Just over a month ago, I wrote an article about how GoDaddy seemed to have difficulty with the sale process of Aussie domains. In particular, completing a Change of Registrant or Registrant Name Change. This is the process involved when you buy or sell a domain (to or from another party).
GD are great at getting domains transferred to their platform – but after that, their system seems to fail. When I wrote the above article, I emailed management at GD to tell them they had a problem. They thanked me, and also assured me that this was going to be a high priority for their product team.
Nothing Has Changed
Unfortunately, 5 weeks down the track, nothing has changed.
As I wrote in this article, the GoDaddy Buy Service sold two 3L domains of mine (to separate buyers). After I accepted the deals, GD moved the domains over to their platform.
I have long been paid on both. As an example, this is the email I got on one of them on the 19th September (amounts and identifiers redacted; bolding is mine):
Claim ID: 649910
Dear Ned,
The ownership change has been completed. Your funds in the amount of $XXXX.00 have
been requested to be released to the Paypal email account xxxxx@fussy.com.au. You
soon will receive an email from Paypal on the incoming funds acceptance you would need to
take action within for your funds to reflect within your Paypal account. Please allow up to
24-48hrs for this email.
However, both domains are still in my company name (Domain Syndicates Pty Ltd). I have not received any request to complete a Change of Registrant.
One of the domains doesn’t resolve as yet; the other goes to a very nice website.
In Conclusion
I don’t write this to purposely shame or embarrass GD. I have advised them privately that they have this problem, but nothing has been done as yet.
If I were the buyers, I’d be really peed off and concerned!
As I said previously, I’m both a fan and client (but not for Aussie domains). They just need to get their act together on this one aspect.
In my previous article, I also “wondered” as follows:
Whilst I’m certainly not complaining, I guess the thing that puzzles me is why would a buyer go through a buying service (rather than click on my Fabulous banner)?
One thing I can say for certain. If they had dealt with me privately, the domains would long ago have been in their respective names.
Ned O’Meara – 19 October 2016
Ned
The problem extends to buyers using the Afternic & Sedo sales platforms
Buyers on those platforms are told by those companies to transfer the domain name to their account and then update the Admin email address
I have one at the moment where the Admin address was not even changed (it was a net.au that they paid a good price for in USD through Sedo)
I followed up on the Sedo platform and found that the buyer was actually based in Ireland (but now email address is showing)
I have been paid and can’t even contact the buyer to tell him that his domain name is about to lapse
I am inclined to just pick it up when it drops and wait for the buyer to contact me, because if I try to transfer it back to my account and renew it then he may accuse me of wrong-doing
The other option is to just do nothing, which does not sit well with me either
@Greg – it shouldn’t be this way. I’m surprised that auDA haven’t actually picked them up on this – registrars have specific obligations in the .au space.
The only reason I’m writing about it publicly is because I don’t want to ever stand accused of not being willing to transfer a domain name that I have sold.
I propose we ask auDA to provide an official “notification of disposal” form for sellers (like when you sell a car) as the buyer is technically using your ACN without authorisation which is a serious offence under ASIC rules. That way auDA can pressure international registrars to cleanup their act on .au COR process which is unfortunately very different to .com
@Anthony
Sounds like a good plan for when a situation like this arises.
Is this something you can initiate with auDA? Or should I write to them?
I will talk to them and if they want an idea of how widespread the problem is I’ll suggest they contact you and Greg to get some examples.
The issue seems to be widespread enough to warrant the need for a centralised location to collect the data.
One of the goals of providing cheap CORs at Domain Shield was to help sellers to bear the cost thereby avoiding this issue. This has been reasonably successful in the past but the cost of providing this service and supporting the buyers afterwards makes this service a labour of love which is no longer effective because more and more sellers insist on using better known brands from abroad.