I recently had a rather troubling experience with my own domain names. I tend to use my website as a place to host my personal projects and with the idea of making such things available to potential employers--

A few months ago I was charged (without any kind of notice) a $20 service fee for a service I had not requested from my domain name registrar (GoDaddy.com). As you might imagine, I was a little bit miffed that I had been, essentially charged $20 for no reason. However, such a clause was written into GoDaddy's contract (You can be charged at any time for any reason for any services rendered regarding your domain name regardless of whether requested or not, etc etc.), so I grudgingly paid the bill. However, GoDaddy had charged me twice for this $20 fee. When I spoke with them on the phone they refused to acknowledge a double charge. To make a long story short, I disputed the additional extra $20 charge, but paid the first. In response, GoDaddy.com decided to reclaim (ie, steal) my domain names from me, even though the domains legally belong to me for at least another 6 months.

Right now I'm trying to resolve things with the Better Business Bureau but things don't look good.

Posted by: . on March 30, 2006 5:23 PM

Oh -- I forgot to mention that in order to have my domain names returned to me, GoDaddy.com wants me not only to pay the second $20 fee, but also an additional $50 service fee. Rather amusing to think that they want me to pay 7x the original cost of the domain just to get them to fulfill the contract that was made when I purchased/rented the domain name.

Posted by: . on March 30, 2006 5:31 PM

It's earthlink, what do you expect?
I just spent 2hr15min on the phone with their technician after having lost net connection for 3days (shaking and sweating all over, naturally) - and finally got my fix!

One consolation: Time Warner's customer service is even worse: when told that my modem's little green lights aren't flashing, the attendant told me the case that complicated needs to be handled by technician; the nearest visit could be scheduled for April 15.

Posted by: Tat on March 30, 2006 10:03 PM

Wow, sounds like nightmares. I wonder if the online-access (and online-business) worlds will ever calm down and become a bit more trustworthy. Is there something about the online-ism that makes it so prone to scamming? Or just that it's all so young and the stakes are so high?

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on March 31, 2006 10:47 AM






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