An important message from Snapnames

[Fearless]

Originally Posted by Acro

How the **** will we provide detailed information related to bidding, when Snapnames have disabled all auction stats older than 2 years???

Someone at Oversea told me they are working on giving us access and it will be done.

[theinvestor]

Originally Posted by Fearless

Someone at Oversea told me they are working on giving us access and it will be done.

Good to know...i don't think i was affected but it would be nice to know since the bulk of my auctions were in 2006 and 2007.

[DomainsInc]

Originally Posted by Fearless

I found one of my auctions November 2007 where my proxy was $8,500 and my current bid was $884. Nelson knowing my reserve was $8,500 bid $7,500. Then my auto bid went to $7,750. Then I assume another user saw this action between two bidders and bid once at $8,000. My auto bid kicked it to $8,250 and I won the auction.

With this scenario I get no rebate when clearly halvaraz was a huge factor that likely cost me thousands of dollars.

Its very disappointing that any time halvaraz comes into an auction they don't rebate those amounts.

[zurc.net]

Originally Posted by DomainsInc

Its very disappointing that any time halvaraz comes into an auction they don't rebate those amounts.

They would go broke, hense the current series of offers.... I wouldn't be surprised to see a second set of offers to the people who are not going to jump on these.

[PRED]

hmm
turns out Lawrence Ng isn't ceo anymore. he's chairman

http://domainnamewire.com/2008/11/14...of-overseenet/

Jeff Kupietzky is the man to answer the questions now




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhvzWHpDelc

nice to see he has a sense of humour
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQ8Cv...eature=related

[barefoot]

Originally Posted by Acro

How the **** will we provide detailed information related to bidding, when Snapnames have disabled all auction stats older than 2 years???

Am I to understand that none of you ever downloaded and archived your auction stats prior to this news?

[Auction]

Originally Posted by barefoot

Am I to understand that none of you ever downloaded and archived your auction stats prior to this news?

With bidding history... no

[JEsports]

Remember the poker scandal with UB/Absolute where it started with 1 cheating account and after a thorough invistigation in ended up being more like 100 different accounts?

This whole bidding scandal is going to wind up being more than just the Halvarez accounts but more than likely multiple accounts. With thorough investigations those auctions in which Halvarez bid you up and some other bidder bids again right before you (close to your reserve) .. those bidder accounts might also end up being fraduluant.

I guess what im saying is when you take the "buyout" and it turns out many more of your auctions in which you were not paid turned out to be snapname bidders, then what? Im not sure there is anything you can do at that point after agreeing to the buyout fine print.

[dvdrip]

I will only sign that I will not sue for auctions related to "halvarez" as the second bidder, not all auctions.

[donnacha]

Originally Posted by Seraphim

I don't buy into the one account theory. I also know they're royally f%cking everyone who used their service heavily prior to the records cut off date. However my delight in getting a little kick-back rebate, is that it usually doesn't happen, even with legal action. The industry is an absolute garbage dump of fraud and mischief, how often do things get settled like this? 0.001% of the time maybe?

I have grounded expectations here in DomainLand.

This is the point: For once, you don't have to accept the f%cking.

We all know what goes on but, for one of the first times ever, a company has actually been caught red-handed and, because of their own interests in clawing back the $25m they paid, the parent company have gone public, believing that the vast majority of domainers will be too stupid or too lazy to push for anything more than a ridiculously limited settlement, and that Oversee will come out ahead.

Smarter domainers such as Kevin Ham and Frank Schilling are being treated differently and, as we speak, their lawyers are hammering out deals that more accurately reflect what they would win in a legal action - you can be sure that they are not talking federal rates of interest and that no-one, on either side of the table, is bothering to suggest that there was only one account. It is extremely likely that, in return for their agreement not to push for criminal proceedings, the big domainers will probably get more out of this than they ever put into Snapnames.

Rust Consulting are being paid huge amounts of money to help Oversee spin this in exactly the right way and to calculate exactly the minimum amount of pay-out they can get away with, when you factor in both human inertia and the lack of organisation or central focus among domainers.

Think of this like owning a house on a block that a huge corporation wants to build a skyscraper on - most of your neighbours will accept the first seemingly generous offer they receive, especially if it is spun to make it sound as if there is no more money in the pot. A few smarter home-owners will, however, hold out for a better deal, knowing that, without their agreement, the skyscraper cannot be built.

In this case, Oversee need to clear the massive liabilty hanging over Snapnames and, indeed, their whole group. While it is there, they will struggle to find further funding at reasonable rates, or investment at good terms. They will be unable to spin-off Snapnames. They will be at a perceived disadvantage in every business negotiation, every portfolio sale, because everyone will know how much they need the money. They will be unable to get legal liability insurance for their other ventures.

As long as even a possibility of legal action is out there, they will have to operate in an extremely wary mode, careful that no employee says or does anything that might assist a case against them - the company will, in effect, be paralysed.

That is why they are systematically going to settle with anyone and everyone who has skin in this game. They will with all the easy-money idiots, while also neutralising anyone with obvious fire-power - the Kevin Hams, the Frank Schillings etc. Then, when they've cleared both the Godzillas and the low-hanging fruit, they will have to deal with the handful of domainers who held out organized an action, to whom they will have to offer something resembling a fair settlement, they won't have any other choice. We will not get the same deal that the Godzillas are already getting but we will, at least, not be played for fools.

[dmyre]

Originally Posted by Fearless

There no mention of what they are doing about all the auctions where he won and I was in second place.

This is one of my biggest concerns as well.
SN is saying I was only affected on one domain, and I don't buy it...

[Acro]

I called Snapnames (long phone wait) and Rust Consulting (quick response) and gave them my request & info respectively. I am confident this will lead to more transparency. We'll see.

[24HourDomainer]

Originally Posted by Acro

I called Snapnames (long phone wait) and Rust Consulting (quick response) and gave them my request & info respectively. I am confident this will lead to more transparency. We'll see.

Good

[donnacha]

Originally Posted by DomainsInc

Its very disappointing that any time halvaraz comes into an auction they don't rebate those amounts.

Originally Posted by zurc.net

They would go broke, hense the current series of offers.... I wouldn't be surprised to see a second set of offers to the people who are not going to jump on these.

Yes - in a normal, legally-informed situation of this type, the guilty party would give a FULL refund of money paid as a consequence of ALL the auctions in which their VP participated in any capacity. That would be a natural expectation, no discussion required. Any further negotiation would revolve around the question of whether their VP had artificially engineered a climate in which customers came to believe that they HAD to place bids at Snapnames rather than just let domains drop naturally.

Snapnames are actually taking quite a risk in making this low-ball offer - they really only have one chance to kill a serious uprising that will pursue proper recompense but, by placing so many limitations upon it and by betting so heavily on the legal ignorance of most domainers, they might have pushed their luck too far.

[dmyre]

Well, the "rebate offer" is good for one year. I'm going to hold off on signing it until I can see my entire history, otherwise I will jump on the class action bandwagon...

[theinvestor]

This is the part i don't understand...why are they giving people one year? Seems like an awfully long time if their goal is to move on from this situation quickly.

Why aren't they putting the pressure on domainers?

[zurc.net]

Originally Posted by theinvestor

This is the part i don't understand...why are they giving people one year? Seems like an awfully long time if their goal is to move on from this situation quickly.

Why aren't they putting the pressure on domainers?

I am not a lawyer, far from it, but I would assume there is some legal minimum time frame for 'out of court settlement' offers, at least of this size.

[dotpool]

I replied and asked for my history. It seems weird I was impacted only in 4% of the domains I bought through SnapNames.

[demaxxus]

I can't believe what a joke these rebate offers are. They're literally only accounting for auctions that you won and had the cost bumped up by halvarez, but there is so much more to it, SO much more.

Though I have to say, I find it rather amusing when halvarez and I were the only two people bidding on certain domains, yet my trademark was in them.

[sdsinc]

Originally Posted by donnacha

...
Smarter domainers such as Kevin Ham and Frank Schilling are being treated differently and, as we speak, their lawyers are hammering out deals that more accurately reflect what they would win in a legal action...

What you're saying perfectly makes sense but it depends on the stakes. If snapnames says they owe you $100 as a result of halvarez rigging and you think it should be $300 it doesn't make sense at all to sue...

For the big spenders it's different because the disputed amounts are much higher.
So only a handful of customers will consider going the legal route IMO. The majority of domainers will not be involved in a lawsuit against snap unless there is a class action and they can conveniently jump on the bandwagon.
Clearly, this is a risk mitigation exercise and a pretty good one, but what else do you expect ?