BackOrderZone.com?

@tonecas Well first, let me say. I appreciate your comments even if I don't agree with all of it. I especially appreciate that you are looking at the issue from more than one side. I have had to basically stopped arguing the intrust point, because it all comes down to what I say vs. what anyone else says. Yes, it sucks that it does come down to my word. That's why I try to make it up with actions. I gave out plenty of credits last time this thread got popular, and no one came back to accuse us of fraud.

You're probably right on the marketing/PR, as prior to myself becoming COO there wasn't any communication with the domainer community. We're trying to do better. I invite any one of you to PM me when you are in the Orlando Florida area, and I will have you come see our office and then take you out to lunch. Look us up on linkedin if you'd like to see my history in web hosting and domains, none of which involves buying or selling them for profit. You can even add the owner of the company and speak to him personally. You can find my (not-so) handsome mug on many of the namescon photos if you care to look, we're out there in public, we're not trying to hide anything.

You all know the brand intrust uses now, and with some effort find the domains they register and who they are being registered by. That's really the only proof there can be, because no one has ever presented real evidence which we can dispute. It's like trying to prosecute McDonalds for murder because Charles Manson ate a big mac once. I will rehash though. We did business with intrust, we provided intrust with a copy of the bellnames.com turnkey domain management platform (a hosted service, closed source) so that their customers could manage domains with us as a branded solution. They bid on domains the same as anyone else, the only difference being where those domains got delivered. This isn't something uncommon at all in any industry. Enom basically makes this their business. Is Enom to blame for every single domainer who make someone angry? What about any registrar with an API? Looking back, it may not have been worth it, but at the time it was one way we were able to get large backorder customer to use our platform.

If you take a look, we don't even use bellnames anymore because it was a poor system not meant to deal with large registrars or evolving icann demands. We removed the intrust page, because it was no longer used and we didn't need the rest of the internet trying to crack a script which hadn't been updated in 3 years. We never hid the fact that it existed. What's the quote, "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." We're human and left an abandoned webpage up on a VPS server, if you have ever seen the inner runnings of a tech company, far stupider things happen! Ever hear the old joke about someone tripping over a datacenter plug and shutting everything down? There's truth to it. We learn from our mistakes, and we do better. We're a small team, and theres only so many human work hours available per day.

Again, we will look into the auction history. And as you said, anyone can self-record the bids. You are also notified of being outbid. If we're trying to hide something, we are not trying very hard. We still do not wish to publicly display the results of our auctions, just like we decline to open our auctions to the public, even against bribes as high as 5 digits to get entry. If the history policy we have now has such a large impact on the trust of the community, then we will look into allowing any bidding user to see that history. You say we had 2 years to do so, but we have honestly never had major complaints about it, it wasn't something we thought about the last 2 years while developing our management platform. I won't lie and say no one has asked for the history of an auction they took place in, but when they did we always provided it via email.

So to conclude, its again all down to my word. Take it or toss it down a hole. If its possible at all to do so in a timely manner, I will see changes made to the policies that worry you and others here. And as we always do, we'll let actions speak. Thanks to anyone who already contacted me today (I count 5 already) for free credits! I hope you come back to talk about your positive OR negative experiences with us.

it is not to make the bidding history public to everyone. it is to make it available to every bidder that entered the auction.

there are two approaches to bidding system: 1) you hide the bidder alias and generate a new one for every auction to hide the bidder's identity. 2) you show the bidder alias and you should show the bidding history at any time to everyone on the auction.

anything in between these options won't make any sense and you will only making it a little more hard for people to get the information.

and this gives people an opportunity to look at it as having something to hide. and you can't blame them can't you? specially after all this story about Intrust. Why give more motives for suspicion?

and it is not needed nor welcomed the model of DropCatch which is insidious by showing all bidders, bids and open an auction to everyone.

@tonecas

Again, thank you for the constructive posts. As I said before, I am disgusting and flu-ridden right now. Give me a few days and i'll get back to you on this with either a resolution or a timeline to do so. This is the type of stuff we want to hear and it's the reason we came to namepros in the first place. It wasn't exactly because of the warm welcomes.

Regarding the two methods you gave, it's actually something we have been considering on for the future expansion of our backorder program. Which do you prefer of the two methods? I feel like username is the more transparent, but we also considered allowing a change of username say once every 6 months to a year.

No matter which is best, I will make a personal effort to have auction history added to all users in the auction. In fact, if its possible I will have it retro-actively added for past auctions as well.

that is great! thank you for your efforts to make BZ transparent and clean.

personally i prefer the method of showing the bidder alias because it is more transparent. I know that is is harsh for active bidders but they can have an option to change the bidder alias or create a new account. this is the model followed by NameJet and Snapnames.

This is a great service, backorderzone has been successful numerous amounts of times for me and customer support is generous!

Jason.tv said:

This is a great service, backorderzone has been successful numerous amounts of times for me and customer support is generous!

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They don't respond on tickets.

@BackorderZone, how do I get a refund?
Domain backorder failed, but status still "Pending", LOL . Looks like your scripts not working.

RU said:

They don't respond on tickets.

@BackorderZone, how do I get a refund?
Domain backorder failed, but status still "Pending", LOL . Looks like your scripts not working.

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I don't believe they issue refunds. You buy credits which allow you to place a certain amount of BOs at any given time.

RU said:

They don't respond on tickets.

@BackorderZone, how do I get a refund?
Domain backorder failed, but status still "Pending", LOL . Looks like your scripts not working.

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Be in touch with Jay Weissman, who is their COO.
I have used their service, and they are very approachable too.

Till now I am convinced with their friendly support.

is backorderzone.com still active?

richface said:

is backorderzone.com still active?

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Yes. Don't think they haven't caught a decent name in while though...

Guys Check and Discuss here even let the staff join there.
https://www.namepros.com/threads/backorderzone-is-for-sale.888786/

UPDATE

If you own a lot of domains, you probably are used to receiving a lot of spam like this:

Years on, the scum from Market Plaza International LLC are still at it. They figured a long time ago that the best way to spam is to have one's own registrar. Not just one, but at least two dozens:

The Namepal registrars are all associated with Backorderzone. Of course the domains are not going to be shut down for abuse because the spammer and the registrar are the same entity. The registrars are involved in two distinct operations: dropcatching (legal) and mass spamming (illegal and in violation of the registrar agreement).

Remember Bellnames ? I'm sure you do. They are still around.
Example: https://www.internic.net/registrars/registrar-719.html
bellnames.com is registered at namepal.com, and when you do a whois query, the record for this particular domain is empty. It's funny. Still clinging on to a tarnished brand.

Namepal is a registered FL corporation. Check the record for yourself:

The exact sale address in Lake Mary, FL is listed on namepal.com under 'Contact us'.
Argam Poghosian = namepal.com
Once again, MARKET PLAZA INTERNATIONAL, LLC, Namebind, Intrust, Argam Poghosian, Bellnames, goname.com and others are all linked together.

If you still have a hard time connecting the dots, read the thread from the beginning. What is important to know is that Intrust = Market Plaza Intl, a company run by Poghosian and Ukrainian partners.
And it's not by chance that their domain name MPISOFT.COM is registered at Namepal.
Besides, the phone number 720.921.8850 has been listed under the name of both Poghosian and Market Plaza.
And what about 719-694-4022, that was listed on MPISOFT.COM and promptly removed when posted in this thread ? It points to Mr Poghosian again. Mind you, this is just another coincidence just in case you are not convinced Market Plaza = Poghosian.

Also, both Market Plaza and Intrust have used this address:
6140 TUTT BLVD SUITE 230
COLORADO SPRINGS
CO 80923

By the way namepal.com is hosted on IP address 198.49.65.148. It belongs to a range assigned to... Market Plaza International, LLC.
Proof: https://whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-198-49-65-144-1/pft?s=198.49.65.148
Address listed:
3525 W. Lake Mary Blvd
City Lake Mary
Proof: https://whois.arin.net/rest/customer/C05143917
That is Mr Poghosian's, quoted above

And: https://whois.arin.net/rest/poc/NETWO5125-ARIN.html
We have on the same page: Namepal, Market Plaza International, LLC, 720-921-8850, and the Lake Mary address.

In fact, not only do they own a number of IP addresses, they also have their own AS because they are serious about spamming:
http://bgp.he.net/AS40724#_whois
Check the whois section again.

But Backorderzone have stated on this very forum that Mr Argam Poghosian has nothing to do with this crap. Untrue. He is always around everywhere. I posted more than enough evidence. Either they are lying, or their CS employees are unaware that their boss is involved in shady stuff. Fact is, Backorderzone is owned by a shady character. Now they cannot ignore this. I therefore advise against dealing with Backorderzone and related entities in any way. While you backorder domains from them (and place bids on their website) they rape your inbox with utter garbage. Can you trust a company like that ?

It's been years, and the domain spam always originates from platforms that are under the control of Backorderzone and siblings. When is this going to end ?

Yes, the spam is continuing. A NamePal rep attended NamesCon in January. I will ask him what they have to say about this.

Edit: Went through my emails post-NamesCon and it seems that they flat out say they operate BackorderZone as well.

Got one more spam today. The domain name used today is: GIDIMOM.COM
Guess where it's registered. Namepal as always.

It's probably been mentioned before but if you look at this page: http://mpisoft.com/contact.php
The contact details:
MPI Soft, Inc. Head Office
6140 Tutt Blvd,
Colorado springs, Colorado
80923, USA
Phone: +1(888)286-3417
Fax: +1(877)795-7514

It's a familiar address of course, that was used by Intrust (who have since moved to TN and rebranded as Goname). Another coincidence.

SnapNames Acquires Backorderzone.com

What does that mean for domainers ? Less spam, hopefully...

Kate said:

SnapNames Acquires Backorderzone.com

What does that mean for domainers ? Less spam, hopefully...

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I trust you had nothing to do with that, @Kate I think the answer to that question could be in another question. Why would SnapNames want to buy such a company? Maybe to learn something? Maybe to use them as a front? Where did you get this info? Was there any press release about it?

Just to buy the registrars to boost dropcatching capabilities.

Kate said:

Just to buy the registrars to boost dropcatching capabilities.

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Ah! OK. I don't know why I didn't think of that. How many do BOZ own/control? Any idea about the purchase price. With that as the motivation, I don't suppose the price went over the cost of starting new registrars. They're fighting a lost cause against DC, IMHO.

As everyone may have noticed, the domain spam continues.



And the domain names used for spamming are always registered at namepal.com. We know who's behind this operation (read the thread for more details).
I think it is time to develop an Exim plugin to reject all E-mail from domains that are registered at namepal.com, one of the most disreputable and shady registrars.