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GoDaddy Inc. has been hit with a class action lawsuit alleging it misrepresents its web hosting services and overcharges for inferior service.
GoDaddy is an internet domain registrar and web hosting company. According to the class action lawsuit, the company offers various forms of server access including cloud hosting, “Virtual Private Servers” and “Dedicated Servers.”
Cloud hosting allows multiple users to share the resources of a single physical server, which are allocated based on demand. With cloud hosting, the performance of one website on a shared host can be significantly affected by traffic that is directed to other websites that share the resources of the physical server.
Virtual private servers are software-based servers that allow several clients to use the resources of the same physical server. Each VPS is allotted a portion of the resources of the physical server, and costs associated with VPS hosting are typically cheaper than the costs associated with dedicated server hosting.
Dedicated servers are designed for the sole use of a user, and grant the user complete control and access to one physical server. With a dedicated server, the performance of the user’s website is not affected by or dependent on any other user.
According to the GoDaddy class action lawsuit, dedicated server configurations are priced from $79.99 per month to $379.00 per month. On the other hand, the virtual private servers are offered at consistently lower prices than dedicated servers. The price of a virtual private server starts at $24.99 per month.
Plaintiffs Mark Schellenbach and William Ryder are website designers based in Los Angeles. According to the GoDaddy class action lawsuit, Schellenback and Ryder purchased a “Dedicated Server” hosting plan maintained by GoDaddy starting in December 2014. They upgraded their package after experiencing “crippling performance issues related to the server.”
When this upgrade did not improve their performance issues, they reportedly hired an independent server expert to figure out the problem. The independent server expert allegedly found that GoDaddy had actually provided them with virtualized servers.
According to the class action lawsuit, “GoDaddy is charging Plaintiffs for superior service while providing inferior service.” Schellenbach and Ryder claim that GoDaddy actively concealed the fact that it provided virtual servers to consumers who paid for the more expensive dedicated server services.
The GoDaddy class action lawsuit brings allegations of fraudulent concealment, negligent misrepresentation, and violations of the Arizona Consumer Fraud Act, California False Advertising Law and California Unfair Competition Law.
Schellenbach and Ryder seek to represent a nationwide Class and a California subclass of consumers who purchased or subscribed to “Dedicated Server” services provided by GoDaddy from October 2014 to the present and received a “virtualized” server.
The plaintiffs are represented by attorneys Kathryn Honecker of Rose Law Group, Stephen R. Basser and Samuel M. Ward of Barrack Rodos & Bacine, John G. Emerson and David G. Scott of Emerson Scott and Christopher D. Jennings of Johnson Vines.
The GoDaddy Dedicated Server Class Action Lawsuit is Mark Schellenbach, et al. v. GoDaddy Inc., Case No. 2:16-cv-00746-DGC, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona.
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28 thoughts onGoDaddy Misrepresents Web Hosting Services, Class Action Alleges
I was a loyal customer to Media Temple for over 20 years, I paid for our services through auto pay. They hosted my Graphic Design site as well as my husband’s Cinematography site. We are independent contractors and rely on our websites for business opportunities. Both of our sites were recently removed by GoDaddy. Apparently GoDaddy no longer holds the files for either site, although my account is paid in full they are unable to retrieve files so our websites no longer function. My web developer and I have both reached out to GoDaddy for answers, no solutions only apologies. Complete insanity!!!
Our company has also been lied to and deceived by GoDaddy hosting customer support. They won’t fix the problems they cause. Our website has been down periodically over 4 months. They blame us though we are experienced web developers who know better. We’re at their mercy for managed WordPress. Do not use them. We’re interested in a class action as well. Why isn’t any lawyer interested in taking our cases? We have evidence. Is it that Godaddy has an iron clad TOS? Superior lawyers?
We are also interested in a class action which is how i found this site. They basically refuse to let go of their products. We work in a highly regulated industry and i have legal obligations i can not meet which are putting me and my company severely at risk. After months of trying to get them to resolve issues, they just do not. They have no complaints process or email process. So we have tried to move our domain – all good, except they refuse to stop control of the Microsoft tenant. We are paying them no money but they just will not release it to new provider. This has resulted in serious harm. We have patient data we can not get out of their hands despite having no contract with them now.
I am having the same problems. Did u ever find a pro bono lawyer?
Thanksgiving day weekend. My site was not up and running. It’s still not up and running. I’ve tried different search engines no changes nothing links to my website.
GODADDY Was paid nearly $5,000.00 to develop a website and host it during the advent of the pandemic!The person/s who we dealt with were what I would call scam artists working for GD. After all the Hoppula this guy started to what we thought design the website, and get it functional. He would only give us an hr the most getting information from him. When we told him we were unable finish off what he started because we were not experienced in web design. Instead he claims there were certain things done then handed it off to us to finish it off!! First of all, if I was able to finish the site off why would I need them. WE never received a call or anything from the as of 11-23-20 until yesterday 10-6-21 when my business account was hit by GODADDY for over $1500.00 for web hosting!! I contacted them and gave them a stern option to refund me “ALL” them money sent to them for not delivering to me the product they were paid for! Their response was we’ll refund the $1500+ but the rest we cannot refund you because we have time invested in developing your website OH YEA???? Where is it? Furthermore, I have no desire to engage with this company for any future work. They wanted to give me a free yr. of hosting and continue to build the site. NO THANKS! They’ve had $5,000.00 of my money for over a yr. and didn’t have the decency to contact me once! I intend to find a good attorney who specializes in these kinds of cases and place this matter into his/her’s hands.
I also was ripped off by Go Daddy scam web design, They dragged this out for an entire year and now refuse to give me my money back. On 10/2/2020 I paid Go Daddy $ 4, 367 to build an eCommerce website for my business. The site was never built they threw some trash and loaded 10 pictures that were distorted and told me I had to finish the rest. It was a rip off so what did my 4,000+ dollars pay for. The entire purpose of hiring them was because I am not experienced in building websites and they sold me some trash.
If you locate an attorney please please let me know as I am looking for one also.
They wont cancel my account
I just learned that ALL MY DATA WAS DELETED by GD even as I was getting cancer treatment, without any notice, email or otherwise. Happy to share with others and attempt a class-action lawsuit (I paid them several thousands of dollars over two decades) NicoInHealth@gmail
I would like to get involved. GD is a company that must radically change or just go away. Could the plaintiff’s law firm please contact me?
Very bad experience with Go Daddy. They deleted my website due to a change in hosting plans. I am paid on the site until 2023. They cannot retrieve the content of my site.
I was with Go Daddy for years and was sold their high priced WordPress Hosting which didn’t have everything they said it did? I kept getting told that the new product would solve everything I was experiencing but it never got rolled out and I kept paying for their premium service.
I just had the absolute worse experience with a customer service rep name Michael. He refused to give me his last name and was extremely rude and condescending. I know the calls are recorded and i welcome someone to take a listen and let me know how in the world this is acceptable customer service.
I’ve had better service at McDonald!
I will gladly explain my situation if someone is really going to listen. After being a consistent customer since 2012, I cancelled EVERYTHING except for one URL. I had a vintage store, a portfolio site, and a tree service site, along with all the extra add-ons that they threw on.
I have never been so rudely spoken to in my life. I asked to be transferred to a supervisor and he refused. I asked for his last name and he refused that too. it’s all recorded.
I would like for someone to call me and look into this transaction. Someone named Michael needs to be terminated immediately. I worked in customer service for Google Fiber. If he was working for me, I would have fired him on the spot.
I finally got through to a lady name Taylor by calling the sales department! She was fabulous.. She deserves a BIG bonus for her composure and ability to emphasize with me. While I still believe that Go-daddy has ripped me off, I agreed to the terms Taylor offered, and that was the end of the transactions.
This all began around noon – and just now got resolved at 5:30.
Me too and I’ve been a customer for 10 + years. Removed email addresses and lost all contacts
2018 – July-Sept and maybe longer.
They removed all my websites trying to move to a different server and lost them and have done this to likely hundreds of people, they also lost the backups.
Is there a class action started over this yet? I have lost over 100 hours of content and they continue to erase my hosting and jumble my files so I cannot fix them. They will only fix them if I pay.
This is destroying small business and they are not taking any responsibility for the damage they have caused.
Please email me at erikakristineb@gmail.com.