Tell HN: Godaddy canceled my domain, gave me 2h to respond, then charged €150

I use my own domain to host a simple homepage. I also use it as a custom mail domain. Initially, I bought the domain on godaddy.com when I was getting into the realms of software engineering. I always found the user interface hard to get used to, but it never bothered me enough for me to transfer my domain. Especially because I run the DNS through Cloudlfare and, therefore, I have fairly little contact with the interface of godaddy.

Today Proton (my mail provider of choice) surprised me with a warning that there were problems with the setup of my domain. A quick research revealed that godaddy had cancelled my domain. It showed up in the Redemption Grace Period. This status code indicates that godaddy has asked the registry to delete my domain. After 30 calendar days + 5 days following the end of the redemption period, my domain is purged from the registry database and becomes available for registration.

I immediately contacted the godaddy support hotline. Mainly because of my mail account and the services connected to it. They confirmed the termination. The reason given was that I had failed to respond to an e-mail - that was sent yesterday on a Sunday(!) at 9:51 PM. Then at 0 o'clock my domain was terminated. So I had a breathtaking 2 hours to respond. Which is especially fun because I go to bed at 10pm. :-D

To make matters worse, the mail ended up in the spam folder because Godaddy's reputation seems to be bad and was titled: "Update your privacy settings and personal information.". Even under normal circumstances, I would have ignored this email. How should someone suspect that in a few minutes from now on the own domain is going to be killed.

If I understood the service employee correctly, this mail means that something was wrong with my payment data. And indeed, there was an old credit card on file. However, a PayPal address was also stored there, which still worked. Via this address, I was later even debited the penalty fees that I supposedly had to pay.

After some back and forth with service, I was then given an ultimatum: Either I pay €150 fine, allegedly required by my government to be charged for domains that enter the grace period. Or I lose the domain.

The latter didn't sound very inviting, as I like my domain and also don't feel like switching all accounts to another domain/provider. So I paid the fee.

Godaddy confirmed afterwards that there were no further emails or announcements. The service employee even confirmed by phone that apart from the mail and the subsequent generous transition period of 2 hours, there would have been no further information.

TL:DR If you have a domain with Godaddy, just make sure that the payment information is correct. Otherwise, it might get expensive.