Internet domain giant GoDaddy has been accused of cruelty over a Christmas bonus 'hoax'.
The company sent employees an email claiming that they would get a holiday bonus, only for it to be a phishing 'test' that the company set up for staff.
A December 14 email was sent to employees of the Arizona-based company after staff had already been notified that they would not be receiving bonuses for the holidays this year.
'Happy Holiday GoDaddy! 2020 has been a record year for GoDaddy, thanks to you,' the email, obtained by 12 News, read. It was sent to roughly 500 employees.
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The email continues: "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."
Included in the email was a large logo that said: 'GoDaddy Holiday Party.'
But all was not as it seemed.
The company sent out a follow up email two days later.
"You're getting this email because you failed our recent phishing test," Demetrius Comes, the company's chief security officer, wrote, accord to the Copper Courier.
"You will need to retake the Security Awareness Social Engineering training."
At town hall employees told their bosses the test was tone deaf.
The test from the company was sent to the employees to see if they would fall for a phishing scam.
Ken Colburn of Data Doctors said: "The line level employees in a company have always kind of been the prime targets for hackers."
Within the past year, GoDaddy has fallen prey to data breaches and scams. Colburn stressed that these types of tests are important.
"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," Colburn added.
