A tall tale unfolding on Twitter claims that a customer who called GoDaddy for customer support had their domain registered by an employee.
The person sharing the story isn’t the victim, yet presents a rather detailed picture of how the case allegedly unfolded:
- The GoDaddy customer, who is an entrepreneurial “legend” and also “elderly” called in for support on how to set up his web site.
- The GoDaddy employee supposedly asks for the desired name and once it’s found to be available he hang up the phone.
- Minutes later, the elderly legend calls back and is connected to another GoDaddy employee; by that time, the domain is registered already.
The story has a second part that unfolds months later, with the elderly legend contacting the tale teller about it. The domain is then found to be up for sale with a $25,000 dollar price tag, at which point the elderly legend hires an attorney who contacts GoDaddy about it.
As if by magic, the domain registrant’s information is exposed and a simple C&D aka nastygram from the lawyer allegedly delivers the desired outcome: The domain is turned over and all ends well.
The story is hard to believe as it does not contain any evidence other than hearsay; the tale teller actually followed up with a few details, watering down the original post’s claims:
- He now doubts GoDaddy was aware of the incident
- The elderly legend supposedly spilled all the beans about his successful business that had yet to have a web site
- He’s not 100% sure it was a GoDaddy employee who did the deed
- The attorney who allegedly took care of business is unknown.
Meanwhile, real IP attorney, John Berryhill, chimed in about this hard to believe incident, in a comment left by domain broker, Jeff Gabriel.
I thought about it more…I manage multiple domain portfolios for my clients that use Godaddys services one way or another…Every time I call in they tell me this call is being recorded, then they want my pin and they want to confirm who I am. DESPITE me knowing some of these…
— Jeffrey M. Gabriel (@JeffreyMGabriel) February 21, 2024
In our opinion, the story is very hard to believe and even if one gets frustrated by the level of support provided by GoDaddy employees at times, such an incident would trigger an internal investigation that would be made available to outsiders as GoDaddy is a publicly traded company.
