GoDaddy.com Business Registration Scam
GoDaddy.com Invoice
Recently I received the e-mail seen on the right from GoDaddy.com announcing that they had automatically renewed the “Business Registration” for several URL’s that I own. At first I was thinking that this was an automatic renewal for my domain names but this was not the case. In fact GoDaddy.com had bill me for a service I had never requested.
I immediately called GoDaddy customer service and asked for an explanation! The customer service agent told me that I had “chosen” to receive this renewal. At which point I about blew a gasket! B#&%$HIT! I never proactively requested any such service! It may have been that I missed unchecking a prechecked box but that’s totally diffierent then me making a choice. It’s possible that GoDaddy slipped this by me when I originally purchased the URL’s, as was the case with this guy. Nevertheless, I never would have actively chosen to participate.
So I continued with the customer service agent asking, “What exactly is Business Registration anyway?” It turns out that GoDaddy.com Business Registration is nothing more then a business listing service. By Compete.com’s accounting the GoDaddy service halls in a paltry average of 23K+ visitor a month. Perhaps that might seem like a lot to some but when you compare this to Yahoo’s Directory average of 50K or Google’s directory with 160K, or The Open Directory Projects 1.2 million or Business.com with 5.4 million visitors you begin to realize that even a $5 fee is a complete rip-off! Not to mention the unscrupulous practice of billing me first and begging forgiveness afterwords.
I guess that’s what pisses me off the most! They reached into my wallet and took the money and then told me about it, almost as an afterthought. GoDaddy’s customer service kept telling me this was “my” decision, my choice, not theirs. Funny thing is that they didn’t automatically renew my domains, so why automatically charge me for this service? Their customer service agent wasn’t the least bit apologetic. How many folks do you suppose receive this e-mail and just accept it or confuse it for the domain renewal? Far too many I’m afraid. If you want to be a part of a real directory at no cost then get listed in The Open Source Directory for FREE!
In the end I got my refund, but I can’t help but wonder Dale Earnhardt, Jr, Danica Patrick or Canice Michelle endorse these types of business practices. It’s all a little bit sleezy to me, but I guess that’s all a part of their brand strategy and they are remaining true to their core values.
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you got refunded, and you could have disabled the auto-renew (i have a godaddy account and you can turn the auto-renew off on ANYTHING). and it’s only $5. what are you bitching about again?
Hi Robert, thanks for the feedback! Yes what you say is true. Yet if Godaddy were really customer focused why aren’t they automatically renewing my URL’s rather then billing me for a service I never requested. The e-mail they sent me is deceptively similar to their URL renewal reminder notifications so I have no doubt that tens of thousands of people are paying for a service they don’t need or want. It’s in Godaddy’s best interest because of course when you collect $5 from 50,000 people it starts adding up to some really great bottom line profits. To me that’s sleazy! If it were just about my $5 we wouldn’t be kicking this around. Thanks for your input!
GoDaddy is pure evil.
Do some research. Google it.
“GoDaddy evil”
“godaddy stealing domains”
etc.
How do you think a domain registrar and a fairly crappy hosting company manages to secure those big names and pay for all those superbowl commercials?
They scam, steal, and lie.
Like I said, Google it. It’s not like it’s a secret.
You’re supposed to be a “Strategic Online Marketing” specialist and you don’t know how to use Google? Seriously, you can’t spend more than a week on ANY social networking service like Digg, StumbleUpon, etc. and NOT read a horror story about GoDaddy.
The fact that you were so surprised by them would indicate to me that perhaps you don’t really know as much about the internet as you profess to.
Just an observation.
Caveat Emptor and all that.
Hi Todd, Thanks for the feedback! Of course I Googled it as a part of my research, and yes I’ve read the horror stories about GoDaddy.com. Personally I’ve had a good experience with GoDaddy with the exception of the story above. I wouldn’t however say that I was “surprised” as much as disappointed. I don’t believe that companies have to mistreat their customer base to be successful. It may seem obvious to say that it is NOT in the strategic best interest of GoDaddy to elicit the kind of anger that you’re expressing. Yet if it were obvious to them, then they would be apologizing and changing their tactics.
As for your criticism of me, all I can say is that your entitled to your opinion but it seems you are very quick to judge me. I’m finding an audience and growing as a writer and I’m sure I won’t please everyone. Nevertheless I welcome your critique and will use that input to grow as I press ahead. Thanks!
Thanks Tom, for posting about this. I received an email about a Business Registration renewal (not set to auto-renew) and found your blog here through Google. I decided to see if there was information on “business registration” and I am now a much better informed consumer. I will not be purchasing the business registration. Again, thanks for taking the time to write about this.
Tom,
They ripped me off for $5 the same way. I am always careful to opt out of all the crap they have pre-checked when ordering a domain, so this came as quite a surprise to me.
Anyway, I think what’s really needed is a class action lawsuit against GoDaddy.
Dan
Thanks Tom. I was doing some updating on our domain name and *almost* “subscribed” to the “free” listing… now I’m glad I googled first!
helo, i am facing the same problem too..
GoDaddy has used auto billing system to make me renewal of my website that i do not wish to renew it for this year..
my blog address was http://www.lonelyreload.blogspot.com .. please go there to read the details..
I like the idea of a class action suit.
I just canceled my service with GO DADDY. I never liked their sleazy ads anyway. Talk about SHADY… renew now,
then after doing so I get another billing. One for renewal,
(Paid $ 35), one for registration, ( $ 35 ) and another for hosting at 75 dollars… What a deceptive method of billing for a service.
If you have to deal with GoDaddy do not put products on auto renew and DO NOT have a open account with them such as PayPal, Visa etc for they will help themselves when products come up for renewal at high end retail. Only pay for products manualy when they come due for renewal and then you will be able to negotiate with there coupon codes. JP.
Hey — this just happened to me, and I found your site by Googling. Glad to hear others were confused as well, though not glad to hear this is such a serious problem.
I called and (after being on hold for a while) the guy on the phone was very patient and talked me through turning off this service on GoDaddy’s site, and then agreed to refund my $4.99. So now I’m eagerly watching my credit card statement to make sure that the refund went through.
So, my advice is, if you are patient on the phone you can get your money back, and find out how to make sure it won’t happen to you again! Still a totally sketchy business practice, though.
I have been a customer of Godaddy for over 10 years. Hosting, domains, etc. I have nothing but good things to say about them. Recently I needed to speak to Customer support and they were polite, professional and took care of my issue without questions.
The moral of the story is, you CANNOT please everyone. But you will notice that negative people have problems all the time!
If you are upset about $5 “Business Registration” how about the $9 to keep your domain information private? This is one of many reasons why I will be transferring my domains away from GoDaddy ASAP. I’m even a Danica & IndyCar fan!
there are so many scams running on the internete so watch out~;”
John, Your right, you can’t please everyone. For the most part my dealings with GoDaddy.com have been OK. Even their recent UI updates are very positive. However what disappoints me about GoDaddy is that in the face of legitimate criticism they choose neither to respond or change their practices. It shows me that they don’t really have the customers best interests at heart. Large companies like GoDaddy have an obligation to be more responsive to their customers.
I don’t have any problem being a thorn in their side as long as little guys like me are being taken advantage of by big corporations like them.
Hi Tom,
Thanks for the info – even over a year later it comes in handy as one of my clients “opted” to buy this service and is now getting the renewal emails.
I had never heard of it before, so I’m glad you wrote the article. Now I know what it is and was able to inform my client as such.
Thanks again.
I have switched all of my domains to offshore but if you still have to deal with GoDaddy do not put your products on auto renew only manual and DO NOT have a open account with them such as PayPal, Visa etc for they will help themselves when products come up for renewal at high end retail. Only pay for products manualy. They will send you a email when items come due for renewal and then you will be able to negotiate with there coupon codes. JP.
Lol.
Exactly this just happened to me. I carefully went through all the stuff I have and made sure that only those things were on auto-renew that I wanted (i.e. domains only). But I must say GoDaddy’s website is so spammed full of stuff offers and options it makes me dizzy. And they send me auto-renew emails every couple of days. So I must have missed that area with the business registration.
Agree with your post. Bad business practice as the customer is intentionally fooled on this one.
Tom, thanks for you post about this, I received the same thing today about a business registration renewal that expired on 2 domains I have. I have many domains registered with GD, but am contemplating moving them to another registrar because renewal fees are getting outrageous. Like one of the previous posters pointed out $8 for privacy under the WHOIS is ridiculous.
Does this godaddy business listing help with traffic or SEO? What are the PR of the links it provides?
Hi Matt, Any site that provides you a link back to your site will have a subtle impact on SEO. You need to remember though that linking strategies require a lot more then just one link to make any real difference.
Just ‘rented’ my first domain site. And in the shopping cart is a ‘business registration’ item. Interesting – I don’t remember purchasing this. Google took me right to here. No thanks, GoDaddy. Delete. Thanks!
I just got off the phone with these (basterds) matter of fact “service agents” and I have never been more disappointed with a company. Apparently, when I registered some domains a few years ago they came with a “FREE” Private Registration. A service I would have never chosen! However I do have my domains setup for automatic renewal and guess what???? yep, you guessed it they auto renewed this private registration crap! No sympathy from those service agents… for those of you who support GoCRAPPY I solute U ..!.. I’ll take my business elsewhere and yes I’m looking for other members interested in a class action lawsuit. Sure my $100 bucks may not amount to much but as often as they rip people off and the # of customers they have this would amount to millions easy… Fu(K Parsons that thieving scoundrel!
I recently recv’d the same business registration renewal request. But because I did not give them a valid cc # Go Daddy sent a “PRODUCT EXPIRATION NOTICE” (in red) stating I have been “CANCELLED”. Other customers of Go Daddy may not realize this is not something they need for a web domain name or hosting account. I at first thought this was legitimate until I researched business registration renewal. First search that appeared was this article about Go Daddy scamming people. I am a very dissatisfied former customer of GoCrappy as well. I am willing to sign a class action law suit as I think this is bad business practice and it must be stopped. We cannot allow large companies to get away with stealing from us hard working individuals especially in this economy.
Thanks so much for posting. I have been a longtime Godaddy customer and have been fully happy about the service save for the fact that the CEO savagely kills elephants and takes fun pictures of it as he celebrates the kill. This alone makes me want to take my business elsewhere but I am too deeply entrenched in several sites. So to your point: I just registered NEW domains this evening and never had chosen “business” instead of “personal” site before now (and don’t even recall the option. So I chose it and saw the $4.99 charges and thought it was a legal obligation but also thought it could be a scam. So I googled it and found this site. Thank you so much for taking the time to help others by posting. Most appreciated!
I also had the same issue.
All my domains are set to MANUAL Renewal with no auto renewal.
So imagine my surprise when I have just been billed for 10 domains that Im dropping for business registration. $50!!!
Why in the hell would I want business registration for domains that Im dropping. And why when auto-renew is switched off do I still get charged. This is one of the biggest scams out there!!!
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