Complaint Review: GoDaddy.com - Scottsdale Arizona

I was employed with Godaddy Inc. for just over eight years before leaving the workforce and applying for disability in 2013. By 2007 I was already in the Assisted Server Support group when the ToS violation with Scott's hosting account started. I was unfortunately the only Assisted Server Support agent that was willing to speak with Scott via phone after his email correspondence with our support team which I will clarify below shortly.

Unfortunately Scott has not been completely honest in his description of the events that transpired leading to the suspension of his hosting account. We will go into the details that Scott was not clear or/did not understand and the details that he conveniently decided to not include. 

First I need to clear up the secureserver.net email address that Scott apparently believed was a separate entity from Godaddy (a contractor as he referred to it). I know for a fact that this is not the case from 2005 to 2013 as I was personally working at Godaddy during those years. The email address secureserver.net was not a 3rd party contractor email address, but simply a domain used by some of our support teams. For example Assisted Server Support was one of the teams that used that domain for their personal work email (the email address I used to contact Scott). Some of our Server Administrators also used the domain for their work emails. I am not sure what other departments used this internal domain for email unfortunately. 

The three "phishing" emails Scott received were clearly from a Godaddy.com email address. The company that he himself had purchased the three domains from along with the web hosting account. Each email was for one of the three domains in use on the hosting account that ended up being suspended. This information was clearly explained in each email (details below). The only difference between the three emails Scott received was the domain names as he had three domains assigned to the hosting account. 

The emails, all three of them, each advised the same thing. That his hosting account had violated our Terms of Service. The part specifically concerning the use of the hosting account as a storage space for files not tied into any domain assigned to the hosting account. 

Unfortunately Scott did what most of us do, he had agreed to the Terms of Service for the hosting account he purchased without actually reading them. I don't blame him for that as I have done this myself when making an online purchase at least a couple of times. The difference is I would not ever blame my failure to read the Terms of Service on the company if I violated those terms. The hosting space itself was required to be used for a domain assigned to the hosting space and not storage for files/videos that are not to any of the domains assigned to the hosting account. Scott's design of his three domains web pages within the one hosting account unfortunately had numerous videos there that were not part of domains on that hosting account which did violate the ToS. 

Scott unfortunately did not agree with the part of the ToS he violated. His reaction to the incident coupled with how he chose to respond to the incident is what led to me being the only Assisted Server Support agent willing to deal directly with Scott. 

Now I will not give my opinion on the part of the ToS related to using the hosting account only for websites and not storage as I had no control over the ToS contents. Had Scott read the ToS he would have seen the portion related to storing videos that are not part of the domains on the hosting account. He could have chosen a different hosting provider or a different method of using those videos in his domains on the hosting account. 

I need to clear up that Godaddy did not rent hosting space from 3rd party providers. They had their own Data Centers filled with servers to handle hosting accounts they sold. The part of the ToS relating to not using the hosting account as a storage account (we sold those types of accounts separately) was to keep customers from abusing server space by uploading large amounts of files that had nothing to do with the domains tied to the hosting account. We can speculate all we want about the business purposes behind having this as part of the ToS but this unfortunately does not change the fact that it was part of the ToS. Scott had to agree to the ToS to complete the hosting account purchase so he should have known this.

Now while Scott was correct that nothing had really changed on his hosting account since he had purchased it eight months prior to the incident. Unfortunately Scott just could not understand that Godaddy does not scan your hosting account automatically to determine if all content is actually in use within the domains assigned to the hosting account. That was actually done manually by another Godaddy server administrator for any hosting accounts that were using a rather large amount of space within the server. Since this was done manually they would focus on hosting accounts with more space used than hosting accounts with not much space used at all. Scott had used a rather large amount of his hosting account space and unfortunately there were uploaded videos found that did not appear to be part of any of the domains assigned to the hosting account. That ToS violation is what triggered the initial contact for all three domains from the do not reply email address. 

Now, unfortunately Scott decided to not fully read the three emails or the part of the ToS that he violated and instead call into our customer service & support phone line. That team unfortunately does not have access to the violation tickets or any additional information to provide him than what was already in the three emails. Scott needed to read the three emails and review the ToS after which he should have been able to easily identify what files were the issue. Scott was then supposed to contact our department via the information provided within those three emails with how he planned to correct the violation of the ToS concerning his hosting account.

Now Scott is not actually an exception to the usual reaction to this type of ToS violation. Since most people don't actually read the ToS we would always be dealing with at least a handful of customers every month that violated the storage portion of the ToS. Most people reacted similar to how Scott reacted, though Scott did go further than the average customer before finally closing his account with us. Personally I think this says more about our country and how entitled a large percentage of our population actually feels when it comes to things like this happening to them. Those individuals that are so entitled that they honestly don't feel that they need to abide by the ToS that they willingly agreed to without reading it first are really the hardest to deal with. This is because they honestly feel like they have been wronged since deep down they feel like the ToS should not really apply to them. 

As Scott did not actually respond as advised to do so in the three emails within the required time frame his hosting account did end up being suspended. Personally I would agree with Scott on the timing of the emails being over a holiday weekend not being a good idea. That is why I had requested that his hosting account be reinstated, which thankfully my supervisor approved that request. I did this to either give Scott time to correct the ToS without having to have his sites down while doing so, or time for him to transfer his hosting account to another provider. I did not care personally whichever method he chose to resolve the issue. I just cared that he could resolve the issue to his satisfaction. 

The unpleasant part of dealing with Scott started after he finally figured out which files were in violation of the ToS. Up until that point he was not any worse than your average upset customer that had been caught off guard by a ToS violation such as Scott was. Unfortunately the way Scott reacted once he found out which content was in violation is why this incident has been burned into my brain for over 13 years now.

The content in question was the massive amount of videos he had uploaded that was apparently related to his own daughter. These files were not actually used within any of the three domains assigned to the hosting account. This content was not available through either babystealer.com or babystealers.com, which is where the content was located within the hosting account space. Even Scott himself admitted that the files were not tied directly into the domains assigned to the hosting. He would instead give out direct links to specific files for people to view/watch. I don't know what people, but that was how Scott explained it to me over the phone.

I wish I had copies of the emails Scott sent into my team that caused everyone to be unwilling to deal with him directly. Unfortunately the phone calls with Scott did not really go much better either. Basically Scott had decided that since the files that were in violation were videos of his daughter, this somehow made my team nothing more than deviant pedofiles and sexual perverts. Scott had no problems with calling my fellow employees various unpleasant names related to sexual deviants, perverts and sexual predators. Unfortunately Scott clearly lacked impulse control over what he was saying to myself and my fellow employees. On a side note, I am a survivor of sexual abuse as a child which made dealing with someone like Scott all the more painful. 

He believed that since he did not have those videos in question directly linked within his domains assigned to the hosting account Godaddy did not have access to them. This is not accurate for any hosting company you use as they have a backway into the hosting space but apparently Scott did not understand this. So due to Scott’s misunderstanding on how hosting works his mind decided this meant the only reason the hosting account was suspended was because someone was mad they could not look at his daughter's videos he stored in the hosting space that were against the ToS he agreed to.

I am not sure how Scott's mind jumped to this conclusion to be honest as it does not make any sense if you understand how the average web hosting company functions. Godaddy actually owned the hosting servers that his hosting account was on. This meant that any Godaddy employee with appropriate access rights could access all of his hosting account files from the back end via FTP. This could be done the entire time he had hosting with us, even while his hosting account was suspended. This is the normal way our support agents (like my team) help customers with issues they have within their hosting accounts in many of our customer contacts. The only agents that don't have this access also don't have the authority to issue ToS violations either. So it would not have been any Godaddy employee that did not have access rights either that could suspend his hosting account. 

When speaking with Scott over the phone I did ensure he completely understood why the videos were in violation. I also offered a solution that would have easily fixed this violation for him but he unfortunately did not want to do the work required to bring his hosting account into compliance with the ToS. 

Remember how Scott advised he only "activates" those links when someone expresses interest in seeing them online? Basically his "activates" was nothing more than giving a direct link to whoever wanted to see the videos in question. I advised him that instead of doing it that way he could build a private web page within his domains, anyone of them. Make this private web page password protected of which he had various methods to accomplish this. After that all Scott had to do was ensure every video that was not linked to a domain on the hosting account was linked in that private web page instead. That would have brought his hosting into compliance with the ToS without him having to remove the videos or making them publicly accessible. 

Unfortunately Scott did not want to make any modifications to his sites nor to how he shared those videos with direct links instead of directly within one of his domains web pages. Scott also did not want to have to remove the videos from his hosting account space. So basically his account remained in violation of the ToS until he cancelled it shortly after transferring to another hosting provider. 

Received today: "From: John E. Shaffer-Spencer ([email protected]) Sent: Mon 11/26/07 11:22 AM To: scott--- "Dear Scott, " Please note that I attempted to contact you today but unfortunately had been unable to contact you so left a voice message. At this time I would like a chance to speak with you over the phone so would appreciate if you could reply with a good call back time or simply when you will be available at your phone number 281-240-8343 so we can speak concerning your site screensender.com at this time as well as any other site that may have been pointing to this hostng account. As a side note your site has been re-instated at this point in time until further information/review can be obtained. "Best regards, John E. Shaffer-Spencer "Assisted Server Support [email protected] "24X7 Customer Support Services 480.505.8877 Assisted Support Services 480.366.3310 Billing 480.505.8855 Fax 480.505.8844" So, some questions have been answered - the "phishing" e-mails that originally threatened my account from a web address unknown to me (secureserver.net) is a third-party contractor (ne "hatchet-man") for GoDaddy.com, and the mysterious "John S.S." is actually John E. Shaffer-Spencer. I spoke with Mr. Shaffer-Spencer, and other than the self-absorbed nature that goes with having a hypenated last name, he seemed like a nice enough guy. Unfortunately, all he could do was spout the company line, but I had the sense he genuinely felt apologetic for what had happened and his company's role in it. Having said that, let me also say nothing makes a cretin worse like cowardice - if you've been caught doing something incredibly mean and stupid, stand up like a man and answer to the punishment! GoDaddy.com hid behind this contractor to go after customers in order to resell the same server space over and over to unsuspecting customers, and when busted for it, continued to hide behind the contractor and not make good for the damage they did. Here's what happened - three or four months ago, GoDaddy.com hired this company to go looking for "violations" of their policies so that they could reduce their server loads and replace lower-tier customers with others who consumed less resources and purchased more services. I registered several domain names with GoDaddy.com (including ScreenSender.com, BabyStealer.com, and BabyStealers.com), purchased web-hosting for ScreenSender.com, and paid to point BabyStealer.com, and BabyStealers.com at files in ScreenSender.com file space. When GoDaddy personnel pointed the sites, they updated the DNS servers correctly but did not add the parked domains to the admin console for ScreenSender.com. All SecureServer.net was given was the ScreenSender.com name, and no additional information about the links to BabyStealer.com, and BabyStealers.com. They saw files in ScreenSender.com files space that weren't part of ScreenSender.com, and immediately went into Keystone Kops mode. When during the Thanksgiving holiday noone immediately responded to the first e-mail, 24-hours later (still during the holiday), they pulled the plug on the entire ScreenSender.com site. Every bit of that is absolutely reprehensible. Even disregarding other issues, I had paid for 300 GB of storage and was enttiled to use it however I wished to support the website services I purchased. Pulling the plug on a commercial site because someone incapable of qualifying for a better job doesn't understand a link to a specific file on the site is despicable (they didn't even Google the site to find the link, per John S.S.). GoDaddy seems to think the only debt they owe for their incompetence and malfeasance is having their mercenary put the sites back up after three days outage, without acknowledging their errors and megalomaniac attitudes and behaviors. I have, of course, purchased web hosting services from another vendor that provides more storage and bandwidth for less money, and will be moving all my sites to their servers this weekend. I will expend every effort necessary to dissuade anyone - ESPECIALLY small businesses - from using any GoDaddy.com services. I will mount another website, and will broadcast this incident and others throughout the Internet - until and unless, of course, I receive an apology and compensation for the time my sites were down (but I don't expect that to happen, since being a real man is asking too much of this particular jarhead).

Received today: "From: John E. Shaffer-Spencer ([email protected]) Sent: Mon 11/26/07 11:22 AM To: scott--- "Dear Scott, " Please note that I attempted to contact you today but unfortunately had been unable to contact you so left a voice message. At this time I would like a chance to speak with you over the phone so would appreciate if you could reply with a good call back time or simply when you will be available at your phone number 281-240-8343 so we can speak concerning your site screensender.com at this time as well as any other site that may have been pointing to this hostng account. As a side note your site has been re-instated at this point in time until further information/review can be obtained. "Best regards, John E. Shaffer-Spencer "Assisted Server Support [email protected] "24X7 Customer Support Services 480.505.8877 Assisted Support Services 480.366.3310 Billing 480.505.8855 Fax 480.505.8844" So, some questions have been answered - the "phishing" e-mails that originally threatened my account from a web address unknown to me (secureserver.net) is a third-party contractor (ne "hatchet-man") for GoDaddy.com, and the mysterious "John S.S." is actually John E. Shaffer-Spencer. I spoke with Mr. Shaffer-Spencer, and other than the self-absorbed nature that goes with having a hypenated last name, he seemed like a nice enough guy. Unfortunately, all he could do was spout the company line, but I had the sense he genuinely felt apologetic for what had happened and his company's role in it. Having said that, let me also say nothing makes a cretin worse like cowardice - if you've been caught doing something incredibly mean and stupid, stand up like a man and answer to the punishment! GoDaddy.com hid behind this contractor to go after customers in order to resell the same server space over and over to unsuspecting customers, and when busted for it, continued to hide behind the contractor and not make good for the damage they did. Here's what happened - three or four months ago, GoDaddy.com hired this company to go looking for "violations" of their policies so that they could reduce their server loads and replace lower-tier customers with others who consumed less resources and purchased more services. I registered several domain names with GoDaddy.com (including ScreenSender.com, BabyStealer.com, and BabyStealers.com), purchased web-hosting for ScreenSender.com, and paid to point BabyStealer.com, and BabyStealers.com at files in ScreenSender.com file space. When GoDaddy personnel pointed the sites, they updated the DNS servers correctly but did not add the parked domains to the admin console for ScreenSender.com. All SecureServer.net was given was the ScreenSender.com name, and no additional information about the links to BabyStealer.com, and BabyStealers.com. They saw files in ScreenSender.com files space that weren't part of ScreenSender.com, and immediately went into Keystone Kops mode. When during the Thanksgiving holiday noone immediately responded to the first e-mail, 24-hours later (still during the holiday), they pulled the plug on the entire ScreenSender.com site. Every bit of that is absolutely reprehensible. Even disregarding other issues, I had paid for 300 GB of storage and was enttiled to use it however I wished to support the website services I purchased. Pulling the plug on a commercial site because someone incapable of qualifying for a better job doesn't understand a link to a specific file on the site is despicable (they didn't even Google the site to find the link, per John S.S.). GoDaddy seems to think the only debt they owe for their incompetence and malfeasance is having their mercenary put the sites back up after three days outage, without acknowledging their errors and megalomaniac attitudes and behaviors. I have, of course, purchased web hosting services from another vendor that provides more storage and bandwidth for less money, and will be moving all my sites to their servers this weekend. I will expend every effort necessary to dissuade anyone - ESPECIALLY small businesses - from using any GoDaddy.com services. I will mount another website, and will broadcast this incident and others throughout the Internet - until and unless, of course, I receive an apology and compensation for the time my sites were down (but I don't expect that to happen, since being a real man is asking too much of this particular jarhead).

Received today: "From: John E. Shaffer-Spencer ([email protected]) Sent: Mon 11/26/07 11:22 AM To: scott--- "Dear Scott, " Please note that I attempted to contact you today but unfortunately had been unable to contact you so left a voice message. At this time I would like a chance to speak with you over the phone so would appreciate if you could reply with a good call back time or simply when you will be available at your phone number 281-240-8343 so we can speak concerning your site screensender.com at this time as well as any other site that may have been pointing to this hostng account. As a side note your site has been re-instated at this point in time until further information/review can be obtained. "Best regards, John E. Shaffer-Spencer "Assisted Server Support [email protected] "24X7 Customer Support Services 480.505.8877 Assisted Support Services 480.366.3310 Billing 480.505.8855 Fax 480.505.8844" So, some questions have been answered - the "phishing" e-mails that originally threatened my account from a web address unknown to me (secureserver.net) is a third-party contractor (ne "hatchet-man") for GoDaddy.com, and the mysterious "John S.S." is actually John E. Shaffer-Spencer. I spoke with Mr. Shaffer-Spencer, and other than the self-absorbed nature that goes with having a hypenated last name, he seemed like a nice enough guy. Unfortunately, all he could do was spout the company line, but I had the sense he genuinely felt apologetic for what had happened and his company's role in it. Having said that, let me also say nothing makes a cretin worse like cowardice - if you've been caught doing something incredibly mean and stupid, stand up like a man and answer to the punishment! GoDaddy.com hid behind this contractor to go after customers in order to resell the same server space over and over to unsuspecting customers, and when busted for it, continued to hide behind the contractor and not make good for the damage they did. Here's what happened - three or four months ago, GoDaddy.com hired this company to go looking for "violations" of their policies so that they could reduce their server loads and replace lower-tier customers with others who consumed less resources and purchased more services. I registered several domain names with GoDaddy.com (including ScreenSender.com, BabyStealer.com, and BabyStealers.com), purchased web-hosting for ScreenSender.com, and paid to point BabyStealer.com, and BabyStealers.com at files in ScreenSender.com file space. When GoDaddy personnel pointed the sites, they updated the DNS servers correctly but did not add the parked domains to the admin console for ScreenSender.com. All SecureServer.net was given was the ScreenSender.com name, and no additional information about the links to BabyStealer.com, and BabyStealers.com. They saw files in ScreenSender.com files space that weren't part of ScreenSender.com, and immediately went into Keystone Kops mode. When during the Thanksgiving holiday noone immediately responded to the first e-mail, 24-hours later (still during the holiday), they pulled the plug on the entire ScreenSender.com site. Every bit of that is absolutely reprehensible. Even disregarding other issues, I had paid for 300 GB of storage and was enttiled to use it however I wished to support the website services I purchased. Pulling the plug on a commercial site because someone incapable of qualifying for a better job doesn't understand a link to a specific file on the site is despicable (they didn't even Google the site to find the link, per John S.S.). GoDaddy seems to think the only debt they owe for their incompetence and malfeasance is having their mercenary put the sites back up after three days outage, without acknowledging their errors and megalomaniac attitudes and behaviors. I have, of course, purchased web hosting services from another vendor that provides more storage and bandwidth for less money, and will be moving all my sites to their servers this weekend. I will expend every effort necessary to dissuade anyone - ESPECIALLY small businesses - from using any GoDaddy.com services. I will mount another website, and will broadcast this incident and others throughout the Internet - until and unless, of course, I receive an apology and compensation for the time my sites were down (but I don't expect that to happen, since being a real man is asking too much of this particular jarhead).

Received today: "From: John E. Shaffer-Spencer ([email protected]) Sent: Mon 11/26/07 11:22 AM To: scott--- "Dear Scott, " Please note that I attempted to contact you today but unfortunately had been unable to contact you so left a voice message. At this time I would like a chance to speak with you over the phone so would appreciate if you could reply with a good call back time or simply when you will be available at your phone number 281-240-8343 so we can speak concerning your site screensender.com at this time as well as any other site that may have been pointing to this hostng account. As a side note your site has been re-instated at this point in time until further information/review can be obtained. "Best regards, John E. Shaffer-Spencer "Assisted Server Support [email protected] "24X7 Customer Support Services 480.505.8877 Assisted Support Services 480.366.3310 Billing 480.505.8855 Fax 480.505.8844" So, some questions have been answered - the "phishing" e-mails that originally threatened my account from a web address unknown to me (secureserver.net) is a third-party contractor (ne "hatchet-man") for GoDaddy.com, and the mysterious "John S.S." is actually John E. Shaffer-Spencer. I spoke with Mr. Shaffer-Spencer, and other than the self-absorbed nature that goes with having a hypenated last name, he seemed like a nice enough guy. Unfortunately, all he could do was spout the company line, but I had the sense he genuinely felt apologetic for what had happened and his company's role in it. Having said that, let me also say nothing makes a cretin worse like cowardice - if you've been caught doing something incredibly mean and stupid, stand up like a man and answer to the punishment! GoDaddy.com hid behind this contractor to go after customers in order to resell the same server space over and over to unsuspecting customers, and when busted for it, continued to hide behind the contractor and not make good for the damage they did. Here's what happened - three or four months ago, GoDaddy.com hired this company to go looking for "violations" of their policies so that they could reduce their server loads and replace lower-tier customers with others who consumed less resources and purchased more services. I registered several domain names with GoDaddy.com (including ScreenSender.com, BabyStealer.com, and BabyStealers.com), purchased web-hosting for ScreenSender.com, and paid to point BabyStealer.com, and BabyStealers.com at files in ScreenSender.com file space. When GoDaddy personnel pointed the sites, they updated the DNS servers correctly but did not add the parked domains to the admin console for ScreenSender.com. All SecureServer.net was given was the ScreenSender.com name, and no additional information about the links to BabyStealer.com, and BabyStealers.com. They saw files in ScreenSender.com files space that weren't part of ScreenSender.com, and immediately went into Keystone Kops mode. When during the Thanksgiving holiday noone immediately responded to the first e-mail, 24-hours later (still during the holiday), they pulled the plug on the entire ScreenSender.com site. Every bit of that is absolutely reprehensible. Even disregarding other issues, I had paid for 300 GB of storage and was enttiled to use it however I wished to support the website services I purchased. Pulling the plug on a commercial site because someone incapable of qualifying for a better job doesn't understand a link to a specific file on the site is despicable (they didn't even Google the site to find the link, per John S.S.). GoDaddy seems to think the only debt they owe for their incompetence and malfeasance is having their mercenary put the sites back up after three days outage, without acknowledging their errors and megalomaniac attitudes and behaviors. I have, of course, purchased web hosting services from another vendor that provides more storage and bandwidth for less money, and will be moving all my sites to their servers this weekend. I will expend every effort necessary to dissuade anyone - ESPECIALLY small businesses - from using any GoDaddy.com services. I will mount another website, and will broadcast this incident and others throughout the Internet - until and unless, of course, I receive an apology and compensation for the time my sites were down (but I don't expect that to happen, since being a real man is asking too much of this particular jarhead).

Monday morning update: After doing some research, it's apparent that Bob Parson and/or one of his prized employees is a pedophile infatuated with my one-year-old daughter. My business website (ScreenSender.com) was suspended because my child-custody website BabyStealer.com or BabyStealers.com (one site has nothing to do with the other - they share no links or files) has videos of my daughter, and someone at GoDaddy.com has had their child-molester fantasies frustrated by the fact I activate the links to those videos only when someone expresses interest in seeing them online (that is, I do not allow the general public to access videos that have identifying details and information in them, in order to protect my daughter). These videos are simply baby videos like any proud father would have, and they validate the content of this rest of the site in that I was awarded primary custody of my daughter because I was able to prove the allegations in the remainder of the website. What does any of that have to with ScreenSender.com or "file repositories"? Absolutely nothing, of course. But Mr. Parsons and/or his companion are furious with me that I won't let them leer at my daughter's videos whenever they want to, and they have suspended screensender.com in retaliation (as well as BabyStealer.com). All three sites were registered with GoDaddy.com, all accounts are current, and the sites are well below the purchased storage space. Here's the kicker - what is ScreenSender.com's purpose in life? Protecting teenagers and children from online predators! (it tracks not just what a child types, but also the other side of the online conversation). I am sure someone at GoDaddy.com doesn't want to get caught with their pants unzipped and a handful of lubricant late at night in front of their computer talking to an eight-year-old. I will not permit Bob Parsons and his band of perverts to bully me or my daughter.