GoDaddy started following this practice of FRAUD and EXTORTION in early 2012 and after 56 complaints to GoDaddy and several to the FTC, GoDaddy continues this practice. If you are a GoDaddy customer, you have probably seen this.
Here is my last complaint to the FTC:
GoDaddy is guilty of Internet FRAUD and EXTORTION on a very large scale as I understand the terms.
FRAUD: Wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial gain.
EXTORTION: The practice of obtaining something, esp. money, through force or threats.
They do both of these things by sending out several messages prior to a domain expiring, which state "You must act before [domain expiration date] or incur the additional $80.00 fee."
According to GoDaddy's terms of service, this is absolutely the opposite of what these terms state. There is NO ACTION REQUIRED according to the terms. This $80 fee applies only if you decide to renewmore than 3 days after it has expired. If they added a conditional statement like "if you decide to renew more than 3 days after the expiration date" then the statement would be correct. So, when they say "You must act before [domain expiration date] or incur the additional $80.00 fee." - they are clearly using "deception" for the purpose of financial gain (FRAUD) and are threatening us with an $80 fee (EXTORTION). Multiply this times millions of customers with an average of 3 domains each, and you will get at least $360,000,000 in FRAUD and EXTORTION attempts being executed by GoDaddy yearly.
This costs me about 2 hours of time reading through their terms of service each time they send this message. This costs my company $250 for use of my time every time I get one of these messages about the $80 fee (about $14,000 in the last year - my company bills me out at $125/hr. and this time is taken from my company by GoDaddy).
I am forced to review the terms each time I get one of these emails because part of the GoDaddy terms states that they can change the terms at any time without notification. I have received 56 of these emails over the last year, and I have sent GoDaddy a CEASE AND DESIST notification with each email received since they first began this practice of FRAUD and EXTORTION.
Please send them a note. I am sure this is happening to millions of people and costing American small businesses Billions of Dollars of time that could be used to help our economy.
Thank you for your help in this matter.
PS - Regarding proof of this, I have all the original emails and responses saved, and I have printed and bound the emails, which can be copied and sent to you. You can also subpoena a list of GoDaddy customers and get millions of people to testify to the above facts I have laid out for you, if necessary, but I think if you just send GoDaddy a note, they will stop. Just a few minutes of your time can save American small businesses billions of dollars worth of lost time dealing with this issue. I hope you decide to help. Thank you in advance for any help you may offer.
UPDATE - I have turned this over to our legal staff and have they have received no response from GoDaddy. The FTC has not moved forward with this either. We are currently considering legal action or a class action lawsuit.
