Sorry to hear about the hassle.

Are you sure you didn't receive a series of e-mails warning about the upcoming renewal? That's what I always get from GoDaddy for each of my domains, prior to the auto-renewal.

For example, I received one at the end of November notifying me that one of my domains will auto-renew at the end of February 2009.

I just checked and have another from a few days ago notifying me of an auto-renewal for a different domain in March 2009.

IIRC, several of these are sent.