So its been a very busy month. I took some holiday time at the beach. From there I was in Bangkok for a week of Vendor training. My return home was filled with long days and nights trying to get caught up as well as, prepare for a week long business trip to Singapore next week.
During all this hubbub of activity, I accidentally let my domain expire. Opps! Oh well, there is a grace period, I can just renew it right? Not exactly. Turns out that the grace period is only 12 days. After that GoDaddy penalizes you with on outragous $80 USD "Registry Redemption Fee". Umm, what? Srsly?
"Ok, no problem", I think. I'll just re-register it at another Registrar. NOPE! The domain still shows up as registered to me, but locked by GoDaddy.
So..... Just wait for it to expire and then pounce on it again to re-register? NOPE! Not so easy. Then GoDaddy puts your domain up for Auction for 10 days! Ok, so wait for the auction to finish and hope nobody bids on it? WRONG AGAIN! GoDaddy then puts your domain up on a 5-day Closeout auction /Firesale!
So, in reality when GoDaddy says "Registry Redemption Fee" what they really mean is "We Are Holding Your Domain Hostage Until You Pay an Ungodly Ransom".
Now, because I am in Thailand, lets put that $80 USD into prospective. The average Thai salary here in Chiang Mai is about 10,000 THB/ month. Assuming a 4 week month and 40 hours per week (most work more hours and days than that), that means the average pay here is 62.5 THB/ hour. Exchange rate is approximately 35 THB per $1 USD. That means that GoDaddy's ransom money equates to about 45 hours of work here. MORE than one weeks pay!! Or in other terms, about 93 average lunches (30 THB).
So GoDaddy, as I really have no recourse other than to publize your horrible business practises. Additionally, did a little bit of google searching, and seems I'm not the only one upset with GoDaddy.
I urge everyone to take a look at (nmap) Fyodor's NoDaddy site.
So, again, screw you GoDaddy. Enjoy the extortion money.
5 comments:
Patrick,
Thanks for the advice. I was considering leaving Register.com to switch to GoDaddy to save a couple of bucks when my domain expires. But now I see that the savings would definitely not be worth it.
You probably just saved me some money and a big headache.
- John
Same here. I was looking to move a couple domains & certainly will not use Godaddy.
hi Patrick,
I'm from Malaysia, I don't have bad experience like you as I figured GDD is real fucked up.
Me and my friends have tried to use godaddy site to query some domains as testing previously, and once you query the domain and you don't buy, you can see those domains you query will be parted soon enough, and you can't buy it cheap anymore, and they will only release it after a while.
There are some stories behind it but I can only share it via email ;]
Yes GDD is exact mofo ..., they should be kicked out of business.
Cheers ;]
Hi Patrick,
I have had issues with GoDaddy and prefer to use Rebel.com - way better. Still, that said - domain management is an organisational attribute of the individual.
I am Johnny Mestizo!
When are you putting your domain of mestizo.net up for sale?
I'll give you US$50 - it looks like you're comfy here at monkey house.
So - What do you reckon?
Same thing happened to me. I had to argue with GDD support for half hour and let them know what a horrible business practice this is - but of course they didn't see it that way. I've been renewing with them for about 10 years, the last time doing a 5 year renewal. After being busy with some tight work deadlines and a week vacation I figure I'd come back and take care of the renewals. Oops! my domain name is on auction and after pushing they offered to charge me $80 to remove it from their fangs plus the renewal fee. After fighting with them some more they finally agreed to waive the $80 "Registry Redemption Fee". What a horrible business practice. Why should I want to renew another five years if they're gonna try and take advantage of me.
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