Ask HN: Is Godaddy Running a Scam?
13 comments
·February 6, 2025apercu
Don't use GoDaddy? (I'm a hypocrite, I have a couple dozen domains but there are a couple I haven't yet transferred out of their system).
A_D_E_P_T
Did you pay ~$50 to place the bid?
If so, and if you can be bothered to complain hard enough, they'll usually refund you. They know that they're running a scam.
It could be worse. They've been known to snipe domains from under the noses of their users, and their recently closed "domain backorder" service was an almost insultingly blatant scam -- a sort of "free money hack IRL" where they were taking advantage of rubes -- it never worked.
6Az4Mj4D
I has one experience with them when backordering domain.
Godaddy domain business is like you make a backorder to buy domain. Someone immedidetely will buy domain when it becomes available and it automatically gets listed on Godaddy auctions. I think its planned something fishy.
ratg13
The company was always bad, but took a nosedive around the time their CEO was found killing elephants for sport 15 years ago.
The fact that people are still using them is disappointing.
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also for pedantry’s sake, it’s “piqued” your curiosity
didgetmaster
Any company with 'Wild West' in their name is surely playing by the rules. Right?
likeabatterycar
Or based out of Arizona, home of Tombstone and the OK Corral.
fckgw
What's the scam exactly? WWD is a GoDaddy subsidiary, either GD owns the domain or is acting as the broker.
bitlad
We think GD owns the domain. If they are advice a price, and that price was the bid price, isn't it funny that they are rejecting our bid to somehow indicate that we should pay more.
Thats the scam. They are acting both as broker and seller without transparently revealing the relationship.
It is like, you go to buy a house, the broker says the advertised price is 2 million, i recommend paying 3.2 million and then you realise the broker was the owner of the house.
bitlad
it seems like it is much deeper than I thought - https://x.com/kchironis/status/1607496457942335489
tobinfekkes
When was GoDaddy ever not a scam?!
apothegm
Are you sure that’s not just the domain privacy setting being enabled?
bitlad
I think it is not related to domain privacy. More I dig, it seems like it is a different entity somehow related to Godaddy, where in they are acting as a broker as well as seller. This kind of behavior might be fraudulent in other industries but apparently it is not in domain marketplace.
slater
WWD is part of Godaddy
Recently, I was trying to a buy a domain for which we had bid in Godaddy. We bid the suggested price in Godaddy. Our bid was rejected buy the owner.
That peaked my curiosity to check who actually owned the website.
When we ran whois on the domain. The name that pops up is Wild West Domains, LLC [http://www.wildwestdomains.com]
When you look further, Godaddy's CEO is the CEO of Wild West Domains. Lot of the staff are part of this LLC.
Just wondering what is it all about?