As I noted I had a heck of day yesterday. One thing after another. Here is part two of the bad day. I sold a name this week. Happy with the price, excited about the sale. Then, I get an email asking if I really am the owner. I’m not one to use privacy so just the heading alone got me worried. Sure enough I’m not on the whois. I asked the old question. “Did I buy it with little time until expiration and forgot to renew?”. “Did I forget to hit accept?”. It was much simpler than that. I had purchased the name through Godaddy Buy it Now Premium auction and they took my money. I got an email saying that they had received the money and all was well. I wrongly took it as the name was in my account. I assumed that since it was Godaddy to Godaddy it would automatically be pushed from account to account. They never got the domain. They paid the guy my money but never got the domain. That was in May. Yes it’s been a long time but I don’t go over every domain I buy and unless it’s one of my high end domains, it’s easy to lose one in the shuffle. My fault yes, but here is why I am pissed.
One, I should have made sure it was in my account. I buy and sell so many domains I glance too quickly. Rely on emails too much. I need to check to make sure they are in my account each time and the contact and info is correct. I always do this with domains over $1000 but below I am not as careful. Two, the VIP service girl lets me know that Godaddy is not an escrow. It is my responsibility to make sure it’s been transferred. They paid the guy because I didn’t tell them otherwise. This is complete bullshit. They charge 30% of a sale that should go to staffing to at least make sure that domains have transferred before they pay out.
We all know how long it takes Godaddy to pay us for premium sales. Almost 90 days sometimes. “You’re telling me that they can’t pay someone to make sure that a name is transferred correctly”, I asked? Shehe told me that NOW, not THEN, they AUTOMATICALLY tranfer after 5 days. Asked why now, she said it’s because they were having some troubles when they did it the previous way. So they are looking into it. Trying to contact the guy that took my money. It’s one thing for a guys with a crazy work schedule to get unorganized but for a billion dollar company to not double check their work is unacceptable in my opinion. They won’t give me back my money because they are out money. My mistake for assuming that they would take care of things. And they are right. I am unorganized and it bit me in the ass. My fault for not making sure Godaddy does their job. I am having lunch with Paul Nicks at DomainFest at the lunch with an expert. I signed up because I thought he had built a very successful program and looked forward to personally talking to him. That was before this. Our conversation may be a little different now.
PS. I gave them 24 hours to call me personally about it. My VIP wasn’t “signed in to the phones yet” (ie at work but not ready to work) when I called originally and I told him to call me back. He never did.
Follow up: Wow. Amazing home much impact a post can have. My Godaddy rep immediately contacted and cleared a few things up. First. I didn’t purchase a “premium auction” auction. Despite the fact I came in through the main page and did a “Buy It Now”, it was just a regular auction purchase. Regular auction purchases are just a platform that evidently Godaddy runs but runs like ebay. You’re on your own. You just have to let them know if it doesn’t go well. But that was the past. Now the Godaddy to Godaddy transactions are automatic and the domain with transfer on its own. I also will either get me the domain or give me my money back. I want the domain but I appreciate the fact they will refund my money. It’s appreciated because it was my fault and I feel happy they have revamped the system so things like this won’t happen again. I do wonder what would have happened if I didn’t write this post but the long and the short of it is, they are on top of it and doing the best they can at this point. That’s the best I can ask for given the time period.
That sucks Shane. Here’s what we do, consolidate names to one registrar and keep a spreadsheet of every name you own sorted by expiration date. Each time you do a transaction put it in the .xlsx since you’ll most likely need it for tax time anyway. Also add a column for date acquired and date disposed. Your accountant will love you and you won’t mis-place names. Organization is the toughest part of this business especially when names from auctions end up all over the place. I did get an email recently from Buy Domains regarding a name that was going to expire. We forgot to transfer the name out to our master account and auto-renew was not enabled. Kudos to them, shame on us! It served as a wake-up call though and we’ve been on our toes since.
Happy New Year
I’ll be setting up that exact system this weekend
Thanks WeBuyThe
GoDaddy blows. TDNAM takes our money and sits on the domains another 7 days, in the meantime the owner might renew. On auctions their notifications lag, sometimes as much as 2 hours. There is no realtime refresh like NameJet. Lost a great deal today because of this.
That’s BS. They charge that ridiculous 30% fee for premium sales, so like you said, some of that should go into checks and balances. Plus, if they transfer your money then they are escrow in a way. You originally bought the domain through their marketplace so they should be responsible for it. The thing I don’t understand is how they never got the domain. The guy must have taken the money and did a transfer out for Godaddy to be powerless.
Scott,
That’s what makes it even more frustrating. It’s still at Godaddy.
I had a issue with godaddy about 6months ago myself also. I called them 4 days in a row & spoke with 4 different people. All took notes & said they will call me back or have someone call me back. It went on for 6 or 7 days & they couldn’t give me any answers. I than emailed the Domain King himself & said I wanted to go public with a story. He said not to worry & contacted someone. Within 20 min I got a phone call from the head of godaddy accounts. Issue I had was solved within minutes, he gave me his personal email & phone # & told me to contact him directly with any issues. Problem I had ended up being something I didn’t understand & not being a issue after all, but their customer service really sucked & it shouldn’t have been a issue from day one.
That does suck Shane and shouldn’t happen!
P.S. I let Paul know about this as well.
Was the domain still with them? I mean they guy didnt transfer it out of GoDaddy. If not, then I wouldn’t have been that worried as they could take it out of his account or at least put it on lock down while they investigate. After every purchase, you gotta add it to the inventory and then change the DNS. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve done what you did (forget) and I’m only saved from the expiration by the automated e-mail. When I get one of those every once in awhile, it’s like Whoa! Did I buy that? I’m glad they are looking into it. So your normal VIP rep wasn’t available?
Spike,
I dont think I had a rep then. It’s not his fault even I did. Godaddy really messed this up but they’re doing their best to make it right
I have my names on an excel spreadsheet, but between that and checking in on names, setting up pages and doing a ton of other things during the day I can see how people lose track.
I’ve told GoDaddy they need to follow the path of various stock brokerage firms where they have systems in place similar to Quicken for Cap Gains etc.
They’ve got the Programmers. Just need a person with vision to execute on basic simple efficiency projects for domainers.
I never have that problem because I park all of my domains with Sedo mainly for traffic
stats and that forces me to go into my portfolio to change name servers.
Does Domain Shane have a FaceBook Page
Get the party started over there.
Shane I had an incident this week and it sounds like I’m just finding out what everybody else already knows. I sold a name on the premium listings and when I called to find out when I would get my money, they said it would be 45 days after the last day of the month. That puts it over 60 days from the time it sells until the time I get paid. That’s complete bullshit!
They transferred the name immediately upon payment and they get 2 months free interest off of MY money and there is apparently nothing I can do about it. Then you add the 30% commission on top of that and they are really racking up. Multiply that by the number of names they sell on premium listings every month.
They have given me four different answers why they wait so long to pay. One guy told me it was a way to protect customers from fraud. They explained it by saying that if someone bought the name with a stolen credit card that the real card holder might possibly not notice it for 45 days or so. How friggin’ nice of them to protect the card holder when they are already protected by the credit card company in the first place. GoDaddy sure is nice to watch over them that way while screwing us out of our money. I should be bowing down and kissing their asses for keeping and earning interest on my money. They should be paying us the interest they are making or discounting their commission to make up for the hassle. They don’t waste any time ripping the domain out of your account when it’s paid for but they make a thousand excuses why they can’t pay in a timely fashion. Just another example of how they figure out ways to screw you out of more money.
Sorry for the rant but at least I don’t feel better about it.
I’m sorry to hear that you had to go through this. It’s ridiculous that they don’t do anything to follow-up or ensure that the domains are transferred. I guess they’ve had enough complaints to change this. I’ve had a few instances where I’ve had to cross my fingers (and send reminder emails to the registrant) that the names I’d bought would be transferred.
It sounds like you’ve had a hellish two days. I hope your weekend is better!
Godaddy auctions are a total joke. When you win it’s entirely up to you to pay godaddy THEN email the owner and request them to transfer it!!
Godaddy doesn’t actually do anything
Shane is VIP and that the way GD served him and we, all very normal clients of GD ,if we have same matter, we will lose all …What the hell of all high salary staffs of GD do everyday ?
They have changed their system now, the old system sucked, but the new system is awesome automatic transfer, and payout in 5 days, not sure why premium payments still take so long, and charge 30%? Unless the masses complain why not keep charging 30%…
Didn’t know that Godaddy can be so kind-hearted and refund your money even thought it was your fault and not their systems or employees neglect.
But it still proves that we need to double check everything we do
If this situation had happened with almost any registrar, eNom being one of the worst big ones, you’d have never got your money back, IMO.
GoDaddy has some real problems still, but they are honest at least and do try to do the right thing. Sometimes you just have to speak to the right person.
Good,
I agree but check out part two of the story I just posted.