An important message from Snapnames

[Acro]

Exactly. Indirectly, Snapnames is letting halvarez blanket-bid across multiple auctions and raise the closing price.

[doobee]

I'm in a 3 way auction at the moment with Halvarez and Vaxis. Anyone ever beat out Vaxis for a domain? I hear he/she is a big player.

[Acro]

I'm in a 3 way auction at the moment with Halvarez and Vaxis. Anyone ever beat out Vaxis for a domain? I hear he/she is a big player.

Yes, 4 years ago. They didn't know I was determined to get the domain, no matter what.

[Devil Dog]

I'm in a 3 way auction at the moment with Halvarez and Vaxis. Anyone ever beat out Vaxis for a domain? I hear he/she is a big player.

Yeah, a couple of times, but stand by to have your @ss handed to you in the process.

[simon johnson]

"I want to live with the Halvarez"
"Why?" asks the judge.
"He does'nt beat anybody"

Now that is funny.

Yeah, a couple of times, but stand by to have your @ss handed to you in the process.

There is one on at the moment between mrd and lepper that is going crazy (juanchaves dropped out about $1k ago). Interesting stuff.

[mvl]

I think it is pretty obvious how Halvarez does it.

[sdsinc]

I'm in a 3 way auction at the moment with Halvarez and Vaxis. Anyone ever beat out Vaxis for a domain? I hear he/she is a big player.

If you don't mind paying too much yes you can beat him. But if he really wants it he wil outbid you.
I also think that he loses pace sometimes - too many auctions closing in at the same time

[Focus]

Halvarez is my left testicle

[simon johnson]

Grrr... snap007 and halvarez have just driven a domain name up $320 in an auction I'm in!!! Now THIS is interesting.... note the bid times below:

halvarez 09-Jan-2008 10:43 PST $484.00
snap007 09-Jan-2008 10:43 PST $459.00
halvarez 09-Jan-2008 10:32 PST $284.00
snap007 09-Jan-2008 10:32 PST $259.00
halvarez 09-Jan-2008 07:59 PST $164.00
flint 09-Jan-2008 07:59 PST $154.00

So what's the probability of halvarez being on at the exact same time (three times) and bidding within 60 seconds of someone else?

Looks like halvarez has a very nice "system" in place.

[Acro]

I am not going to say how he does it. Waiting for our friend Kjel to acknowledge that they KNOW what halvarez does and explain why they permit it.

[mvl]

Grrr... snap007 and halvarez have just driven a domain name up $320 in an auction I'm in!!! Now THIS is interesting.... note the bid times below:

halvarez 09-Jan-2008 10:43 PST $484.00
snap007 09-Jan-2008 10:43 PST $459.00
halvarez 09-Jan-2008 10:32 PST $284.00
snap007 09-Jan-2008 10:32 PST $259.00
halvarez 09-Jan-2008 07:59 PST $164.00
flint 09-Jan-2008 07:59 PST $154.00

So what's the probability of halvarez being on at the exact same time (three times) and bidding within 60 seconds of someone else?

Looks like halvarez has a very nice "system" in place.

No this is a normal snapnames feature. Those bids are proxy-bids.

[simon johnson]

Ahhhhh didn't think of that. Thanks Leo. I got up too early...to look at the auction I'm losing..

[areav]

I haven't seen a name in a while that halverez is not "minimum bidding" on.

[Devil Dog]

I haven't seen a name in a while that halverez is not "minimum bidding" on.

I've seen plenty.

[dvdrip]

Please note that what halvarez does can only be done with the regular pending delete domains. Not with pre-release ones.

[mvl]

Please note that what halvarez does can only be done with the regular pending delete domains. Not with pre-release ones.

True, and anyone can do it. I don't understand all the fuzz about it.

[robmac]

surely not http://www.halvarez.com < he cant be that obvious

[thevirtual]

Jokers like halvarez are whats wrong with the domain business. He/she is literally a leech to domainers and is costing us hard earned money. So far he/she has cost me $150 today.

[jm525]

Probably an account for that same dropcatch company. So they are rising prices and getting more money.

[Oversee Support]

Recently, SnapNames discovered that an employee had set up an account on the SnapNames system under a false name and, under this name, bid in SnapNames auctions. This is a clear violation of our internal policy and was not approved by the company. We deeply regret that this conduct has impacted our customers.

Extent of impact

This conduct affected a small percentage of SnapNames auctions:
·Bidding affected approximately five percent of total SnapNames auctions since 2005, most of which occurred between 2005 and 2007.
·The incremental revenue from the bidding represented approximately one percent of SnapNames’ auction revenue since 2005.

No matter the level of impact, SnapNames takes this matter extremely seriously. When the matter was discovered, the company immediately closed the account in question and began a thorough investigation. The employee has also been dismissed from the company.

SnapNames further discovered that, on certain recent and limited occasions, when the employee won an auction, the employee secretly arranged to refund from SnapNames to the fictitious account a portion of the winning bid amount.

Remedy to affected customers

Though on some occasions the employee won the auction, in many instances the bidding caused the ultimate auction winner to pay more for a name than had the employee not participated in the auction.

SnapNames neither condones this conduct nor wants to be perceived as benefiting from the conduct. Accordingly, we have decided that regardless of the circumstance, in every auction where the employee’s fictitious account submitted a bid which resulted in a higher price being paid by the winning bidder, SnapNames will offer a rebate, with 5.22% interest (the highest applicable federal rate during the affected time period), to affected customers for the difference between the prices they actually paid and the prices they would have paid, had the employee not bid in the auctions. The rebate will be available in cash or in credit on the SnapNames platform, at your discretion.

SnapNames has moved quickly to address this situation. The company has retained Rust Consulting, an independent third party, who will administer the rebate offer. Within the next week, Rust Consulting will contact affected customers to provide details regarding the offer.

Your business and ongoing relationship are important to us and we can assure you that we have taken all necessary steps to ensure the integrity of the platform and reinforced controls and procedures to avoid any possibility of further breach. These include:

·Enhanced monitoring of bidding activity for suspect behavior
·Additional controls over financial transactions
·Specific domain name registration policies for employees

In the meantime, if you have any questions, you may consult the FAQs here, or contact the SnapNames support team:


By e-mail: support@snapnames.com
Phone: +1 (866) 690-6279 (toll-free in the U.S.)
+1 (503) 241-8547 (outside the U.S.)

SnapNames, and all in the Oversee family of companies, are deeply disappointed with this incident. Since its founding in 2000, SnapNames has been committed to the principles of fairness and trust; the company wants to assure customers—through both words and actions—that it remains committed to those principles.

Thank you again for your business, and for your ongoing trust in SnapNames.


Rob McClinton
Oversee Support