Godaddy STOLE my money

The title is dramatic but it is no lie.

I have 100+ domain names on Godaddy. And they typically set all your domain names to auto-renew by default. So, whenever I think I would rather not renew a domain name and dump it, I would go and set it to manually renew instead.

This time, 6 domains of mine were due. I set off the auto-renew on 4 of them that I didn't want anymore, and the other two I renewed myself.

However!

I got an email later in the day, "confirming"(!) my order for the other 4. And they charged my credit card which I deliberately NEVER set to keep on Godaddy's files.
See, they ask for your request for this on every purchase but obviously they don't care if you consent to it or not.

So, I called their support and wanted them to fix this. And there was this cool sounding guy who told me "o.k. it is all taken care of my friend, anything else I can do for ya".

The chargeback didn't show on my bank and because I didn't get a written notice about this "fix" I wrote and requested a written confirmation that I would get my refund.

They told me -automatically- that my refund request was being invested and I would be informed.

And today, my refund request was DECLINED.

I emailed them all the emails I got from their side that showed that I set the domains not to auto-renew. It is just plain obvious that unless this is a glitch on their system, it is a way they attempt to increase their revenues.

I searched on complaints sites and it seems this isn't the first time they do this (renewing unwanted domains and keeping your credit card against your consent) so I think it is the latter.

I hear there is a helpful Godaddy person on this forum but couldn't find him.
I think I am going to have to move my business away after giving them thousands of dollars in the last 5+ years.

Apart from publicizing this on forums, business networks and blogs I am active on, what other steps I can take to get my hard-earned money back from these crooks, does anyone know?

I am outside US, so I guess I can't sue them on small claims court or anything. What else?

Any ideas on registrars that do discount bulk transfers?

ps: Other Godaddy victims, please send me a PM so I can ask for your contribution when I set up a website on this soon.

 

Sorry to hear about this.
That is why I switched out from godaddy earlier.
Hope you will not encounter this in the future.

 

It happened with me (in fact my reseller site) and I immediately emailed them and then canceled the transaction and refunded the money.

 

Hi ... yikes! My experience, with godaddy.com, is "right away refunds" take 2-5 days. I always get an e-mail indicating no refund allowed. Two or three days later, the payment to godaddy.com is off my credit card. This has happened, to me, at least four times. Hope the same goes for you.

 

Can you do a charge back with your credit card company?

If you can show the card company the emails stating you did not authorize the transaction you would assume they can cancel the charge and chase go daddy for un authorized charges?

 

This is really pathetic, i have heard Yahoo does the same thing, and people started just getting out of yahoo.
Now if godaddy doing the same things, than its a pathetic thing.

 

Thanks. I really never had a problem with them before but the way they are handling this issue is very poor. I could've stayed perhaps but the thing with their keeping your credit card info and charging you witht that doesn't give me good signs about their intention.

I look forward to not encountering big fake boobs all over the screen too while trying to get to my domains.

I immediately called them and the issue was supposedly solved there. I don't understand how they are handling issues as I wasn't given any info regarding why my refund request was denied.

I will kindly request you to submit a little bit more detail when I setup my Godaddy victims site. I will be PM'ing you.

 

Interesting. Well, I hope it will go the same way with me.
But, even though I am a sucker for their Auction site, I will eventually need to move my portfolio elsewhere.

I hadn't thought of this route but honestly I really am not hopeful that this would work. I don't have much faith in my bank to resolve this international issue to my liking. I guess it would be easier if I were a US resident.

Uh-oh. I have a few domains over there as well.

Where does a man go?

 

Let me tell you my story .

i had an email through which i registered for godaddy around 2 years back . the email id got hacked and i lost everything. i did not even remember the username of godaddy account at that time .My paypal was attached to the domain names which i owned and it was set to auto renewal mode . then suddenly one day i saw a transaction of 25$ or something from my paypal to godaddy .i was scared ,thought that someone has used my accoun to buy his godaddys stuff .i went to their live support,emaled them and found out that all my old domains which were set to auto renewal mode were renewed automatically by godaddy .

In my case it worked for me .i got all my domains back .they even changed the primary emal id which was linked to my domain names and was stolen .

 

sorry to hear that..

 

Sorry to hear that. What was their reason for that?
I read suspension stories due to concern for possible credit-card fraud. There are some threads on the forums if that was the case with you.

My problem here is different. This is about them
-not accepting responsibility with their billing problem OR illwill to charge more out of the user
-collecting personal financial info against the user's consent.

Now, I could let this go saying "it is only $40", but this company is HUGE. I am sure there are many people not realizing or perhaps silently accepting such "minor offences".

AND they are pouring all this money to get fake-boobed girls to endorce their services at my face. I was sick of seeing boobs instead of my domain panel for so long already, I hope something will good come out of this.

 

You know, I am thinking that if I had set auto-renew to work with Paypal (remember: I had them off with no credit card on file either), they may have been more cooperative with me too. I would think that I would have a good chance of disputing them at Paypal, showing my email history as proof. Plus, they probably would like to keep the # of Paypal disputes at minimum to keep them as an alternative payment gateway.

At this time, I am hoping an outcome like drgeorgep has been getting several times. I won't shut up until then though. No, it isn't me.

 

Yes, you can do a chargeback on your credit card. You cannot be charged for items not received or items that were not as required by any contract stating the specific reason for the charges.
However godaddy will eliminate you from opening any account in the future which is the way they play the game and they simply do not care.
But there are others ways to get accounts with godaddy anyway so the heck with them.
They are famous for the charging of credit cards without permission.

 

i have had great experiences with godaddy. especially on refunds and up grades

 

I just got off the phone with Godaddy support. They told me to cancel those 4 domain names from my panel and so they can refund me in 5 days.

I had the support guy to confirm that the worst case scenario of me cancelling my domains AND not getting a refund wouldn't occur as I know that the panel explicitly states "NOTE: Deleting domains does not entitle you to a refund of registration or transfer fees" while deleting domains.

Re: the credit card issue... I was told to delete my credit card info from the payment info menu. And to my surprise, I found 6 credit cards plus my Paypal account listed there!!! It appears that the little box under the payment form never meant a thing anyway. Let's hope that Godaddy doesn't get hacked like Monster.com or something. It would be a disaster.

Thanks for everyone who responded. I hope to come back on Friday and drop a note saying I was succesfully refunded. After almost an hour of total international call through my cell, I am not sure I will be gaining much.

It is 7AM in the morning and I can finally go to sleep

 

Looks like u got it resolved

 

In such cases isnt Support important aswell.. and I havent heard anything good abt Godaddy Support!

 

Hello,

You should move away from GODADDY BTW, see www.easynames.biz and I hope you will get ur expecting for...

 

There is recourse on credit card payments to third-parties, even if you are outside the USA.

Living in the US, and having close-to 250 domains at godaddy, i have my own rep there. And usually when I have a question, or problem, he is pretty good at resolving that. BUT...

I have to practice what I preach when it comes to making payments by credit card - to godaddy or whoever.

When there is an issue with a credit card charge; or an unauthorized charge, and you want to get your credit card issuer to credit back the $, it is best to use a M/C account vs. Visa. Why? Because many of the larger banks issue their own Visa whereas (I think) M/C is a franchise and therefore you have better recourse as the Issuer (bank) has to follow their 'rules'. But most banks themselves will tell you, if a Visa, that if you can PROOVE what you say - to get your money back, they will notify that Vendor and tell them they are taking the money back and the Vendor has 30 days (I think) to dispute it.

So how do you get that kind of defense working for you? You have to be sure you have a paper trail to support your dispute - and yes, emails sent to godaddy's support are evidence of your dispute.

The term used with the credit card issuer is DISPUTED CHARGE. Be sure that your email to godaddy support includes your name, account number, and most importantly - your credit card number (not the pin), so if you think of that 'paper trail' as your Dispute Evidence, your Bank knows its in reference to you and that particular credit card account - because the email you sent to support the info for your bank to reference.

As an online news publisher (ya, I know a little about corporate law; past life), I spoke to godaddy just the other day. Not about problems with credit cards or auto-renew or not (good idea to never autorenew), but about selling domains and the horrors of chargebacks via paypal - if the sale was under $500. A post I saw about that had me concerned and as a newshound, I smelled a story brewing... That post was from 2-08 - still - godaddy admitted to me it was an on going problem, but they would not comment of the depth of it or surprisingly, what they were doing about it. I got the impression they believed they were not liable... where are those ambulance chasing class-action lawyers when you need one - as this is lawsuit waiting to happen.

To sue (class action) would require one lead plaintiff - and then they have to find at least five others who would be willing to join the suit. It would put paypal and godaddy on the line - but it wouldn't be an easy case to pursue and that is why there's been class action to force them into rectifying the situation.

It seems to me registrants and pseudo credit card resources, like paypal, have no concern over their customer service - quality. What's an account or two, eh?

Here is something none of you seem to have considered: if you have a domain expiring, and you let it go, godaddy will place it into their auction site automatically and if sold, keep 100% of the money - unless you reclaim the domain during the period allocated by law. Imagine, no more domains going back to being 'available' in a whois.sc search! And they keep the money! Keeping something, or I should say selling it, in this gray area of domain reclamation period, seems to me to be not only misleading but a deliberate manipulation of the aftermarket.

Just think, not only did they keep the money, they charged the new buyer the retail registration fee.

 

godaddy is a bunch of crooks. I have had the same renew issues on their other products I never signed for.