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Did GoDaddy send fake holiday bonus email to staff? Internet slams domain giant: 'Hope Santa pisses in your stocking'

The mail was sent to the employees after they were notified earlier by the Scottsdale-based domain company that they won’t be receiving any bonuses this year

Domain giant GoDaddy is facing a lot of heat from the Internet after they reportedly sent a fake holiday bonus mail to their employees promising them a bonus of $650 with an intention to test their employees over whether they will fall for a phishing scam.

The publication called News12 got hold of the mail copy which was sent to the employees of GoDaddy on November 14. The email copy reads, “Happy Holiday GoDaddy! 2020 has been a record year for GoDaddy, thanks to you! Though we cannot celebrate together during our annual Holiday Party, we want to show our appreciation and share a $650 one-time Holiday bonus! To ensure that you receive your one-time bonus in time for the Holidays, please select your location and fill in the details by Friday, December 18th.” According to the same publication, the mail was sent to the employees after they were notified earlier by the Scottsdale-based domain company that they won’t be receiving any bonuses this year.

Speaking on the same lines, Ken Colburn of Data Doctors told News12, “The line-level employees in a company have always kind of been the prime targets for hackers. Getting them to be really much more suspicious, that's an important task. But doing it in a way that's not going to upset the employees is equally as important.” 

According to the website, Copper Courier, the company then sent another mail two days later written by their chief security officer Demetrius Comes which read, You’re getting this email because you failed our recent phishing test. You will need to retake the Security Awareness Social Engineering training.”

Now, the moment, the news got out on the Internet, a lot of social media users rushed to Twitter to slam GoDaddy. One user stated, “Merry Christmas to everyone except the GoDaddy leadership that tricked employees into thinking that they would get a $650 holiday bonus. Hoping Santa pisses in your stocking.” Another expressed, “This is f**king horrendous. #godaddy you absolutely vile corporate wankstains.” One stated, “Now @GoDaddy can either make good on the $650 bonuses or deal with an exodus in January as employees leave for places that don’t actively taunt their staff.” One individual got furious and posted, “This is incredibly f**ked up and abusive. GoDaddy had better actually be giving everyone these bonuses. Absolutely monstrous to do this right before the holidays in any year, but especially THIS year.” Another added, “WOW @GoDaddy!On top of sexist commercials, you TAUNT broke, disheartened, freaked out workers who have to beg the government for pathetic scraps w/ the promise of a bonus AT CHRISTMAS??? Keep going like this and eventually the poor are going to #eattherich. Sickening! #GoDaddy” One shared, “Glad I moved all of my #GoDaddy domains to @squarespace- a company that wouldn't dare taunt their employees with holiday bonuses during a global PANDEMIC.”

According to News12, the controversial email was sent out months after GoDaddy's CEO Aman Bhutani announced company-wide layoffs that impacted employees across the country including in Arizona.

Phishing tests are sent by companies to gauge their employees’ susceptibility to phishing attacks, where people outside the company will attempt to disguise themselves as trusted sources to gain access to sensitive information, like usernames and passwords. Also, this is not the first time when a company has faced backlash for issuing a controversial phishing scam test. In September, Tribune Publishing had conducted a similar test where they promised their employees a bonus which ultimately turned out to be fake.