UPDATE:
I got the domain back, but only because of the immense social pressure. Support was no help.
It seems someone was able to list my domain on Afternic.
It all came down to this email I received back in June 2024..
Now, I do have an Afternic account. It was created in 2019 and I sold 1 domain it back then in 2019. I haven't used it since, and it's tied to this same email.
I *REMEMBER* this email believe it or not. And I remember my *EXACT* thought process.
Look at the wording of this.. "Authorize your PARTICIPATION in Afternic"
Does that strike you in any way as an email telling you that your domain is going to be listed on someone else's account? This is an email from godaddy.com, to my primary GoDaddy email. It has INHERENT trust. I had no reason to believe this was anything other than an email related to my account.
My thinking was this :-
"I don't want to sell this domain, but I would be open to offers, and if someone offered me enough, I may sell."
Note again the word "participation". My thinking was I was going to participate and be given the opportunity to list it for offers. I didn't think it was going to be listed in a live auction with a live buy it now price as I would not have done that. If it was on my account I would only have listed it as being open for offers.(If that's even possible on Afternic).
But, here's the evidence of what came next that shows that I thought I could now just log into my Afternic account and find some sort of listing there where I could play around with it, list for offers or something similar. I would clearly be able to see if it was on my account and listed for a live auction, in which case I would cancel.
Note again, the heading is PARTICIPATION. It leads you to believe you're just being given the OPPORTUNITY to expose your domain to the marketplace and/or be given additional options to potentially sell. Nothing here lead me to believe I was selling even on my account, let alone SOMEONE ELSES ACCOUNT.
Now look at the next email in my inbox.
I immediately tried to sign into my Afternic account, expecting to see further options after approving the "participation", and note further, I can't remember exactly what happened after I clicked, but there would have been no indication I was listing on someone else's account.
I am extremely tech savvy. I've been online since about '94. Running linux since '96 and doing programming/networking since '96-'97. I don't get scammed. Ever. I have never been scammed online, so for this to catch ME is saying something. I'm an old school internet user who's seen every trick in the book.
You can also see above that there's no other emails from Afternic other than my login on April 15th(After the user here warned me about the Afternic issue). I had logged in to double check there was nothing on my account, which there's not, it's totally empty, and obviously GoDaddy has discovered whoever sold this domain is not Thomas Belfort.
So as it stands, you could just add a whole bunch of domains to your Afternic, and if a couple of people click the black button(Which also looks very much like GoDaddy's whois verification email, so many people will just automatically click this thinking anything from godaddy.com to their account email is safe), then suddenly your domain is listed on someone's account, and if you miss it being removed, or you don't manage to get lucky like I have with a big thread, you lose your domain.
GoDaddy REALLY need to sort out the domain authorization here.
At the very least the email needs to say something like :
A user named Firstname Lastname with address Some Address, and account email
[email protected] wants you to authorize domain some_domain.com for listing on Afternic.
Note: If you authorize this, then this account holder will be able to sell your domain and it will automatically be removed from your account. If this is NOT you or you do NOT authorize this account, then please click here to report.
Then when you click, there should be a 2nd page again warning you of the consequences and asking again if you're sure.
But really, it should be authorized through a TXT record, so on the Afternic panel, you need to add a TXT record to verify ownership.
At least I got the domain back. I didn't receive any compensation or credits for my time wasted, lost business or 50 euros in support calls.
If I had received a more personable email with perhaps a couple hundred $ in GoDaddy credits I would have been inclined to keep my $3k/year in domain renewals and 6 figures of auction domain spends with GoDaddy, but I will be moving to Porkbun. (Although I can't really avoid using GoDaddy auctions, I will be moving all domains off GoDaddy in the future)
