GoDaddy review: Overcharging and failure of products

Regarding the Account of Customer Number [protected].

Hello, my name is Jo and I have just spent the day going through my GoDaddy Accounts. I am extremely alarmed by my findings, so I am writing to you directly about the issues that have accumulated and which I have previously failed to resolve via your technical team. I really do not have the time or energy to waste either my or your time with matters which are probably very small to you, but very significant and distressing to me, so I would like to resolve this quickly.

1. MASSIVE OVER CHARGING FOR SERVICES I NEVER HAD.

I bought a whole series of domain names in 2021-22 for a total of less than £100. Three years later, quite by chance, I have discovered that GoDaddy has taken a total of £3397.72 from my bank account. This is literally theft and extortion because it was without my knowledge or agreement. I am sure there must be some sort of system error, but I would very much like to sort this out and suggest an immediate refund for £3000. This is particularly in light of the experience I have had including:

2. DISAPPEARANCE OF MY WEB SITE

Neurome.education

I bought a domain name and a free website for £26 in 2021.

I built a website which was a whole new business. This suddenly disappeared for absolutely no reason. I called GoDaddy to try and sort it out, but got nowhere. This was absolutely ages ago, possibly as long as two years. Yet I have paid over £1000 since just for this domain.

It is obviously a system malfunction because I can see the following email

(1) why would you even be referring to deleting my website?

(2) Then continue to charge me huge amounts for it?

(3) when GoDaddy had already deleted this account over a year ago (for no apparent reason)?

(4) And I have been paying you vast sums?

I had to move to a different provider because I just couldn’t risk this happening again; I then tried to transfer this domain name but it just didn’t work. So I can’t use it even.

A total of £1017.19, has been taken from my account. This has been taken without my knowledge or permission for a deleted site that your team couldn’t even find and couldn’t recover. These are the payments.

2022-01-17T09:34:25.000Z .EDUCATION Domain Registration neurome.education 0.13 1 Year 21.93 4.41 26.47 GBP

2023-01-18T13:50:06.000Z .EDUCATION Domain Renewal NEUROME.EDUCATION 0.17 1 Year 27.66 5.56 33.39 GBP

2021-10-03T09:41:35.000Z Website Builder Free Trial neurome.education 0 1 Month 0 0 0 GBP

2022-11-03T19:49:09.000Z Websites + Marketing Ecommerce Intl - Renewal - 1 Year neurome.education 0 1 Year 299.88 59.98 359.86 USD

2021-11-03T16:37:55.000Z Websites + Marketing Ecommerce Intl - Renewal - 1 Year neurome.education 0 1 Year 167.88 33.58 201.46 GBP

2023-02-17T21:51:06.000Z Websites + Marketing Premium Plan Intl Renewal neurome.education 0 1 Year 203.88 40.78 244.66 GBP

2022-02-17T21:29:38.000Z Websites + Marketing Premium Plan Intl Renewal neurome.education 0 1 Year 125.88 25.18 151.06 GBP

I would like a full refund please

3. Other Domains

By contrast the other domain names which I have had for a similar time have been charged at MUCH MORE REASONABLE RATES.

Mindtechonline.com £52.73 and $11.99. Why some amounts are charged as £’s and others $’s is a mystery. But overall this is an acceptable amount to pay to hold a domain.

2021-08-02T14:33:51.000Z .COM Domain Registration mindtechonline.com

0.13 1 Year 10.86 2.2 13.19 GBP

2023-08-03T19:10:15.000Z .COM Domain Renewal MINDTECHONLINE.COM

0.15 1 Year 17.82 3.59 21.56 GBP

2022-08-03T13:23:24.000Z .COM Domain Renewal MINDTECHONLINE.COM

0.18 1 Year 19.99 4.03 24.2 USD

2021-08-02T14:33:51.000Z Full Domain Privacy and Protection mindtechonline.com

0 1 Year 5.99 1.2 7.19 GBP

2023-08-03T19:10:15.000Z Full Domain Privacy and Protection - Renewal MINDTECHONLINE.COM

0 1 Year 8.99 1.8 10.79 GBP

2022-08-03T13:23:24.000Z Full Domain Privacy and Protection - Renewal MINDTECHONLINE.COM

0 1 Year 9.99 2 11.99 USD

Leftrightworld.com £25.24 and $67.39

2023-08-03T19:10:15.000Z .WORLD Domain Renewal LEFTRIGHT.WORLD 0.15 1 Year 36.18 7.26 43.59 GBP

2022-08-03T13:23:16.000Z .WORLD Domain Renewal LEFTRIGHT.WORLD 0.18 1 Year 45.99 9.23 55.4 USD

2021-08-02T14:33:51.000Z Full Domain Privacy and Protection leftright.world 0 1 Year 5.99 1.2 7.19 GBP

2023-08-03T19:10:15.000Z Full Domain Privacy and Protection - Renewal LEFTRIGHT.WORLD 0 1 Year 8.99 1.8 10.79 GBP

2022-08-03T13:23:16.000Z Full Domain Privacy and Protection - Renewal LEFTRIGHT.WORLD 0 1 Year 9.99 2 11.99 USD

Evolvio.us; Minddiversity.com also reasonable ;

Planetfutura.com; smartmind.co are both very overpriced.

I don’t even have any functional websites, and the one I had put time into disappeared, as I have said, yet I am being charged some huge amount anyway.

4. MICROSOFT

This is another shocker. You sold me 3 subscriptions for Microsoft. I called to get 2 of them cancelled. I have now calculated that you have charged me a massive amount of £1049.88 over a period of 3 years. This is astronomical.

2021-10-03T09:41:35.000Z Microsoft 365 Business Professional 0 1 Year 89.88 17.98 107.86

2021-08-02T14:33:51.000Z Microsoft 365 Business Professional 0 1 Year 89.88 17.97 107.85

2021-06-19T00:51:10.000Z Microsoft 365 Business Professional 0 1 Year 89.88 17.98 107.86

2023-06-19T04:29:56.000Z Microsoft 365 Business Professional Renewal 0 1 Year 155.88 31.18 187.06

2022-10-03T13:50:52.000Z Microsoft 365 Business Professional Renewal 0 1 Year 191.88 38.38 230.26

2022-08-02T13:39:56.000Z Microsoft 365 Business Professional Renewal 0 1 Year 191.88 38.38 230.26



2022-06-18T20:18:43.000Z Microsoft 365 Business Professional Renewal 0 1 Year 155.88 31.18 187.06

2022-07-11T13:50:22.000Z Microsoft 365 Email Essentials 0 1 Year 23.88 4.78 28.66

2023-07-11T21:23:26.000Z Microsoft 365 Email Essentials Renewal 0 1 Year 59.88 11.98 71.86

2022-07-18T12:36:55.000Z Website Builder Free Trial 0 1 Month 0 0 0

2021-08-02T14:33:51.000Z Website Builder Free Trial 0 1 Month 0 0 0

2021-06-19T00:51:10.000Z Website Builder Free Trial 0 1 Month 0 0 0

I would like a refund for two of them please..

5. LIFEOLOGY.COM

Then there is the issue of ‘Lifeology.com’

I bought this domain name in July 2022, and paid for it on Go Daddy. I even sent a message to my programmer about it. I had transferred it to my WIX Account. I was therefore very confused when this domain name didn’t arrive on Wix and all trace of my purchase was gone from GoDaddy. It just totally disappeared from my account. When I clicked on the link to buy it again it offered to sell it to me again for $9,900!

I would like this domain back please. For the amount I paid for it. I had finally found the ideal name – and for the second time, I had a product disappear from my account.

Transferring domains is generally incredibly difficult.

6. Summary & Conclusions

I appreciate there must be many challenges in automating and running a business like GoDaddy, but my experience is unacceptable. Your emails go straight to junk, so I never see any of them, and in fact I have a message on my email which says I am no longer using email. They are really bizarre at any rate, telling me that my sites were ‘removed’ ‘parked’, ‘auto-renewals’ and so forth, whilst still taking money from my account.

But the financials are just one problem – I lost two which put my business back months and which cost me in regards to time and earnings dearly. A am not some big business which can absorb such costs - I am a single mum, a widow in fact, my husband having died in 2020, with three boys and no income trying to get going again. It is actually a cure for dyslexia that I have invented which I was automating on your site. Neurome.education was the site I had built to bring this to life. Until it literally just disappeared. If it could be recovered I would be very happy. But given this happened ages and ages ago, like about 1-2 years, why are you sending me emails about deleting an already deleted site? And why anyway when you have charged me over £1000.

The fact that last month that email arrived saying Neurome.education would be deleted does strongly suggest malfunction of the automation.

So please arrange for a refund of £3000 + compensation for the stress and hassle this has caused along with loss of time and earnings.

I also need to know how to sort this out from now on. I need to protect my accounts from this unacceptable loss of financials.

I would very much appreciate it if you could please look into this for me as a matter of urgency, and I look forward to your reply. I will send you an email which hopefully means your reply won’t go into junk.

With my best wishes and kind regards

Yours sincerely

Dr Joanna Iddon

(I sent this letter to the CEO of Go Daddy)