21 pages, 24+ hours, and 17,600 views later, and not a single person accused of shill bidding and other improper activity at NameJet has yet to come here to defend themselves with any evidence that there has not been misconduct on their part. Why not? It makes zero sense.
Looking back at the initial statements made by the Booth brothers, when ittle was known about this situation, this is what they had to say:
When this story first broke, Andy Booth stated that the names that set off this whole thread (moviezone.com and more) were posted for sale by another NJ seller, so he was in the clear because he's not the NameJet seller or owner (an explanation NameJet accepted at the time! No wonder this kind of activity has flourished on their platform...). However, that “other” seller has been revealed to be his close associate Oliver Hoger (NJ seller/alleged current owner of these names), and both Oliver Hoger, Andy Booth (alleged former owner of these names and current owner according to WHOIS), and James Booth (Oliver Hoger's close business associate and Andy's brother) bid up these names together at NameJet.
Shortly after, James Booth posted a statement saying that “From what I understand Andy sold a bunch of names to someone who lists most of their names at Namejet with no reserves.” That someone has been revealed to be James close associate, Oliver Hoger, so James was knowingly bidding on domains formerly owned by his brother, allegedly sold to their friend Oliver (though still in his brothers ownership in WHOIS), and both his brother Andy, and his friend Oliver, and James all participated in the same auctions! And the reason that someone, aka Oliver, "lists most of their names at Namejet with no reserves" is because he operates a bunch of shill bidding handles to drive up the prices, in lieu of setting a reserve.
These "explanations" don't look so good anymore, and NameJet's initial lackluster investigation certainly indicates why all this shilling could take place at their platform.
However, if this is all a big misunderstanding and they did nothing wrong, why don’t they come here and provide and explanation of what “really” happened in these auctions? They are closely checking this thread every few minutes, don’t they have time to spend a few minutes to explain themselves and provide some evidence to save their reputations? The bidding window at NameJet has ended for the day. So they should be free to come here now and prove everyone in this thread wrong.
MediaOptions still hasn't bothered to post a statement to deny and provide evidence against the numerous shill bidding accusations that reputable NamePros members have directed at him, even as these were made to him as he was actively taking part in this thread. He surely saw them, but decided to ignore all of them.
Oliver Hoger, who seems to be the biggest wrongdoer by a large margin so far, with lots of different shill bidding handles and a significant amount of suspicious auction bidding activity, is also not saying anything to defend himself.
Why are these prominent domainers silently following this thread as more and more incriminating findings are posted, without trying to clear their names, or explaining what really went down in all these suspicious auctions? I'm sure they know the importance of trust and reputation in this industry. Why don't they fight for their innocence of these shill bidding accusations? If they really did nothing wrong, it makes no sense to silently sit on the sideline and watch their reputations and their integrity being ruined (and it probably won't do their future namejet auctions any good either, I surely won't be bid up by an of these bidding handles again, after all the info that has been posted so far).
So does this silence and lack of explanation from the domainers this thread is about mean that all of the allegations and evidence coming to light in this thread are actually truthful and accurate? Has NameJet really been that much of a shill bidding haven for these prominent domainers?