GoDaddy Complaints
by Sapphire (June 19, 2007)
I no longer have any domains registered with GoDaddy, but after Breana left a comment to an old post, detailing her woes with their hosting and domain selling, I decided to do a link roundup of all the posts in which I complained about GoDaddy, and so did several commenters. They’re still very popular, especially with people who are new to this stuff, and I believe in spreading the word, good or bad, about companies.
- But who will protect my domain from GoDaddy? Details my original scuffle with them, in which I had updated my email address with them, but not separately with their parent company (had no idea this was required; would have done it had I known), and to change the expired email I had to fax (unsecured!) my driver’s license to them, which I was not willing to do. I mean, that license has everything an identity theft needs, and I don’t know for sure who’s going to see it. For this I was forced to renew with them.
- GoDaddy sucks more than I thought: What happened after the renewal period was up? Oh, they found another excuse to hold onto the domain. Read Breana’s story there, too.
- GoDaddy refund: After reading the above posts, they decided to send me a refund. But how many others have they done this to?
If you’re wondering who I buy domains with: NameCheap! Can’t say I’ve ever had a problem with them (except for some weirdness in the control panel one time, but that got resolved and never happened again), and now they’re the only one I use. No, they’re not paying me to say that - don’t even have an affiliate program that I know of. I recommend NameCheap to everyone who asks me, particularly newbies.
Posted in The BS Files
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June 20th, 2007 at 1:52 am
I found a new affiliate site being launched soon but can’t work out who is promoting it. It seems like a group of top affiliates, but I can’t tell.
Does anyone know anything about this? Who they are?
(link removed by admin)
Looks like it’d definitely be worth looking into though, when it launches… what you think?
June 20th, 2007 at 6:35 am
Well, gee whiz, Andrew, when you link your name to the site that you also link to in the comment, I’m going to guess YOU’RE promoting it, which is in violation of my commenting rules.
I helped you out by removing both links and leaving this here as an example for others.
June 20th, 2007 at 10:32 am
Sapphire, I’ve got a couple of emails from GoDaddy about domains I have with them - problem is I’ve never used them. They’ve taken over some of my domains from Registerfly (I think it’s due to the ICann debacle). So now I’m stuck with them for now. Damn it. I never liked them - and now I’m going to have to try to get a transfer from them for those domains to NameCheap (like you, I really like NameCheap - no hassle, and they’ve had good customer support when I’ve needed them).
I’m frazzled.
June 21st, 2007 at 3:56 pm
The trick is to transfer it…. um, 30 or 60 days before it expires, I think? Otherwise, they try to hold onto it, saying you’re too close to the deadline and they can’t guarantee it’ll transfer (yeah, right). If you do that, stay on top of them and make sure they don’t drop the ball - keep checking the status in the control panel and all that - then it should go okay.
Good luck!
June 23rd, 2007 at 3:40 am
hi guys, thought i would also recommend http://www.cheap-domainregistrar.com . it’s not a mesa domain name host (and it’s usually these smaller host i find better), but service is great!
June 25th, 2007 at 11:37 am
Have you been using them long, Kay?
December 17th, 2007 at 8:51 am
I have been round and round with GoDaddy’s services for so long that I am sick and tired of faxing, writing (even certified letters) and e-mailing them. I changed my credit card and am just letting their continuing charges go by.
From all these interchanges with GoDaddy, even Bob Parsons, who I should have seen is quite the blowhard, I can only assume that GoDaddy is a criminal enterprise.
I like others I have chatted with would like to be involved with any class action suits and/or consumer complaints that may be brought against them now or in the future. So please feel free to contact me at: MServa@juno.com if I can help participate in any actions against or just warn people to stay away. I too am using NameCheap satisfactorily and am not commissioned be them. There was a time I might have said the same thing about GoDaddy so I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
Best wishes, Mark
February 24th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
I have also been taken by godaddy. When it came time to renew with them they are suppose to send me an email reminder to renew and they didn’t. I called and it was going to cost me over $99 to keep it which I told them I didn’t get an email from them and they stated they sent it but I know they didn’t. Well I talked to a guy named Todd and he stated in order to get around this I could wait 40-45 days for it to be released and he would let me know by email and by calling me on the phine which did not happen. I called on the 2nd of Feb, 2008 and it was still not released and was told to call back at the end of the month so I did and to come and find out they sold it out from under me. And this name is registered with the state of TN and I have all the papers to prove this. I have had this name for years and now it is gone and up for sale for $200 or more and when I contacted godaddy and told them what I was going to do with the company that had this up for sale they just laughed at me but did not know the company was on the line also recording the call. They think this is funny and I don’t. They have abused there power and I think that companies like this ought to be put out of business for things like this. They have lied to me and lied to me until I will never use them and recommend them to anyone again. Also the people that I have sent to them is leaving them because they also believe what they have done to me is wrong. It will come back to them one way or another. Thanks for letting me post my comments on godaddy
July 12th, 2008 at 6:43 am
Godaddy has been ripping me off to long I am moving. If you send them a support ticket you get a form response that usually is not in the ball park. They have no minds of there own and have hidden two of my domains from me saying they do not have them from the register fly mess up were you registered domains with them got scattered all over mine went to ENOM and most went to Godaddy which according to the WWW consortium they were all supposed to go to ENOM but the criminal enterprise of Godaddy rigged something to steal them from me and many others. I only kept my domains there as a rule was in place that I could not move them for a time, well that time is up????
Some one needs to take these pieces of trash to the proper receptacles and deposit them without recycling possibilities.
Don
July 24th, 2008 at 12:25 am
I am writing this letter in reference to a situation that has disrupted my professional life and has given me much personal stress. I feel it is my civil duty to warn everyone just how easy it was for someone to take control of my GoDaddy.com account and how painstaking hard it has been for me to regain rightful access to this account.
Everyone knows about identity theft and cyber fraud. It would surprise me to meet anyone who has not read news stories about hackers infiltrating security networks and gaining personal information that can destroy someone’s credit history or even their reputation. I have always been wary of identity theft and trusted the companies I have conducted business with to be just as careful and secure with their investments. This was until my trust with GoDaddy.com was destroyed on a Friday when I received notification on my Blackberry that my account status had changed over to a former business partner. I immediately called GoDaddy.com and discussed the account situation with Steve in customer service and Ryan in technical service and they rectified the situation by giving me control over the account again. I logged in and realized that my former business partner deleted the majority of my businesses. Luckily, I had everything backed up on my hard drive and was able to change everything back to normal within a few minutes. After I was done with this process, I logged out.
Unbeknownst to me and the customer service technician who initially gave me back control of my account, my former business partner was still logged in when I fixed everything he messed up. He waited for me to log off before destroying everything I fixed, including changing my user information to ensure that I could not log back on. The next day, I attempted to log on and, to my dismay, I realized that my profile had been hijacked yet again. I immediately called GoDaddy.com and explained the entire situation to the customer service department, hoping that they could easily resolve the situation just as they had the previous evening, but instead, they treated me with suspicion. They asked for various forms of identification to prove that I was the true owner of the account, which I completely understand and had no problem giving them. However, it became obvious that the specific information I gave them would not be enough to regain access to my account. In fact, they are now requiring me to fax copies of my driver’s license and social security card to a random fax number. I am utterly frustrated because I gave them information that no one else on the account can give, yet it is still not enough to regain access to my businesses. The information they want is starting to get very personal and I am beginning to feel uncomfortable handing personal information over to a company whose security is obviously very lax. I would like to know how my former business partner obtained my information and has access to my account when it is so difficult for me to prove my identity to GoDaddy.com’s customer service department.
As of right now, I still have yet to gain access to my account. My business websites are no longer operating and I do not have domain access of my email accounts. I feel as if I was pick pocketed on the street and neither the police nor do my credit card companies believe that my wallet was stolen. I feel helpless and I do not want any one else to ever feel this way. You never truly know how good your business relationships are until you have a problem.
GoDaddy.com is not giving me certain guarantees about regaining full access to my account. I really feel that the situation could have been resolved quickly if I had had the full attention and support of GoDaddy.com from the beginning.
July 24th, 2008 at 7:59 am
In most cases, I’d be tempted to say there’s a limit to what companies can be expected to do when you’ve got a clever identity thief targeting you - and that’s true, so far as it goes.
But I find this very curious because I, too, was asked to fax my DL and other sensitive ID docs to them, and I didn’t have an identity theft issue - I just didn’t have a log in for a second site buried in their layers of corporate structure that I’d never interacted with and therefore shouldn’t have been expected to have a login for.
They’re very disorganized, and it seems that their concern for security only kicks in when it’s not necessary.
July 26th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
You can say that again. It is so difficult and upsetting on the added hardship Godaddy adds to situation. It is borderlining criminal. They seem to take the one who has access side and stay firm unless you prove & they accept it. Otherwise it is a living nightmare.
CHAIM
August 23rd, 2008 at 3:15 am
Funny thing happened tonight. I am wondering if anyone else has had this problem? I bought into the super reseller program that godaddy offers. Well I was searching for .me domains for a couple hours on my site but I found a cheaper site to buy them on. I made a print out of the available sites I wanted and in 30 minutes they were gone. Not available anymore. I looked up the whois on them and they all said the were sold on the same date July 17th to 3 different people. Over a month ago and just updated minutes before I was going to buy them? I am wondering if godaddy is monitering what domains are being looked up and buying them before you can? I called and they said the system sometimes takes a while to update. A month I asked? And all of the domains registered on the same day that were just avaiable moments before???? Has anyone else had this happen to them??
August 23rd, 2008 at 8:20 am
Jen Lee, I have heard someone claim that happened to them before! It was years ago, on a forum somewhere. I can’t remember details, but I think of it every time I go into my NameCheap control panel and search for domain names available for my topic. For a while, I wouldn’t even use the NC CP - I’d go to the Wayback machine or something.
So I for one don’t doubt there’s something going on there. Sorry you didn’t get your domain names. In future, if you keep using GoDaddy, the Wayback machine might be a better way to hunt up names privately. I’ve never had that happen with NameCheap.
April 17th, 2009 at 7:03 am
Godaddy has held my website hostage for over a month because I don’t have some login that they apparently made up and didn,t tell me about. I went as far as sending a copy of my license by overnight mail after they could not see my fax copy. One week later, no response.
April 21st, 2009 at 4:35 pm
I have a domain name for e-mail purposes only, which I bought quite a few years ago. I used the email account for a small business I had at the time as well as my personal affairs. It contained irreplaceable records which I never dreamed would be in jeopardy. I was quite surprised when my password didn’t work–several times. I went to the GD site to check the email account and try to get in through a back door which apparently no longer exists. Thinking the simplest thing would be to reaffirm my password, I entered it on the appropriate page and checked OK.
A few minutes later I logged onto that email account and got in. I’ was absolutely horrified to discover that it was absolutely, completely empty. Nearly 600 MB of notes, information and correspondence from the last 10+ years in the now-nonexistent special folders. There were irreplaceable records which I would have downloaded for backup long ago if I could have. I emailed for assistance and was told it would only be possible to reinstate those emails from the last 30 days.
I would transfer my domain in a second were it not that the remainder of my 2 GB of storage stretch over another 7 email addresses. GD started out being a user-friendly site even for novices. There have been a couple of email changes, the last being Starfield, and there have been numerous website changes in account handling. Every change complicated it more and more.
I didn’t lose my business; luckily that was conducted independent as brick-and-mortar. However, I can in some measure feel the pain of previous posters who lost their entire business due to the actions of what I thought was a good company. Instead I feel violated, as if I’d come home and entered a house that was as empty as the day before I moved in.
Thanks so much for letting me vent. I’m trying to figure out my options from this point in saving what I have left there before moving elsewhere. The thought of attempting to recreate my address book is daunting, even if I could do it
Any suggestions?
May 11th, 2009 at 10:18 pm
For more info try http://www.nodaddy.com
June 21st, 2009 at 9:42 pm
@ Jen Lee, I had that happen to me with 4 names now. Looked them up with Godaddy, they were available and as a newbie thought I will wait a few days for my next paycheck and then grab them. About a week later they were all taken and some were being offered to me for sale or as PREMIUM site for $899 just today.
Also the complete buying process with them feels like being at a used car dealership where you get pressured in to buying more in the most confusing way. I want to move my sites to a reliable service that doesn’t steal my ideas and shows me clearly what I get and need. thinking of 1&1 just because their site looks clean and I have read good things. Will check out namecheap also. Now I hope it is not a hassle to move but it sounds like they will make it as hard as they can…
Thank you all for your insight.