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Would It Be Worth It To Pursue A Partial Refund Here?

by Jon Tees
11 replies
I made the awful mistake of waiting too long to manually renew a necessary domain for a year. GoDaddy beat me to it auto renewing said domain for two years. I’m not sure if I should just let it go and move on since I intended to renew the domain anyway, or try and pursue a refund for the extra year. What do you think? In previous experience with Godaddy, it’s been all or nothing either keep the domains ordered or cancel-delete them and request a refund.

I’m not sure exactly where or how they came up with two years for this domain. For as long as I remember I’ve renewed it for a single year at a time. I also noticed that the domain now has “Ownership Protection” something I honestly can’t remember adding but that certainly isn’t a free bonus it seemed to be like paying for the domain twice.
#partial #pursue #refund #worth
  • Profile picture of the author Steve B
    Did Godaddy renew the domain automatically for you in your name?

    If you "intended to renew the domain anyway" I don't see what the problem is(?)

    If Godaddy registered the name under a different account than you control, it's gone and you can't "just let it go."

    It's your mistake and not theirs so why should they refund you?

    Steve
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  • Profile picture of the author Jeff Burritt
    Banned
    Doubt there's much you can do in this case. You can always open a support ticket and try. But is it even worth the effort?
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  • Profile picture of the author discrat
    Yeah I had Go Daddy renew a Domain over the last few weeks I was going to let run out. I was on vacation and didn't keep a close eye on it with the emails. A little frustrating but I could have easily gone into my Dashboard and changed the automated renewal feature
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  • Profile picture of the author Jon Tees
    I was certain I had auto renew turned off and GoDaddy kind of jumped the gun on auto renewing the domain. On top of this the wrong payment option was used for the domain. I usually pay for the domain using PayPal funds, but this particular transaction was charged to a pre-paid debit card. I'm not sure this means or changes anything as at the end of the day I guess its your responsibility as a domain owner to keep on top of these things.
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  • Profile picture of the author Steve B
    Jon,

    You are exactly right. You are the responsible party. You can change their "auto generated" two-year registration to a manual one-year time period very easily with the click of a button in your dashboard. I doubt that they "jumped the gun" and charged your account before the renewal date. I have changed renewal settings the day before expiration without problems. But you have to be sure you act before the cut-off date as they will try to do the auto-renewal on the exact date of expiration. "You snooze - you lose."

    Steve
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    • Profile picture of the author Jon Tees
      Originally Posted by Steve B View Post

      Jon,

      You are exactly right. You are the responsible party. You can change their "auto generated" two-year registration to a manual one-year time period very easily with the click of a button in your dashboard. I doubt that they "jumped the gun" and charged your account before the renewal date. I have changed renewal settings the day before expiration without problems. But you have to be sure you act before the cut-off date as they will try to do the auto-renewal on the exact date of expiration. "You snooze - you lose."

      Steve

      I thought maybe the ownership protection may have had something to do with it. Like maybe they do everything they can to ensure you remain the owner of the domain even changing settings to make sure the domain doesn’t expire or have the opportunity to. But again I really have no memory of adding ownership protection. It isn’t an astronomical amount of money anyway, an additional $32 that would have eventually been spent on the same domain’s renewal next year. Still a little odd how I could have sworn auto renew was off and I definitely did have the default payment method set to PayPal on this particular domain with a one year default renewal length. I guess maybe I was auto billed from the original purchase which I did get for two years and used the debit card for.
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  • Profile picture of the author talfighel
    Most accounts are automatically re-charged every year.

    It is better this way then having to do it yourself manually.
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  • Profile picture of the author agmccall
    I have my domains at namecheap. I have auto renew turned off for all but one and I start getting the reminder about 2 months prior to a domain expiring. works out pretty well for me. Also I make a habit of logging into my domain host as well as hosting account at least once a month to make sure everything is as it should be

    al
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  • Profile picture of the author TonyMontana1
    What does the status of the domain say just now? ie is the auto renew on or off?

    TBH they wouldn't risk the bad press if they renewed it without your consent. What about the emails you got prior to renewal, have you kept them?

    What do they say as they should say you have auto renew on or off?

    Regardless of whether you thought it was on or off, the fact is it is now on. If you have no proof it was of beforehand then you have no leg to stand on unfortunately.

    Would be interesting to know about the pre renewal emails though.
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    • Profile picture of the author Jon Tees
      Originally Posted by TonyMontana1 View Post

      What does the status of the domain say just now? ie is the auto renew on or off?

      TBH they wouldn't risk the bad press if they renewed it without your consent. What about the emails you got prior to renewal, have you kept them?

      What do they say as they should say you have auto renew on or off?

      Regardless of whether you thought it was on or off, the fact is it is now on. If you have no proof it was of beforehand then you have no leg to stand on unfortunately.

      Would be interesting to know about the pre renewal emails though.
      I feel what may have happened is they were in the process of auto billing me when I changed the settings and when the settings were changed it became “too late” I’m no longer angry (and never really was) about it as I’ve already made back the extra money that was taken and then some. It was more of the principal of the thing. In my mind, I owed someone $32 which I intended to pay, but they helped themselves to $64 before I had a chance to pay them manually. The reminder e-mails were just blanket reminders about the expiring domain, renewal cost and expiration date no further information was contained until I was already billed.
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  • Profile picture of the author AnniePot
    I would never use GoDaddy for any purpose whatsoever. Years ago I bought one domain through them, marked it NOT to renew automatically, yet still they renewed it ahead of time.

    It was a 'spur of the moment' domain purchase, bought through GoDaddy simply because initially it cost just .99 cents. When they renewed it, they charged $12+

    They flat out refused to refund my money and refused to comment on why they'd done so in spite of it being marked NOT to renew automatically.

    In the end I canceled the domain name completely. I never could find any way to remove my account completely though.
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