Go Daddy can anyone explain the point of their auction site

[ClaireH-184886]

Hi i am very confused. I found out that go daddy was selling in2town.com and they are the owners of the domain name so i went ahead and bid for the domain name. i then won it and was told i would have to wait six days to use it and now i have received this email from them.

This message is to notify you that the current registrant of in2town.com has renewed their domain name and we have ended the auction per the terms of the legal agreement (Universal Terms of Service) that you acknowledged at the time of bidding. If you have already paid for this domain name, you will automatically receive a refund within the next 6 days.

We're sorry you did not win this domain. However, we have thousands of other great names available at Go Daddy Auctions. Visit our Web site to search for your next domain.

If you have any questions, Customer Support is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week:

– Email: auctions@godaddy.com
– Phone: (480) 505-8892
– Online Support

Sincerely,
Go Daddy Auctions Team

[ClaireH-184886]

what i do not understand is, when i checked on who is to see who the owner was, go daddy came up and now when i go to the domain name that i wanted to buy it is not being used.

[JamesNorquay]

What go daddy does is go out into the market and sell off all domains when they are about to expire, which is quite a money spinner for them. They rely on the change that the owner will not re register the domains so then they get the money.

They will contact all other owners of related domain names, I own a lot of domains so they will email me to no end trying to sell me a .info or .net version of another tld I have.

Hope this helps

[ClaireH-184886]

thanks for this. when i checked at the time before going onto the auction, who is said that go daddy owned the domain name, so i find it all very strange.

[SimonCullum]

Hi Diane

Domain Auction Services such as this one can either work really well in acquiring an already registered/owned domain name, or can be really frustrating as per your experience. (They usually work best when the domain is due to expire shortly and if the domain is infact not renewed, you may end up being the first person to grab it when it becomes publicly available).

Basically, Go Daddy try to contact the current Registrant for a period of 30 days, to inquire as to whether or not they are prepared to sell it (this page has some useful information on about buying through Go Daddy auction). If nothing is heard within 30 days, the request is cancelled. Sometimes, the messaging can be incorrect or confusing, causing frustration to the person trying to purchase the domain through auction.

The message you received, "This message is to notify you that the current registrant of in2town.com has renewed their domain name..." is rather strange as the current registrant did not renew the domain name recently going by a Whois Lookup as it was registered on September 24th 2010 and is due for renewal on September 24th 2012.

So it looks like that Go Daddy either got no response from the current owner of the domain or they were informed that it was not for sale. Their messaging and communication back to you could certainly have been clearer.

May be worth putting this domain on 'domain watch' (plenty of domain registrars offer this service) about 6 months prior to the renewal date so that when renewal time does arrive, you'll have a fair chance of grabbing it should it not be renewed.

Regards

Simon