GoDaddy: Please Help Mike Recover His Domain Name

 

 

It looks like someone fell prey to the GoDaddy phishing email that occurred over the weekend. According to these panicked tweets sent by Twitter user @mikeklurfan, it appears that Mike may have accidentally revealed his login information via the phishing email, and now he apparently has lost access to his account / domain name.

If you have had your GoDaddy account hacked or stolen, the best bet is probably to call their toll free customer service number, which is 480-505-8885. Call center representatives answer the phones 24/7, so it should not be an issue to speak with someone about the problem.

Judging by the number of reported emails (I received 2) and the similarity between them and an actual GoDaddy email, I would imagine there are a number of people who have fallen prey to this phishing attempt.

Please report a GoDaddy phishing email if you receive one. It can make the company aware of the situation, and it can also help them shut down phishing attempts more rapidly. Hopefully Mike is able to recover his domain name and account quickly.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn
  1. Thanks for spreading the word @DInvesting!

    As you can tell from my tweets, I’ve been phished and I already reported the situation to Go Daddy but so far I had no straightforward answer on how to proceed.

    Do you think of someone other than Go Daddy that can help me with this?

    Thanks in advance for your support and best regards,

    Miguel Klurfan
    GoDaddy customer: [redacted]

    • I think GoDaddy is best equipped to handle the situation. You should keep an eye on the domain registrar of your domain name. As long as it stays at GoDaddy, they should be able to recover it for you.

      I’d call the 800 # if I were you, and if you don’t get a satisfactory answer, ask to speak with a supervisor.

      Good luck!

    • As elliot mentioned, we have the right people already working on this for you. I did want to just reach out and confirm that for you. We definitely take security seriously and will take the appropriate actions to resolve this. Elliot if you could, for security reasons, please remove the tweet from this article that shows Mike’s customer number or blur that part out?

      Kindly,

      Colby

      • I tried to redact it in the html, but it wouldn’t permit me to do that. It showed as [redacted] to me in the back-end, but it still showed up on the live version. I deleted the Tweet from my article although the actual Tweet is still live and should be deleted by the person who posted it.

      • Colby, Thank you for participating on helping Miguel recover his stolen business. He has left a response at the bottom of this post to your last statement. He asks some good questions that seem deserving of some answers. Again, Thank you for reaching out to the small business owners and domain investors.

  2. I sure would like to know what extra security measures Godaddy is taking as they are the victims of this fraud….. When I noticed my domains missing in my account I called ASAP and they blamed it on ICANN. Regardless of the new ICANN rules, Godaddy has the resources to protect us better….2014 is the year of “SECURITY”. We will hear about everywhere.

    • Domainers could barely make sense of the email, how do you expect non techies who manage their own company website to make any sense of it. This is going to be a PR nightmare.

  3. There was a guy who had a whole bunch of 3L .com’s stolen from godaddy over the weekend as well, he had hit a wall in regards to this situation as well. Reported at DNF.

  4. I don’t understand why GoDaddy hasn’t posted a warning on their site about the phishing scheme that is going on. It looks like they don’t really care.

  5. From what he had explained me, Alon Waisman had created, developed and was the director of social media at Go Daddy. Alon and Go Daddy have parted ways. With the leadership of the Go Daddy social media team gone, it is understandable that Go Daddy is slow to address this phishing issue as referenced here and on Twitter.

    Does anyone know if Bob Parsons still follows such issues when a customer Tweets him in this regard?

  6. I don’t think Bob has anything to do with the day to day, but does watch the bottomline, and trends of his company. He is more into building out his Harley dealerships these days, don’t blame him he is a billionaire.

  7. You can tell I read domaining.com before I read twitter. 🙂 I was out for the last 36 hours plowing snow and tending to our greenhouses. Yes, I agree Godaddy are the ones that can help here. I would think it would be pretty easy to get the domain back as long as it hasn’t left Godaddy. Acro loves this kind of stuff. Maybe he know the right people to talk to

  8. Thanks Shane,

    I am trying to solve it with Go Daddy but I think the domain name left Go Daddy already and it now being hosted at internet.bs. Do you think I still have a chance to get it back or it will be hard for Go Daddy to get it back once the domain is with another company?

    Thanks!

    Miguel

  9. Interesting that the transfer was to Internet BS, that’s one of the two registrars that four stolen LLL .coms were moved to (the other being eNom). They are based in the Bahamas.

    @Miguel – You should file an official theft report at GoDaddy, who are responsible for retrieving it on your behalf as the losing registrar. The gaining registrar is expected to comply, but you have to prove you owned it prior to the transfer. File a police report as well and be prepared to wait for a while.

  10. I fell to this phishing site also, but thankfully my Google login was not connected to my GD login.

    What’s annoying is that I had only a couple of hours before raised tickets with GD support about having ~400 domains locked Pending Whois Verification. The support responses were copy/paste of a help article which instructs users to manually verify each domain (useless for 100’s of domains IMO).

    After this the Phishing email arrived and I stupidly logged in (thought it was all connected). I notice that the attacker is very cute – they immediately logged into my Google account via a machine in the same Asian country (likely a botnet or proxy). All passwords updated, and thankfully nothing lost.

    I’m fairly savvy, but this caught me. I really put that down to very poor communications from GD. You don’t just lock hundreds of domains in an account without notifying the owner of why (and how to fix). They have enabled this attack IMO.

  11. Thanks Richard and everyone,

    I did exactly the same with the email but I only had a few domains registered and the took only one but the most important for my business!

    I don’t know why GD takes so long to get it back since it is obvious to everyone that it was stolen and I’m not the only one!

    I’m 3 days out of business already! I already contacted the FBI! Should I do something else?

    Best to everyone and thanks again for your support.

    Mike

  12. Thanks Acro,

    I did everything GD told me but I still didn’t get my domain name back!
    I don’t know what else to do. I already sent documentation proving my ownership of the domain and also the phishing emails I received!
    And more over I continue receiving phishing emails and black mailing emails to get it back!

    I received this email from disputes@godaddy.com

    Hello,

    That’s the new owner informations : (Email) try to contact them to get back your Domain name (That’s your last chance)

    Email : wedaha@live.fr

    Small Business Consultant, Inbound

    disputes@godaddy.com

    And I also received some other emails which GD confirmed are a scam.

    ===========================================================
    Información sobre tu solicitud
    ===========================================================

    Nuestro personal de Disputas de Transferencias ha respondido a tu consulta, cuyos detalles se describen a continuación:

    Notas de discusiónRespuesta del grupo de asistenciaDear Miguel Klurfan,

    Thank you for providing us with the requested documentation. We will contact Internet.bs Corp. and request a Form of Authorization for the transfer. If their records also show the same registrant at the time of transfer, we will work with them to see if they can transfer the domain name back. We will let you know once we have a response.

    Regards,

    Christopher Patterson
    Transfer Disputes
    GoDaddy

    Si necesitas más asistencia con este asunto, responde a este correo electrónico y haz referencia al [ID de incidencia: 21621277].

    Gracias,
    Departamento de Disputas de Transferencias

    ———————————————————–
    Copyright (C) 1999-2014 GoDaddy. Todos los derechos reservados.

    Please everyone reading this consider that phishing is not over and GD is not controlling this at all!

    Best,

    Mike

    • As I explained already, the stolen domain(s) don’t get returned overnight. It will take several days, if not weeks, for the registrant to investigate. If these are premium domains worth thousands of dollars, you should involve an attorney as well.

  13. You have our support!!!!! I find several things very disturbing. First, GoDaddy has asked for proof on domain ownership when their digital records are more extensive than the domain owners. Example being that they know exactly who owned it and where it went. Secondly, they appear by the email above to have left it up to the domain owner to recover the domain from the thief…???? …. Same as above, they have much better resources to do this than a small business owner who had a domain stolen…..
    Doesn’t GoDaddy have specialists for this?

  14. Elliot,

    Thanks so much again for your support! You are being really helpful in this process.

    Colby,

    I appreciate your efforts but still I don’t feel comfortable with the outcome. I talked to a Go Daddy rep today which told me that it is up to internet.bs to give my domain back to me and that there’s nothing Go Daddy can do in case the refuse to do so.

    As you can imagine, since I choose Go Daddy to keep my domains safe, this is not an acceptable response for me. I choose GD because of it reliable brand name and for security reasons and I believe GD must be able to do something and take legal actions with internet.bs in case the refuse to give me back my domain.

    I strongly believe I presented enough proof of the ownership of my domain and the phishing I’ve been victim of. I even showed blackmails sent to me in order to recover my domain and GD has in it’s records also that the domain is mine.

    Please let me know what else can I do. I really can’t wait much longer.

    Please help me speed up the process.

    Miguel

    • Miguel,

      I have reached out to my domain services team. They are still working with the gaining registrar, Internet.bs, on this issue. The gaining registrar is not required by ICANN to assist in giving us the domain back, though we will do as much as possible on our end to retrieve it. I can assure you they are still actively working on this and they have requested that you continue to work with TransferDisputes@Godaddy.com until the process is completed. The Transfer Disputes team will update you once we have a response from the gaining registrar, no ETA on when they may reply though. We thank you for your patience throughout out this process. 

      Kindly,

      Colby

    • Thanks Colby!

      I will keep on working with GD transfer disputes but I still don’t get how GD doesn’t have the tools to enforce internet.bs to give me my domain back when it is so obvious that the domain was stolen. From what you describe it seems like there’s no law and there are no IP rights on the web. Then if GD knows this, how come you don’t protect harder domain transfers. It seems like a loop hole in regulations and a lack of protection to regular users.

      I believe GD should use also it’s power to make sure everyone on the web knows that a company like internet.bs is protecting scammer by keeping their domains and not giving them back to the real owners.

      I’ve been trying to reach them and they don’t seem to care. Honestly I don’t know what else to do and I really feel like there is none taking responsibility over property rights on the web.

      My question then is. What would Go Daddy do if GoDaddy.com was stolen like they stole my domain. Would you still be claiming that there’s no way to enforce internet.bs from giving you back your domain? or you would be doing something more?

      If your answer to this question is that you would be doing something more, then please do it for me too, since I’m your client and I trusted you to keep my domain safe.

      Thanks,

      Miguel

    • No problem Miguel. Our domain dispute team will follow the process that needs to be done to get the domain back. If that process doesn’t succeed then they will work with you on whats next or if anything can be done further. We do offer additional security features for domains, such as protected registration, which prevents domains from leaving the account if the account is compromised. With that the user would need to submit an ID and other documents before the domain can be cancelled or moved from the account. I can’t speak to the process if GoDaddy.com was stolen, as I don’t know the details on that registration, account, or anything like that. Our Domain Disputes team will continue to handle this with you and work through the process.

      Kindly,

      Colby

    • Thanks Colby,

      I really appreciate your help and your involvement on this issue.

      I believe the extra security should be a standard and not an extra feature which non tech savvy don’t know about. Maybe this way this type of things and headaches could be avoided for everyone.

      As for the legal procedure. Please let me know what are the next steps. I’m looking forward to know how can I get back my domain in case internet.bs doen’t want to give it back to me.

      Please note it’s been more than 4 days out of business for me already and the liabilities here are huge!!!

      Thanks,

      Miguel

  15. Go Daddy does have domain specialists in this area. From past experience, it is the Domain Services Department. The personnel in that department can be a challenge to engage. Most Go Daddy Customers have NEVER spoken to a member of the Domain Services Department. They don’t speak to customers. It is the usual, fill out a Go Daddy form, wait 72 hours, and maybe get an email reply. Why Blake Irving the CEO, and Scott Wagner the COO / CFO consider this to be good service, no one knows. But they do.

    The Domain Services is under the Legal Department at Go Daddy. Some of the larger egos at Go Daddy have been in that Legal Department. One parted ways with Go Daddy and is now running for political office.

    For the domainer, one view is that the level of support has declined. Certainly, many domain veterans have departed Go Daddy. Below are at least 13 domain specialists who have left from Executive Accounts. That loss expertise is evident.

    1) Russ Dailey
    2) Pete Davis
    3) Tess Diaz
    4) Justin Finkelstein
    5) Marc Gawith
    6) Jon Grant
    7) Brad Larson
    8) Nima Jacob Nojoumi
    9) Dom Paci
    10) Ryan Reely
    11) Neal Resnik
    12) Jared Sherwood
    13) Kim Darwin Zadroga

    • Thanks Lyle,

      I agree with you. My question is clear. Would they be so calm if they were the ones who were scammed and without domain?

      I believe the answer is no. Of course they would be doing much more and that’s why I’m so concerned because I believe there must be a legal action GD can take against internet.bs if they don’t return the domain and none in GD seems to be considering this as an option!

  16. Miguel,

    You seem like a very nice person who is in a VERY difficult situation.

    Let me review some of the information regarding this problem.

    1) You are in Buenos Aires, I believe.
    2) The gaining registrar for the domain is in Bermuda, an Overseas territory of the United Kingdom.
    3) The “losing registrar” is Go Daddy, in the United States.
    4) The low life, piece of shit who stole your domain, I have no idea where they are located.

    There are so many factors to review on this, I will probably not be able to cover them in one posting. I will do my best for you.

    These challenges MAY be VERY complex, even under a domestic situation where:

    5) You would be in the United States.
    6) The gaining registrar for the domain is in the United States.
    7) The “losing registrar” is Go Daddy, in the United States
    8) The low life, piece of shit who stole your domain is located in the United States.

    HOWEVER, YOURS HAS THE INTERNATIONAL ISSUES. That may be why, as you state, you are getting “no straightforward answer” on this. That being the case, let me make some points.

    9) You have emails from a Small Business Consultant at Go Daddy. With all due respect to him or her, they has NO IDEA how an international issue such as this may work out.

    10) ANY advice you get may POSSIBLY have some less impact due to the international situation. As an example, someone suggested that you “File a police report” about this. Where do they want you to go and file the report? Bermuda? Arizona? Buenos Aires? The home town of the low life, piece of shit who stole your domain?

    11) As mentioned, “The gaining registrar is not required by ICANN to assist in giving us the domain back” to you. Being that this is an international issue, the gaining registrar in Bermuda knows that legal efforts against them are a HUGE challenge.

    12) One would also guess that the low life, piece of shit who stole your domain ALSO knows that legal efforts against them is also a HUGE challenge. That could be the exact reason why they have the domain with the gaining registrar in Bermuda.

    Miguel, there are more challenges than just the 12 above. However, I do not have the time to type them in at this late hour. Sorry I have been so blunt.

    Then again, you may wake up tomorrow to find out that your domain has been returned!!! I VERY MUCH HOPE THAT IS THE CASE!!!

    Lyle

  17. Thanks Lyle!

    You are being really helpful.

    What I don’t get is why a company such as internet.bs which seems a serious company protects this kind of guys? I believe that if I was able to make a bad press campaign against them for this issue they would be willing to give me back my domain instead of protecting a scammer. Do you know someone who can help me with this issue? someone that could reach a big audience?

    Thanks!!

    Miguel

  18. Hi everyone,

    Look at this reply from GODaddy in FB

    Miguel, we emailed the gaining registrar yesterday, but are still waiting to hear back from them. We will continue to work with them to recover the domain, but I cannot provide a time frame for when this may be complete. ^Nate

    Do you think this is the way to handle this? This is how you would deal if domain was yours!!!

    An email sent yesterday?? Can’t you just call? email again today?

    this is not acceptable at all!!!

  19. Miguel,

    Here is a speculation on this. Go Daddy probably treats ALL of these isues as a POTENTIAL legal situation. Therefore, they are going to use email so they have EVERYTHING in writing in the event it goes to court. They no doubt strive to have records that show their efforts to correct this issue. A phone call to that registrar in the Barbados may not be the best thing for Go Daddy in that regard. The legal team at Go Daddy WILL have themselves protected with records of ALL the communication.

    Has the low life, piece of shit who stole your domain, told you how much the ransom they want your domain? They may call the ransom for the domain the price at which the domain is for sale. To you or anyone.

    From fellow domainers, it might be interesting to know the highest ransom they have ever heard of, as it applies to a stolen domain.

    Lyle

  20. Hi everyone,

    Thanks for the support.

    I will give you an update of my situation.

    Since Go Daddy didn’t give me enough visibility over the evolution of the negotiation with Internet.bs (they constantly said they were still waiting for their answer but without any news since last time they sent an email), I decided to try to contact internet.bs on my own to see if they could expedite this process.

    Looking over the internet I luckily found the contact information of Marco Rinaudo, CEO of Internet.bs and I could talk with him about my particular situation.

    Fortunately he offered to help me and told me to send him an email with the probatory information of my ownership of the domain plus the phishing email and the cancellation of my domain by GoDaddy.

    He also told me that, even he could tell I was being honest by what I was telling him, he could not take the risk of giving me back my domain without a proper investigation process which was already going on. I said I understood that he could not take this risk and I said I was willing to sign a formal document taking full responsibility of any liability he could have if the domain ended up not being mine. I also asked him to help me expedite the process.

    After a couple of hours I sent him the requested information, he personally replied that he trusted me, but he had to wait until the formal investigation process he initiated was over in order to give me my domain back. Knowing that I was desperate to be back at work, he offered to help me recover my email and get my site back working temporarily until the investigation was over.

    Now I’m in this process which hopefully will enable me to use my email and domain but still without having full ownership of it.

    I’m still worried about my situation and would like to know more about the investigation process internet.bs initiated and how long will it take until a final resolution is found, but at least I assume Marco is willing to help me and people at internet.bs are serious.

    Does anyone know how long could it take this investigation process until I get my domain back?

    Thanks for your comments and help. I will keep you posted once I have more news.

    Miguel

  21. Miguel,

    Hope all is well with you. What became of your attempts to get your domain back. Did your efforts work out for you? Is there any update?

    Thanks!!!

    Lyle

    • Hi Lyle,

      Thanks for asking. Please find below brief description of my situation and how I got here.

      On January 4th I’ve got my domain stolen from my GoDaddy account and sent to someone else’s account at internet.bs

      After my push through Twitter and Facebook and with the help of Elliot and everyone commenting in this blog post, I finally caught the attention of GoDaddy and got some answers.

      The answer from GoDaddy was not what I was expecting. They said the knew I was a victim of Phishing but they could do nothing to get my domain back if Internet.bs didn’t want to give me back my domain.

      After 3 days of listening to the same answer from GoDaddy with no updates on Internet.bs’s willingness to give me back my domain, I tried to contact Internet.bs people on my own.

      I was lucky enough to find Marco Rinaudo’s (Internet.bs CEO) mobile phone. I really don’t know how I got it but I called him and he answered the phone and told me he would help me.

      I sent all the information proving my ownership of the domain and the details of how I got scammed and within 2 days I he told me that:

      1. He believed me but he couldn’t take the risk of giving me back my domain until he finished some internal investigation.

      2. Then someone from his customer care team told me that they were pretty sure that I was scammed so the offered the following:

      a. I should open an internet.bs account and they will give me my domain back
      b. They will not allow me to transfer my domain to another company for 6 months since they want to make sure no one claims the domain back

      Now I’m in this situation where I can use my domain but I don’t feel comfortable having this blocked for 6 months so I complained about this with Internet.bs and they offered to give it back to me right away only if GoDaddy sent them a letter taking full responsibility of my ownership of the domain.

      I’m stucked here right now and GoDaddy says that my case is closed for them so they won’t send any letter to internet.bs.

      Do you have any suggestion? Can you help me make GoDaddy write this letter so I can finally close this issue once and for all?

      Thanks for you help and please let me know if I can give you any additional information that could help with this case.

      Best Regards,

      Miguel

  22. Miguel,

    Sorry about the delay in getting back to you. Your assertiveness in contacting Marco Rinaudo at Internet.bs was a very good decision. It is doubtful that Go Daddy would have made any additional effort in contacting Internet.bs.

    In that regard, it seems almost impossible that Go Daddy would write the letter you have referenced. It appears that your choices are:

    A – Keep the domain in an account at Internet.bs under your control and point the DNS to your services. After the six month waiting period they have referenced, move the domain to wherever you wish.

    B – While doing the above, take the procedural / legal steps to acquire full control of your domain. This can be expensive and take a considerable amount of time.

    If you believe that in six months you will get your domain back with no problems, you may want to stay with A. If there might be a problem, you may want to at least investigate B.

    A question for you. Were you ever able to have a live conversation with someone in Domain Services at Go Daddy? Mostly, Domain Services communicates by email. Phone calls are only handled by first level support in the call center. The vast majority of customers with a domain concern NEVER get to speak to one of the specialists in Domain Services.

    Here is why this is of interest. The Domain Services Department is under the Legal Department at Go Daddy. As such, the Domain Services department took the same traits and characteristics of the leadership of the Legal Department. The opinion was often that the leadership was very arrogant and condescending. Some viewed this as the reason why a customer could not speak to the personnel in Domain Services at Go Daddy.

    The above characteristics of the department was forged over many years by the previous leader of the Legal Department. That leader is no longer at Go Daddy. Under Blake Irving the new CEO, and Scott Wagner the new COO, has that paradigm of Domain Services not talking to customers been continued? Did you ever speak to a Domain Services specialist?

    Again, best of luck to you.

    Lyle

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