Conflicting feedback from Namejet regarding a pre-release that got re-listed

[CDAMichael]

Maybe I havent had enough experience with Namejet, I dont know, but I've been part of enough auctions there to make this one stand out.

On the 28th at 10:59 pm I bid on a pre-release domain and figured I had won it when it went to pre-release auction because I was the only bidder.

The next day (29th) at 11am, instead of being awarded the domain, I found that it was thrown back into the pre-release inventory. I submitted a support ticket appropriately titled "WTF".

On the 30th got the following response;
"The reason you did not see this in auction, is because the auction for the domain did not start until today, April 30, 2012, at 11:00 AM PDT. When you place a backorder for a domain, the deadline you saw was for when you had to have the backorder in by to be included in the auction. You are currently in the auction for the domain."

In the mean time, someone else saw me bidding on it and joined in. Now I'm pissed 'cause its a gem and now I might have to go to war for it. I called Namejet and got someone on the phone and was told;

[paraphrase] "This domain you are bidding on was renewed by the previous owner which is why it has the current renewal date, and the auction is actually closed, the system just hasnt accounted for it"

So now I have two conflicting responses. I've been part of auction before where the domain was pulled because it was renewed by the original owner, but those auctions always ended immediately and the name showed as part of my wish list.

Today the auction ended, the other bidder must not have remembered, and today I got a notice that I had won the auction, and that my card was billed. I finally got this response from the first Support guy;

"The reason you did not see this in auction, is because the auction for the domain did not start until April 30, 2012, at 11:00 AM PDT and ended May 3, 2012 at 12:16 PM PDT. You did win this auction and it was awarded to you as of May 3, 2012 and the order for the domain was processed on May 3, 2012"...

This doesn't address my issue at all. Anyone else ever have this happen? Was Namejet just trying to get more bidders in the auction? If there was a legitimate process for having this kicked back into Pre-Release, wouldn't that response be told to me by both Support staff? Am I missing something?

 

[bwest]

If you don't get at least three conflicting reasons from Namejet why things get F'd up they must not like you! Pretty par for the course. Anyone seen the movie Idiocracy? One of my faves. At the hospital the Luke Wilson is trying to describe what hurts and the dull receptionist lady is just moving her finger over a board with buttons which correspond to different ailments. Pretty soon she gets so confused she just pushes one. I think that is how they handle their email responses at namejet.

 

[CDAMichael]

I got tired of trying to follow up with Namejet about this, but just got a follow up email;

"We believe that the Registrar had a unique issue with the files they provided to NameJet whereby the same name had multiple release dates. This has been identified by the Registrar and is expected to have been resolved. We apologize for this confusion and appreciate that you brought it to our attention. While a Registrar has the right to cancel or change an auction at any time, this is certainly a very rare occurrence and we hope you should not experience this again"

Case closed I guess..

 

[ludacwisp]

Don't believe that bullshit for a second, Michael... In my 6+ years of purchasing pre-release at Namejet I started seeing this happen about 2-3 years ago when I would be the lone bidder on a domain. It would mysteriously disappear out of all records after the auction had closed (as they normally do with ones you win--then you receive the email from the registrar a while later, THEN it shows up in your account page). Well this one disappeared, I heard nothing, I saw it again about a week later. This is an automated process put in place BY NAMEJET where they run analytics and self-made domain valuators (which are likely very good) on their own domains and if a domain is slated to sell for > x amount of $, then they throw it back in the pool so they can get that 940+$ profit. Would you piss away a grand because people missed a good name?

I mean obviously they have some kind of automated task valuating the names because the hot picks on their home page look like manually picked domains... and they may in fact be. However that doesnt mean they can't have someone domaining all day, manually valuating each domain. Especially considering every domain they do this with nets them enough to pay the salaries of hundreds of such people. From Namejet and Snapnames crooked little stunts all the way down to Verisign's sick little monopoly, the system is flawed.

 

[ludacwisp]

And yes I must agree with Bwest as well in stating that Namejet's support philosophy is to play stupid. Ive never been able to get past the "stupid wall" used by their tier 1 support to even know if more tiers exist.

 

[Biggie]

the more you talk about namejet and snap, regardless to whether it's pro or con... the more you'll increase your competition.


imo...

 

[ludacwisp]

I think the pre-releases have been saturated beyond the point of profitability for several years now... it used to be almost formula-based where you could pick a name with a certain pagerank, age, etc and flip it guaranteed for at least 200.