I was monitoring a name registered with Dotster with 1,200 inwards links that had expired last month and it looked as though the registrant wasn't going to renew.
When I entered the name into my Watch List at Dotster's NameWinner site a couple of weeks ago, it had a $25 bid amount and a pending label, which has remained the same up to today.
Over that period of time I've been trying to place a bid for the name, but have always received a note that the name is already registered.
To cut a long story short, the name dropped last night and SnapNames grabbed it for me. But what mystifies me is why NameWinner wouldn't allow bidding for one of its own names, as it would have had the best chance of grabbing it because it would have been in charge of the time it would be released back into the pool?
But maybe the best way to look at it is that Dotster is being above board and isn't trying to misuse its position as a registrar to grab back names it already has in its stable.