An important message from Snapnames

[stuff]

95% of every single auction I was involved in at SnapNames, had halverez bidding. For my account alone, we're looking at several hundred acts of fraud.

Take screenshots people, before they clean the system. This should be a class action lawsuit. Someone should end up in prison.

good one

if they would like to do it, they would have done it before they relased it. Don`t you think?

 

[Seraphim]

He was usually starting bidder, but I too believe the company is behind this and not the person himself. That's usually how it goes.

I agree. The guy was predominantly frontrunning my specific auctions, so they could snag any under valued names if they wanted to. When he bid up on me, it's likely he was just inflating.

This is some hardcore bullsh!t! People warned them for years over this.

 

[exxe]

..

 

[ImFM]

The secret is out - it WAS an employee indeed:

http://www.domainnamenews.com/news/snapnames-discovers-employee-bidding-domain-names/6479

 

[Wzhxvy]

good one

if they would like to do it, they would have done it before they relased it. Don`t you think?

No I dont think. Such actions would incriminate them further. They are positioning this as 1 rogue employee. If they start taking corporate wide actions as a cover up, then they are done. Btw, usually these type of come to jesus actions by a company, come as a result of an investigation, or a whistle blower. They didnt just do this themselves, its probably a pre-emptive move prior to charge being laid and lawsuits, suspensions etc....they are in serious trouble, and if it truly was a VP and an officer of the company...yikes, they are done.

 

[Domainator]

Halverez?

 

[gingeman]

I had different accounts at snap and at Moniker and they were merged. To my surprise the registration history from the older account is in the merged account, but the auction history for those domains is missing :?:

Snap!

 

[INVIGOR]

...

 

[ydnaemsti]

What a career path. He registers SnapNames.com into his name. Becomes the VP of Engineering. While there in the server room he bids on every auction robbing people. He sent emails to other bidders telling them they have no internal bidders. And they still have the b...s to say they did not know about it.

Fraud on top of fraud.

You know what guys. That guy was the business for SnapNames.com. That was it. No judge will be stupid to believe it.

@Wzh
"They are positioning this as 1 rogue employee."

That's because there is no other line of defense when you commit fraud. I think the company is finished.

 

[katherine]

Introducing halvarez: http://icannwiki.org/Nelson_Brady

 

[Theo]

I will have Halvarez balls on a plate, thank you very much

I paid $2k for a domain in 2005 where he and I were the two bidders.

 

[Seraphim]

Was Nelson also behind all of the "shell registrars" that they were using for years as well?

 

[ydnaemsti]

yup

 

[ohkus]

I will have Halvarez balls on a plate, thank you very much

I paid $2k for a domain in 2005 where he and I were the two bidders.

What are you going to spend you snapnames reparation check on? There will be an early Christmas for a lot of people.

 

[Gerry]

Looks like he has been "engineering" ways to defraud people for years.

 

[Crown]

Why didn't GoDaddy/TDNAM do this when one of their staff was caught doing something very similar?

Look at the way TDNAM handled their case. I absolutely love GoDaddy but I had emailed my exec account rep, called him, and got transferred to actually speak with the TDNAM team about my suspicions because they were compelling... before the guy was ever caught... but I was told by them theyll check it out and dont worry about it. Then months later after the story blew I called again and cited names I bid on which I was suspicious of and I received no help, answers, or godaddy credit for the names in question. I went from buying names daily/weekly without a break to no longer participating in the TDNAM auctions since then. (I still use GoDaddy and really like them but the experience burned down my use of TDNAM)

Here we have SnapNames actually trying to fix this mess. There definitely needs to be more checks and balances in place but its actually being handled.

We ALL were familiar with halvarez and many of us emailed snapnames or participated in forum discussions about him so they are going to need to address that directly for me to come close to buying they didnt know what was going on story. Right now I like the reaction, they couldve done less and maybe even gotten away with it.... someone else did less and escaped the scrutiny by not making it such a public issue.

 

[Niwrad]

I find it real hard to believe this was all just one "rogue" employee. Where did access the cash to be able to purchase all these domains that he did win? How did he perform a full-time job when all it seems like he did was bid all day? What would the motivations for a single employee be?

And their numbers of 5% of auctions and 1% of revenues seems awfully fishy to me. First, he's in 20% of my auctions and from what I've read on this and other boards, he's in a lot of other peoples as well. There are also a lot of domains that went for $2000 or so when only him and someone else bidding. Are they grabbing it from the last bid he placed or from where it started with him? In the event of the example I listed, Halvarez would have accounted for $1940 in revenue out of the $2000 on that domain.

And its not like this was some secret account that shilled a few domains for a couple extra bucks. This was an active bidder who was well known in the community. A lot of people had reported this account for years.

If SnapNames did not know what was going on over the years, they are woefully incompetent and people should avoid them at all costs.

 

[mvl]

Snap!

The bidding history for 48 domains that I won in 2005-2007 is missing. They are in my registration history but not in the auction history.

 

[rentdn]

I remember couple of names with only halavarez , I'll digg my history today

 

[PRED]

Halverez?

thats what people are saying
IF it his him, then a lot of people have asked snapnames to look into and there are threads all over dedicated to this 'individual'

http://www.dnforum.com/f205/why-halvarez-thread-197282.html
http://www.dnforum.com/f205/avoiding-halvarez-thread-349029.html

either way, think some corporate negiligence charges are gonna come up imho
how could any individual have bid p so many auctions without management or systems noticing? we're not talking 1% here, and that would be a lot

hope everyone gets their money back and then some. incidentally i have never trusted pool or snapnames and therefore have only used them say once a year for a must have name