NameSilo

.mobi I bid $611,000 for music.mobi - Lawsuit Pending

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Hello everyone,

I have been a part of this SEDO .mobi auction auction and I am the one responsible for the bid $611,000 for music.mobi.

However I stopped bidding at the point where I realised that the NEW auction was a scam because the two bidders that were bidding me up were NEW bidders who were not even involved in the initial auction.

The initial auction closed with me winning the last bid at $66,000.

I received an invoice and 2 emails regarding the winning bid.

Let me ask everything this key question? If you are bidding on eBay and you have a 7 day auction and you take a chance and wait til the last second to bid what if your DSL line or connection or even your computer crashes? I think many of us had this experience in the past. I know I had this happen last week on eBay when my computer froze and in essence lost the bid. Did eBay care? NO! Does SEDO care if you WERE going to bid and failed to do so if your computer crashed or had a slow connection? NO! Well, wait a second in this case they do.

They proclaimed me winner send me 2 emails, sent me an invoice. I considered the bid finished and was ready to go and play guitar and record this new song I was working on in the studio. By chance, I get an email by whom? BOTH the .mobi MTLD who started INVITING people via a bulk message hyping them up that the servers have crashed and that there is huge demand for the .mobi auction. Then Sedo followed. So 2 bulk messages sent to the world inviting them to attend a NEW auction. Not only that, they extended the auction to 2.5 hrs NOT 5 minutes.

Anyhow, I seriously have been negotiating with .mobi since 2006 about music.mobi but they seem to want money and to rob everyone of money than have someone develop a super site like I am. So the whole RFP was bogus. I tried fir over a year and they just said "you will have to bid for it".

So, I am really upset, they caused me to miss my jam session and on top of that they allowed NEW bidders to the new auction. I say I have NO PROBLEM with old bidders that were active in the original auction bidding their maximum. Even though I was invoiced $66,000 I emailed SEDO and MTLD letting them know that I would pay them $81,000 because bidder 9 (I was the last bidder 12 to bid for the name in the original auction) rebid his maximum at $80k.

So there comes along NEW bidders 13 and 14 who did not even attend the initial, legal auction. They probably got the bulk email fro both SEDO and MTLD and invited themselves to the dance. HOW can an auction that has ended have NEW bidders? I have no problems bidding with the 12 bidders that have bid against me in the initial auction but NEW bidders who were enticed by HYPE emails? Have you ever heard of a closed auction then an hour later having a new bidder say I will outbid the winner even though i was not even in the auction? NO!

Anyhow, the bid to $616,000 is illegal. I sent the MTLD and SEDO an email and let them know that they should retract all my bids ($611,000) that were automatically placed by SEDO as a result of NEW bidders who were not even active in the original auction. In the new auction, the only legal bidder was bidder 9 who was also in the original auction. The bidder bid for $80k and i outbid him.

How can I be declared a winner then told that I am not the winner then they invite new bidders? Also how can they say that their terms of services states that they can redo the auction and there is no legal agreement? REALLY? I checked it and i saw no section that related to servers crashing and technology interruptions.Tough luck, you had 7 days to bid and you didnt. You cant be bidding after. You take a chance, then be brave enough to live by it and acknowledge that you had considerable time to bid. And the new bidders 13 and 14 and dont care who you are but you had no place bidding in an auction with the old active bidders.

Sedo I have bought numerous domains for tens of thousands of dollars and I refuse to park them and make money off parking (Domain King you can do that and **** the internet up for all of us). I will NEVER do business again with thieves especially the MTLD. They are making bank and playing everyone.

OK my story is not done yet. I stop bidding at $611k because in my mind I should not be bidding against NEW bidders (yes I did realise it at the end) who had no place in the auction since they did not attend the original one. So i stop and half an hour later I get a message from SEDO asking me if I was interested to buy mp3s.mobi for $500,000? So let me get this straight. because I bid up to $611,000 (yes I am retracting this bid and every other bid made against NEW, illegal bidders), does that mean you think I should buy another music domain? I told them I would not buy mp3s.mobi for $300 and basically told them that they will hear from my lawyers if this mess is not solved.

I suggest a class lawsuit and I seriously will BOYCOTT both SEDO and MTLD. I loved SEDO and have been a client for years but this money hungry, sleazy, unethical tactics are unacceptable. For all of you complaining that you did not get a bid in the last 5 minutes tough luck, you had 7 days (considerable time that is). I took a chance and won. I would have bid higher but I am not going to fill SEDO and MTLD's pockets with my hard earned money because they screwed up royally.

What can I say? I am ready to kick some serious butt here. And sue these guys for emotional distress. SEDO seriously, you lost one of your top clients and super domainers. Lost my respect and you have robbed me and others in all fairness. I seriously will NOT let this go. If justice is not served, I will sue, I will go to the press, I will tell my story, I will post all the emails I got, invoices and screenshots of my winning bid and I am sure it will reflect future SEDO=MOBI auctions. Did anyone say sex.mobi? Yes, the MTLD is greedy and so is SEDO. This is bad business. REALLY bad. Not sure I can trust them. i will not be surprised if Bidder 13 and 14 were internal just to bid up my proxy of $611,000.

The world record is not real people. It would have been if other original bidders bid me up to $615k. The new bidders in my mind either are internal fake bidders or new, illegal bidders who came in after being sent bulk emails by both SEDO/MTLD full of hype.

If they do not accept my winning auction and fair win versus the original bidders even in the new auction, then I WILL pursue this since I do have some spare change here now.

Costa

MusicMusic.com
Music.us
Music.pro
Music.im
Music.fm
MP3.fm

Blog: Entrepreneur.pro


PS After 3 years of development, I will be launching the biggest music site in the beginning of 2008, so if anyone knows any bands who would be interested, let them know to sign up their email at music.us. So much for the .mobi implementation on my site.
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
Good luck to you, you deserve better!
 
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alexsimon said:
...And when do end users bid? Wait or the last minute of the auction? No .... they throw in their maximum bid well before the end of the auction. ...

Must say the above conflicts directly with what my own experience suggests, but I'm just one person so I may be wrong.

On ebay at least though, the above statement doesn't seem to reflect what usually happens - and I'm talking here asset categories that are almost exclusively bought by end users.
:imho:
 
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italiandragon said:
You know what my left ear is suggesting to my brain right now:

is it possible that this "event" occurred "under pressure" of MTLD because they were "not happy" of the (1th) selling price?

I mean....one thing is $66,000 , another one is $616,000...

I always think bad.... :alien:


I thought the same thing at one point than I said ,,NA! why would a ligit biz do that,, Legit ????MMMMM!!!!
Buisiness is a dirty place and what way to stir up hype that to have your servers crash, when you think of it what a stratagy but I too honest to think along those lines,

Regards
 
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I'm not a .mobi acolyte; in fact, I believe it's one of the most overly hyped and overvalued TLD's ever. However, if Costa can establish a case with Sedo it will be a case study against such events. The auction marketplace is exploding right now and millions of dollars are at stake. Perhaps even to the point of having denial of service attacks during the course of such events. The next logical step would be to have private networks hosting these events with pre-approved bidders.

At any rate, good luck Costa - kali tyxi ;)
 
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Acroplex said:
... The next logical step would be to have private networks hosting these events with pre-approved bidders.

At any rate, good luck Costa - kali tyxi ;)

Can't miss this rare chance to agree with Acroplex on the quoted bit above.

Kali tyxi!
%%-
 
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Mr Roussos. I see you are a part of a very large organization.
Real Estate, Entertainment ect...
I see you are an intelligent person especially if you run all these projects. If you feel you have been wronged, your instinct will tell you what to do. It is unfortunate with what happened and it only details more on the misuse of the internet business.There must be a government controlled or government audited policy in place with the domain market or Human instinct and greed will contine to corrupt this business.I hope you find peace in the end with this mishap.
 
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:talk:

1, 2, and 3 part auctions for the same names?


further adds to the hype on dot enron...i mean .mobi ;)

it sounds much better for .mobi if the names sells for $616K, than $60K
 
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biggie said:
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it sounds much better for .mobi if the names sells for $616K, than $60K

Seriously? I thought we were just told in this forum that so much so soon cannot possibly be good for .mobi itself.
:|
 
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so much for having the top names developed....

What happened the RFP process lol
 
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DNWizardX9 said:
so much for having the top names developed....

What happened the RFP process lol

They will have to be developed within six months, or else (in the contractual sense).

So what you saw yesterday was effectively - as I have said before - RFP 2.0.
:imho:
 
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Mobi Cheap said:
Can't miss this rare chance to agree with Acroplex on the quoted bit above.

We can agree to disagree :D
 
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Acroplex said:
We can agree to disagree :D

Sure, any time :D

Just kidding: too much going on to have a proper debate on the broader issues right now, but if there is any particular part in what I said above that doesn't make sense I would be glad to elaborate - I know not all is intuitively obvious.
B-)
 
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nice to see all the dnf naysayers make an appearance here at namepros .mobi forum.

look forward to hearing more.
 
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accentnepal said:
"Any publicity is good publicity"

Mtld better hope that this is true here.

While I assume Mtld was in contact during the post auction I conference, they are not the responsible party - Sedo is. Sedo set themselves up as an auction house (not very long ago, by the way), they wrote the TOS. This is their mess, not Mtld's.

I feel for the OP. He sounds to have a great plan for Music.mobi and I hope he gets it. I imagine Mtld did not give him the name in RFP because they wanted Sony, Apple, Capital records - some top player.

Mtld is guilty of over-reaching for that, but this badly messed up auction is all on Sedo.

my sentiments exactly
rep added
 
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I liked the Music.us idea, but why would you need the stinkin mobi? Why blow all that cash when you can just do mobi.Music.us or Mobile.Music.us? Sounds better to me anyway.

Was wondering when people would catch on to the conflict in these auctions where there exists NO use of a chinese wall as in the stock market. I'd think one of the first things your attorney would look into would be emails between Sedo and the mobi registry.
 
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-OutlawBiker- said:
I liked the Music.us idea, but why would you need the stinkin mobi? Why blow all that cash when you can just do mobi.Music.us or Mobile.Music.us? Sounds better to me anyway.
Yes, to you. People have different preferences, and you'll have to learn to show some respect and agree to disagree on aspects that are subjective. We don't need any more trash talk like stinkin' this or stinkin' that around here anymore from either side.
 
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-OutlawBiker- said:
Why blow all that cash when you can just do mobi.Music.us or Mobile.Music.us? Sounds better to me anyway.

This is not the place to start yet another anti-mobi versus pro-mobi argument. This thread deals with an auction that could have easily been for any extension.

I respect your views against .mobi, but suggest you start or find a different thread to voice them.
 
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I'm just trying to figure out how people have $60,000 plus just laying around to buy domain names. :(
 
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allnicksgone said:
This is not the place to start yet another anti-mobi versus pro-mobi argument. This thread deals with an auction that could have easily been for any extension.

I respect your views against .mobi, but suggest you start or find a different thread to voice them.
Ah baloney. You can't tell me the chatter in this thread is limited to praising .mobi and NO questions? I own a couple dozen mobis myself. My point was relevant to the thread starter and his choice to throw such unusual high amounts of cash towards an unproven extension with a questionable future. I can see a few bucks like most of us have plugged in for some lottery tickets in the event the hype actually carries forward, but what is the sense in that kindof bet? Looks to me like a $600k bet in a poker game where the pot is a few $k tops. Heck, wouldn't even the most blind mobi fan understand that $600k towards promo and development would lend much more chance of success to his music site than just another name with no traffic to speak of, and the requirement of another large promo amount?
 
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-OutlawBiker- said:
...
Heck, wouldn't even the most blind mobi fan understand that $600k towards promo and development would lend much more chance of success to his music site than just another name with no traffic to speak of, and the requirement of another large promo amount?

Sorry I forget, what was it again you recommended the OP spends those $600k of branding dollars on?

Was it mobi.Music.us, Mobile.Music.us m.Music.us, Wap.Music.us, Music.us/mobi, Music.us/mobi Music.us/m, Music.us/wap, mobi.Music.com, Mobile.Music.com m.Music.com, Music.com/mobile Music.com/m, Music.com/mobi, Wap.Music.com, or Music.com/wap?

"I guess one of them is bound to work, but I didn't write it down when I heard the ad so now I have to try all of them - no, in fact statistically it will work with only half that number of attempts, on average - so not that bad after all. And there is no competition, so I must find this url at all costs..."
:alien:
 
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-OutlawBiker- said:
Ah baloney. You can't tell me the chatter in this thread is limited to praising .mobi and NO questions? I own a couple dozen mobis myself. My point was relevant to the thread starter and his choice to throw such unusual high amounts of cash towards an unproven extension with a questionable future. I can see a few bucks like most of us have plugged in for some lottery tickets in the event the hype actually carries forward, but what is the sense in that kindof bet? Looks to me like a $600k bet in a poker game where the pot is a few $k tops. Heck, wouldn't even the most blind mobi fan understand that $600k towards promo and development would lend much more chance of success to his music site than just another name with no traffic to speak of, and the requirement of another large promo amount?

what??

why is it's future so questionable? if anything it is more promising than any of the other newer extensions ever to be introduced - 1. because it has a purpose 2. because of it's backers 3. because of the corporations adopting it 4. because of the hype (good or bad it's here) 5. _____________
 
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If I had 600k lying around, I would rather get Music.net. That way, I would at least get some type ins.

But then different people have different plans. The OP sounds like a great person who knows the music industry. It would've been better if he'd got the name. He certainly had the right plans for it.

You know, very frankly, even though I think that the sale of Music.mobi was rigged and way too high, I'll admit that Music.mobi looks damn good of a name.
 
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domi said:
Mr Roussos. I see you are a part of a very large organization.
Real Estate, Entertainment ect...
I see you are an intelligent person especially if you run all these projects. If you feel you have been wronged, your instinct will tell you what to do. It is unfortunate with what happened and it only details more on the misuse of the internet business.There must be a government controlled or government audited policy in place with the domain market or Human instinct and greed will contine to corrupt this business.I hope you find peace in the end with this mishap.
Well said.
I hope things work out :)
 
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Here we go....you managed to get his thread into another .mobi debate :(
 
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