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I really want to keep this as short as I can and address only the primary issue. For those who don’t know, GoDaddy is one of the most popular domain registrar’s in the market and I started using it a couple of years back as a means for getting rid of my local registrar who had been screwing up routinely in a most inefficient way.

Abstract: Lately, they have not only made a few irrational and immoral decisions, but they also robbed me of a rather large sum of money and then messed up my order completely. In short, I paid thrice for the same order and I didn’t even get what I ordered. Furthermore, somehow the same domain was purchased twice using my account and I have absolutely no idea how it’s even possible.

Not-Abstract: So there was this domain that I registered some years back and it expired. I received an email that suggested that my card had already been charged and that the domain had already been renewed. Some days later, my father told me that he heard from the bank about an online transaction and that the card linked to my GoDaddy account had been blocked prior to the transaction, so the transaction wasn’t possible. He added that he’d already made the bank aware of this.

But then my father told me that he’d heard again from the bank and that they’d told him that the said transaction had already been processed and that we’d be billed for it shortly.

Surprisingly enough, I lost the domain. I received an email from GoDaddy that said my bank had revoked the transaction, and later on, I received one that stated that the domain had been deleted from my account. Now we assumed (not wise at all) that the bank had reconsidered and chosen to let it pass. So I fired up Live Chat and talked to this operator named “Merita” who was kind enough to inform me that my domain could be restored to my account if I agreed to pay an amount that was about twice the cost of the domain + privacy. She added that the “restoration charges” were included in that amount. I asked if the privacy was included and she said yes. Grudgingly, I agreed to make that payment. She told me that the domain would be restored within 72 hours. The chat ended. All was well.

Now the bank contacted us yet again, and this time, they told us that they’d made the transaction. I was like _what the hell? _I checked my account and sure enough, there was a new order receipt for that same domain and the privacy addon, and the charged amount was the standard cost.

Now let me explain to you what was wrong about this. Somehow, the bank was able to, on my behalf, purchase a domain for me, that I already owned. And GoDaddy was kind enough to let them. What’s more, I checked the list of domains associated with my account and guess what? The privacy for the domain I had just bought twice wasn’t even enabled. All I saw was a shitty “Add Privacy” button that took me to the shopping cart.

So in short, I paid: 2(cost of domain + privacy) + (cost of domain + privacy) = 3(cost of domain + privacy)
and in return, I got the domain but without the privacy.

The worst part: They’ve killed off their Ticket-based support system and there’s not a single email address that can be used to contact them. All you have is the crappy Live Chat and the US based phone number. Issues like this need to be explained properly without dumb interruptions from the other end. Furthermore, explaining something like this over a live chat/call would be terribly frustrating and getting disconnected in the middle of it wouldn’t help at all considering the fact that you might not connect to the same operator again and will have to start over.

But then what happened?

Nothing. I haven’t yet been able to contact them. The shitty Live Chat is available only at certain hours and even then you have to wait like half-an-hour before you get connected to an operator. Will have to update this post later.