Beware Of Automatic Payments

[brahmburgers]

Recently, I paid godaddy.com $4.99 for a listing to sell a domain name (wonderfull.com). I noticed at the final stage of the payment process (via PayPal) that there was some small print which allowed godaddy to take recurring payments.

I went ahead and made the transaction and made a mental note to go straighten it out, because no one likes an automatic recurring payment to anybody. I thought to go to Godaddy site, but it's so darn busy, with a million whistles and bells, it might have taken an hour to cut off the auto billing feature - if it was at all possible. So I went to the Paypal site instead. Good thing I did.

I recommend this for anyone with a Paypal account: go to 'profile' then 'more options' then 'my preapproved payments' and see what's there. It may be all peaches and cream, or it may offer some surprises, as mine did. I noticed three prior 'automatic payments' one for 'secureserver.net' and two others from 'godaddy' not including the one from them mentioned above. I was able to 'disable' all of them. Whew.

If this helps at least one other person, then it's worth the post.

[Crushdepth]

Worse, the 'recurring payment' for domains is often waaaay more than the first year. Worst offender - yahoo. 10 bucks the first year, 30 the second and going up.

[surayu]

I have once being charged a few monthly fees from a company with whom i was not doing business anymore from at least 3 years....there is no way i would give the go ahead for "automated" (help yourself) payments in Thailand, it's already a dangerous bet to try to keep some cash in a bank here...

[BoonToong]

To my great surprise, I had 8 still active!!!!

Luckily no erroneous payments had been taken but it may have happened in the future.

Thank you, thank you, thank you

[thequick7]

no payments listed, but thanx anyways 4 the heads up!!!

[astral]

Good advice.

Thanks

Also watch the scripts when ordering on line.

I was buying ZoneAlarm and the default was THREE copies,

not the one I needed.

[lomatopo]

Thanks for the heads-up.

You haven't set up any Preapproved Payments yet.

I only use PayPal for eBay, and keep no money there.

The GoDaddy retail site is immensely confusing, and it can be challenging just to figure out what it is you are actually buying, until after you check out or start using your services. Also items get added to your cart even if you just "look" at them.

[brahmburgers]

good to hear this post might have aided one or two readers. There are also automatic/recurring charges that can be added on to a credit card purchase. This happened with an online site I subscribed to, but thankfully there was a painless way to stop the recurring payments on their sister site. Rule of thumb for me: the less online transactions the better.