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GoDaddy Offers Employees a Holiday Bonus, But…

Just before Christmas, Internet service company GoDaddy apologized for not having a holiday party this year because of the coronavirus, but instead emailed employees news of a holiday bonus they could sign up for.

GoDaddy invitation

The email from HappyHoliday@GoDaddy.com directed employees to a link to sign up for the bonus, and presumably asked them to verify their identity by entering their official login credentials, etc. so the bonus could be processed.

A few days later the 500 or so employees who signed up got another email from the company.

*MOUSE PRINT: (details that were missing from the first email)

This time they were told the invitation was really a phishing test by the company, that they just failed it, and they would have to attend a remedial class on Internet security. And incidentally, there really was no company bonus this year.

Employees were livid and ultimately GoDaddy apologized for pulling this stunt so close to the holidays when money was short for many people.

[This story was originally reported by the Copper Courier.]

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10 thoughts on “GoDaddy Offers Employees a Holiday Bonus, But…”

  1. How very mean-spirited of Go Daddy! What crawled into their collective brains to make them think this was a good idea? Of particular note, Go Daddy wasn’t apologetic enough to give their employees the bonus.

  2. So nice of them to pose as themselves to trick their own employees. I don’t think it was the employees that failed that test.

  3. My employer sent out a phishing test email also before the holidays, looking like it was from our ceo asking us for feedback on the state of the business, etc. Most of us failed the test – but it ended up backfiring because now he has an organization of people who don’t open his emails for fear of it being another test.

  4. Edgar,

    I read about this a week ago in a tech blog. I believe that the overall intent is fine for something like this, you obviously want to know who would click links like this, but I feel like where GoDaddy went wrong is not actually offering the bonus.

    If the $650 bonus for everyone was real, but the people who filled in their information would also have to take the class, then I think everyone would be fine with it, but imagine if someone spent money they didn’t have with the expectation that this bonus would make up for it. Seems like a horribly short sighted idea.

  5. It’s a despicable way to treat employees, but I’m not surprised. When recommending who to use as a registrar and for webspace, my reply has always been “anyone EXCEPT GoDaddy.” I’ve heard more complaints about GoDaddy holding domains hostage, refusing to release ownership, and changing terms & conditions after-the-fact. In one case, I was asked to transfer a URL to another registrar, and I had to literally threaten legal action against GoDaddy to get them to do what ICANN demands that they do.

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