Here is a workaround to solve permanently the old, cryptic GoDaddy error message "This domain is owned by someone else or in a different shopper account." My previous instructions of using GoDaddy Pro Support are obsolete as they do not bother to give support anymore.
As many of us has experienced, GoDaddy is sabotaging customers who are moving their domains to cheaper and better registrars. If you originally registered your domain from GoDaddy, you will not be able to move the domain away and then setup DNS hosting to GoDaddy for your domain. Without DNS hosting you will not be able to use GoDaddy DNS api, for example, for getting automatic free SSL certificates.

The following steps will allow you to move your domain away without getting it locked to a shopper account:

1. Create a new, temporary GoDaddy user account
2. Transfer your domain to the temporary user account
3. Wait for 10 days
4. Transfer your domain to another registrar
5. Wait for 24 hours
6. Close your temporary account
7. Wait for 24 hours
8. Add DNS hosting to your main GoDaddy account

Using a temporary account as a proxy will break the connection between your domain name and GoDaddy. Naturally, the best way to avoid wasting time and doing all kind of unnecessary shit like this is to avoid GoDaddy. For example NameSilo is cheaper than GoDaddy, they do not sabotage their customers and you will get an extra US $1 discount with our coupon code: webseodesigners

Happy hacking,

Santeri

Thank you. I will give it a try.

B

I am currently evaluating a VPS droplet by Digital Ocean for moving all my hosting accounts away from GoDaddy. It should reduce significantly my hosting spending, too. If you want to give it a try, too, you can get a US $100 credit valid for 2 months using this link discount code link: https://m.do.co/c/d4b8408948d5.

To get the discount, you need to either transfer US $5 from your PayPal to verify your account or give your credit card number, and then give your credit card for billing.

Happy hacking,

Santeri

Santeri wrote: ↑

2022-1-5 07:16

I am currently evaluating a VPS droplet by Digital Ocean for moving all my hosting accounts away from GoDaddy. It should reduce significantly my hosting spending, too. If you want to give it a try, too, you can get a US $100 credit valid for 2 months using this link discount code link: https://m.do.co/c/d4b8408948d5.

To get the discount, you need to either transfer US $5 from your PayPal to verify your account or give your credit card number, and then give your credit card for billing.

Here is an update to my post. Digital Ocean hosting has been working now over 2 years. The price has increased from US $5 to US $6 per month, but no other unpleasant surprises. I've been running Debian Bullseye with Nginx on a regular 1GB ram + 25 GB disk droplet for some twenty websites including this forum.

The free credit discount link code above is still valid, but the discount has increased to US $200 for 2 months. If you use regular basic system like me, you'll end up spending only US $12 from the credit, but you can use the rest to experiment all the other services they are offering if you want.

Cheers,

Santeri