For Sale High Bidder at NW - Dotster Gets It But I Don't?

[Duke]

I haven't had this happen before. I was the high bidder on a domain name at Namewinner last week at $36. After the drop I saw that Dotster registered it. However they never put the domain in my account. Today while checking on it I see it is registered to someone else at Dotster (NW figures still show me as the high bidder). Could they have beaten NW manually and used Dotster to register it by running their own script or something? Wanted to get your experiences on this before writing Dotster. Thanks.

P.S. I have had six domains pending at Dotster for 11 days now. That is very long even by their lackadaisical standards. I wrote them about it a few days ago but no reply.

 

[Deleted member 2020]

Once or twice I have been the high bidder, the name was shown as pending and I didn't get it.

They weren't important names for me, so I didn't do anything about it.

Was it a .org? Things might be a bit different for .orgs.

 

[Duke]

Originally posted by dotNetKing
Once or twice I have been the high bidder, the name was shown as pending and I didn't get it.

They weren't important names for me, so I didn't do anything about it.

Was it a .org? Things might be a bit different for .orgs.

Yes, it was a .org but I don't know why that would be different. I have never NOT gotten a name that was marked Pending (though I currently have some overdue for moving to my account as I noted above). In this case the domain was never marked Pending. However it has been taken off my watch list and taken out of my list of high bids - though there is still proof I was the high bidder as the bid history shows I made the $36 bid and if you enter the domain now to place a bid on it, it still shows my $36 bid as the high. Meanwhile someone is Australia already has it on a PPC engine!

 

[Domainut]

hmmm, interesting, but IMO probably since it is .org someone manually regged with a dotster script.

 

[actnow]

See how much I am in the dark. I didn't even know that there was a script for Dotster.

 

[Shaggy]

Is there.........same here act?

 

[RMF]

I had this happen toe me not to long ago with a .org. I had the snap on it, and the highest bid at namewinner. Dotster got it, but I didn't. Doesn't really make much sense.

RMF

 

[Duke]

I got a note back from their tech support today claiming that I was not the high bidder on the name (that someone outbid my $36 at the last second). So I wrote back and asked them why then...when you type in CareerEducation.org RIGHT NOW, does it show that the high bid was my $36? I also got no notices that I had been overbid at $36 though I had received several outbid notices earlier that day for the auction. I tried to do a search using the "check domains you were outbid on" feature and it is not working at all. I have a feeling he won't answer this question, so I am going to go to someone higher up at Dotster to try to get a straight answer. It smells very fishy to me.

 

[puxa2]

Hi Duke. IMO, you should point out that these names were "pending" for you to the Dotster.com customer service.

 

[beatz]

Smells fishy.

 

[puxa2]

I will make my own inquiries.

Good luck.

 

[Steen]

Is it possible that some1 could script the instant reg option @ NW?

JMO

 

[puxa2]

unrelated, they need to fix the tools and resources links at the top.


It will show "tools and resorces" initially.....

 

[Duke]

Originally posted by peaceful
Hi Duke. IMO, you should point out that these names were "pending" for you to the Dotster.com customer service.

I just went back to Namewinner and added this domain back to my watch list (it had been taken out after the drop). When you add it to your watch list it says PENDING with a bid of $36. That is MY BID!! I am going take this up with someone higher up at Dotster tomorrow.

 

[puxa2]

I'm with you!

 

[Duke]

I just sent this letter to Chris Clark at Dotster:

Dear Chris:

I have brought this issue up with John in customer service but he has not been able to give me a straight answer. On Thursday August 24, I won the domain CareerEducation.org with a bid of $36 at Namewinner. The domain is sitting in my Watch List RIGHT NOW marked PENDING with that $36 bid (which is also shown in my bidding history), yet I have learned from checking the WhoIs that Dotster had put this registration in the name of someone from Australia. John tried to tell me that someone overbid me at the last second. That is obviously false as there is no evidence of a higher bid anywhere on your system, nor did I receive an outbid notice. Someone there clearly screwed up and I would like this corrected as soon as possible. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

 

[puxa2]

Good job. Im with you totally.

Its your name imo!


Lets see how it goes!

 

[Duke]

Originally posted by peaceful
Good job. Im with you totally.

Its your name imo!


Lets see how it goes!

Thanks Peaceful. I don't know how they can explain this without just saying We screwed up! The Australian guy obviously didn't mind getting the domain as he immediately put it on a PPC page.

 

[actnow]

Duke, I had a problem with NW today. I had the high bid on two different .orgs today that never switched to pending. All my others did. And, Dotster was the catching registrar.

K-I.org
J-I.org

I wrote to them a couple times. And, here is there response

Response (John) - 07/30/2003 05:46 PM
"These domains were registered by a NameWinner customer who used the Instant Registration tool.

They were able to get the names because the names were supposed to be included in the previous day's drop, but were not. They dropped the following day and were not included in the daily list provided to us by the .ORG registry. Thus, our grabbers did not attempt to grab those domains. Our primary developer is looking into this to see what he can do to improve upon this situation as we would prefer to have the auction get the name.

-Support"


That is a lot of crap. I think they just screwed up. Now, I am in the same boat as you. A winning bid and someone else has the name!

 

[Duke]

Originally posted by actnow
That is a lot of crap. I think they just screwed up. Now, I am in the same boat as you. A winning bid and someone else has the name!

Sorry you lost those domains Richard - especially to instant manual registrations! They are definitely having some serious problems with the bidding system.

I haven't heard back from Chris Clark yet but I heard back from the original tech support guy. He is claiming there was a proxy bidder (that I could not see) who bid higher than me. Of course that does not explain why the bidding stopped at $36, why I did not receive an overbid notice, or why their system - a week later - STILL shows I had the winning bid.

I wrote him back that I was sorry, but invisible bidders do not count if they want to have even an ounce of credibility left for their auction.

They say they are still working with the developers on the "problem" of me being shown as the high bidder. If there was a secret proxy bid, or regular bid, and it is not visible to the other bidders that is not fair in any way shape or form. If they screwed up I wish they would just take responsibility for it instead of trying to talk their way out of it with this kind of stuff.

Of course, I would be willing to completely overlook it if they let me be the "phantom" invisible proxy bidder a few times on names of my choice. :-D