GoDaddy Botches .ME Registration Rush

[Discovery]

July 17 2008 GoDaddy offered the ability to register .me domain names without application, trademark proof or any other restrictions.

Many names were successfully registered and paid for by happy business owners and domain name prospectors. UNTIL, they started receiving email notices that their registration which had already been paid for is now being rejected saying their was an error and that the name had already been registered.

The following domain name has failed to be registered:

QUOTE.ME

Error: QUOTE.ME: cannot register - already registered

We will evaluate this error and retry the registration
if appropriate.

If we are unable to successfully register the domain
name, your account will be credited accordingly. Please
allow one business day for the refund to be processed.

The interesting issue is that during searches for many domain names the result was returned stating the name was already registered and thus could not be purchased. In the example above as with millions of other names, the name was shown to be available, was immediately paid for and processed.

I am confident GoDaddy has an iron clad agreement regarding this possibility. However, with all the pilfering that has gone on with insiders at domain name auction houses and registars, including GoDaddy and Network Solutions; how can we trust that the name was truly registered by a private 3rd party.

What is GoDaddy's responsibility here.

Having owned quote.me was pretty exciting for the hour it lasted.

Legal issue, Sore Looser or simply luck of the draw?


Discovery - no longer at discovery.me

[AussieWebmaster]

I had thought of registering doyouknow.me wineanddine.me canyoumake.me and youcantmake.me suckstobe.me

[AussieWebmaster]

the possibilities are endless... senditto.me workfor.me

[linkmoneydotorg]

Botched... To say the least!

GoDaddy gets to use millions of dollars for a few days before they credit everyone's account. Wonder what the interest will be for them?

[Discovery]

Godaddy is attempting to rectify the situation.

I received a call from GoDaddy yesterday afternoon.
A cordial and polite fellow apologized for the technical difficulties they encountered which resulted in a poor experience for me and other customers. (Many other customers). He blamed it on the .me registrar.

I don't know how widespread this call campaign was, however it is was necessary to make personal calls and not simply email blast an apology.

There are still some very real issues to be addressed here.

#1 GoDaddy deemed the name as available, approved the sale, charged the card and acquired the funds from thousands if not millions of customers. Hours later they claimed an error occured and the names were already registered *"by somebody else"*

#2 Can you imagine if every ecommerce company were this negligent? How many people would buy the same seat on an airline? The same seat for a concert or sporting event? Or how many duplicate winners of an auction would there be at eBay?

#3 It has been nearly 2 full days and GoDaddy still has well over a grand of my money. Lets multiply that by the 10s of thousands if not 100s of thousands of people who did the same, how much money is GoDaddy hanging on to?

#4 The rep that called me said, "Yes, I understand it was disappointing and it happened to me as well with the names I tried to register". So that's comforting; all the Godaddy employees were trying to register names at the same time. Surely none of them had any time, technical or personal connection advantage.

#5 I for one will be interested to investigate exactly who came out on top with the names that were sold to me and what connections they have to GoDaddy if any.

And lastly this is about the last straw for GoDaddy and me. Their prices have increased dramatically from 6.99 to 9.99 per .com domain name. They intentionally make the shopping cart process confusing and full of "special offers" that surely trick novice domain name buyers. And lastly they continuously threaten that your name(s) will be cancelled if your contact info is not 100% accurate, and then hit you with the $8.99/year fee for private registration... which then makes your yearly domain name purchase with them almost $19.

How likely are you to ever attempt to register a new domain at GoDaddy for a big new offering like .me?


No longer planning to blog from discovery.me
or offering work from hire.me
and I can't help insure you at insure.me
Not even provide you a quote at quote.me
Nor can I rant at my paid for domain name howtheyhosed.me

Discovery

[Discovery]

Another interesting business practice by GoDaddy.

Go to GoDaddy and search for any domain name tld with GoDaddy as the root name.

For example: GoDaddy.nu
The result you get is an instant
"Please select a different domain name to search on."

Now do the same for
Google.nu
Coke.nu
or
Sears.nu

ALL Trademarked and protected names right? But here the search result you get is

"COKE.NU is already taken."

This is clearly a different response to the GoDaddy.nu Search result.

So obviously GoDaddy does not have a consistent policy for blocking SM or TM terms. They have only sheltered their name from open registrations. What other terms are they blocking?


Discovery

[linkmoneydotorg]

Discovery,

Pretty much all my same feelings expressed. Thanks for posting them so professionally.

I wrote about my whole experience with this dot ME sham that GoDaddy pulled. I also got a very nice phone call yesterday from them. I was even civil, believe it or not.

Oh, Jennifer did close with "If there was anything that I wanted to purchase today, they would give me a special price." Ouch! Just shoot me.

<snip>

[Discovery]

This is getting very serious and outrageous.

I successfully registered and paid for

creditcards.me

On July 17 at appx 8:02AM PDT

As of today July 19 2008 GoDaddy has NOT sent to me a rejection notice, they have charged for and received the money for purchasing the domain name, and yet have not delivered the domain name to my account.

Thanks to LinkMoney I researched the auction site at domain.me and low and behold I found the whois info for CreditCards.me I will not post the personal info for this fellow as he is at this point not part of the equation.

Domain ID7694-ME
Domain Name:CREDITCARDS.ME
Domain Create Date:13-Jun-2008 17:17:34 UTC
Domain Last Updated Date:11-Jul-2008 16:01:38 UTC
Domain Expiration Date:13-Jun-2013 17:17:34 UTC
Last Transferred Date:
Trademark Name:credit cards
Trademark CountryE
Trademark Number:30542415
Date Trademark Applied For:2005-07-19
Date Trademark Registered:2005-09-29
Sponsoring Registrar:InterNetX GmbH R42-ME
Created by:InterNetX GmbH R42-ME
Last Updated by Registrar:Afilias R54-ME

So this guy owns a trademark for "creditcards" in Germany????
And it was accepted by Godaddy, or the .me registrar in their sunrise app period? This alone is outrageous, Why don't I trademark, water, and food, and China from the trademark and patent office in the country of Pianchungfungfoofoo and see if that BS sticks?

Even more outrageous is that this authorization and domain name purchase was completed on 13-Jun-2008 17:17:34 UTC, a full 4 days prior to the open registration date where I searched, found it available, paid for and was charged for this domain name. They were unable to match this registration with my search and registration?

It gets worse, many other domain names that I have paid for and have not received a refund for, but DID receive a notice that the name was already registered are now UP FOR AUCTION!!!

I successfully registered and paid for discovery.com and now it is up for auction at domain.me. What is outrageous is if you think that at this point in time.

I have registered this domain
I have received confirmation of payment
I have been charged and money has been withdrawn from my account.
There is NO WHOIS info for this name.
Yet it is now listed for sale by auction on Domain.me starting bid $75. Bidding Opens at 2008/07/27 20:00 (UTC)

Certainly Both the country/registrar at domain.me and Godaddy are equally responsible in this matter.

I am contacting my congressman who fortunately lives up the street and will provide him with a full report on this matter.

I recommend that everyone who has been affected in this matter blog, post, comment and even contact their local representative about their experience. Please be honest, use facts and state your case in a professional manner.

Corruption, Fraud, or simply felonious neglect we need to make it loud and clear that we will not allow this to happen to us again. GoDaddy and Domain.me will be an example pointed to for years to come.

Discovery

[Discovery]

After a bit of research the story is more clear. Just as dissappointing and upsetting, but more clear. I'm unable to post the details here as it is too long so I have posted it here.

GoDaddy and domain.me Registration Disaster

As you will note there is no advertising on this site.

A couple important points:

• It has been past 48 business hours and GoDaddy has not refunding money taken for "rejected" registrations.
  
• GoDaddy has yet to admit what occured last week.
  
• GoDaddy's Owner Bob Parsons has only been posting about women, porn and sex on his blog since the incident. Looks like we know where he is spending our money.
  
• GoDaddy's Customer Support Number is: 480-505-8877
  
  Go Daddy's Billing Support number is: 480-505-8855

Discovery

[Discovery]

We just confirmed with a billing representative at GoDaddy that purchases made on July 17 and were rejected were not submitted for a refund until a full day later.

Furthermore

GoDaddy will NOT refund money for 2 - 7 Business days from the time that they receive the rejection notice. Who gives them the rejection notice?

the domain.me registrar or Montenegro!!!!

GoDaddy is holding potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in false registrations due to their own ineptitude and blaming Montenegro for the delay in refunds.

[jimbeetle]

I was a bit peeved with myself at first for being uninformed about the dot me names. Not now. Turns out that sometimes ignorance truly is bliss.

[EcoSea]

I tried to register 10 different names and get there discount and they didn't read the emails when I had a problem 3 different times I sent them a email and trying to get some Asia related names and the program kept kicking me out because I was logging from a computer in Asia with a American credit card Go Daddy is Gone and lucky them they get me to remind everyone at least 15 times that they coundn't pour ____ from a boot if the instructions were on the heal.