Recently, I was trying to a buy a domain for which we had bid in Godaddy. We bid the suggested price in Godaddy. Our bid was rejected buy the owner.
That peaked my curiosity to check who actually owned the website.
When we ran whois on the domain. The name that pops up is Wild West Domains, LLC [http://www.wildwestdomains.com]
When you look further, Godaddy's CEO is the CEO of Wild West Domains. Lot of the staff are part of this LLC.
Just wondering what is it all about?
by dpcan on 2/7/25, 12:20 AM
Wild West Domains is a subsidiary of GoDaddy. They are basically he same company, and the Whois doesn't usually show the owner of the domain anymore, it shows the company that's keeping the owner's information private. WWD and GoDaddy both offer this service. Lookup other domains, you'll see the same thing all over the place. The whois on just about all of my domains say Wild West Domains, the others are GoDaddy or Namecheap, my personal information never comes up anymore because I opt for the privacy options.
by A_D_E_P_T on 2/6/25, 11:00 PM
Did you pay ~$50 to place the bid?
If so, and if you can be bothered to complain hard enough, they'll usually refund you. They know that they're running a scam.
It could be worse. They've been known to snipe domains from under the noses of their users, and their recently closed "domain backorder" service was an almost insultingly blatant scam -- a sort of "free money hack IRL" where they were taking advantage of rubes -- it never worked.
by buremba on 2/7/25, 12:28 AM
GoDaddy was always scam, I bought a domain like 15 years ago and they had same mindset back then.
Just look at the names; “Go Daddy” and “Wild West”.. It’s alarming already.
by _factor on 2/7/25, 1:03 AM
Why is it we can’t use any DNS service by now? I want to use a completely alternate list that has the main domains like Google, Apple, Microsoft, and whoever wants to list, but doesn’t register everything like the global DNS system.
Seems silly we deify one DNS pay to play scheme when we can easily point to alternate DNS. As it stands the world has a naming scheme monetized and owned through no merit or logic based system, just entrenchment.
.onion kind of does this with privacy. .eth (ew) kind of does too, but critical mass is unlikely.
by popalchemist on 2/7/25, 12:53 AM
Godaddy is a sham, but not a scam. This is normal behavior for a domain registrar. It's called Privatized Whois.
by thrill on 2/7/25, 1:55 AM
GoDaddy registered a domain name and put up a "for sale" banner within three minutes of me searching for it on their site some years ago.
by swozey on 2/7/25, 12:30 AM
You should never look up potential domain names at the big registrars. Or most registrars. Or any registrars. They'll buy it out from under you if it generates enough attention. They know exactly how many people looked up $coolnewthang.xyz and they know the bidding offers. THEY have to register it for you.
Somebody at Godaddy probably did this before you thought of the domain in the past, which is why its in their network and rejecting bids. It knows the incoming bids. It's sitting on it until someone like you came along.
I use porkbun, no idea if they've stayed course in honesty but I believe so.
Also if you're looking at GoDaddy era webhosts, they all own most of the market. Bluehost, Hostgator (EIG), etc are all grouped with a ton of other webhosts for that low end $10 market.
So, stay away from those.
Registrars are a scam, too. And stupid tlds.
by 6Az4Mj4D on 2/6/25, 11:30 PM
I has one experience with them when backordering domain.
Godaddy domain business is like you make a backorder to buy domain. Someone immedidetely will buy domain when it becomes available and it automatically gets listed on Godaddy auctions. I think its planned something fishy.
by bitlad on 2/6/25, 11:20 PM
by apothegm on 2/6/25, 10:48 PM
Are you sure that’s not just the domain privacy setting being enabled?
by fckgw on 2/6/25, 11:04 PM
What's the scam exactly? WWD is a GoDaddy subsidiary, either GD owns the domain or is acting as the broker.
by tobinfekkes on 2/6/25, 10:43 PM
When was GoDaddy ever not a scam?!
by mynameyeff on 2/7/25, 12:35 AM
Dark patterns abound. Maybe not a scam, but some deal of white collar fraud.
by ratg13 on 2/7/25, 12:11 AM
The company was always bad, but took a nosedive around the time their CEO was found killing elephants for sport 15 years ago.
The fact that people are still using them is disappointing.
———-
also for pedantry’s sake, it’s “piqued” your curiosity
by matltc on 2/7/25, 1:58 AM
My employer registers their domain with GoDaddy. Laughably, the cert expires on the dot every year and I get the "site is not secure" warning in browser like clockwork. Doesn't renew until I send an email to the "admin" notifying them of this; they tell me to click through warnings and continue as normal--rube shit
Wonder how much they pay to register each year? Brought it up to MGMT but they are equally clueless
by stop_nazi on 2/7/25, 1:50 AM
Yes, Godaddy are definitely frauds. They steal domains, me and several people I know have experienced this, and the internet is full of similar stories
by apercu on 2/7/25, 12:17 AM
Don't use GoDaddy? (I'm a hypocrite, I have a couple dozen domains but there are a couple I haven't yet transferred out of their system).
by lidayvonne on 2/7/25, 8:52 PM
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by AznHisoka on 2/7/25, 12:51 AM
Concur with everyone else. It’s a scam. I could explain all the scams they run but to save you time: it’s a scam, never ever ever use them. Your life will be so much better.
by getwiththeprog on 2/7/25, 2:56 AM
GoDaddy is the only web-host to have ripped me off around $400 due to dark patterns and god-awful customer service resolution. I would never go anywhere near them again.
by xsc on 2/7/25, 12:49 AM
Did you make a bid in an auction or place the minimum offer? Anyone can list their domains for sale on godaddy with a minimum offer and optionally a buy it now price.
by jillyboel on 2/7/25, 12:54 AM
by didgetmaster on 2/6/25, 11:17 PM
Any company with 'Wild West' in their name is surely playing by the rules. Right?
by m0llusk on 2/7/25, 12:29 AM
Bad service for good money is a scam. Stay away would be my best advice.
by behringer on 2/7/25, 1:06 AM
When don't they run scams? NEVER DO BUSINESS WITH GODADDY.
by DrillShopper on 2/7/25, 12:25 AM
If GoDaddy is involved it is invariably a scam
by giantg2 on 2/7/25, 2:43 AM
Godaddy has always seemed like a scam to me.
by slater on 2/6/25, 10:48 PM
WWD is part of Godaddy
by geocrasher on 2/7/25, 12:27 AM
Not a scam, just related businesses. There aren't too many scams in the domain business (I'm sure somebody will point out a few in the comments. Schroedinger's law, I think it is?) because it's governed by ICANN and fishy business will lose a registrar their accreditation.