In July of 2022, I was told about a GoDaddy change that was made with the hope of successfully delivering more GoDaddy Auction wins to customers. I believe the policy change is that if a GoDaddy registered domain name isn’t renewed 3 days before an expiry auction, it is no longer allowed to be renewed. I don’t bid on enough domain names to comment accurately, but by and large, it seems like I receive fewer refunds for GoDaddy Auctions wins.
When I buy a domain name, I list it on an Excel spreadsheet. If the domain name is not delivered instantly, I put a yellow highlight on the cell so I can keep track of it. Today, I scrolled up and saw a domain name I won at auction on October 27th was not delivered to my GoDaddy account. I paid for the domain name on October 30th. Two weeks is a long time for provisioning.
A quick Whois check showed the domain name is registered at GoDaddy. A historic search at DomainTools shows it has been registered at GoDaddy for several years. I reached out to my account manager to ask when the domain name would be pushed to me, and he gave me the bad news.
Apparently, the domain name was renewed by the previous registrant and the auction should have been canceled. I don’t know when it was renewed, and I don’t know why GoDaddy’s systems still let it get to auction despite being renewed. I think they would refer to this as an edge case, and experience tells me that I will never know what actually happened behind the scenes.
It’s been more than two weeks since I paid and there wasn’t a peep from GoDaddy about the domain name. Had I not reached out to inquire about the domain name, I have no idea if GoDaddy would have ever given me a refund. This was a very small purchase, but the fact that the onus is on me to find out why I didn’t get the domain name or a refund automatically is unacceptable to me.
Yes, I’d much rather be in this position than dealing with litigation due to a domain name clawback, but I think it is unacceptable that GoDaddy didn’t automatically refund me. If this happened to me, I am sure it has happened to others, so you should make sure to follow-up on undelivered auction wins.
Not surprised
What is happening to you and me with $100 since August 2023, I have had to keep quiet because they want to have it based on a bank account deposit when they do not have this, only a credit card.
If GD is so damn bad, so why do people still want to do business with GD??
vote with your money!!!
Also don’t automatically refund for transfers in that error’ed out or whatever, must be millions owing there
GD. The King of UBP. I there’s a way to take your money, they’ll find it.