Access.org - what's wrong with this picture?

[Acro]

Why did vaxis get the domain Access.org?

harpo should have won it - he had the highest final bid at $5400 before this scammer wordstore jumped in.

vaxis		13-Sep-2005 13:54 PDT		$5,000.00 		Auction Completed
	
vaxis		13-Sep-2005 13:54 PDT		$5,000.00 		New Bidder Assigned
						
wordstore	13-Sep-2005 13:54 PDT		--		Payment Failed
						
wordstore	05-Sep-2005 12:09 PDT		$6,100.00 		Bid Placed
						
harpo		05-Sep-2005 12:09 PDT		$6,000.00 		Bid Placed
						
harpo		05-Sep-2005 12:09 PDT		$5,700.00 		Bid Placed
						
wordstore	05-Sep-2005 12:09 PDT		$5,600.00 		Bid Placed
						
harpo		05-Sep-2005 11:26 PDT		$5,400.00 		Bid Placed
						
vaxis		05-Sep-2005 11:26 PDT		$5,300.00 		Bid Placed
						
harpo		05-Sep-2005 10:01 PDT		$5,200.00 		Bid Placed
						
vaxis		05-Sep-2005 10:01 PDT		$5,100.00 		Bid Placed
						
harpo		05-Sep-2005 01:55 PDT		$5,000.00 		Bid Placed
						
navil		05-Sep-2005 01:55 PDT		$4,901.00 		Bid Placed

[droplister]

maybe they have some 7 day thing where the bid becomes invalid, im not sure im not much of a backorder domainer

[Acro]

That's not what I'm talking about.

wordstore had the highest bid but failed to pay. It was a shill bid.
harpo had the highest legitimate bid - the one right before wordstore started bidding. So why didn't harpo get the domain and instead it went to the high profile players, Vertical Axis for LESS than what harpo had bid?

[none]

Good work Rad -- it lowers my confidence in the dropcatchers even further, if that's even possible.

[Acro]

I am simply curious how this works. What stops someone from using an alias to blow up an auction at Snapnames?

[mike031]

i'm pretty sure that snapnames personally contacts the next highest bidder and tells it how it is... this person "harpo" probably had a couple of options and after all decided that he was not interested in this domain.... unfortunately this scenario is not the first and won't be the last.... vaxis was next in line'

[NameRegistration]

Maybe harpo backed off too or he was contacted after wordstore failed the payment and he refused to get the domain. I am just guessing here, I would like to think that there is fair play in Snapnames. It would be great to contact harpo to find out what it really happed.

[Kjel]

Maybe harpo backed off too or he was contacted after wordstore failed the payment and he refused to get the domain. I am just guessing here, I would like to think that there is fair play in Snapnames. It would be great to contact harpo to find out what it really happed.

You are correct. Harpo was offered the option to take the name at his last highest legitimate bid, but he declined. The next highest bidder after Harpo was Vaxis, who ended up purchasing the name.

[Acro]

Thanks for the explanation.

[Jacksplat]

I've seen payment fail in several snapnames auctions.

It's looking like teamwork if you ask me. Before the price gets too high, start a bidding frenzy with 3 people.. one stops at an awesome deal, the other two keep rockin and you can see all the others stop and watch. Then when its too high nobody will bid a ridiculous amount so they give up... then the highest bidder doesnt pay and the next highest bid is back when the three team mates parted ways..

Freshly Stolen credit cards are gonna go up in value after afew hundred people figure this one out. Not a bad way to make a quick 10k per week.

I'm in alot of snapnames auctions but I'm not bidding high much anymore. I'm disapointed.

Kevin.

[Kjel]

It's looking like teamwork if you ask me. Before the price gets too high, start a bidding frenzy with 3 people.. one stops at an awesome deal, the other two keep rockin and you can see all the others stop and watch. Then when its too high nobody will bid a ridiculous amount so they give up... then the highest bidder doesnt pay and the next highest bid is back when the three team mates parted ways..

Jack,

Believe me, you are not the first person to contemplate such a scheme. Bad actors attempt to fraudulently "game" our auctions all the time, and we have a lot of experience in catching them and driving them out. Stolen credit cards are another matter entirely: there's no reason to employ a team if you are using someone else's card. Still, we have systems in place that catch most stolen cards before a name is awarded, and we have systems in place to retrieve any names that were purchased fraudulently.

There are reasons not to try to compete with some of the deep pockets in certain SnapNames auctions, but fear of fraud shouldn't be one of them.