Bidding on your own names at NameJet...?

webquest · Jul 18, 2017

Once in awhile I see people bidding on their own domains at NJ. I would think it would be frowned upon.

Today's seems more obvious than normal. Or am I missing something here?

Airlinejobs.com owned by Andy Booth at Booth.com and high bidder is BQDNcom (James Booth).

3 bids down we see Boothcom as a bidder.

Same thing with MovieZone.com. Owned by Andy Booth in which he currently appears to be the high bidder.

High Bid: $2,475 USD by boothcom

They actually won their own domain airplanesforsale.com. Im guessing it didnt get as high as they wanted so needed to protect it.

Bidder Amount Date
bqdncom $2,001 7/17/2017 12:23 PM
boothcom $1,950 7/17/2017 12:23 PM

tonyk2000 · Jul 21, 2017

Grilled said:
From the manual review I'm doing, the correlation between HKDN and Oliver appear overwhelming (only a small sample size though)

Which fact did not yet prevent NameJet from still running a number of auctions with hkdn as either participating bidder or highest bidder, in "Domains in open public auctions! Closing soon!" section, right now

Recons.Com · Jul 21, 2017

Anyone finds it ironic that Frank Schilling was on the losing side of this frankly shilling operations at Namejet? ))

LarryDomain · Jul 21, 2017

Maybe Oliver isn't HKDN. Yep just like ol Billy didn't do the nasty with Monica.

Chris Hydrick · Jul 21, 2017

Grilled said:
I'm not sure how accurate / current the reverse WHOIS shows. Definitely helps as my tired brain has been extracting data from other places...

I ran a bulk WHOIS of 104 domains apparently affiliated with the email of HKDN reverse WHOIS---

At first glimpse (according to WHOIS) I can say Oliver is associated with three right now.

DFGU .com
UBGN .com
IKHN .com

Belonged to Oliver November 2015... March 2016....
12 August 2016 WHOIS shows Marque Solutions (HKDN)
27 October 2016 WHOIS shows back to Oliver

UBGN

WHOIS
March 2016 - Oliver
August 2016 - Marque Solutions (HKDN)
October 2016 - Oliver
Current: Oliver

IKHN

WHOIS
November 2015 - Oliver
March 2016 - Oliver
August 2016 - Marque Solutions (HKDN)
October 2016 - Oliver
Current - Oliver

anantj · Jul 21, 2017

Silentptnr said:
They already announced account suspensions, so they saw something wrong.

Besides the winner8888 account, which other account was suspended? Was there an announcement?

Recons.Com · Jul 21, 2017

anantj said:
Besides the winner8888 account, which other account was suspended? Was there an announcement?

All accounts in winner8000-winner8888 range were banned.

NJ is currently investigating range winner7000 - winner 7999.

Chris Hydrick · Jul 21, 2017

A summary of @NameJetGM posts in this thread (sorry if I missed any - it's late)

Page 1

NameJetGM said:
Hi all - Thanks for the heads-up. We are currently investigating this matter. We obviously do not condone any kind of shill bidding on NameJet, so we take this very seriously. I will post an update when I have one. Thanks again.

-JT

Page 8

NameJetGM said:
As an official statement from NameJet – our policy is clear that sellers cannot bid on their own domains, period. The integrity of our platform is of utmost importance to us and we do not condone shill bidding of any kind. From an ethical standpoint, it is unfair to the other participants, and from a practical standpoint, a few extra dollars on a few sales is simply not worth the potential damage to our reputation and business. Again, our stance is clear and we take immediate action whenever we have any reason to believe that there is inappropriate activity occurring on the platform. Bottom line – we take these matters very seriously!

With that said, it is my understanding that Andy and James Booth are not the sellers or current owners of the domains at issue. Andy did own them recently, but per him (both to me privately and in this thread) the domains are no longer his to sell, and he was interested in reacquiring them at what he felt were good prices. However, the WHOIS still reflects Andy as the registrant and that has made this whole thing confusing and problematic.

And while I have no reason to dispute Andy’s claims, we will cancel the remaining auctions involving these domains. To put things in perspective, there are not many domains involved, so it is not some large coordinated campaign to improperly inflate auction values. And it looks like they won nearly all of those domains auctioned, which further speaks to their legitimate interest in them – and for anyone negatively impacted we will look to address that.

Moreover, we will take steps to further outline and clarify our rules around this over the next few weeks to help eliminate any ongoing confusion. In the meantime, we will continue to investigate and monitor this issue (as well as any others brought to our attention) to determine if any further action is necessary.

Thanks everyone and have a good evening.

-Jonathan
GM, NameJet

Page 8

NameJetGM said:
Hi all,

Sorry if I wasn't clear - they are definitely not the seller of the domains. It is 100% a different seller.

Thanks,

-Jonathan

Page 8

NameJetGM said:
Hi Brad,

First of all, thank you for your business.

And we are continuing to look at this in order to verify the facts and cancelling any ongoing auctions in the meantime to make sure no one is negatively impacted. We do not tolerate any kind of shill bidding at all, so you can rest assured that our auction processes in general are not compromised.

Thanks again,

-Jonathan

Page 14

NameJetGM said:
Silentptnr & others,

I appreciate your comments. Please note that we are continuing to investigate this matter (as I said we would), and we will take steps needed to preserve and maintain the integrity of our platform.

And while I can appreciate the debate around bidding practices, our rules are clear - we do not condone shill bidding, period.

I will provide a further update when I can and thank everyone for their attention and the constructive comments. This helps us do better.

-Jonathan

Page 22

NameJetGM said:
In an effort to keep everyone current as to where we stand on this matter, I wanted to share the following update. There have been some inaccuracies and misconceptions that have been brought forth by such a spirited discussion. And it would be a challenge to respond to all of them - therefore, I want to bring the discussion back to the heart of the matter.

As stated earlier, we take the issue of shill bidding on NameJet very seriously and we are conducting a thorough investigation, keeping in mind that the integrity of our platform is of utmost importance to us. As I have said repeatedly, we do not condone shill bidding of any kind. We would never encourage, promote or otherwise be involved in any such thing and our position is clear – it is never allowed on NameJet!

In our current investigation certain auction activity has come to light that we deem questionable and a possible violation of our terms. This kind of activity is not acceptable to us and we are taking steps to deal with it. We have suspended several accounts while working through the information we have available.

I thank everyone for their patience as we work through these issues. Our goal is to best serve our customers and we are working hard to that effect.

-Jonathan

webquest · Jul 21, 2017

Back to the original post...

I see MovieZone.com sold - $2,475 USD by boothcom

Booth.com was the owner in whois during the auction. He said it was sold. OK, it can happen that when transferred the whois didn't update to the new owners info. This does happen sometimes.

When I look at the 2nd bidder, I see Seek.

Several here have said that Seek is Oliver. I do not know. Is this confirmed?

The reason I ask is because when I click "More domains from this seller - click here" I see a list of names and when whois'd, those not in privacy, are owned by Oliver.

So was MovieZone.com listed by Oliver? Oliver, are you Seek?

I took summer time away from my kids to win some auctions. I'm not too excited to see it was a waste of time. Lets get this shit figured out.

Addison · Jul 21, 2017

jberryhill said:
Well, I don't know if it is a lawyer comment or not, but I would suggest that when the cops are raiding the local massage parlor, it's not the best time to pose the intellectual question, "Why do we have a ban on indentured servitude, anyway?"

Officially and unequivocally, you're my favorite poster. I needed that giggle to wiggle my squiggle (that's my belly; don't anyone get excited).

Gracias!

Chris Hydrick · Jul 21, 2017

webquest said:
Several here have said that Seek is Oliver. I do not know. Is this confirmed?

Confirmed.

The current unconfirmed speculation (based on available evidence) is that Oliver listed the domains for the Booths (not sure which booth is more involved). It is unknown if the booths had control of (seek) account and if the bids under (seek) for MovieZone were made by Oliver or the Booths. (Something Nj should be able to check in their logs)

NJ confirmed the domains weren't being listed by the Booth accounts. (As the domains was posted under Oliver's account)

webquest · Jul 21, 2017

A question asked here...can you lower your reserves at NJ?

Yes, you can. I have done it by email. I had names listed and after the market prices for those particular names dropped a bit I had to lower my reserves to get them sold. Oliver is not BS'ing on this. This is a non issue anyways.

I want to know why I'm bidding against the person listed in the whois and NOW, after being told it was sold, why I was bidding against the person that listed the auction.

I say, lets keep the other nonsense out of this thread and get down to this. We don't need to talk about how the marketplace can or should be. Lets talk about this issue right now.

Who owned the domain, who listed the domain, and why was I bidding against either?

anantj · Jul 21, 2017

Silentptnr said:
Also, the Next Bid Wins thing seems unfair. I think it is wrong. I understand adjusting a reserve but it should not be to "Next Bid Wins". It should be the opposite. You should be able to adjust your reserve but NOT so that the next bid wins.

How is it unfair or wrong? If you don't know what the reserve is, anytime you bid, it might breach the reserve and hence you become the winning bidder. Why is it unfair or any different from setting a reserver at 501 (so that the reserve range shows as 501-1000)

It would be unfair if reserves were allowed to be lowered under the current lead bid. That would be wrong and unfair and highly unethical. But this is not allowed on any platform that I'm aware of

This is also possible on Flippa (and a few other platforms). This is not possible on Pheenix. It depends on the platform's product design choice.

anantj · Jul 21, 2017

Oliver Hoger said:
********
Winner888:
I have a automated bidding system that would backorder ALL the domains and bid last minute to grab bargains.
Its a script works via api would bid on all CVCV up to $2500-3000 i set daily limit on the patterns i would want to buy.
On slow days i got good deals on short domains i trade in
LLLL.com / CVCV.com / LL.com / LLL.com / NNNN.com / NNNNN.com / CCC.com etc...
I won allot of domains and a few of mine so this got closed down months ago already due to this..
Im trying to fix to be able to exclude all my domains.

lol. It appears your comments are also being posted by an automated posting system. You've posted the exact same comment repeatedly in response to all questions to you

promo · Jul 21, 2017

Donny said:
Shane, I found spreader.com domain on your site and went from there. I've found almost 30 domains that HKDN owns that go to the same account that Oliver has with ParkingCrew. This can't be a mistake.

I'm sure he's moving them all to the correct account now.

Donny

Donny I sold Oliver more than 3000x 4L.COMs in under 6 months. It was actually closer to 4000. He moves maybe 10K names per year. He is the most prolific flipper I know. Let me ask you, is this your typical seller?

Might the economies of scale have an affect here?

I am sure that it can be a mistake. But I know I would never say categorically that it was not based on the data you presented.

.X. · Jul 21, 2017

The final out come of all of this is going to be very interesting i think, After the speculation, resolves into facts. The domain industry has had it's share cut throat , scamming BS , I have seen it to many times in years past, But it appears to be on much elevated level these days, Not just this threads contents, but many other threads i have found related to similar activity that has taken place in the industry the last few years in particular. I have been out of the industry for a couple of years, So i am digging through the industry corruption since i left, I hate it for the integrity of all the domainers that are honest, hard working good people, I am all ears on this thread.

#Scammers Are Scum!

Bram C. · Jul 21, 2017

Regarding lowering reserve (yes, it is allowed on many platforms as long as the reserve being lowered is still higher than the current highest bid on the domain).

There's 2 scenarios in my book:

Scenario 1:
Owner puts a domain up for sale with a reserve of $1,000 (so it shows on NJ within the $501 - $1,000 reserve range).
Some legit bidder bids up to $510 on the domain.
The owner of the domain wants to sell it but is afraid the reserve of $1K won't be met so he contacts NJ and asks for the reserve price to be reduced to $520 so the next potential bid will mean that the reserve will have been met and the domain will have been sold.
I see nothing wrong with this scenario myself as there is no shill bidding involved. It's a win-win situation for both the owner of the domain (as he's increasing the chances to sell his domain) and the potential buyer (as in this example he's basically (unknowingly) getting the domain with a $480 discount).

Scenario 2:
Owner puts a domain up for sale with a reserve of $1,000 (so it shows on NJ within the $501 - $1,000 reserve range).
Someone related to the domain owner or the domain owner himself bids up to $510 on the domain.
The owner of the domain then contacts NJ and asks for the reserve price to be reduced to $520 so the next potential bid will mean that the reserve will have been met and the domain have been sold.
This scenario is completely unethical of course (and against the TOS of almost every auction house).

Now the problem I see is : how can you implement a system where reserves can be lowered at request of the owner but without the risk of this being abused by shill bidders?

webquest · Jul 21, 2017

As for the whole, they share parking accounts thing...

I have to say that's not a point of proof the way it has been presented.

I sell domains and many buyers never change the nameservers. I still earn revenue on dozens of names due to this.

As a buyer, I often do not get around to changing nameservers either.

This thread has went off track quite a bit.

Like I said in my post above #983, let's talk about that.

webquest · Jul 21, 2017

Bram C. said:
Scenario 2:
Owner puts a domain up for sale with a reserve of $1,000 (so it shows on NJ within the $501 - $1,000 reserve range).
Someone related to the domain owner or the domain owner himself bids up to $510 on the domain.
The owner of the domain then contacts NJ and asks for the reserve price to be reduced to $520 so the next potential bid will mean that the reserve will have been met and the domain have been sold.
This scenario is completely unethical of course (and against the TOS of almost every auction house).

Yes, this is the very definition of shill bidding.

With that said, just because someone lowers their reserve, that doesn't mean it's for this reason.

If it is, then, hell yeah, a fraudulent bid has taken place.

I would think this is understood.

Wannabean · Jul 21, 2017

Donny said:
Sure, we have all had somebody not change their information for a while or DNS. But I've found over 30 cases so far. One or two, I can see. This is a few too many.

Donny

If you scale up the numbers of domains these guys own and take in to account they do a lot of business on Namejet it's not beyond the realms of possibility. There are probably around a hundred names in my parking account I no longer own and my portfolio has never been large. If i was buying and selling in very small circles 30 or so could be with 1 person now.

Would be interesting to know if it's just 1 of them who routinely doesn't bother updating name servers ot both.

Bram C. · Jul 21, 2017

webquest said:
Yes, this is the very definition of shill bidding.

With that said, just because someone lowers their reserve, that doesn't mean it's for this reason.

If it is, then, hell yeah, a fraudulent bid has taken place.

I would think this is understood.

I'm sure it was understood. My point was to try to find a system where you can lower your reserve but that has build-in protection from shill bidding at the same time.

domainscot · Jul 21, 2017

#Bidding on your own #domains #Auction Personally would not do it as #Ethics. Think if you did do it tells you a lot about the #persons do.

webquest · Jul 21, 2017

I hear ya Bram.

I just want to focus on my op and my post above #983.

Silentptnr · Jul 21, 2017

There is clearly room for NJ to improve its backend, and to increase its efforts to enforce its tos.

Also, informing users of how easy it is to fax or email reserve changes to next bid wins sounds much better than NJ suggesting low or no reserve. Seems adjusting reserves is better based on whats some pros there are doing.

LarryDomain · Jul 21, 2017

I don't think it's realistic to detect all SHill bidders and no one here believes it'll ever stop. What the community is upset at is that the data presented by Michael from Namebio and a few other folks have shown that the shill bidding was so blatantly obvious if you choose to open your eyes. Especially when NameJet claims to disallow this. Namejet also claims to have checks and balance to prevent shill bidding.
You'd think a system like that would recognize a pattern in that the same few bidders are so frequently ending up being the bidder that is the final bid before reserve is hit. That's the gist of what the community is so confused at.

If we can't trust Whois info, we have to ask the Bidding platforms like NameJet, Snapnames, Godaddy, etc.

What exactly do they use to prevent shills from bidding on their own domains????

Someone from NameJet hop on and answer that question.

Bram C. said:
Regarding lowering reserve (yes, it is allowed on many platforms as long as the reserve being lowered is still higher than the current highest bid on the domain).

There's 2 scenarios in my book:

Scenario 1:
Owner puts a domain up for sale with a reserve of $1,000 (so it shows on NJ within the $501 - $1,000 reserve range).
Some legit bidder bids up to $510 on the domain.
The owner of the domain wants to sell it but is afraid the reserve of $1K won't be met so he contacts NJ and asks for the reserve price to be reduced to $520 so the next potential bid will mean that the reserve will have been met and the domain will have been sold.
I see nothing wrong with this scenario myself as there is no shill bidding involved. It's a win-win situation for both the owner of the domain (as he's increasing the chances to sell his domain) and the potential buyer (as in this example he's basically (unknowingly) getting the domain with a $480 discount).

Scenario 2:
Owner puts a domain up for sale with a reserve of $1,000 (so it shows on NJ within the $501 - $1,000 reserve range).
Someone related to the domain owner or the domain owner himself bids up to $510 on the domain.
The owner of the domain then contacts NJ and asks for the reserve price to be reduced to $520 so the next potential bid will mean that the reserve will have been met and the domain have been sold.
This scenario is completely unethical of course (and against the TOS of almost every auction house).

Now the problem I see is : how can you implement a system where reserves can be lowered at request of the owner but without the risk of this being abused by shill bidders?

Bram C. · Jul 21, 2017

Francois just said this about Oliver on
https://www.thedomains.com/2017/07/20/oliver-hoger-posts-side-namepros/

Many have at a moment lent a hand to a friend placing a bid or sending a domain to auction, so he probably did it himself few times but I do not see him involved in a recurrent bid shilling game. I never felt dealing with him the guy who places the love of the gain over ethic, so I hope he could prove his honesty.

lol so if it's not recurrent it's acceptable? What am I missing with that statement?

Bidding on your own names at NameJet...?

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