For Sale Namewinner Bidders Losing Domains to INVISIBLE Overbidders

[Duke]

A very distressing problem has cropped up at Namewinner this past week. Many bidders are reporting that they have lost domains to INVISIBLE overbids. This has happened twice to me alone this past week.

On Wed. July 24, I was the high bidder on careereducation.org with a bid of $36. If you log on to Namewinner and add that domain to your Watch List, you will see that my bid is STILL listed as the high bid. Yet the next day I found that Dotster had registered the name to someone else.

I wrote to tech support and only got assurances that I had been overbid by the guy who got the domain, even though no overbid ever showed up in the system, I never received an overbid notice and I am STILL shown as the high bidder! He said that was because of a quirk in their system and they would bring it up with their developers.

I was not satisified with this response and wrote to a Dotster/NW executive 5 days ago. I never received a response. Meanwhile I posted about the problem in another forum and many others have come forward with complaints about the same problem. They have done nothing to correct it and I was burned again yesterday - Sunday Aug. 3.

I had the high bid (and only bid) on homebroker.org, yet work up today to find Dotster had again given the domain to someone else. My bid is still listed as the HIGH bid. And in case you were wondering, no these are not cases of someone beating NW by using a manual script to register at Dotster. They admit the domains were won by Namewinner but insist someone else topped my bid even though there is no public evidence of this anywhere. They have a search feature that is supposed to show you domains you were overbid on, but it is broke and does not work (how convenient!).

If this has happened to you, please post in the thread below where this has been discussed for several days:

http://www.dnforum.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=265714#post265714

I am adding this post because many of you may have missed that thread since the subject doesn't reflect the exact problem (at the time I started it, I didn't know what was going on).

I am doing an item for Domain Name Journal on this and will include links to forum threads to show how widespread this problem is. If they don't get a handle on it it is going to destroy the credibility of their auction.

As you know from other posts, there are those who suspect certain parties get preferential treatment by NW and this only gives those people more ammunition. I personally don't think anything that nefarious is going on here. I just think they have a major problem with their system and refuse to admit it or warn consumers about it. I contend that you cannot run a fair auction with invisible bidders no matter what the circumstances are.

 

[StockDoctor]

I look forward to reading the piece you do on this Duke.

I'm still waiting for the promised auction of all the names that were bid up to those $2002 levels a few months back on NW. I was high bidder until those bids were placed and NW admitted they were fraudulent and continues to promise the auction for these. Firstly, I don't know why I have to compete in a second auction for a name I was the high bidder on, and secondly when are they going to put the auction up as promised?
Doc

 

[Duke]

I have put a preliminary item in Domain Name Journal:

http://www.dnjournal.com/lowdown.htm

with a link back to the thread here at Domain Name Forum:

http://www.dnforum.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=265714#post265714

As additional reports come in I will collect them and take them to the president at Dotster since I have gotten either unsatisfactory (or no) responses from the people I have contacted there so far.

 

[actnow]

Duke,

I was the high bidder on J-I.org and K-I.org on July 30th.

Dotster caught it immediately as it dropped. However, Drop Cop, Ky ended up with both of them.

And, this has happened a couple other times in the past two weeks with other names.

We probably don't need to list everyone of them. Dotster management knows they are doing it. I just don't understand how they thought they would get away with it.

 

[Duke]

Drop Cop Huh? Well guess who was given the name I won yesterday - Drop Cop.

 

[Deleted member 2020]

dropcop.com is a very recently registered name - created on 28 May this year.

It only seems to being used for e-mail at the moment, judging by the home page at dropcop.com

 

[Sharpy]

Duke, your situation is certainly not unique. It has happened to me twice.

NameWinner's service is flawed. The fact that you can't see who you are bidding against, opens the doors for much negative speculation. A great man told me many times "not only must you have integrity, you must always project the appearance of having integrity". While NameWinner may have integrity, we certainly can't say they choose to show it 100%.

When NameWinner shut down in February of this year, I assumed they would remove the blind bidding from their system. They chose not to. Why?

I would love to know who the bidder was that submitted a bid of $26999.00 on motherboard.com, causing UltSearch to have to bid $27,000.00 to get that name. But I can't. Why? I would also love to know why Ult thought that domain name was worth the reported winning bid, but that's another story.

If the sheep continue to be sheared like this, why would the farmer change his method?

 

[Brujah]

Interesting.
I've lost names in the past that were picked up by Dotster and I had the NW bid. Nothing recent though. In my case, I remember they went to NameAdmin each time.

 

[Duke]

Originally posted by Sharpy
Duke, your situation is certainly not unique. It has happened to me twice.

NameWinner's service is flawed. The fact that you can't see who you are bidding against, opens the doors for much negative speculation.

This is more than a case of not knowing who you are bidding against - it is a case (actually multiple cases of not being able to see ANYONE that bid higher!!


There is no record on the system of anyone bidder higher for all of these domains in question that were given to someone else. In fact the victims are still shown RIGHT NOW as the high bidders. Yet NW claims someone overbid them so they were given the domains. Are these invisible bidders friends of people at NW?

How can I register to be an invisble bidder so no one knows what I bid or even if I bid, yet I can be awarded domains that should have gone to the high bidders you see on their system?

It's completely outrageous!

 

[Togoodhlth]

Hope I don't lose my high bids today to an invisible bidder!

I have had to email NW to put a name into my account which showed pending but never ended up in my dotster account but never been out bid invisibly other than receiving an email of an outbid way after the close of bidding.

Hope you can get a response and explanation from Dotster.

 

[David G]

This kind of crap we see in these threads is a big reason we need WLS.

What with all the alleged insider trading or alleged fraudulent activities at these expiring name firms, combined with the allegations at times places like Snapnames simply stop even trying to reg (org) names but still accept the money!

Do you realize how ridiculously easy it would be for these firms to make-up false bids themselves to drive up the prices? Or sell to insiders or preferred clients, pretending you were outbid?

 

[clemzonguy]

I say bring on the WLS also.

This is pure bull. NW and other registrars have no accountability but don't think for a second myself and others won't be bringing up lawsuits or issues with ICANN in the near future. Their time (pool and other scum) is coming much sooner than later. Only thing you can do right now is document everything and make it public knowledge. Great job Duke!

 

[RMF]

A while ago I had the snapback and the highest bid for a .org at namewinner. DropCop got it by registering the domain at Dotster. I was told by someone at Dotster that the domain was registered manually through Dotster, and that namewinner wasn't configured to register .org domains. It all seems a little fishy to me.

RMF

 

[Duke]

Originally posted by RMF
A while ago I had the snapback and the highest bid for a .org at namewinner. DropCop got it by registering the domain at Dotster. I was told by someone at Dotster that the domain was registered manually through Dotster, and that namewinner wasn't configured to register .org domains. It all seems a little fishy to me.

RMF

They weren't catching .orgs at all but they started doing it again after the .org RGP was put into place. DropCop keeps popping up. Looks to me like they have a prior relationship with them which make it especially fishy that a lot of us losing domains we had the high bid on are seeing them go to Drop Cop.

 

[Duke]

Originally posted by clemzonguy
Only thing you can do right now is document everything and make it public knowledge. Great job Duke!

Well, you all know I haven't been a pro-WLS guy, but letting this kind of stuff go on at a time when they are trying to demonstrate that the current system is fair can only damage the anti-WLS case Dotster is trying to make.

Honestly, I still find it hard to believe that they are intentionally taking these domains away from hgh bidders and turning them over to cronies (but I can no longer say that with the certainty I once did). Their systems have been screwed up since RGP was instituted last spring (they have had more down time than any major site I know of).

I think it's possible proxy bids are being made but their system is so screwed up it is failing to show them and update the bidding records. What really infuriates me is the attitude of their support people - that it's no big deal. That as long as they say there was a higher bid it doesn't matter if any one else can see it or not. That is utter BS in a public auction format - and the reason I am going to try to reach the President at Dotster for some answers.

If they had been honest and simply said, "Hey we're really sorry but our programming is really screwed up and the records never got updated and you never were told there was a higher bid", I probably would have said, OK stuff happens and moved on. But as this is still happening long after they were made aware of it and they don't seem to care that bidders are getting screwed over, I am going to take a completely different approach with them.

 

[NexSite]

It took damned near a month for a certain Caymen Island Group to show up as the winner of efriends.com at namewinner. What a joke. Very suspicious of funny business at namewiener. AM I the only person that considers that people from dotster, namwinner, pool, and snap all got in the domain aftermarket realizing the potential value of many aftermarket domains. Now that they have firm control over the drop game, do you think they will continue to let good names go for, $69 or $8.75. And funny biz seems to be surrounding many of the upscale drops anymore. Invisible bidders. All decent names going to auction after drop. Huge over bids. ICANN sure has let the domain biz become a joke. DNJournal should investigate and write a letter to congress.

 

[clemzonguy]

DNJournal should investigate and write a letter to congress.

Congress needs to know the real story behind everything not just the propoganda from two Washington politicians representing BuyDomains interest in an already unfair system.

 

[mole]

The Domain Coalition of Justice - A Pot Calling The Kettle Black? --- by pissed-off Ron Jackson k: