For Sale Dotster Extended Auction Scam!

[clemzonguy]

There was a name caught by dotster and so I go to see if I can enter the extended auction at namewinner.

It says "the domain is in a private auction. you must join the auction before bidding". Okay so I click join auction......

I am then told that I will be charged $50....so I click okay

and when I bid a high bid it says "The Auction is not on-going at this time"

What a crock.

Does that mean I just lost $50?

Yes.....just received the email

NameWinner Auction Fee 50.00
Paid by Visa.

 

[dvdrip]

Namewinner's system is full of bugs.

I get emails for domains in auction that have not dropped yet.
I get emails for domains in auction that: dropped the same day, 2 or more people bidded but domain never goes to after catch auction. They just give it to the high bidder.

I don't get emails mostly for .info domains that drop, are caught by namewinner and never go to after catch auction.

 

[clemzonguy]

Well this domain they appear to be keeping for themself!! It's pointed at the same page as their fraud pages are parked to. Believe it or not they are in the business of catching names seeing what the traffic is like and deleting them if they so wish. This is the second time I have gotten scammed out of an extended auction.

 

[radioz]

I sure would complain to them. If the auction was closed, you weren't getting what you paid for. I would suspect that something can and should be done in this instance! I would also suspect that the right person there who really looks at this may well agree. I'd file a complaint with your credit card company if you can't get help from their support.

 

[clemzonguy]

I sure would complain to them. If the auction was closed, you weren't getting what you paid for. I would suspect that something can and should be done in this instance! I would also suspect that the right person there who really looks at this may well agree. I'd file a complaint with your credit card company if you can't get help from their support.

They have agreed to look at the problem and make a refund. That's not a problem. I want to bid on the freaking name! This is the second time they have not allowed me to enter an extended auction. The first time this happened I informed them about it BEFORE it was awarded to someone without being fair in the situation and putting it up for extended auction.

Here is part of their response.

"It appears that for some reason the domain was never actually placed into the extended bidding process, but was billed to the high bidder at the drop time."

No whois information appears at all (completly blank) and it's going to Dotster's PPC page which they use for their FRAUD names. These people are just as crooked as Pool when it comes to "fairness" and extremely incompetent in my experience.

If you plan on getting a name with them you best be the highest bidder when the game ends or else you might miss out....maybe this is the message they want sent out to users rather than following their own policies.

 

[QuantumBeam]

:-/

 

[Steen]

Chargeback on 'em, that never is a good thing for a merchant :-\

 

[online]

dislike namewinner

 

[beggers]

:-/

Please stop spamming these topics with your stupid smiley posts!

 

[JuniperPark]

Here is part of their response.

"It appears that for some reason the domain was never actually placed into the extended bidding process, but was billed to the high bidder at the drop time."

I've caught Namewinner excluding me from auctions in which I was a bidder, in violation of their own auction policy, and in response to my complaint I've gotten the "for some reason..." letter. They will not fix the problem or compensate me in any way, even though it was obviously an error on their part that caused me to lose the name.

Yet another drop company willing to screw over its own customers.... seems to be an epidemic.

 

[diverge]

Namewinner's interface is the most bug-ridden interface I have ever seen (my own programing excepted). A couple examples: I bid, it tells me error, I go back and I'm the high bidder. Or I bid the minimum bid as listed (I have a $8.75 min. account), and it tells me I can't bid that low), and immediately increases the minimum bid -- but still shows that no one has bid on the domain yet. Or I will try to bid on a domain that Pool and SnapNames shows as deleting tomorrow, and NameWinner says that the domain is not dropping. When I brought these to their attention, they made excuses as if to say that the interface is supposed to function that way. I stopped using NW a long time ago.

 

[hotirish]

Chargeback on 'em, that never is a good thing for a merchant :-\

You should really only chargeback if you didn't order a service or if your card was used without permission. If you didn't receive the service you feel you paid for, then by all means complain to your credit card company and get a refund. But simply charging back stuff, is not fair on the company and it can cause your credit card to be blacklisted.

 

[diverge]

You should really only chargeback if you didn't order a service or if your card was used without permission. If you didn't receive the service you feel you paid for, then by all means complain to your credit card company and get a refund. But simply charging back stuff, is not fair on the company and it can cause your credit card to be blacklisted.

"Chargebacks" and "Complain[ing] to your credit card company and get[ting] a refund" are the same thing. There are different "reasons" for a chargeback, ranging from non-delivery of goods to fraudulent orders. However, they all hurt the merchant.

Being both a merchant and a consumer, I have to side with Steen on this one. I think a chargeback is a suitable recourse for their negligence, Dotster is unwilling to refund you for this error directly.

 

[clemzonguy]

$50 is really a minor complaint. I did not fear getting the money back and in fact they refunded it promptly. Losing out on bidding on a website especially when the new owner refuses to sell to you at any price is really a problem situation. It hurts my business especially if I am an end-user in that particular market. That is unfair and established bad credentials for the company at large especially when it happens on more than one occasion. By bringing this up hopefully they will fix this inside of their system and companies will allow persons to bid on names as soon as they catch the names rather than having to add it beforehand.

But I guess in that same light they wouldn't know how to anticipate demand and how agressively to pursue names if people could bid after they name was caught.

 

[Player]

u could personally go round and bust a few heads?

just a thought