Afternic

Now that April Fool’s Day has passed, I will skip to the end – this was an April Fool’s Day joke.

Following its payout policy change involving LTO deals at Dan.com and Afternic, GoDaddy is making another change to LTO payments.

First, some background. From inception at Dan.com, if a lease to own deal was started on the 2nd of the month, subsequent payouts would be made to sellers on the 2nd or 3rd of each month during the lease term. Once the money from the buyer was received, it was sent to the seller like clockwork. Following the payout change, payment plan distributions were moved to the 7th, 14th, 21st, or 28th of each month. If a payment plan was started on the 2nd of the month, subsequent payments would be sent days later on the 7th. If made on the 7th, payment would be sent on the 14th.

I keep my portfolio of domain names at GoDaddy, and I have DTVS security enabled on my account. Domain Sherpa wrote about DTVS, but in short, when I push a domain name to another GoDaddy account or someone starts a transfer of my domain name to another domain registrar, I have to approve the change via phone call.

With Afternic’s Fast Transfer service enabled, GoDaddy’s DTVS is overridden. When someone buys a Fast Transfer-authorized domain name through the Afternic network, the domain name is automatically pushed or transferred without the DTVS phone call since the Fast Transfer was previously authorized by the seller.

In light of the ongoing issue with the Fast Transfer authorization emails, I think GoDaddy should allow customers with DTVS to have that override Fast Transfer approval.

I wrote about the fraudulent domain name sales listing attempts at Afternic that have triggered Fast Transfer authorization emails to be sent to GoDaddy customers over the past few days. This isn’t a new issue, but it seems to be more widespread now than it was previously.

I reached out to GoDaddy seeking comment about this, and a company representative responded to me today with a comment:

Last Summer, I wrote an article urging caution to domain investors who might be tempted to blindly approve “Authorize your domain listings” emails from Afternic. If someone fraudulently lists your domain name for sale on Afternic and you click the approval link, it could get listed in someone else’s account without your approval. This could cause major problems down the road.

Andrew Allemann mentioned that he received a fast transfer opt-in email for a domain name he wasn’t selling. I also received an email for MLR.com that I reported to Afternic immediately. Their system had it removed by the time an account manager had a look.

Other domain investors mentioned receiving multiple approval emails:

This is getting out of hand. I've gotten dozens of these over the last 24 hours and have had some previously. I have zero names at afternic now. Too risky if I do not know who is instigating a listing. @GoDaddy Needs to be a better way other than letting anyone list any name

— adamstrong 🌲 (@adamstrong) January 23, 2024

I received 9 emails from @afternic in the last 12 hours to "authorize your domain listings".

I did not list anything, so I have no idea what is going on with that.

All of them were for LLLL, many of which I have owned for well over a decade. https://t.co/KjJxjZozHU

— DataCube (@datacubecom) January 23, 2024

I believe a third party – or multiple third parties – is creating faulty listings on Afternic en masse. I don’t know what the objective is, but I know the potential damage this could cause if an investor accidentally approves a listing they did not authorize.

If you receive one or more of these emails, be wary. They come from Afternic, but if the emails weren’t sent because you added domain names to your account, someone else might have added them for sale in their account. By clicking the email, you are authorizing a fast transfer.

I believe I was told one work around is to add domain names to your account that you own but aren’t selling and put them as “Not Listed” for sale. People should not have to do a workaround to prevent fraudulent listings, but it was something I was told a while back.