alert Why You Can't Trust GoDaddy Brokers

[jberryhill]

It is important to understand that GoDaddy brokers are not working for you.

I'm currently defending a UDRP which, although it will be an easy win for the domain registrant, would have been completely unnecessary if GoDaddy was honest with its own customer.

In the course of fielding an inquiry to buy a domain name, GoDaddy broker John Campanaro received this email:

The "buyer" was claiming to have a trademark and threatening legal action.

Now, in the course of this negotiation, the parties ended up being extremely close. The margin between the final offer of the "buyer" and the domain registrant was around $1000.

Had GoDaddy's customer realized that the "buyer" was now claiming to have a trademark and threatening legal action, that would have given GoDaddy's customer an opportunity to consider whether to lower their offer simply to avoid a frivolous legal dispute, or at least to have some warning that GoDaddy knew what the "buyer" was going to do next.

So, what did GoDaddy broker John Campanaro do next?

He lied:

If you were formerly a Uniregistry customer and have been moved to GoDaddy, you need to understand that some very basic principles of customer service did not survive that transfer.

GoDaddy will withhold information from you, and will not tell you if the other side in a negotiation is making legal threats, so that you can make a rational and informed decision. Instead, they will drive you right over the cliff and even, as happened in the longer course of this negotiation, make up stuff, attribute it to you, and then it will turn up in a UDRP or other legal dispute filed against you.

GoDaddy will dig a hole and push you right in.

 

[jberryhill]

they could be fabricating stories about talking to you, quoting you as having said things, and creating legal evidence to be used against you later. Meanwhile, you know nothing about any of it.

That's absolutely correct.

I'm going to slog through this in detail, because I think it is important for the domain community to know what damage someone like John Campanaro of GoDaddy brokerage can do.

I'm going to put my commentary in a different color, so you can clearly see the emails in the chain.

Campanaro first approached the registrant with a $400 offer in September 2022:

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So far, so good, the $400 was not worth considering. Next, in early October 2022:

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Campanaro then lies to the buyer about the offer made to the GoDaddy registrant customer:

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Some time passes, with non-substantive reminders, until:

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At this point, the domain registrant does mention the "five figure range". Campanaro goes back to the buyer and suggests $10,000, consistent with the low end of "five figure range":

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The October 2022 round ends at this point.

Several months later, in early March, the buyer is interested again:

And, since GoDaddy's Brokerage CRM system is designed to make the brokers look unprofessional, Campanaro again contacts the GoDaddy customer as if he has suffered from a bout of amnesia with an offer of $3000:

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The offer is increased to $5000:

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The domain registrant counters at $7500

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Here is where it gets pretty interesting. Campanaro goes back to the buyer and lies about where the negotiation has been. By the way, in Arizona, one hour is ten minutes:

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The complainant responds with a full-throated legal threat. In point of fact, GoDaddy's customer has had the domain name since 2006. GoDaddy knows this. The trademark claimant was formed in April 2022, and filed their still-unexamined registration application in September 2022, just after starting the domain negotiations:

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Now, all of you who are interested in broker ethics, notice that the buyer said, "Would you please inform the domain holder" about their frivolous legal claim.

What did Campanaro do with this specific instruction from his "client"?

Well....

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So, Campanaro knew they were making repeated legal threats. Campanaro was specifically asked by the buyer to inform the registrant of the legal threats. Campanaro did not convey that information, and he did not tell the buyer that he did not convey that information.

Also, Campanaro lied about the opening offer of $25,000 to the buyer.

The buyer did not know Campanaro was lying. The buyer did not know Campanaro failed to inform the buyer of the legal claim as requested.

So, what do you suppose the buyer claimed in their UDRP complaint?

And THAT is what GoDaddy Brokerage will do to you.

 

[Future Sensors]

Not only was this GoDaddy broker John Campanaro lying to both parties, he was also living in his own fantasy brokerage world, and was apparently so naive that he didn't realize that all his emails would be meticulously documented during the UDRP process.

 

[BostonDomainer]

Hi

you would think that the 20% commission lost from that ordeal, would add some incentive.

imo....

They likely costed me a high xxx,xxx deal to Meta in 2021 by countering $5,000,000 when I specifically told the broker Kenneth Kilfoyle to counter $725,000. I was livid... then he went back and countered $825,000 without my authorization. (All documented via email) If they didn't care then, they won't care now. I knew it was Meta well because Kenneth revealed the indentity of the buyer to me on a call. Why is a junior broker handling a deal this size? He was more excited for a deal then I was. His boss took over, then I refused to continue negotiations through Godaddy and I moved 400 of my top names away from them because they were hijacking emails as well by changing settings without notice... many threads on that on NP.

Godaddy=Nodaddy

You can't change the past or Godaddy... but you can CHANGE REGISTRARS

 

[jberryhill]

Look at the message in the OP. On March 28, the "buyer" said that if the offer of $4000 was not accepted, they would "initiate the legal process to obtain our trademarked domain name".


GoDaddy's Campanaro then turns around and says this to the GoDaddy customer:

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So, Campanaro has a buyer who is saying that if the price is not $4000, then they will take legal action.

He then tells GoDaddy's customer that if the price is not $4000, then the buyer will look at alternative domain names.

 

[J.R.]

I don't understand, are those J. Berryhill's minimum fees?

(If that's an inappropriate question, no need to answer.)

Mr. Berryhill is one of the top in his field.

He doesn't need to disclose his fee publicly.

Many of his peers charge between $3K-$5K for a UDRP defense, depending on the facts of the case.
Could be closer to $10K for a complainant.

UDRP defenses are expensive; which is why registrants hike the purchase price immediately after a successful defense.

Which is another reason the GoDaddy Broker has created a mess.
The complainant paid up to $10K to attempt a hijacking but was unwilling to pay $7,500 asking price.

Yet, complainant will lose UDRP, be (-$10K) in the hole and still no closer to owning the domain in question.
Dumb unethical broker, and naïve complainant - costly for all parties involved.

 

[CDM]

Wow, thank you for sharing John. This is very eye opening, extremely appreciated, and very beneficial for us domainers to have some transparency into such a negotiation. The amount and level of fabrications spun up by the broker is shocking to say the least.

I noted in Campanaro's email sig his title of "Senior" domain broker and it's not reassuring of GoDaddy that there was insufficient oversight, checks, or lack of training to allow him to advance to a Senior level in the company with such a blatant lack of ethics, as one can only assume this wasn't the first time for such fabrications, but rather that they finally caught up to him.

On that note, if he has a conscience at all which I hope he does, I'm sure this is coming as a heavy life lesson and I hope he is able to humble himself and take the tough medicine of facing the repercussions of his actions on others as well as himself, and take it as an opportunity to rectify whatever it is in his life that lead him to feel the need to engage in such deceit.

Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive

 

[jberryhill]

TLDR?

It's not that long. The short version is that GoDaddy Brokerage will not tell you if their "buyer" is making legal threats and gathering ammunition to file a UDRP instead of engaging in a straightforward negotiation. This can end up costing you your domain name and/or legal expenses.

 

[jberryhill]

Sorry for the barrage of questions : )

They are good ones, though.

But GoDaddy is concerned about someone routing around their commission.

So, they will not say something as simple as "The buyer is claiming a legal right to the domain name and threatening action. We cannot evaluate claims of that kind or provide you with legal advice."

 

[kor]

This industry definitely needs a serious competitor to root out godaddy's tyranny and monopoly!

 

[bmugford]

That's absolutely correct.

I'm going to slog through this in detail, because I think it is important for the domain community to know what damage a liar like John Campanaro of GoDaddy brokerage can do.

I'm going to put my commentary in a different color, so you can clearly see the emails in the chain.

Campanaro first approached the registrant with a $400 offer in September 2022:

--------
Show attachment 237842
-----------

Show attachment 237843
-----------

So far, so good, the $400 was not worth considering. Next, in early October 2022:

---------
Show attachment 237844
----------------

Campanaro then lies to the buyer about the offer made to the GoDaddy registrant customer:

Show attachment 237846

-------

Some time passes, with non-substantive reminders, until:

--------

Show attachment 237845
----------

At this point, the domain registrant does mention the "five figure range". Campanaro goes back to the buyer and suggests $10,000, consistent with the low end of "five figure range":

Show attachment 237847


--------------

The October 2022 round ends at this point.

Several months later, in early March, the buyer is interested again:

Show attachment 237848

And, since GoDaddy's Brokerage CRM system is apparently made of crap designed to make the brokers look unprofessional, Campanaro again contacts the GoDaddy customer as if he has suffered from a bout of amnesia with an offer of $3000:

Show attachment 237849

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The offer is increased to $5000:


Show attachment 237850

------------

The domain registrant counters at $7500

Show attachment 237851

-------

Here is where it gets pretty interesting. Campanaro goes back to the buyer and lies about where the negotiation has been. By the way, in Arizona, one hour is ten minutes:

Show attachment 237852
--------

The complainant responds with a full-throated legal threat. In point of fact, GoDaddy's customer has had the domain name since 2006. GoDaddy knows this. The trademark claimant was formed in April 2022, and filed their still-unexamined registration application in September 2022, just after starting the domain negotiations:

Show attachment 237853
----------

Now, all of you who are interested in broker ethics, notice that the buyer said, "Would you please inform the domain holder" about their frivolous legal claim.

What did Campanaro do with this specific instruction from his "client"?

Well....
Show attachment 237856


---------------

So, Campanaro knew they were making repeated legal threats. Campanaro was specifically asked by the buyer to inform the registrant of the legal threats. Campanaro did not convey that information, and he did not tell the buyer that he did not convey that information.

Also, Campanaro lied about the opening offer of $25,000 to the buyer.

The buyer did not know Campanaro was lying. The buyer did not know Campanaro failed to inform the buyer of the legal claim as requested.

So, what do you suppose they buyer claimed in their UDRP complaint?

Show attachment 237857


And THAT is what GoDaddy Brokerage will do to you.

Thanks for taking the time to put this together.

I think the broker acted unprofessionally, to say the least.

Many things were said that were misleading or simply untrue.

The fact that the broker's false statement was used in the UDRP filing is really icing on the cake.

Brad

 

[jberryhill]

This is a good example of why George Kirikos has pushed his #principalsonly standard.

I know of one other prominent domainer with that policy, and I agree it is a good one. There are a lot of "brokers" attempting to front run deals. In the last two months, I have had two clients waste a lot of time in negotiations and drafting agreements on $xxx,xxx deals, which evaporated when it came time to close.

How did the contact with the "Buyer" initially come about? Through a domain lander, or through GoDaddy's paid broker service?

Because Campanaro keeps referring to the buyer as his "client", I believe it is the paid broker service. The domain registrant is a web developer / marketer who has some domain names he kept around from projects from years ago, and he will use them for demos, etc.. The domain registrant is not a domainer. However, he is a GoDaddy customer. So, if you are a GoDaddy customer and GoDaddy approaches you - given their unique position - then you might reasonably misunderstand who is working for whom.

 

[bmugford]

This is the problem with having a third party represent your domain, and you knowing nothing about those communications.

On one hand, it is really information the owner needs to know.

On the other hand, this tactic could be used by a broker in a nefarious manner (even if there was not an actual claim) to try and compel an owner to sell the domain, under duress.

There should certainly be some type of policy that covers this situation. I think it is inappropriate to just carry on negotiations, as if the TM threat never happened.

Brad

 

[Keith]

This thread is just another reason why it’s time to leave Godaddy!

https://www.namepros.com/threads/best-registrar-to-move-500-domains-to.1300575/page-5#post-8922348

 

[tonyk2000]

Originally, Uni simply showed all the communications to sellers, including emails from buyers and responses from brokers. It allowed the sellers to indirectly participate (if they so wished) - by sending appropriate messages to brokers. This is how the things _should_ work. I personally had some sales this way, and I'm sure my participation helped. At some point of time, Uni stopped allowing this (all leads were set to "private"). It appears that GoDaddy is following this scheme.

So, if the domain is set to makeoffer - it makes even more sense to use own landers and handle all communications with the buyer directly. This would not eliminate GD brokerage completely - they may still receive inquries via other channels such as auctions.godaddy etc. And, of course, it is not too clear what to do if the seller wants to outsource all the routine brokerage tasks.

 

[jberryhill]

I think the broker acted unprofessionally, to say the least.

Another thing worth considering here is that GoDaddy is the registrar for the domain name. When the buyer started claiming it was an abusive registration, then it should have been converted to an abuse complaint. At least in THAT situation, GoDaddy would have told the registrant that they'd received one.

 

[J.R.]

Thanks but I've moved on from the incident and I respect @jberryhill enough to not hijack his thread. I debated sharing at all and only chimed in to highlight the fact that this incident did not occur in isolation. Every domainer can decide what they want to do. There are pros and cons to doing business with the 800 pound gorrilla so each their own.

For the record, this shouldn't be a bash Godaddy party because they are a valuable global resource to our community.... more of a strong and passionate plea to "Do Better". I hope corporate is on top of this.

Fair enough.

It would be helpful if James Illes and Joe Styler chimed in, as they are the Liaisons between the Domain community and GD Corporate.

There has been enough evidence presented in this thread to indicate a need for an in-house investigation into the behavior of brokers at GD brokerage.

Is this deceptive, negligent behavior actions of a few rogue brokers, or has an unethical culture become the norm at GD Brokerage?

This is something James Isles and Styler can help determine.

 

[J.R.]

This is a good example of why George Kirikos has pushed his #principalsonly standard.
Here you have a greedy and unethical broker at the largest registrar and auction platform lying to a seller.

This unethical action on the part of the broker has already cost the seller at least $5K in legal fees.

What happens if the UDRP turns into a court action?

Brokers should be held liable for withholding information from sellers. In tangible real estate, brokers are regulated by certain fraud laws; no reason domain brokers should be exempt.

Who knows how deep the chicanery goes with these unregulated dn brokers?

A big trend in the future will be self-controlled sales landers for portfolio management.

 

[bmugford]

Businesses: Do Not Abuse the UDRP as Your “Plan B” for Acquiring a Domain Name – With John Berryhill
​

If you think you can file a UDRP case to get control of a domain name after failing to negotiate the acquisition, think again.

The Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP) was put in place to streamline the process to resolve disputes between trademark holders and domain name registrants where the registration was clearly abusive, predatory and ill motivated.

Unless you can prove the three UDRP criteria, you may be labeled a Reverse Domain Name Hijacker by an international legal panel, face public documentation of the finding, and be exposed to potential legal action.

https://www.domainsherpa.com/john-berryhill-udrp-interview/

 

[CDM]

Also, LOL at being the size company to have a "C-Suite team" and evidently a counsel on retainer and balking at paying an extra $1k for a domain they initiated the inquiry on, only to then initiate and subsequently lose an open shut UDRP for not exercising their tm right prior to making a purchase offer demonstrating bad faith.

Reverse domain name hijacking (“RDNH”) is defined as bad faith use of ICANN’s Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution (“UDRP”) policies and procedures with an intent to coerce a domain name owner to transfer the domain name.

Think they will be able to come back to the table after this debacle and still buy the domain for the $6k asking price? If that were my domain, I know the answer ... No Soup For You Today!!

 

[SpareDomains]

A couple months ago I decided to transfer all of my domains away from GoDaddy to Dynadot and dust off my Efty account for another year. About a week ago I publicly stated that I prefer Sedo over Afternic as a company.

Threads like this confirm my 2023 Dynadot, Efty, Sedo direction wasn't a bad direction to go as this is beyond shady. At least with Sedo a buyer can make their offer/comment right in the control panel for the seller to see which trumps a buyer calling Afternic for a price and hoping ya get a broker with morals over a broker only out for their bottom line with no regards for the domain owner.

GoDaddy is the Gorilla as far as registration numbers go but collectively domainers can have insane power. Domainer A 500 domains out to Dynadot, Domainer B 20K domains out to Dynadot etc... Tired of the Gorilla? Make a move to whatever registrar you prefer.

1 Domainer making moves maybe not so noticeable. Group of domainers with large portfolios saying we've had enough and the Gorilla will start to lose weight.

 

[bmugford]

Hope John will win this one. As far as I remember, there were UDRP cases where the Compainant(s) made offers (above so-called "out of pocket" costs) before starting UDRP, and this fact was successfully used against Complainant(s), as they did not sincerely beleive that their mark was infridged or something...

This seems like the classic "Plan B" filing.

They make no initial mention of a TM. Only after the other party does not agree to a price, then do they bring up the TM threat.

The funny thing is even the potential buyer admitted their offer "was well in excess of any out of pocket costs".

It is apparently only a TM issue over $5K, some arbitrary number they have decided on.

That doesn't make much sense.

Brad

 

[wwwweb]

I think domain owners have a right to know where their lead is coming from, and a right to their domain lead data, whether they choose to abuse that is where the platform put's X's on them, but domain holders are giving away some of their most valuable data points.

 

[WingShot]

Wow. This could be happening right now to anyone with a domain listed on Afternic or Dan, even if the domain doesn't resolve there. If your names are listed on their platforms, and a seller contacts Afternic/Dan brokers, they could be fabricating stories about talking to you, quoting you as having said things, and creating legal evidence to be used against you later. Meanwhile, you know nothing about any of it.

 

[bmugford]

Look at the message in the OP. On March 28, the "buyer" said that if the offer of $4000 was not accepted, they would "initiate the legal process to obtain our trademarked domain name".


GoDaddy's Campanaro then turns around and says this to the GoDaddy customer:

------------------

Show attachment 237826

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So, Campanaro has a buyer who is saying that if the price is not $4000, then they will take legal action.

He then tells GoDaddy's customer that if the price is not $4000, then the buyer will look at alternative domain names.

Good point. Even if they did not disclose the TM threat, they certainly misrepresented what the client actually said. Nothing was ever said about alternative domains.

Brad