I sold a domain name for US$1,750 via Go Daddy’s Premium Listing in December 2010. I was told it takes them about 45 days to issue the cheque. Go Daddy doesn’t send domain sale proceeds via PayPal. Why not? That I still have not figured that out.
Anyway, so come February 2011, I was already eagerly anticipating the arrival of my Go Daddy cheque for US$1,750. For me, a domain sale isn’t complete until I have the money (or in this case, a cheque) in my hands.
Last week, I received a mail from Go Daddy. Based solely on the thickness of the envelope, I could tell that it was the Go Daddy cheque that I had been waiting for. I ripped the side of the white envelope open and pulled out the cheque excitedly.
There it was. A check for One Thousand Seven Hundred Fifty Dollars and 00 Cents. That’s what it said. And here’s what it looks like.
Sweet eh? Yes, definitely.
Except for the fact that they missed one minor detail.
My name. Instead of my name, they wrote the cheque out to:
Domain Manager DOMAIN MAY BE FOR SALE.
That’s the name that I use in the WHOIS records of the domain names that I want to sell.
Apparently, some genius or geniuses at Go Daddy decided that that’s the name that appears in the WHOIS record of the domain that I sold, so that must be my name. Grrrreat!
I don’t live in the US. And because of that, it takes my bank one month to encash cheques from US banks. Probably because they have to send the cheque back to the US (or something like that) to verify its authenticity (Thanks, Frank Abagnale, Jr.!). Which means that I may have to wait another two months to actually get the money — one month (I hope less) for Go Daddy to send me a new cheque with the correct name and another month for my bank to process and encash the cheque.
Two months. All because someone wasn’t really paying attention when he or she was typing the name of the recipient on the cheque. Genius!
[alert color=”green”]19 February 2011 update: I contacted my Go Daddy account manager about this issue a couple of days ago. He wrote back yesterday and informed me that their Account Department will write and send a new cheque for with my correct details in two weeks. Thank God, at least it’s not a month.[/alert]
@Joan: I think it’s their policy that payments over US$500 must be via cheque. Payments under $500 can be paid via PayPal. Ah well, I’ll just have to wait, I guess.
@Joan: I think it's their policy that payments over US$500 must be via cheque. Payments under $500 can be paid via PayPal. Ah well, I'll just have to wait, I guess.
Hi Jay,
This type of efficiency is everywhere, writing a cheque?
Why could this not have been paid directly into a PayPal account or via an EFT (Electronic Fund Transfer)!
Living in South Africa I had a similar experience, however as soon as PayPal was opened up into our country, I notified my contact, the cheque was cancelled and payment redirected to my PayPal account without any hassles.
This is something to remember for the future, but hey congrats on the sale of a site – Joan
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