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Go Daddy just registered 2 trademark domain names in my name it found in my account shopping cart.
I repeat: I didn’t buy these 2 domains. Go Daddy bought them and charged my credit card and put my name from my account on them.
I was testing to see if 2 New gTLD registrations were $12,500 purchases or sunrise registrations. The only way to do this is to check if the trademark is registered in the Trademark Clearinghouse and that can only be done by searching for the trademark domain name with a different New gTLD at Go Daddy and clicking add to cart. At that time Go Daddy displays the trademark notices for trademarks registered in the Trademark Clearinghouse.
So I checked 2 random domain names that included the trademark I was interested in and were also free to register. I saw that they had trademarks and closed my browser.
This morning I woke up and saw a Go Daddy order confirmation in my mailbox. I didn’t think much of it as I had won an auction for the domain L*****l.com and was expecting the automatic charge.
But to my surprise I also saw that I had registered these 2 domain names:
canyon.gallery $25.17
gocycle.today $25.17
The domain name canyon.gallery has been registered in my name and it is active.
Fortunately the domain name gocycle.today has not yet been registered because the order was actually for a pre-registration that kicks in on Wednesday.
The worst part is that the owner of the “Canyon” trademark has already been contacted. That is because if a domain name registration is done and the domain name contains a mark from the Trademark Clearinghouse, then the mark owner is alerted automatically. IBM filed a URS complaint within 24 hours of the registrations of IBM.guru and IBM.ventures.
I just checked my cart and found more domain names that I was testing their trademarks for my research. Most of these don’t make any sense because I was trying to test free domains to see if trademarks exist:
promod.plumbing
deuter.plumbing
patagonia.plumbing
gocycle.plumbing
schmidt.photography
cuisinella.plumbing
apptorrent.plumbing
wellness.plumbing
The total sum of this order is $1,531.80 and I am glad I had a chance to delete these before Go Daddy bought me more domains. I think I checked these later than the 2 domains in the order so I wasn’t charged with $1,531.80 too.
By the way Go Daddy doesn’t have a useful “Empty Cart” option.
I am just glad I wasn’t charged for any of the $12,500 a price domain names that I test.
I have submitted a support ticket for this. I am afraid that someone tries to fix this and accidentally deletes my L*****l.com domain name that was in the same order. After the support ticket submission I got this message: “You should receive a reply within 24 hours.”.
I also contacted a Go Daddy contact by email that told me to call support. But I won’t do that because it is bad enough that I am going to waste my time to fix a Go Daddy f*ck up, I won’t pay any more money on phone calls from Greece than the money they have already charged me.
My main problem is not the $50. It is the fact that Go Daddy buys domain names at will and that these are not random domain names. These domain names have an active trademark in the Trademark Clearinghouse.
These are one of those things that can only happen at Go Daddy.
Update: After I finished writing this post I got a call from Go Daddy. It was about the same issue but not because of the email or the support ticket above. It was the person that did the 2 registrations. He told me that he forgot to empty the shopping cart before buying L*****l.com. He then told me that he will fix everything. I will wait and see.
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This sounds like a very expensive glitch. So in other words, the automatic charge for a domain from TDNAM processed the rest of the cart contents, correct?
It turns out that it wasn’t as automatic as I thought.
An account manager gets into the account and makes the purchase.
I think, he didn’t make payment for a tdnam auction, and it was day 3, when godaddy automatically processes these payments, and these domains were in his cart, with the person who processes the tdnam payment put it thru. Just a timing issue.
YES, godaddy needs an empty cart option for bulk purchases, can be a pain, and yes, they probably make more money without it.
I had very similar situation occur at Godaddy. It never got resolved because Godaddy continued to blame the victim. They never took responsibility as the situation remains unexplained….. I have said it before and I will say it again. Godaddy went from phenomenal customer service to horrid…….
I agree, Godaddy always points the finger, sometimes when pointing out an issue to their tech people, I have to walk them thru the issue. Or they just assume you are some crazy person, who knows more than there 4 hour crash course taught them.
As of late, godaddy has become more about margins, and is going after the total package clients, who buy all their add ons. Domainers will have a new solution shortly with Uniregistry. Godaddy is unaware of just how much business they are going to lose.
That shopping cart is messing with the wrong guy. Zournas can blog for 24 hours straight! I’d fix this quick if I’m GD…
Don’t worry. This is a blog for freedom of speech and it’s better for Godaddy fix this immediately. If not I have already a couple of new threads to launch about their practices that I am sure will RICHLY surpass the 82 records of comments they already hold here….
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Yikes!
Thanks for this post.
I had a domain in my cart (fully intending to buy it), and received the TM notice, so I deleted it, although it seemed like a fairly diluted mark. But, still, who needs grief from someone who went through the trouble of applying to the TM Clearinghouse?
Fortunately, I was okay, but then someone else then regged it.
But now I know to check my cart and invoices…
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Godaddy also took a slew of new gtld’s registered on day 1, out of godaddy accounts, after they were paid for, and nameservers were changed. Domains were owned for days. Then all of the sudden a few days later yanked from accounts, and reassigned. Godaddy had pre-sold the registrations on the domains, when the registry opened up for GA, for whatever reason they were not caught, others at godaddy hand registered them. They went back into accounts, and took them out manually, and reassigned them. Happend to me, happend to someone on DNF, and sure many others. No rhyme, no reason, no explanation, because Godaddy simply can, that is why.
I know someone that is going after Go Daddy. And his domain was deleted but then registered at Enom.
It’s scary to talk about, but the honest investors have to keep this topic in the open. I hope your acquaintance has screenshots to show what happened!
Here is the thing, when the domain was created I was on record as the first whois person. I don’t know how they can just poach names names like that from accounts. This happend to many people, their CSR rep stated they have no explanation, and apologized, but nothing they know of could be done, they had to submit to higherups, who haven’t responded, most likely due to legal looking into their liabilities.
I just wanted to give you an update:
Go daddy replied to my support ticket and told me that “the 2 pre-registrations have been refunded”.
The thing is that only 1 was a pre-registration and the other was a REGISTRATION.
I have received the refund email but the domain name canyon.gallery is still registered to me…
I replied and haven’t heard back.
I should also note that my support ticket was as detailed as it could be.
I explained what was each domain name in my order and gave them instructions on what to do (or not do) for each domain name
separately. It seems that support can’t follow simple instructions…
You know I sometimes feel bad for bashing Go Daddy but at times like this I think they deserve it.
You know what, you blog so much about ngtlds Zournas, hang on to that Canyon of a dot whatever!
😉
No, thanks.