Could enom cheat ?

[stevesko]

Companies that have the 1st shot at getting valuable dropped names will do what anyone would do, its human nature....

Yes, I agree... BUT... Netsol, Moniker, even Pool are in the primary business of being a registrar/auctioneer, they have other business and but make their primary money on the auctions and registrations... the KEY DIFFERENCE here is that Enom was bought by a domain investor... our competition, so THEY have much more incentive to cheat since domain investing is their key business. Funneling the best names (that they are registrar for) to themselves without the drop process is way to easy for them to do.

Steve

[BELLC1]

I received this answer from enom today about the potential for registrar abuse on Clubdrop names that can't be bought by new bidders because of Buy It Now rules on Pre-release names:

==== My Question to Enom =====
When a reverse auction has a bid, say 5, 10 or 15, and the Buy It Now price is 40, just how is someone supposed to buy the domain? If I choose Buy It Now, I am out-proxied by another bidder. If I choose to bid $50 the regular way, I'm told I cannot bid higher than the Buy It Now price. A complete Catch-22 since there is no way to bid.

As a very long time, now very frustrated customer, just how the hell am I supposed to be able to bid? Why are these names even there if I can't bid? Please explain this to me.

==== Reply from "Arlen" at Enom ==
Hello
I have verified this with the director of our Club Drop services, and she indeed confirmed that this is the way it is with pre-release auctions. The only thing that we can recommend for these domains is putting in a proxy bid of the highest bid you will go up to, or take the chance of someone who put in a proxy bid out-bidding you. We truly apologize for the inconvenience, but the pre-release auction is this way by design. I hope that answers your question.

==== My followup ========

Unfortunately, it sounds like a design flaw as it benefits no new bidders. If the max proxy bid hits the Buy Now yet no one else can bid successfully regardless of amount, it should be automatically removed from the list. It sounds like it could also be open to abuse by the registrar who can merely see a bid proxy and force it to sell at more than minimum price.

But thank you for the reply.

=== Final reply from "Arlen" =====

Hello

I assure you that eNom does not abuse the bidding; we never charge more than is necessary to win an auction, by $5.00 increments until the proxy bid. But to address your malcontent, yes, quite a few people dislike the nature of pre-release auctions just as you do. Unfortunately, I was told that this is just the nature of the pre-release auction--it is a game to see who can get the domain name for the lowest price, and the phenomenon we are discussing is just an unfortunately byproduct of that.

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In summary, folks, I guess "it is a game" ....