So today, my email and website both went down. I was in the middle of several things so I got on web chat with them to see whats going on. So after being told that my site was not hosted by Godaddy, and that I never set up the email I have been using for 6 years, we figure out the issues.

1) They tried to process a renewal today and it was declined. This was due to an old CC number because my CC was replaced after a fraud occurrence.

2) The immediately DELETED my accounts and allegedly sent me an email to inform me of this (after the fact).

3) The email address they sent the email to, well you guessed it, the one HOSTED BY GODADDY that they deleted.

4) Email was easy enough to fix, I had to resetup my email plan, which is the free plan. So had to then resetup my email address after the plan was setup.

5) The website which is a wordpress powered site needs to be recovered. In order to recover it, I have to pay them $150 or I can just fvck off.

Now I realize it was my card that was declined, but I received no emails leading up to this, despite their claims they sent some a couple months ago. I don't delete emails on my one computer so I can always go back, a search confirmed zero emails. I received no phone calls, including today after they tried to process payment. According to them, today was the only day they tried to process payment. So they essentially saw an opportunity to hold my site hostage and force me to pay. I have to talk to Mac about moving the site to another host as soon as it goes back live, which I was told could be 7 to 10 business days. At that point, I am going to dispute all charges with the credit card company and Godaddy can GOfvck themselves.

And you checked your spam folder everyday to make sure good emails aren't getting flagged right?

I have heard a number of stories like this about Godaddy, I'm sure that there are forums out there where you will find that you are one of many, unfortunately!

Here's a link to Consumer Affairs.

[Link: consumeraffairs.com]

As a matter of fact, I KNOW for a FACT no emails in spam folder. I'm ocd about stupid alerts and things so I check on my computer DAILY, both spam and regular folder. Nada

If it's stuff from known recipients that you want to be sure get attention without having to waste time, set up a rule in your e-mail client to move them to a special folder.

Why, oh, why, oh why has the industry not moved to force everyone to use secure mail via public certificates? That would just make all our lives so much easier. But it's just chicken and egg. Until everyone does it, it doesn't help for you to do it. It will require some sort of organized effort, which will just never happen.

In such a world, certificate authorities that don't police their membership would just get banned by everyone, making their service of no value. And your e-mail can just trash anything not from a verified source. As it stands now, anyone can put your e-mail in the return address of spam and send out millions of them. With secure mail, your ISP's servers themselves can verify that it comes from where it says it does and not even deliver it otherwise.

It would change the e-mail landscape, and folks like us who run businesses wouldn't be forced to waste days of our lives every year going through spam buckets to make sure we aren't failing to respond to someone.

I could setup every single option out there and it wouldn't make a difference. They didn't send me anything.

The CLAIM to have sent me an email today, conveniently after they shut off my email. Brilliant.

I use gmail business and I'll check it and find a good email in the spam folder, check it as NOT SPAM and a month later, it's flagged the same f'n email address as spam. Pain in the ass!!

I use godaddy but my website guys keep up on it for me.

We have a streaming service here from Telus called CraveTV. My CC expired and I forgot to update, they tried to take a payment, couldn't and shut down my account without any warning.

That's what they did, except held my site hostage for ransom money. And in turn jeopardized my business by shutting email off.

Charging any more than you owed to renew is a joke. They charge a re-connection fee for someone pressing a bloody button.

[Link: remotecentral.com]

This is an interesting method of getting around usery / excessive late payment penalty fee laws.

In terms of not sending you emails. One day a couple years back, I woke up to an email that said all my collected air miles had expired, because the card had not been used for a year. I'm like WTF - I received no warning of this.

I checked my backlog of emails. For about 5 years, I've been receiving weekly emails from them advertising things. Three months prior to the expiration of my points, they cut off dead - not a signal ad, warning, or whatever. Out of sight, out of mind. And then, immediately after the points expired, the advertisements started coming weekly again. I signed for a class action lawsuit against them!

I lost 150,000 Aeoplan miles this way. Mine were all from flying which made it even worse! Stopped traveling for a year after leaving the racing industry in 2013.

I am also on a class action lawsuit, but don't ever expect to see a nickel. Lawyers might gain from that one!

Its one thing to shut your account off but another to delete your files. They KNOW that this (cards expire) happens all the time and instead of treating their customers right they punish them with the $150 "recovery" fee.

I have had domain names and web hosting since the 90's. In almost twenty years ive had about five situations where cards expired and service was shut down. With the half dozen hosts ive used they all just turn your site back on once payment is made.

I wont do business with godaddy and i tell everyone who asks not to do business with them.

Yup, I'm talking specifically about Aeroplan too. :-)


I serious *seriously* doubt they actually "delete" anything. They just remove your access from the files, and then extort you to get access back - which is literally a single button click away.

With other companies, I've occasionally missed renewal payments on domains. Every time, NOTHING has happened right away. In fact, I just found an email from one that says everything will continued to be registered to me for a "limited time", and all I need to do is renew at the regular rate to restore all service. No extortion. Granted I don't do hosting with them - but the email includes reference to services, and it's the same deal.

AT&T bufu'd me this week, called to upgrade service to their new gigabit U-verse that they are now offering in my area. As soon as I set up the appt. for new service, they cut my home phone off. Three frickin days on the phone with them and two techs to my house. First one told my wife that it was our equipment, she calls me, I said go get a new phone system, she goes out and buys one, brings it back, still doesn't work.

I am at retention at this point, I want some money back, they offered me $100.00, I told them I'll sue and drop ALL of my services with them. Home phone, internet, DirecTv, and I almost switched to their cell service.

The first tech destroyed my very neat hub box, disconnected network cables even, he was there to fix the friggin phone, then went in to my office and destroyed ALL of the neat wiring under the desk, moved my filing cabinets and didn't put them back, just a general TICK TURD!

Of course I am out of town, or I would have gone home and thrown the SOB out of my house and given him a pedirectomy with my 9 1/2 boot!

Service providers better WAKE THE F*&% UP SOON!

Time and money, I am out about $850.00 and I am pissed.


We will see what happens...

Lol Radiorhea. I would be scared of an out of town guy wearing a measly 91/2 boot! You should feel lucky they moved the cabinets if in fact they had fixed anything. They do not have to move or put back anything. All on the hoem owner. I feel your pain. Never liked ATT and have them for cell now. And tell godaddy to take a hike. Stupid name anyways!