I used to be an Internet Service Provider back in the dialup days. Did web hosting, email, dialup access for folks in all 50 states.
I am still a registrar.
Jumping forward, a friend in India and I were working on building a new Linux operating system. Someone had registered his domain for him and he had lost contact with that person. I warned him that we neede to transfer the domain away from GoDaddy before it expired or they would steal it. Finally I convinced him. we had 6 weeks before the domain was due again. I put in a transfer order through OpenSRS, one of the best in the biz.
Two hours later, the site was down and gone and the domain name was for sale by a company in Scottsdale, Az, Research showed it to be a child company of GoDaddy. Remember, this domain was still 6 weeks from expiring! This is important to remember as I see lots of issues where someone DID let their domain expire and it was too late. I will add that most hosting companies will grant at least a 2 week late grace period. In the case I'm mentiong above the domain was not even expired and had a nomth and a half left!!!!
GoDaddy just didn't want to lose it so they stole it... BEFORE it even expired. We would pull up the page (THAT WE STILL OWNED) and it would go to this "holding comopany" stating that we could buy this domain for $3500.
Yes, believe it. GoDaddy is a ripoff. They have lawsuits galore going on. Some from customers they've stolen from and MANY from employees thy've forced to work longer hours and promised compensation (which the employees never got).
Goggle GoDaddy complaints and you will find a plethera of dirt on them!
Ex isp
Arizona,#2Author of original report
Sun, July 26, 2015
I would have to question your smarts here.
I would never consider giving any money to a group that promotes hacking... liken it to making a deal with the devil and expecting to come out on top for it!
I think the comment "DUH" would be appropos here...
Sorry for your loss but think next time about who you are doing business with!