Styler which never came until after everything. I had to hurriedly create a thread seeking ways out and also sent a link to the other thread created by @Soofi in April on same issue.

It was not too long after the thread that the web guy reached out to Godaddy and he was told that the transfer process had changed.

He was given this link https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GSmyRH4bcPX5fE4g42dG1ko6pnnC2yIVe9aTfAMp-Yo/edit

I went through the Google doc link and that was how we resolved. Apparently, one needed to use incognito mode on chrome to finalize the last stage in order to make everything go smoothly, according to the link.

over 2 weeks ago, I had experience this problem for 2 domain name and Joe Styler helped without referring me to the link above. He did everything back end and that was it. My thought was they would have had solved before my next deal.

Imagine for a second that the web guy didn't reach out to them and just waited for me to resolve it myself, I may have lost this sale with a tag that I almost scammed them.

And all through, he did not speak good of Godaddy. He kept mentioning it and said that was why he left them many years ago. Who knows? He might end up convincing the buyer to move to another registrar and that would be a loss for Godaddy.

After we used the guide in the Google Doc, we successfully transferred the domain name to them and Epik did a nice job all through. They sent me the money same day to my bank account in Nigeria. Thanks to @Rob Monster for making that happen.

 

[jideofor]

Oh, that's weird. I actually transferred a few domains out of GD to a new registrar this week and I was able to come back to the old view go to Pending Transfer Outs and Accept the transfers and it was done in a few minutes.

This is not a transfer between different registrar but within Godaddy. Epik's inclusion was for their Godaddy account as well with didn't happen due to the aforementioned.

Summarily, it is a transfer from one Godaddy account to another Godaddy account. Not Godaddy to Epik or Godaddy to Namecheap.

My guess is that people do not have a problem transferring to a different registrar but within Godaddy. I may be wrong though.

 

[Avijit Roy]

My problem is same, trying receiving three domains from last few days, all are stuck.

 

[ResoluteDomains]

The push/transfer works perfectly well within the old view. I am still on the old view and have never had any issues so far, even though I got a broadcast message on top of the view, saying that the old view is being retired

I am sticking with the old view as long as possible.

 

[Kamaldeen]

Thank you Rob. Well, I have a few of my brothers whom I introduced into domaining and I am sure they will choose to use your service after reading my review. I will also go on our biggest forum (Africa's biggest actually) and tell them to use Epik when next they have a domain sale.

@farouk20 @Haykay2005 @IKENNAOBI and a lot of them will be informed...

What is their commission rate?

 

[jideofor]

What is their commission rate?

@Rob Monster , I think this deserve an answer from you.

 

[jideofor]

@BrandCougar it was a Do Not Change transfer.

 

[xynames]

So this process:
https://www.namepros.com/threads/godaddy-push-gd-to-gd-step-by-step.1047375/
isn't the same / isn't working right now?

 

[ResoluteDomains]

@jideofor - curious - did you use the "Do Not Change Whois" selection during your GD-to-GD push or were you doing a Contact Info change during the pus?

The reason I ask - I pushed several names yesterday (GD to GD account) with no issues, tho used the "Do Not Change Whois" selection because I have had problems with x-country updates in the past with GD. I was told (tho no verification) that each country that GD operates within has their own Control Server to handle a GD in-house push and when going country to country with Contact Info updates during the GD in-house push, they have issues at times with the process. I found doing the "Do Not Change Whois" selection, then letting the new owner change the Contact Info on their end is much quicker and efficient than messing with all GD's in-house push and x-country update rodeo.


@domainventure & @AGAME - I agree - I too am staying with the old dashboard view as long as possible.

The new dashboard view doesn't have "Folders" - so how are we supposed to group our names for various projects?

It's annoying as hell to have to go down through a list of 100's of names to pick you out the 5-6 you want to change a NS or Contact Email/etc for a specific project during testing. Folders were a great way to pool project names together which was extremely efficient and helpful when performing updates & bulk transfer pushing for a group of project domains.

Or is their a way to provide "Folders" with the new view, that I haven't found yet?

I have that yellow "retiring this view before long" message on my GD Dashboard view - curious - do either of you know when the cutover date is for when they will be dropping the current Dashboard view?

"Soon" is weak! For Pete's sake, they need to grow a pair and provide clarity.

Sad that we are going backwards from a simple and easy to view (green) check marks model - back to a 1990's text display model. "On" and "Off" as text is too similar optically and blur too easily when sliding down through a lengthy list of names.

I recognize a vertical slide within a slide is not "mobile friendly" with the current Dashboard view, but damn... it's not rocket science to design something "mobile friendly" beyond a text dump.

And - not all the column sorts function on the new display. WTF!!

-Cougar

I really have not used the new interface yet. When I need to do something I want to do it fast and want it to work the first time. I tried that new interface the first time many many months ago and it error'd out on me and I have not went back to it again.

And what really stinks is the removal of email customer service. If I do have a problem I do not have time to chat. I can not call most of the time due to noise where I am and when I do get a chance to sit down and chat its sometimes not available. So why cant I just shoot someone an email and by the time I get back home and relax I find my answer -- like I used to for so many years? More and more companies are removing email customer service and I think that is the worst way to go.

So thats another reason I tend to not try the new interface - dont need problems where the company assumes I can pick up the phone and talk OR I have time to sit there and chat (with someone who is likely chatting with 30 other people at the same time and not one-on-one with me, taking up more of my time).

Anyway, hopefully all of the features we enjoy with the interface going away will be moved over to the new one. Not holding my breath though...

 

[8675309]

Go daddy is complete garbage,even Though I own 560 shares,Basically have only 250 domains there 100 went to pork bun and 1700
got transferred to name silo.The reason they make it so hard now is they don’t want you to transfer.Now when you sell a name on afternic unless you signed up for fast transfer ,your Fu—- name silo is the best give me your account number and just I plop the domain in there.

 

[jideofor]

It's different now.

 

[8675309]

Edit: Going to rewrite this later. It was a bit much.

Early Motley crew,””The merry go round and round””

 

[dande]

Yes I was out of the office and in this day and age in a place with no internet or phone service for a few days. By the time I got back I saw things were already resolved. I'd never tell you to use a google doc to complete a change of account though. I don't know who made it. There are some things we are working through still as we make this change. The end result is a faster easier process believe it or not.
If you can add the customer number you should. Often times I see an error occur because the customer number is not added. This can happen if you have multiple accounts with the same email address. Your cookies think you're in one account and you get the email for the acceptance. Then you login to the other account and boom there is no change because it was sent to an email address and then the cookies picked the other account, not the one you eventually logged into.
That is being worked on to force you to get the name into one account. We've cleaned up almost all the errors and removed much of the issues with the new process as some have commented. At the end of the day we will have a smoother process with less steps and work than the previous process. In the meantime, I apologize and we have support to help if needed.

Another Godaddy with another long story to tell on how simple things are sooo difficult. External transfer should have nothing to do with cookies or candies, once you generate Auth code and impute it on the receiving registrar, that should be it.