[Brody]

My website being down for six days means access difficulty for three games - and it costs me money. It's not the end of the world, but it's a huge pain in the ass without any due diligence on their part.

Had they tried to reach me via the correct email address or my home phone and failed to get me, I'd have no room to complain. My problem is they acted quickly, based on a single complaint without talking to me first, and then tried to extort me.

For the record, they relented, which suggests I was right.

[GenmaC]

And I'm not critizing your reaction, just trying to point out some factors one could consider for situations like this.

Mebbe I'm just a little annoyed that some guy talked my ear off for at least an hour today because the guy we hired a week ago didn't check the time that was requested for this customer's servers to be rebooted - no harm done, just wasn't done exactly when he wanted.

And plenty of "HELP FIX MY EMAIL!!!11"

To which my response would be, if I had a choice in the matter "FIX YOUR OWN EMAIL FATSO."

[Threshold]

I think it is extremely irresponsible to make apologies and excuses for an absolutely absurd reaction by GoDaddy.com, and their complete failure to even give their customer a CHANCE to explain the situation.

People online find it far too convenient and entertaining to be contrary just for the sake of being contrary.

GoDaddy.com was 100% wrong here, period. There's no "other side" of the issue. There's no "maybe they overreacted."

They were wrong. Their actions were disgusting.

If you don't take care of your customers, you don't have a business. That "uplink" does you no good if you have no customers.

Furthermore, their "uplink" is not in jeopardy by not squelching the domain names of spammers.

[Rhuarc]

At which point, you would be out of a job. This is a common attitude among tech-support people, and is one of the primary reasons customers have so many complaints against them.

A tech-support person at the company I work for who had this kind of attitude would find himself out of work quickly.

Sure, the average consumer has little to no clue about the process, that's why tech-support roles exist.

[Threshold]

Well said Rhuarc.

It is amazing that in this day (when there are concerns about so many companies outsourcing tech support and other such jobs) that people would COMPLAIN about having to *gasp* do what they are hired to do.

Of course most people who call tech support are clueless- that's why the company is paying all those folks to work tech support.

The real problem is that most of the people WORKING tech support are themselves clueless, and are unable to resolve any situation that is even slightly complex.

[Wik]

It's also a pretty difficult time finding someone who can relate both with a computer and with a human. It takes a special person to be able to do both effectively. I've seen both extremes; people who are great with the computer, but are frustrated with ignorant people, or people that love helping people, but end up not having the skills to do so. I dunno.

Maybe once we have computers for a generation or two they'll be easy enough for most people-persons to understand.

[GenmaC]

Actually, it's my job to support server administrators.  When these alleged administrators, many who make a considerable profit from their businesses, rely on me to fix the problems that they create for their own clients due to ignorance, this is annoying.  I don't mind fixing a server.  What I do mind is when someone who calls himself a LINUX GURU!!11 calls in and whines for half an hour about how one of his clients cannot connect to his SMTP server - because he changed iptables without knowing what the #### he was doing.

And it's not that I mind doing that - I love simple questions, everyone does.  But to be berated for half an hour by a simpleton who can't figure out how to use google or better yet, not f*ck his own server up, is kind of ridiculous.  Even with all that, I've never sent a customer away unsatisfied.

As for saying that GoDaddy's actions were "disgusting", I can only laugh at that.  I'm sure they followed their TOS, in which case while it might be inconvenient for you, they were still following the letter of the law, so to speak.

Edit: Whoa - the curse filter catches h.ell, but not some other words...

[Threshold]

Do you work for GoDaddy.com or hold stock in the company? The degree of apologizing for them is amazing.

The "Almighty TOS" does not make all these right.

Following the TOS does not excuse extreme knee jerk reactions nor does it excuse a total failure to notify the customer of a complaint and potential service stoppage.

[Vesper]

Hear, Hear!, Threshold.

Ok, so the TOS were followed by the GoDaddy.com staff?

Yeah, like that holds water. Obviously, someone drafted up the most ridiculous terms of service I've heard of. And whoever that person at GoDaddy was IS responsible for that terrible chain of events, if their representatives were indeed following the letter of their law.

If anything, that would make them even more responsible. Sure, some idiot in their customer service department who was annoyed that day is one thing. But actually doing that to a loyal customer because these people were following company guidelines is even more outrageous.

Bottom line? They are running a bad business and there are better alternatives out there.

You pay for what you get.

[Threshold]

That is a good point.

If it is their POLICY to make knee jerk reactions and cut off customers' access without notice, that is even worse than if some random nimrod did it on his own.

[Azhon]

I don't think register.com would be a very good replacement, I've heard of lots of complaints about them trying to overcharge, or asking for their fees too soon. They also allow expired domains go too quickly. They let some squatter take over theunderdogs.org because they didn't email its webmaster about it.

Try another registrar maybe?

[GenmaC]

About godaddy: Read before you sign anything - because otherwise, you don't have any right to complain. "GOD THEY DID WHAT THAT PAPER I SIGNED SAID THEY COULD DO OMG HOW UNFAIR AND THEY ARE NOW A TERRIBLE COMPANY"

I have a domain or two on godadday, and they ****ed up my passwords in a really wierd way a couple of times, which sucks. I don't use them anymore, obviously.

[Brody]

I agree. Reading the TOS is critical. I'll repeat, just in case it hasn't been clear: I have no qualms with GoDaddy.com enforcing its terms of service. But the terms of service indicate they'll do all they can to contact the domain holder before taking extreme action like redirecting the DNS. In my case, they didn't do all they could. They took one complaint, tried reaching me via e-mail, and within hours of receiving the complaint and not reaching me - redirected the DNS.

Had they sent email to the valid address in my account and I ignored it, or had they tried to call me at home and failed to reach me, then I couldn't fault them for enforcing the TOS. They'd also be within their rights to tell me to take a long walk off a short pier for complaining.

But, in this case, they dropped the ball, they screwed up, and they're trying to make good on it, to their credit.