.mobi RE-DO SEDO Mobi Auction !

Do-overs never worked when I was a kid playing backyard football in the neighbood. Somebody was always unhappy with the new results.

No sedo should accept fault, award the original winners the names and move on.

The end / restart / extension is ridiculous. It makes me think someone pulled some strings. If you look back at the last major mobi auction, Ari Goldberger and Rick Schwartz pulled out on some major bids for mobi domains.

Something is going on.

OK! Sedo should accept fault,I agree with that but there are So many factors to consider here.Everyone has their own story which no matter how you slice it won't be a happy ending in some folks eyes.
Allnicksgone,, Even though I got screwed I have to agree with you that a do over would probably be a mess because there would be a huge amount of distrust towards Sedo and of course it wouldn't solve anything.

Regards

In all fairness, the original "end" of the auction (which was cut short due to server issues) never occurred. While this may sound stupid, that's what happened. The time came for the auction to end, but it couldn't.

Auctions thrive on last minute bidding / sniping. No one could bid. What if every auction suddenly closed 5 minutes before it was supposed to? There'd be a lot of angry sellers and happy buyers. And that's what we have now. We've even got some angry buyers! With no good way to resolve things. It's a shame it happened, but it did. But let's face facts. The so-called "winning bids" were really not winning bids. They were just on top with about 5 minutes left.

There are lot's of angry people and no way to change it. There's always gonna be somebody ticked off of the outcome. Should it be re-done? I can't see how that will settle issues. There will still be some calling it unfair.

Yes! I do agree with the facts you stated. If the auction went through as it Should have with no glitches that would of been it.This should be a real interesting saga and I really don't know what I'd do if I were Sedo at this point in fact I don't know if I would go into a re-do auction with the same mindset,I would be very wary.
Sedo... You need to do some real soul searching on this one..

Regards

I don't have all the facts, but I did read that one of the "winners" received Sedo email that he was the successful bidder. And he actually received an invoice. That is not trivial if true. That constitutes a binding agreement. If you are provided a service and are invoiced, you cannot just walk away from that financial obligation. The shoe is on the other foot in this case. The bidders are customers of Sedo as are mtld. I believe if Sedo had halted the auction with notice of the time extension (and no winners had yet been declared), then the situation would be more easily repairable.

re do the whole auction?

no way I won 2 of the 100 auctions and I have all ready paid for both,

the money is all ready out of my account.

I won the auctions before the server crash then after the time extension.

It would be grossly unfair to re start my auctions for the 3RD time, I have allready had to bid twice.

OK ...I'm not saying to re-do all I'm asking is peoples opinions on the issue.

Happy for you with the win

Regards

Re-do the contested auctions then? At first glance that seems fair to everybody.

Still have the problem of the original contracts and invoices, and then the second round of contracts and invoices. Even more people will be upset.

Anyway it does not matter. Sedo seems to be hunkering down on the money and does not seem to care about their reputation or their continuing business as a venue for .Mobi auctions.

Stupid Sedo.

Carlton said:

I don't have all the facts, but I did read that one of the "winners" received Sedo email that he was the successful bidder. And he actually received an invoice. That is not trivial if true. That constitutes a binding agreement. If you are provided a service and are invoiced, you cannot just walk away from that financial obligation. The shoe is on the other foot in this case. The bidders are customers of Sedo as are mtld. I believe if Sedo had halted the auction with notice of the time extension (and no winners had yet been declared), then the situation would be more easily repairable.

Click to expand...

thats the part that gets me.

if the auction never ended, who the hell in sedo was sending out congrats emails and invoices? how is that even possible? i mean think about it- you have a major server meltdown, then you run to email and start sending out you won emails- this doesnt even make sense if the auction never officially ended-
they wouldnt do that on a regular day, why on an auction? and according to him, not just one- but TWo and an invoice! i mean come on-

how could that be a system glitch, if the auction never ended? thats automated- it goes out, when the auction ENDS- and how did the system even send out the emails if it was down?

I recieved them as well for two names I won. sportsbetting.mobi and freemusic.mobi. I want my names I won fairly.

smashfactory said:

thats the part that gets me.

if the auction never ended, who the hell in sedo was sending out congrats emails and invoices? how is that even possible? i mean think about it- you have a major server meltdown, then you run to email and start sending out you won emails- this doesnt even make sense if the auction never officially ended-
they wouldnt do that on a regular day, why on an auction? and according to him, not just one- but TWo and an invoice! i mean come on-

how could that be a system glitch, if the auction never ended? thats automated- it goes out, when the auction ENDS- and how did the system even send out the emails if it was down?

Click to expand...

This is my thinking too. The invoice itself is the legal document that he, as buyer, is now obligated to purchase the product or service (Sedo's declaration that payment is owed) ... which in this case was the domain the bidder had "won".

smashfactory said:

thats the part that gets me.

if the auction never ended, who the hell in sedo was sending out congrats emails and invoices? how is that even possible? i mean think about it- you have a major server meltdown, then you run to email and start sending out you won emails- this doesnt even make sense if the auction never officially ended-
they wouldnt do that on a regular day, why on an auction? and according to him, not just one- but TWo and an invoice! i mean come on-

how could that be a system glitch, if the auction never ended? thats automated- it goes out, when the auction ENDS- and how did the system even send out the emails if it was down?

Click to expand...

My understanding is everything is automated, even some of the emails signed by named individuals.

For what it's worth, here is the response from Sedo as per mo_dork's post in the other thread here:

mo_dork said:

new reply from sedo-

There was an error with our servers and the response from Management is as follows:

Due to high popularity and traffic volume, our web servers experienced site
resolution issues at the end of the auction. Specifically, certified user
offers were placed and recorded in our database, but were not being
displayed on the auction site. This led to a situation where auctions were
marked as closed when in actuality the auctions were still active. Our
system sent automated emails in error to recipients notifying them of their
successful bid and introduction to the transfer service. Please disregard
this email notification. The transfer and corresponding documentation have
been cancelled from our system.

In light of the situation and out of fairness to all of our valued Sedo
members, the .mobi auction was extended for a reasonable time to allow that all certified user offers were restored and the auction ran its course.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

Unfortunately I cannot reverse the completed auction.

Click to expand...

was anyone watching the auction until the servers went down? did it shows bids, and then it was gone? what exactly happened when the server went down to those who watched it? did anyone "see" the auction end showing a winning bid- or no one ever saw that on the sedo site-

WOW, when was this stated?? I guess at the time of this statement they had no intention of entertaining any arguement on the reversal of the extended auction.
I hope the 2 bidders ,#1 & #1 for music.mobi can come up with an amicable solution to this mess.
Let's hope for the best & on a final note:
I hope we can all look back a year from now & smile because we jumped into mobi at the infantile stages of this TLD,we can all check out the sites we developed & watch out investments blossom.

Regards

Hey Smash, I'll tell you what I did see,When the auction came back on they only showed some names to bid on maybee 30% of the names at a time.I'd check every 3 minutes and behold the name I was bidding on wasn't on the list then a couple of minutes later it was,this went on constantly.It's seems as though sedo was alternating names on the auction in order not to crash again.
Anyone else notice that??????

this post answered mt question:

http://www.namepros.com/dot-mobi/403517-what-happened-on-sedo.html

it crashed before the end of auction-

Yes it did crash before the end of auction. I almost kicked my PC thinking it was just me..

Sedo will now try and pull the wool over peoples eyes, it is a common practice when lawyers have been brought in and we know Sedo lawyers have already tried via telephone to disuad one prospective plaintiff. (Strange that by the way that Sedo's lawyers know how to use the phone to contact winning bidders from the auction but Sedo staff running the auction don't seem to know how to contact the winners by using a telephone!)

All the plaintiffs have to do is prove negligence, and I am sure 90+% of us domainers can see negligence coming out of Sedo's ears on this one. However, Sedo will have been advised by their lawyers not to even contemplate re-running the auction because in a court of law that would be seen as an admission of guilt on the charge of negligence.

The 'system' is meant to have crashed some 5-10 minutes before the end of the auctions, but evidence is being brought forward suggesting there was not a crash but a slow-down in server speed (this could and likely would appear to some users as if the system wasn't working). However taking the crash scenario why was not an automated system in place to immediately 'halt' the auction and this displayed to users? Also the fact that Sedo's postings following the end of the auction time encouraged 'NEW' bidders to come to the auction and bid, this is damning evidence of 'bad faith practice'.

All it will take is one plaintiff to get Sedo into the court room (especially in the US) and Sedo will have to provide all computer and telephone logs and records, bidding histories for the auctions, provide the number of users that apparently suddenly logged on with 5 minutes to go to the end of the auction and show how this vast number (most probably less than 100 by the way) would bring their servers to crash (Sedo's term). Even if this were all so as Sedo have stated, then they are negligent because their machinary was obviously negligent.

A simple contract is formed in an auction when the hammer falls. In an online auction that is when the designated time has elapsed. If Sedo had suspended the auction with just one second to go before the designated time then they could argue successfully that the auction did not complete. However, it was some time after the end of the auction (the designated end of auction time) that Sedo decided to act in their cavalier manner and in essense not extend the original auction by the time they claimed was lost due to the servers going down but by an arbitrary 2, 2 1/2, or even 3 hours depending on which Sedo answer you wish to take, this in essense is actually a different auction, for the same goods that were now not Sedo's to auction as they already formed part/s of contracts for transfer from mTLD to the winners of the original auction.

At this moment Sedo will try and get the second auction winners to pay and to transfer the domains to them as quickly as possible so as to create the legal argument that the original winners should in essence sue the secondary winners and not Sedo (another common legal ploy - remember Sex.com and all the other domain hijackings where the first thing the hijacker does is to make a long chain of ownership by transferring away from themselves to others).

This has already hurt Sedo as reports come in of parked domains being moved away from Sedo literally in 1,000's at a time. The US lawyers Sedo will have to employ to defend the claims will want paying if not up front at least intermitantly, and where will Sedo get the $millions to pay them (no exageration there by the way), obviously through their biggest income source - click through revenue from the parked domains. This can only be done by reducing even more the percentage paid to the domainer who parks their names at Sedo.

Sedo is this time in a no win situation. The question is will this lead to the collapse of Sedo? I think it more than likely will.

Very Interesting post Bald One. I will read this one a second time.

Regards

TheBaldOne said:

.....provide the number of users that apparently suddenly logged on with 5 minutes to go to the end of the auction and show how this vast number (most probably less than 100 by the way) would bring their servers to crash (Sedo's term).

Click to expand...

There were many more than 100 people viewing the auctions.

allnicksgone said:

There were many more than 100 people viewing the auctions.

Click to expand...

The problem required for a 'crash' is sudden influx, otherwise a 'slow down' would occur. But now it seems Sedo are saying neither of the above happened, obviously because they are aware that both can be proved not to have happened!

Sedo is clutching at straws, no doubt trying to get some kind of defence together, in the meantime, as always it would seem with Sedo, they are constantly contradicting themselves. Obviously that will not help their defence in court one little bit.

TheBaldOne said:

The problem required for a 'crash' is sudden influx, otherwise a 'slow down' would occur. But now it seems Sedo are saying neither of the above happened, obviously because they are aware that both can be proved not to have happened!

Sedo is clutching at straws, no doubt trying to get some kind of defence together, in the meantime, as always it would seem with Sedo, they are constantly contradicting themselves. Obviously that will not help their defence in court one little bit.

Click to expand...

The auction site was inaccessible during the last moments of the auction. I know because I tried. I'm sure it wasn't my imagination because I was in contact with others at the same time and they couldn't access it either. Nobody was able to place their last minute bids.

I won two names initially, Got confirmation of being the highest bidder on both names with two seperate emails. Although I did bid again and only got one of the names when they decided to RE-AUCTION(Illegal). Im not paying until this is sorted out.