Was sole bidder for a Namejet pre-release name, currently showing [pending auction]

As I feared the status of the domain has now gone from "pending auction" to "wish list". I am the sole bidder on this domain and the whois information shows that it has not been renewed.

Is this common? Am I over reacting? Will I still get this name?

no way to know unless you do research. what is domain name?

Thanks nam6641, I have researched it. This situation marks a striking resemblance to a situation that happened to a member named Nova of another major domain forum.

I will add some more details.

In both cases, there was someone who placed the first bid and then deleted it prior to the close of the pre-release.

As this is a name that I am very interested in, I was following it closely but waiting to put in my bid until the closing minutes as to not draw attention to the name. I had seen that there was an initial bid by someone else, but I was still waiting to place mine.

To my surprise, the initial bidder removed their bid late in the last hour. I waited, and placed my bid in the last few minutes prior to the close of the pre-release.

Again, at the time of the close of the pre-release, I was the sole bidder.

After the close of the pre-release, the name showed as "pending auction" in my account. I now understand this is normal. BUT the next day, it changed from "pending auction" to being in my "wish list". This is something that happened AFTER the close of the pre-release.

Checking the Whois information, which I have been doing all along, it still shows that the original registrant has not renewed the name.

So this is not a case where the original registrant renews the name during the grace period.

I've supplied Namejet with several support tickets, but they have not been helpful.

They have responded that either the original registrant has renewed the domain(which they have not) and that the registrar reserves the right to pull the name from pre-release at any time for any reason.

This is extremely frustrating. I am waiting for another response from them.

I know this has happened to others. What do you think? I don't know what to do.

It seems unfair that I would not be awarded the name after being the only bidder at the close of the pre-release and the original registrant has still not renewed the name.

---------- Post added at 10:59 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:46 AM ----------

Here is another similar thread. http://www.namepros.com/domain-name-discussion/607196-namejet-doesnt-secure-drop-picked-up.html

My situation is a bit difference as it happened to me with a pre-release. But in the thread you can see that it also happened to ThreeD in post 22 where they were the sole bidder on a pre-release name.

My last 3 auctions at Namejet did this.

Sometimes they auctions domains that the registrar doesn't actually release to them and then the auction is a no go. Even if your the only bidder.

I would contact the registrar directly and see if they are releasing it or if you can pay them directly.

I ended up paying $100 to a smaller registrar directly when NJ told me they never had the domain in the first place to auction. The registrar was going to just release it back to the registry, but was happy when I called them to buy it

Turned around and sold it for $3500

Sometimes the domain is not actually expiring but being listed privately through NJ services. In that case the seller can simply opt not to push the domain into auction due to the low number of bidders. The "seller" can even be a registry partnered with NJ.

main said:

This is extremely frustrating.

Click to expand...

I totally understand your frustration. The exact situation you described happened to us several times (as you referred to in the other thread). I was really mad and we confronted them about their shady auctions, the time-wasting and their useless support team. They never replied to our emails. We filed a support-ticket and all answers we received from the NJ support staff was useless mumbo jumbo.

It seemed to me that nobody at NJ knew what was going on. We have since participated in 2-3 other NJ .TV auctions, not .com's. As you described other bidders also removed their bids within the last hour of our most recent auctions. This left us as the only bidder. We placed $69/$70 bids in the last minutes and we actually won these pre-released names.

I don't know if they have different rules for .com's auctions compared to ccTLD auctions, but if that's the case they should clearly notify the bidders about this.

Good luck main, I hope you'll get a good answer from NJ staff. I'd be very interested in their explanation on this matter. Their standard crappy excuses are definitely used up.

Thank you everyone for responding to this thread. Here is the update. I've filed three different support tickets, and each time I have received nonsense copy and paste responses that have nothing to do with my detailed explanations. Their staff are obviously trained to do this in hopes that you just give up. It's not good business and it is so incredibly frustrating. I might try to give an actual phone call tomorrow.

I'm also surprised that this seems to be common. People seem to have accepted it as the way it is.

I suppose they can get away with it because they have their exclusivity on the pre-releases. I definitely will never use them again for a pending delete.

I have a story with NJ too http://www.namepros.com/expired-domains/690343-domain-won-namejet-paid-then-refunded.html

Namejet put at prerelease market the names about 7 days before ending of expiring period.
So previous owner has about 7 days to renew the name with regular fee.

Auction if there are multiple buyers will be the last 3 days before entering redemption.

Especially if he is familiar with prereleases when he will see bidders at his name, he will probably renew it as he knows at this time that his name has interest for buyers .
I assume that people do some times this by purpose (they do not renew until the last week of ending expiring period of 30-40 days) in order to see if their domain has interest for domainers / end users.

It is very logical and it happens to all companies that offer prereleases not only NJ.

Hope this helps

In my case there were about 10 bidders and the 3 days auction took place and I paid the domain. And the domain was not renewed but transferred during the auction so..

it happened to me before and it went to wishlist for a couple of days then they released it to me. It kind of upset me, but according to NJ the registrar wouldn't release the name at the normal time, I had to wait.