Urgent help needed, I complained, then Godaddy said my account will be locked!

[Dorin]

Hi,

As GoDaddy customer for 5 years with 15000 domains, I have never thought
one day I have to ask help about accound locking. But now I have to, because
I was emailed by your persident office to force me leave godaddy and
transfer my domains out.

The reason of this was I bulkly registered about 15000 .info domains
recently, I was trying to avoid TM domains and emailed my executive Russ about how to avoid them. After registration, I deleted some known TR domains myself but some domains may have TR issues still left in the account because I don't know the TM. Then one day I found I was billed 12 times without notice by your privacy department. I contacted my account executive Russ for help but refund request got denied. Then I said some abusive words to your privacy department. I apologize for the abusive words again. I also emailed to support@godaddy.com asking to change my account executive.

But this conflict with your privacy department should not lead to
force me transfer all domains out and lock my account. Transfering all
them needs more than 100K USD immediately. I have never violated any
of your terms in the last 5 years. And I have cancelled all the
privacy services for the 15000 .info domains. There should never be
any conflict with your privacy dept any more.

I wish godaddy president office to consider and investigate my case again. I believe except saying 'fxxk' words to your privacy services, I had no any other offensive nor violations.

Regards,

Lee

---------- Post added at 02:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:38 PM ----------

--------------------
my email to president office:

1, I apologize for the abusive words.
2, I was satisfied with your domain registration services but not
satisfied with your privacy registration department.
3, I firstly contacted Russ before I register domains how to avoid
trademark domains
4, when I was charged $20, I should receive a notice before or after
that charge. It is this without-notice-charge made me angry. You are a
big company and I have been your customer for many years, why I was
charged without any notice? Why they charge me rotately on my
creditcards, paypal to avoid being found out the charges?
4, when I registered domains, I deleted the TR domains myself
immediately after I find them
5, I have contacted Russ and your privacy department without any
abusive words in the beginning, but they didn't work out that with me.
6, I have contacted Russ how to easily cancel the privacy services but
he sent me tens of accounts that not easily to cancel 15000 domains.
7, I have transfered the 15000 domains out to avoid troubles to both
godaddy and me.
8, I was surprised you didn't investigate this matter enough and you
told me to cease using godaddy service.
9, It was your privacy department's fault firstly for the
without-notice-charge, why you drive your customer out and insist and
threaten to must do that?
10, Isn't anyway you improve your service by simply sending out a
notice email why you charge your customers? I saw that when I register
domains or renew domains, I always got one email notice, why the $20
charges never give out any notice?

Regards,

---------- Post added at 02:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:41 PM ----------

Hi,

It is my surprise my unsatisfation of your privacy department can
cause you close my account. I have already canceled all the privacy
services and transfered all the 15000 .info domains. I believe you
didn't get the complete information.

I had tens of thousand domains at godaddy. Because there are many
whois spam emails, I often choose to keep my contact private. My
domains are registered in bulk. Sometimes, I know there is TM in the
domain, I delete the TM domains immediately after registration when I
find out them. Sometimes, I do not know it is a TM. when I receive any
email complaining TM infringement, I delete the domains immediately.
If things simply run this way, it is fine.

But one day, I checked my order history at godaddy, suddenly found
there are many $20 orders.
323177900 4/25/2011 $20.00
321772356 4/20/2011 $84.37
321748642 4/19/2011 $21.51
321707228 4/19/2011 $20.00
321501121 4/19/2011 $743.99
321480074 4/18/2011 $20.00
321479783 4/18/2011 $20.00
321468223 4/18/2011 $20.00
320277974 4/14/2011 $20.00
320276624 4/14/2011 $43.02
320255016 4/13/2011 $20.00
319997901 4/12/2011 $20.00
319724985 4/11/2011 $20.00
319711327 4/11/2011 $20.00

These orders made me confused and angry. I never ordered them. The
most serious is I never got any notification when I was charged. They
are all charged steathly. I left 2 credit cards and my paypal at
godaddy. The stealthy charging is they charge my credit cards, paypal
rotately. Do they want me to not find the charges?

In general, online business should always send a notice to customers
when there is a order or invoice generated. Only those
illegal/stealthy companies charge customers stealthly without any pre
or post notice. Godaddy is a famous company in the industry, How can
godaddy charge me in this stealthy way?

when I find TM myself or when there is a TM complainant, godaddy
forward me one email, I delete the domain and godaddy start to earn
money from the domain parking traffic. How can they still charge me
$20 for that domain? I am not sure whether godaddy is the domain owner
or not after I delete the domain, but after deletion, godaddy is
controling the domain and earning money from the domain. However, they
still charged me.

In the before, godaddy domain privacy services could be canceled by
just one click in domain management panel. But now, they generated
tens of privacy accounts for me. They told me if you do not want to be
charged the $20, you should go to cancel the privacy service youself,
customer support/executive can not help. In each account, I can only
cancel one page domains at one time, I have tens of thousands domains,
I must do the cancel operations tens of times in one privacy account.
tens of privacy accounts cost how much toublesome work to me? I have
only one account at godaddy, why they must generate tens of privacy
accounts for me?

I have been contacting them many times in recent days. I want to let
godaddy President or senior officials see this to know what happened
to customers.

Regards,

Li

---------- Post added at 02:47 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:42 PM ----------

email from godaddy president office saying to lock my account after I complained:
-----------------------
Dear Mr. Li,

We are contacting you regarding your account with GoDaddy.com and more
specifically your interactions with our customer support staff. It has
come to our attention that you have repeatedly used abusive language
when corresponding with our support teams and are clearly dissatisfied
with our services. Additionally, we have received an excessive number of
trademark complaints stemming from your domain registrations which has
resulted in an excessive and time-consuming workload.

Considering these factors, we believe that it would be in the best
interest of both you and Go Daddy for you to obtain your services from
another registrar/provider. As you know, there are a number of companies
that provide web-related services, and we are confident that you will
find one that meets your needs. Therefore, we insist that you
discontinue utilizing all Go Daddy and/or wild west Domains' services
within the next 30 days. You will need to transfer your domains to a new
Registrar and obtain a new provider for any Hosting and other services
which currently exist in your accounts within this 30-day period. Your
accounts will be locked on June 11, 2011. After that date, you will need
contact our office to complete the transfer of any remaining domain
names in your account(s). Furthermore, as of this email our Executive
Accounts department will no longer be servicing your account.

It is your responsibility to timely transfer the domain names to another
registrar. Please log into your Go Daddy accounts and unlock your
domains in the Domain Control Center prior to attempting transfer, as
locked domains may not be transferred. Should any of your domain names
be utilizing privacy services from Domains by Proxy, the privacy
services will also need to be canceled prior to transfer. Additionally,
you will need access to the Administrative email address listed on the
domain contacts, as this is the address where the transfer codes are
sent. Any other contacts should only be updated after the domain is in
your account at your new Registrar. We strongly urge you to save copies
of all emails in any of the email boxes tied to your accounts, as well
as to perform a full backup of all hosting files and databases, should
any exist.

Should you need additional information on how to proceed in getting your
domains transferred to a different Registrar, or you have any other
questions, our office would be most willing to answer those questions so
as to make it as smooth a transition as is possible. You may reach our
office by phone at xxx, Hours: 7AM-7PM, M-F and 7AM-5PM, S-S,
MST (AZ), or through email at President@GoDaddy.com.

Regards,

Office of the President

[Gerry]

I have never violated any of your terms in the last 5 years.
I was trying to avoid TM domains

vs.

we have received an excessive number of trademark complaints stemming from your domain registrations which has resulted in an excessive and time-consuming workload.

On the surface, it would appear you did not try hard enough to avoid TM names meaning you have in fact violated their policy/TOS.

[axeman]

This is a cautionary tale im afraid, they have you by the balls it appears.

Can i ask how on earth do you register 15000 .info domains?

[Gerry]

This is a cautionary tale im afraid, they have you by the balls it appears.

Can i ask how on earth do you register 15000 .info domains?

perhaps during their 99cent sale.

[axeman]

perhaps during their 99cent sale.

Good point...........Its not looking so good now though, I suggest you drop them and strike it up as a lesson learned.

[Gerry]

Not saying what GD did is alright (charging a fee without notice) but not the least bit they did this. There may be cause to get a refund for undisclosed fees but certainly not worth the effort considering the volume of names (and mucho dinero) to move.

One can plead I really tried to avoid TM names, but if there are an abundance found in the account, that plea will be wiped away.

[Dorin]

1, I really tried lot to avoid TM names. I am not native American. I do not know Which are TMs which are not. I have a word list to check with whether the domain is available. I firstly sent email to my account executive how to avoid registering TM domains, then After registration, I checked myself and deleted about hundreds of domains myself, some were deleted immediately within 5days and got refund some were after 5days without refund. And I told them whenever there is a complain, I delete the domain immediately. I do not have any intention to own TM domains.

2, I put my credit cards, paypal on my account, It is like leave my wallet with them by trust. Whenever they charge me, they should send a notice. A big company like GoDaddy does not need to do things like a stealth. I was unhappy with the privacy department for their charges without notice. Yes, I said 'Fxxk them' after failed of communication with them. I feel sorry for my abusive words. But this was conflict with the privacy department not godaddy. I didn't say unsatisfation to godaddy's other services.

3, I have transfered all the .info domains to a friend's account. I do not have any .info domains in my account now. Why they still saying to lock my account after my complaint? Only to Revenge to my abusive words?

Thanks for all the reply. I am still feeling scared in all these matters.

Lee

[Gerry]

It doesn't appear that you will have no option. And transferring them to a friend's account??? Are you serious? Now both of you will be kicked off GD!

You really need to focus on the statement, we have received an excessive number of trademark complaints stemming from your domain registrations which has resulted in an excessive and time-consuming workload.

[Dorin]

let me explain why they received excessive complaints. I didn't know this and found out the truth later. I didn't want disclose this but have to.

When I delete any domains, the domains are actually only not appear in my account from that time, but the domains are still live under GoDaddy's control for 2 more months unless ICANN release them to be available. What godaddy do during this 2 months period? godaddy park them to get ppc revenue. If godaddy simply delete them immediately after I delete them, the TM owners should not complain as long as domainers unintentionally registered TM domains and immediately deleted.
Now that godaddy is monetizing the TM domains not I. But I was still charged un-noticed for the TM domains. This is the real reason I said 'fxxk' to their privacy dept.

Lee

Please correct me if this is wrong.

---------- Post added at 04:01 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:37 AM ----------

So, godaddy has 2 parts not properly designed in their work process.
1, when they charge customers, simply send a notice to let customer know they are charged,
2,when customer delete a domain, if the deletion is for TM reason, godaddy should delete the domain immediately not to park them to pocket some parking revenue.

I wish godaddy president or president office can realize their own fault.

I registered TM domain, I delete them or transfer the domain to the TM owner, or if a suit launched by the TM owner, I take my part of legal responsibility.

But godaddy should not say I caused them problem, if they do not have bad-designed privacy serivces or if they do not park the domains, their should be no complain goes to godaddy.

Lee

[Gerry]

You act that if you have privacy on a TM name then you should not get in trouble.

Okay. Blame GoDaddy for all the complaints.

You did nothing wrong.

And your friend will not get his account suspended.


Now, does saying all of that make you feel better and make the situation any better?

Hell no. Nothing you said or did corrected the problem or addressed the main issue...you registered TM names, thought you were protected hiding behind privacy, you violated GoDaddy's Terms of Service, you cussed out their staff....yet you want everyone to believe that you did nothing wrong.

What a huge fvcking waste of my time even responding to your thread.

[Dorin]

sorry for waste of your time.

I have my fault, I admit and apologize. but I still think they should not lock my account.

From the beginning, I was contacting them how to easily cancel my privacy settings. I didn't try to protect myself from privacy settings. whenever a complaint email comes, I immediately delete the domain or transfer the domain to the TM owner. I have already canceled all the privacy settings. so now no complaint should go to GoDaddy privacy dept. I also didn't receive any TM complaint recently.

Lee

[biggedon]

bulk registration of tm's is a bad move but....


if registration of tm's was illegal, then GoDaddy should shoulder some fault, because they allowed the names to be registered.

and

if godaddy uses it's parking service to monetize the domains in any way, then close your account because of tm complaints of those same domains...who's really gettin over?


it would be interesting to see if any of your domains that had traffic, were re-registered after being deleted by gd and by who/whom

[Gerry]

Domainers must be the most discriminated against, persecuted, and innocent of any wrongdoing in all of humanity.

[katherine]

Now is a good time to re-assess your portfolio

Perhaps you have other unsuspected liabilities still laying around. Get rid off the dogs, transfer the best domains away, dump the dubious ones (were you seriously going to renew 15000 .info domains) and start afresh.

[Mr.Domains]

Listen to Katherine, you surely weren't gonna renew 15000 .info domains anyway. Make a short-list of the ones to transfer out. Stick the rest in the domains under $100 forum for $3-$25 depending on the quality, and hopefully make enough to cover your transfers out...

(First dibs on your drop list...) ;-)

[Acro]

During that 99 cent sale, thousands of tm domains were surely registered. I, personally had to send DMCA notices to at least 5 trademark violators. All these domains were being used to send thousands if not millions of spam emails. GoDaddy eventually locked their DNS to SUSPENDED-FOR.SPAM-AND-ABUSE.COM. So I have no sympathy for violators that randomly used the 99 cent sale thinking it was a free for all.

[Raider]

I think the reason GoDaddy includes the Registration of TM's as a violation in their TOS, is so they can cover their own ass when a TM holder goes after the Registrar.

With all the programmers Godaddy has, your not going to tell me they cant write a script that filters out common trademarks when the user attempts to register them.... Registrars are not going to turn down a registration no matter how commonly trademarked it is. It's all about making a profit and protecting #1.

[Dorin]

I do not send any spam email.
I am running a minisite building business like noomle. I never have any interest in spam biz. all the using of the domains are 100% valid.

Lee

[Acro]

Apparently tm registrations fall in the "100% valid" category?

[Dorin]

Apparently tm registrations fall in the "100% valid" category?

As I said, I tried my best to work with Russ to avoid TM domains and delete TM domains afterwards. I have email records, whenever I got a notice that one domain has TM issue, I immediately delete them or transfer to the TM owner.

Lee

---------- Post added at 01:50 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:39 PM ----------

Listen to Katherine, you surely weren't gonna renew 15000 .info domains anyway. Make a short-list of the ones to transfer out. Stick the rest in the domains under $100 forum for $3-$25 depending on the quality, and hopefully make enough to cover your transfers out...

(First dibs on your drop list...) ;-)

Thank you very much for your advices.

I firstly transfered all the .info domains out of my account to my friend's. transfering all the .infos to other registrar needs more than 100K usd.

I do not have any TM domains in my own account now. I will transfer all these valuable domains out to another registrar.

Lee