An important message from Snapnames

[PRED]

HALVEREZ aka:

Nelson Brady, VP of Operations
SnapNames.com, Inc.
1600 SW 4th Ave
Suite 400
Portland,�* OR�* 97201
tel:�*�*�* 503-219-9990 x223
direct: 503-459-5723
cell: 360-903-8844
fax:�* 503-274-9749
[email protected]


what i want to know is if snapnames go down, does moniker? :uhoh:

they are owned by oversee and i was never happy about the takeover when it happened by that little t$rd that owns oversee but exactly HOW separate is moniker from the other 'operations'

im concerned

 

[tetrapak]

I remember all the Halvarez threads, and all the denials by Snapnames. What a bunch of liars. They owe me $x,xxx, but that is nothing compared to many of the guys here.

 

[ydnaemsti]

Who says it was him. Maybe it was automatic script bidding. It was super easy for them since it's their software.

Simple PHP Casino lol.

 

[FormerDnForumer]

Some of you may remember the old Afternic, and the scandals generated back then. How this is a surprise to anyone is beyond me. I've never trusted any auction service. It's simply too easy to game any system to the house's advantage.

Now in one day all the auction services will collapse. Good riddance.

 

[DotSauce]

This is wild. Domaining.com is blowing up, haha... I sent out my tweet, not gonna blog about it

So is this guy going to face criminal action I assume or is he just going to pay off some lawyers with his stolen riches?

 

[ydnaemsti]

I hate to say this, but that nose and ears on that picture look fimilar.

 

[Seraphim]

ROFL!

I think he knew this SnapNames meltdown was coming.

"Not to mention that a little bit goes a long way and you don't have a gooey mess when you're done." - SnapName's halvarez discussing silicone lube.

http://forums.tabutoys.com/community/index.php?action=printpage;topic=592.0

 

[Crown]

This is wild. Domaining.com is blowing up, haha... I sent out my tweet, not gonna blog about it

So is this guy going to face criminal action I assume or is he just going to pay off some lawyers with his stolen riches?

Other's have gotten away with it. He will too. Im still waiting on someone at TDNAM to review all the domains that were inflated by their own scandal... but alas... they didnt send everyone an email, the guy didnt go to jail, their reputation was untarnished, and none of us received any credits.

At least this scam wasnt dusted under the mat right now. Oversee is involving us in the process. Someone deserves some credit for emailing everyone. Didnt have to be done and wasnt done before by others.

 

[zymic]

Namejet are having a party

 

[ydnaemsti]

Yes, TDName is inflating domains and their traffic they show there.

 

[INVIGOR]

...

 

[stewie]

leave no stone unturned. there is more to this whole story.

too much work for a long time...nobody did this for kicks, there is a money trail.

I'm sure others must have had some knowledge

JMO

 

[zymic]

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2009/11/snapnames_former_exec_bid_up_d.html

SnapNames: Former exec. bid up domain prices

SnapNames, the largest reseller of Web site names, Wednesday alleged that a former top executive secretly bid on tens of thousands of domain name auctions over the past four years, driving up costs for other bidders and enriching himself in the process.

SnapNames owner Oversee Corp. said it learned about a month ago that the executive had been bidding on its domain auctions in violation of company policy that bars employees from doing so.

Mason Cole, vice president of Oversee Corp. Communications, said the executive was dismissed a week ago Monday.

The company Wednesday began notifying affected customers via e-mail, stating that "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 percent interest (the highest applicable federal rate during the affected time period), to affect 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 message to customers said the bulk of the bidding occurred on auctions between 2005 and 2007, but that the employee's bidding affected about 5 percent of total SnapNames auction since 2005. In addition, Oversee said the incremental value from the bidding represented approximately one percent of SnapNames' auction revenue during that same time.

Cole said as many as 50,000 domain name auctions may have been affected by the employee's unauthorized activity. Cole declined to say what legal steps, if any, Oversee planned to take a result of the incident.

"He had pretty deep insight into our system," Cole said of the former executive. "I don't know whether he was one of the founding employees [at SnapNames], but he was one of the first."

Oversee alleges that the employee made the bids using an auction account set up under the alias "Hank Alvarez". The company says that in certain cases where the employee won the action, he paid for the domain and then arranged to refund a portion of the winning bid amount to his account.

 

[Gerry]

Jeez...this is a absolute mess.

Just remarkable that a company would not be in tune to this when it was widely reported here on DNF... AND DENIED!

Screw their pittance of a refund...accept that and it may knock you out of a class action lawsuit!

 

[zymic]

Cole declined to say what legal steps, if any, Oversee planned to take a result of the incident.

This guy can't get away ...

 

[mattbodis]

Bernard Madoff of the domain industry.

This guy did it alone, just as much as Madoff was acting alone....NOT.

 

[Mike Cruz]

Screw their pittance of a refund...accept that and it may knock you out of a class action lawsuit!

Very good point... surprised no one stated this earlier, including myself... That is exactly what they are trying to do, prevent you from joining in on a class action law suit.

I would like to get more insight as to how this will effect moniker and whether or not I should be keeping my names their in case any of this has a drastic affect on them.

-Mike C.

 

[FormerDnForumer]

Jeez...this is a absolute mess.

Just remarkable that a company would not be in tune to this when it was widely reported here on DNF... AND DENIED!

This is what kills me. Take your blinders off. Anything that increases the bottom line while maintaining public trust in the auctions is all that matters to these companies. The threads here questioning this bidder go back to what, 2005? Hmmm.

I'm not saying anyone at SnapNames knew, but I'm sure there wasn't much incentive *to* know. And that goes for every service, so I'm not singling out SnapNames. It's like Vegas: the game is rigged from the get go. It's simply too seductive not to have shill bidders. That's why I mentioned the old Afternic, where shilling was an art form learned early on.

 

[mike031]

michael arrington who ran pool.com at its glory years just wrote about this over at techcrunch.com as well

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/04/domain-industry-rocked-by-shill-auction-bidding-admission/

basically, the whole industry is crooks...

oh and who would ever thought that pool.com was making $1m in pure profit per month at one point in time??!

ahh, yea... from all those domains they were keeping..... and the shills........ and all that good stuff

$$$$ cha ching

domainers have been taken for a ride for a long long time

i am glad i got in early 2004 and quit mid 2005 because things were outta control

 

[mattbodis]

Ok, I find it almost impossible to believe that this guy has been in almost EVERY auction since 2005 without Snapnames knowing. Guys & girls, that's nearly 5 years for god's sake, AND on top of that Snapnames is saying they didn't know about it? BULL $HIT is all I got to say on this matter.

How do you run a successful business, get many complaints about 1 bidder bidding on EVERY auction, for 5 years, investigate it, and tell everyone nothing is wrong with this bidder, and then go out and say you didn't know about it?

BS. I've been in business for a while now. This cannot happen. Snapnames management knew, I don't care what they tell me. I do NOT believe this company, and won't believe them or Pool or NameJet either.

And secondly, I think half the PPC CLICK fraud in this industry is also ran by someone from within the industry that probably runs a different company. As crazy as it sounds, it's one of the only logical explanations.

This industry has and is exploited from the inside. Just like the US has been with central banks and all the fraud.

All big fraud is always from within. History repeats itself. This one is definitely for the books, and should be studied and learned from.