Remarkable Action by NameJet & *Allegedly* Its Partner - Should I Sue, or How Soon?

[Nova]

Hi All,

Haven't posted at DNF in a long time, but this really takes the cake and I felt everyone might want to see and might benefit from this. Here's the situation:

A potentially extremely valuable domain was available as a Pre-Release on NameJet with a deadline of 8 PM Pacific Time yesterday, 2/13/2010. I placed my bid at 7:51 PM yesterday and was the only bidder. As is apparently normal, after 8 PM the status switched to "Pending Auction." Not finding any email today, I logged in to discover the status had been changed to "Wish List." All this time the domain has been expired, including this evening, and has not been renewed by the original registrant.

I put in a support ticket earlier today requesting correction of the "Wish List" status in light of the successful Pre-Release bid, and have just logged in to discover that the whole deal is being reneged upon. Here is what the support ticket contains as of now (have just obscured the domain name and mine for now]:

Successful pre-release order needs status correction

Discussion Thread

Response (David M.) 02/14/2010 07:02 PM

Hello,

Thank you for contacting Technical Support. Unfortunately, the name [domain].com is no longer available on the NameJet platform. For Pre-Release domains, we allow our partner registrars to remove domains from our platform at any time. We don't require them to provide a reason when they do this, as we don't want to hinder their ability to serve the interests of their current registrants, first and foremost. Since the name has been removed from NameJet, you won't be charged for the domain. Your backorder will remain in wish list status. If the domain becomes available, NameJet will send you an e-mail notifying you that your wish list backorder has been converted to a regular backorder.

Please let me know if you have any additional questions regarding this matter.

Thank you,

Dave M. | technical support
My Support Hours: 3:00PM - 11:30PM PST, Thursday through Monday
Out of the office Tuesday and Wednesday

Customer (Domain Administrator) 02/14/2010 02:37 PM Hello,

I won the 2/13/2010 8 PM PT pre-release order as the only bidder for the domain [domain].com which has not been renewed by the original registrant and would be grateful if the status would be updated from "Wish List" which it has entered into after the "Pending Auction" status that appeared immediately after the successful Pre-Release bid.

As my funding source for this purchase also shows the initial $1.00 test charge by NameJet, please feel free to charge the full amount of the order at your earliest convenience. Thanks very much for your attention to this matter.

Regards,
[Me]
[Company Name]

So, aside from what appears to be rather gross and flagrant implications of blatant corruption and lack of integrity, would appreciate your feedback about this matter, including from a legal point of view. Should I sue? If so, how soon should I sue? Is this a case for J. Berryhill? Can they even get away with this (I don't mean with a bad lawyer, but with a good lawyer on the case who can also cut through legally unreasonable tos bull)? Thanks all for your thoughts and input on this. What kind of way of doing business is this anyway? I know some may have had some successful dealings with them in the past (though how many in which you didn't have to pay through the nose for your domain or suspect shill bidding really?), but is there any reason on earth why anyone should trust NameJet in light of this kind of behavior?

---------- Post added at 12:40 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:27 AM ----------

P.S. The status of the support ticket is "Waiting on Customer." I've just been told the whole matter is being reneged upon - just what exactly could they be "waiting on"?

[David G]

Probably forget about suing because most any attorney will likely want a retainer fee of 5k to 10k (most of them do) and if it goes to trial the biill would be at least 50k. Is the name worth that much?

As far as legalities go, I bet there is something in the TOS and small print allowing them to return the name to the registrar so if that's there you would likely lose the case anyway.

P.S. Why even bother with the drop catchers when there are so many good names available for a reg fee? I see them every day (mostly keyword long tail multi-word .com or .org) and when I buy some of them and put online I often see traffic and typeins. Therea are so many names available for a reg fee it is impossible to register them all.

[Nova]

Thanks for your reply, trader. This is a particularly excellent and potentially lucrative .com domain, however, and *it's no wonder at all* that something like this might be perpetrated concerning it. P.P.S. It still says "This domain name is up for auction for a limited time. To place a bid, visit: http://www.namejet.com" on the registrar whois page, where it is also still expired.

---------- Post added at 01:53 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:19 AM ----------

Just checked both the registry and registrar whois. Expiration date has now been changed to Jan. 2011, and the whois has been changed from public info to completely private.

[Cartoonz]

obviously it was renewed by the Registrant.
When this happens, it takes a while for NameJet to get notified.

You have no case.

[Stian]

obviously it was renewed by the Registrant.
When this happens, it takes a while for NameJet to get notified.

You have no case.

Indeed. This is just the way backordering works. Sorry.

---------- Post added at 09:51 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:50 AM ----------

It has happened to me several times and there's nothing you can do if the registrant renews it. :(

[Nova]

obviously it was renewed by the Registrant.
When this happens, it takes a while for NameJet to get notified.

You are of course quite incorrect, and if you review everything above more carefully you would see that I already covered that it was *not* renewed either before or after the Pre-Release sale, and have posted that it was finally only both renewed and changed from public to *private* over 24 hours after the sale. So that suggestion certainly fails the smell test miserably. You can be sure I also have many screen shots of everything before, during, and after, including the day after.

[gingeman]

A dropcatcher, corrupt you say?!!

Of course there is little way of you knowing if it was or wasn't the original registrant renewing, as namejet will just say it was renewed late and they update 'as soon as they know'. I have had names pulled out of my account before (at snap)... TBH, I'll wager they have kept it themselves, or somebody related to them has done, but it would be near impossible to prove even if it were true.

[Cartoonz]

yes, of course I am incorrect.
what could I possibly know?

OK. Have fun with your huffing and puffing about this on all the forums.

You still have no case though

[Nova]

A dropcatcher, corrupt you say?!!

lol

namejet will just say it was renewed late and they update 'as soon as they know'.

I don't rely on dropcatchers to tell me anything about that part or necessarily believe what they're going to claim - I go straight to the source, the official registrar whois. You'll notice that namejet also did not deny the domain had not been renewed, or claim that the registrar had notified them late or otherwise of any renewal at all, but instead only came up with the "we allow our partner registrars to remove domains from our platform at any time" statement. That "makes sense" insofar as a statement like that can even make any sense since at the time of this reply from namejet the domain had still not even been renewed at all, as was plain for the whole world to see on the official registrar page. It was only finally renewed and made private well *after* this support ticket, which itself occurred the *day after* the successful sole pre-release bid.

[Cartoonz]

You need to understand a few things....

NameJet has no control of what the Registrar does.

Assuming we are talking about a Network Solutions name here... The Registrant may have just called NSI and done the renewal by phone, or had to do some verification. In these cases, NSI will put the name on "special" and even though the whois will not show it as renewed in the NSI whois, it is given a 15 day reprieve from being sent to auction so that the Registrant can complete whatever circus tricks NSI wants him/her to do. Also, the Registrant could have renewed it via PayPal and, for some odd reason, NSI sometimes does take up to 24hrs to actually update the system - including the whois. I waited until the 11th hour once and got a bit worried when it did not update right away and even re-renewed it again a few hours later. Of course it did eventually update and I was credited with both years (at $35 per.. *&%^&&^%*&^&%%$#%$#@#@)
If the name was at another Registrar, anything similar could and does occur as well.

You DO know that even AFTER a completed auction, they can still return the name to the previous Registrant for a period of time as well... right?

Your "support ticket" to NameJet has nothing to do with what was going on at a completely separate entity, Network Solutions. Go ahead and try to sue either one, I'll bring the popcorn.

Nobody has commented on the real elephant in the room here on this one though.... if this name was so enormously valuable and huge, why were you the only one that bid?

[Acro]

You want to sue, I am curious as to the grounds for suing Namejet. Did you sustain any monetary loss? Did you presell the domain or promised to capture it for a third party? How did you lose money, other than an opportunity?

The domain dropping business requires stomachs with a steel lining.

[barefoot]

...if this name was so enormously valuable and huge, why were you the only one that bid?

That was my first thought, too.

[Mike Cruz]

I have only been trying to catch dropping domains for a very short period (4-5 months) and I have had this happen to me at least a dozen times... You have to get over it and move onto the next domain. I know it is frusterating and you feel like killing a kitten, but you will get use to it.

[Nova]

Well, it did seem after my last post that perhaps I should log in again at some point to mention and remind that there is more than one entity involved, and not just the dropcatcher. While there may be numerous other grounds for suing and winning a lawsuit, just off the top of my head things like perhaps fraud and breach of contract come to mind, just to name a few. Though I'm not ready to mention the domain now, I'm certainly more than confident any jury or court would recognize the valuable and potentially highly lucrative nature of it, especially in light of certain facts related to the industry it pertains to; also, that any jury, court, or reasonable person for that matter would recognize that the facts clearly may well indicate the presence of fraud and corruption. Namejet itself may even be the least at fault or perhaps not even guilty of tort by comparison among the players in this matter, notwithstanding the "we allow our partner registrars to remove domains from our platform at any time" manner of doing business and all that it implies, though that remains to be seen.

[DomainsInc]

here is a prediction...you will do nothing but complain about it. you seem pretty naive as to how dropcatchers operate.

[Acro]

Nova, think: "valuable and potentially highly lucrative nature of it"

As a bidder, you're an outsider. Imagine, if that's your valuation of it, what it means to the person or company that has lost it. In other words, how stupid it would be for you to sue over something you don't own in the first place. But let me take it one step further: imagine winning some sort of case and then the previous owner showing up with their own side of the story ("we forgot about it", "we tried to renew but failed" etc.). It'd be a real cluster**** once they'd in turn sue.

[Nova]

Acro, I understand the point you're making, and even appreciate your post, but it is things like that which often have to be determined or "exposed." Right now the facts and evidence I have would indicate to more or less anyone the possibility or likelihood of fraud and malfeasance, and any exculpatory possibility or speculation is only a "maybe, maybe" now. As I mentioned, even namejet didn't try to claim any kind of renewal by the original resitrant at all, neither legitimate nor improper terms violating renewal, and neither has the registrar. There's no reason to believe any such claim absent credible proof, and the worse possibilities behind the late "renewal" and privatization of the whois contact info are indeed considerably worse. When you have a contract for the sale of something, like a home for instance, if the seller is in breach then the buyer deserves a remedy. Any alleged defenses to breach are tested in the light of day, and ones like "we forgot about it" for instance would certainly fail the test.

[Acro]

I'm not a lawyer, however I am pretty sure the contract is bulletproof and it's not a promissory note to render any services. In other words, you are not paying Namejet any money unless they succeed in grabbing that domain for you; then again, even after a domain is grabbed it can be taken back (at least if it's at eNom) for 45 days after that and your money refunded. There are numerous other footnotes.

[Sweetman]

@Nova (and everyone else),

I work for Tucows and have just finished investigating this, and for the record I have emailed the following reply to "Nova" (who had also emailed Tucows directly):

Dear ("Nova"),

Thank you for your February 15, 2010 email about the expired domain ("domain name").

I manage the Tucows expired domain integration with our auction partner, NameJet, and I have looked into this matter and also spoken with NameJet about it.

This expired domain received at least *one* auction pre-order at NameJet (perhaps by you; we at Tucows are not privy to that confidential information) and our automated systems took the correct action at the end of the 40-day Grace Period and renewed this domain and moved this domain to a special auction account we have setup where names that have *one* or more auction pre-orders on them are held (which means these domains are about to be placed in a live auction). So, based on what we are seeing, this is a domain that is destined for a live NameJet auction.

I spoke to NameJet earlier today and they confirmed there were 2 pre-orders on this domain, which means that NameJet will be starting a 3-day, private live auction of this domain in the next 24-48 hours. I kindly suggest that you wait until NameJet notifies you of the live auction for this domain (or check your NameJet account for an update). Assuming you were one of the 2 people that placed a pre-order, then you will be competing with 1 other bidder for this domain in the private live auction.

Rest assured, this domain was *not* taken by Tucows or NameJet, and there is nothing underhanded going on. The live auction for this domain simply hasn't started yet, that is all.

So, in summary, this domain was renewed because it received 1 or more pre-orders at NameJet and will soon be placed into a 3-day live auction at NameJet. You may want to speak to NameJet again to get more help around timing of auctions, when domains actually enter live auction mode, and general information on how expired domain auction services like NameJet work.

Best of luck in the auction, and please contact me via email if you have any more concerns or questions.

Regards,

Bill
　

--
Bill Sweetman
General Manager, Domain Portfolio
Tucows

[katherine]

A dropcatcher, corrupt you say?!!

Heaven forbid.

TBH, I'll wager they have kept it themselves, or somebody related to them has done, but it would be near impossible to prove even if it were true.

I have seen netsol quietly take possession of high value domains that were not renewed. Those domains never made it to the auctions and they are now in netsol's name.
So you know 'they' can do it and it can happen.