Warning - GoDaddy fraudulent attempt

[Welkin]

Hi guys,

I want to share a bad experience I have had recently with GoDaddy. I wanted to register a new domain name there but when I searched for it, the domain appeared to be already registered. Yet GoDaddy offered it to me for $499 via their auctioning service. It was good that I had checked at another registrar in advance that the name was available cause otherwise I would believe it was really registered. So approach GoDaddy with caution, they want to get undeservedly easy money from people.

The article with my whole experience is available here: Go Daddy scam

[katherine]

I don't think their intention was to scam you.
First of all, the domain availability check at GoDaddy is not reliable.
Most likely, the domain was listed on their platform by the previous owner and the listing if obviously no longer relevant... you can find available domains listed on sedo too.
I guess their script first checked if the domain is listed on the marketplace, and didn't look any further.

[Welkin]

I don't think their intention was to scam you.
First of all, the domain availability check at GoDaddy is not reliable.
Most likely, the domain was listed on their platform by the previous owner and the listing if obviously no longer relevant... you can find available domains listed on sedo too.
I guess their script first checked if the domain is listed on the marketplace, and didn't look any further.

Well, obviously this is not the case cause when I made a check for the .info version of the name, the .com version was immediately listed as available for registration. It's described in my article about this case.
Not to mention that I have enough software developing (and why not even life) experience to realize that there is something improper in the situation. Even if you're right, it is still a huge problem if GoDaddy after all of their years of experience and "greatness" implement their software in such an insane way.

And sedo is another story. I don't see a (big) problem if they list unregistered domains for sale.

[katherine]

There is always a catch with GoDaddy.

[radioz]

I just tried to register an available name and similarly found that it was available in the Go Daddy marketplace for $20K with 20 days to go! I registered it at Name Cheap instead as it was an available name. Go Daddy does have some work to do here as they should (and do) want the registration and the auction is bogus too which is of no value to them either. I am pretty sure that the name that I registered won't sell at $20K (ever!) but if it does and you just happen to have a $20K name listed at Go Daddy that you let expire, let me know and we'll work something out!