John T.

Been using GoDaddy for 15 years, have 5 accounts in various ltd company names, with over 200 domains registered. Plus, rather embarrassingly I've even recommended GoDaddy to friends over the years.

Here is my story.

At GoDaddy, my Domains have always renewed at around £10-£15 per year. Always been the case since 2004. Suddenly, from April 2019 they've been charging me £45.70 to renew! No warning just took the money, GoDaddy absolutely cannot be trusted and am now in the process of moving 200 domains to their competitors.

It's disgusting business practice and I wasted a lot of my time (6 phone calls) trying to figure out how they are getting away with scamming people well over double the renewal cost. The "service" they added was "Ultimate Domain Protection and Security" (£26.38), i did NOT consent to useless service. They said down the phone they sent me an email to add this service. REALLY? There was no such email. If they did it doesn't matter as it obviously wasn't clear enough, i have 200 domains, don't think I would have missed it

So to make this clear, they opted me in to a service I didn't want. A service which would have added over £5000 per year in charges! It makes my blood boil, and I'm so angry writing this. Luckily, I noticed this scam fairly early when looking at my bank statements, so I lost out on around £200. I guess I got of lightly considering. Of course, they are refusing to refund me any charges more than 28 days old. It doesn't matter to them that I DIDN'T PURCHASE THIS PRODUCT IN THE FIRST PLACE! Would a legit business just charge the customer for the service they didn't order?

My case is NOT unique, like I said I have 5 GoDaddy accounts, same thing happened to all of them since April 2019.

This is a money-making scheme for GoDaddy, very likely created to cover their losses since their domain privacy service become void with GDPR.

GoDaddy are treading a very fine line, no in fact they've crossed the line. I have no doubt what they are doing here is completely illegal, and sooner or later it will catch up to them. I wish them every failure moving forward. My advice do not use GoDaddy for any reason.