Originally posted by Sharpy
A: How did they transfer them?
A: To be honest, I don't really know. Here is my best guess:
It's well known that GoDaddy restructured the accounts, based on the credit card number that was used to register them originally. I believe several DNF members had domains disappear from their accounts because of this, and had to fax documents and their credit card number to have their domains returned (there is a thread about it). My case was unusual in that all my domains at GoDaddy were purchased from other people and pushed to my account. I never entered my credit card number at GoDaddy.
The first problem I noticed was that after the "account reorganization" I could not log in to my account. I requested a "lost password" and got an "account does not exist" error. I sent an email to support saying my account had been deleted and I could not request my password. They sent me a reply on "How to retrieve your lost password". Twice.
After a third email, they confirmed there had been problems with the reorganization, and requested my credit card number, a signed document listing my domains, and my drivers license, which I sent. They replied with, "these domains were not registered with that credit card, and we cannot return them to your account".
The whois info on my domains was still correct, so I tried to transfer my domains away, but you can't without logging in to confirm the transfer.
Remember that each of these emails took 24 hours for them to reply to. On about the fourth day I received a transfer request to eNom (I was trying to transfer to Dotster). I rejected the transfer and got suspicious, and emailed GoDaddy immediately. They sent me a "How to retrieve your lost password" email. I re-sent my email again and they requested my credit card number (again). I got the reply that "these domains were not registered with this credit card", again. Around this time the email address on my domains changed to a hotmail account, and three days later they were transferred to 01nic.com
My guess is that because there was never a credit card listed in my account, my domains were randomly assigned to another person's account. (BTW, they were not all purchased from the same person, yet they were all transferred away by one person).
What is frustrating is that I sent a number of very detailed and specific emails stating what was occuring and GoDaddy did nothing to fix a problem that they had caused. I had an account with my domains in it, and now my account and domains are gone, through no fault of my own, and despite my best efforts.
B: what was your most valuable domain doing in registrar hold?
B: Firstly, it was not my most valuable domain - simply my most valuable domain at GoDaddy. It went into REDEMPTION because, purely by coincidence, it expired while this was happening, and I couldn't renew a domain that was not in my account. I tend to renew late, I'm lazy that way, but that's beside the point..