GoDaddy is alleged to have transferred a domain name without authorization from it’s longtime registrant, transferring the domain name without the proper authorization and the required documentation. The victim spent nearly ten hours with customer service only to receive the response that there is nothing GoDaddy could do to fix the problem.
Domain Transfer Happened On A Saturday
Interestingly, the rogue domain transfer happened on a Saturday, which could be an important detail because some domain registrars outsource their customer service on the weekends and I have heard of other occasions where mistakes have occurred due to less quality control. I know of a case where high-value domain names worth six to seven figures were stolen on a weekend where an attacker was able to manipulate the weekend customer service into changing the email address of the account, enabling the thief to transfer away all of the one and two-word domains to another account.
What happened with this specific domain was not a case of robbery but something worse. A weekend customer service person made a mistake processing a legitimate domain name change by another GoDaddy customer, and instead of initiating the change on the correct domain they transferred the victim’s domain instead.
Compounding the error, GoDaddy’s weekend customer service failed to follow their own protocol for preventing unauthorized transfers, thereby allowing the domain to be transferred to someone else.
32 Calls And Nearly 10 Hours Of Phone Calls
The process of getting GoDaddy to reverse it’s mistake was a bureaucratic nightmare. They placed thirty-two phone calls and spent 9.6 hours on the phone talking to GoDaddy’s customer service.
“Lee called GoDaddy on Sunday. They confirmed the domain was no longer in his account but could not say where it went due to privacy concerns. They told him to email undo@godaddy.com. He did but did not receive any type of response when emailing that address. Of course Lee didn’t really feel like this was the appropriate level of urgency for this issue. He asked for a supervisor who was even less helpful. Lee was not happy. He may have said some hurtful things to GoDaddy’s support personnel during this call. That first call lasted 2 hours, 33 minutes, and 14 seconds.
On Monday morning, Lee and a coworker started working in earnest on this issue because there was still no update from GoDaddy. Calling in yielded a different agent who told Lee to email transferdisputes@godaddy.com instead. By Tuesday the address had changed again to artreview@godaddy.com. The instructions shifted by the day. It seemed like every GoDaddy tech support person had a slightly different recommendation.”
Compounding the error was that every time the victim called GoDaddy the call generated a new case number with none of the case numbers tied to any of the previous ones.
GoDaddy’s Response
After four days of trying to get through to someone at GoDaddy to get the problem resolved, GoDaddy finally responded with the following resolution:
“After investigating the domain name(s) in question, we have determined that the registrant of the domain name(s) provided the necessary documentation to initiate a change of account. … GoDaddy now considers this matter closed.”
GoDaddy’s response contained links to how to dispute a domain name change at ICAAN, the global organization that manages the domain name system, instructions on how to look up the domain name registration information and a customer support page about contacting legal representation.
That’s it.
Error Fixed, But Not By GoDaddy
The person who wrote about the issue said that they contacted a friend within GoDaddy who was then able to have the matter properly dealt with. Ultimately the error was not fixed by GoDaddy but by the innocent person who discovered someone else’s domain name in their GoDaddy account.
As previously stated, the entire fiasco began with a mistake on the part of GoDaddy on a legitimate domain change request. GoDaddy changed the domain name being changed to the victim’s domain name. The person who ended up with the victim’s domain name in their account contacted the victim and between the two of them they began the process of transferring the domain back to the rightful registrant.
Domain Name Ownership Is Non-Existent
A common mistake made by many developers and business owners is that they believe that they own a domain name. That is incorrect, nobody owns a domain name. Domain names are registered but never owned. The registration entitles the registrant to use the domain name but they never actually own it. That is how the domain name system works and it’s a part of the reason for why this issue played out the way it did. However, the problem in this case was due solely to a mistake by GoDaddy.
The post that detailed the nightmare refers to GoDaddy’s “domain ownership protection” services but that’s not actually what it is called. There is no such thing domain name ownership protection.
What GoDaddy sells is a Domain Protection service that protects against unauthorized transfers and accidental expiration. The victim paid for that protection but because the error was due to GoDaddy’s own mistake the protection did nothing for the victim, the domain change went through without the proper documentation.
Read the blog post about how GoDaddy made a mistake and not only failed to fix the problem, they didn’t even acknowledge they had made a mistake.
GoDaddy Gave a Domain to a Stranger Without Any Documentation
Featured Image by Shutterstock/AVA Bitter
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