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Bidding on your own names at NameJet...?

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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
 
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There was a misunderstanding in terms of the status of this small handful of domains. I had thought they were already sold (we had discussed a trade value, me and Oliver do this kind of thing all the time), that once again they were free game at auction, but it later became apparent that wasn't the case. Oliver's intentions with the domains were only to list them on my behalf. Obviously when that came to light, I knew I had screwed up.

Originally the plan was for Oliver to list some names for me. Simple as that. We had a conversation that maybe he would take the chance of selling the handful of domains himself, and give me a trade value against one of his names in advance.

If that WAS the original plan, why did you bid on your own names hoping to get them at a lower price? That does not make sense. You are contradicting your own statement where you said that you thought they were already sold and then you say that the original plan for for Oliver to list them for you. It can be one or the other, not both.
 
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HKDN participated in 7142 public auctions of which 5194 were Oliver's, so 73% of his public auction activity. He won 425 public auctions of which 379 were Oliver's, so 89% of his wins. He spent $189,421 of which $177,404 went to Oliver, so 94% in terms of dollar volume. He was the runner up in 2560 public auctions of which 2260 were Oliver's, so 88% of the time he was a runner up. Oliver may have more auction pages I'm not aware of or were shut down so the results could be even higher.

This mysterious "large buyer" seems very into Oliver's auctions. In theory if this alias is Oliver, he would have paid out $17,704 in commissions to NJ on accidental wins but pushed up bids more than $800k for other winners, so that would be a hell of a return. With all I said above, several of HKDN's wins going back to Oliver after being briefly in the WHOIS as Marque, the parking stuff Donny found, the WHOIS for HKDN being completely fake, etc. I find it really hard to believe this is a legitimate buyer. All of this is, of course, circumstantial though.

Again, my last post about winner8888 which Oliver confirms is his but says it is a bot, had incorrect stats. Some people missed my correction post or misunderstood me so I want to clarify. It actually participated in 85% of auctions across all the targeted inventory and 84% across Oliver's inventory, so it didn't seem to favor his own auctions at all in terms of back orders. So that doesn't contradict his claims.

That said, the alias was twice as likely to win an auction that wasn't Oliver's, almost 3x as likely to be a runner up in auctions that weren't Oliver's, and paid more than 6x in dollar volume on wins that weren't Oliver's. Wouldn't it stand to reason that if it was an unbiased bot, that the percentage of wins, runner-ups, and amount spent should be pretty proportional to Oliver's auctions versus other people's auctions?

To me this pattern feels like a human legitimately bidding in other people's auctions, but then also using the account to goose his own. Maybe it is a half-truth, the "bot" part of it is placing back orders, and then he manually bids. I find it hard to believe the bot was sophisticated enough to jump in and actually place real money, live bids but was not sophisticated enough to avoid his own auctions.

And again, even if it was a bot it is still his responsibility to make sure it doesn't violate TOS and bid on his own auctions. The winners of these auctions that fought winner8888 need to be made whole, either by NameJet or Oliver, to the tune of nearly $20k.

And the fact remains that Oliver bid in 148 of his own auctions as seek. He claimed to be reviewing his auctions daily to send reserve price drops to NameJet (seems true), so I find it hard to believe he didn't recognize his own names just hours later when he was bidding. But again, even if it was an honest mistake those bidders need to be made whole who fought seek and won in his own auctions, to the tune of more than $3.5k.

If Oliver is HKDN then I don't think either NJ or Oliver can afford to make that right, it is more than $800k in refunds using a conservative method.

Regarding the Booth auctions, I haven't posted anything because I couldn't find anything really damning. Boothcom bid in four of Oliver's auctions and won one of them, and BQDNcom bid in 13 of Oliver's auctions and won 4. I believe only a couple were owned by Andy, so this seemed more likely to be an honest mistake than a shill bidding scheme.

But what @tld_org said is spot on, if Andy thought these were Oliver's why wasn't he clued in when he saw Oliver bidding to win? Andy claims he thought Oliver wasn't paying close enough attention, but he didn't think it was a serious enough problem to call/text/email him and let his close friend know he was accidentally shill bidding? Maybe he knew of Oliver's activities all along?
 
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HKDN participated in 7142 public auctions of which 5194 were Oliver's, so 73% of his public auction activity. He won 425 public auctions of which 379 were Oliver's, so 89% of his wins. He spent $189,421 of which $177,404 went to Oliver, so 94% in terms of dollar volume. He was the runner up in 2560 public auctions of which 2260 were Oliver's, so 88% of the time he was a runner up. Oliver may have more auction pages I'm not aware of or were shut down so the results could be even higher.

This mysterious "large buyer" seems very into Oliver's auctions. In theory if this alias is Oliver, he would have paid out $17,704 in commissions to NJ on accidental wins but pushed up bids more than $800k for other winners, so that would be a hell of a return. With all I said above, several of HKDN's wins going back to Oliver after being briefly in the WHOIS as Marque, the parking stuff Donny found, the WHOIS for HKDN being completely fake, etc. I find it really hard to believe this is a legitimate buyer. All of this is, of course, circumstantial though.

Again, my last post about winner8888 which Oliver confirms is his but says it is a bot, had incorrect stats. Some people missed my correction post or misunderstood me so I want to clarify. It actually participated in 85% of auctions across all the targeted inventory and 84% across Oliver's inventory, so it didn't seem to favor his own auctions at all in terms of back orders. So that doesn't contradict his claims.

That said, the alias was twice as likely to win an auction that wasn't Oliver's, almost 3x as likely to be a runner up in auctions that weren't Oliver's, and paid more than 6x in dollar volume on wins that weren't Oliver's. Wouldn't it stand to reason that if it was an unbiased bot, that the percentage of wins, runner-ups, and amount spent should be pretty proportional to Oliver's auctions versus other people's auctions?

To me this pattern feels like a human legitimately bidding in other people's auctions, but then also using the account to goose his own. Maybe it is a half-truth, the "bot" part of it is placing back orders, and then he manually bids. I find it hard to believe the bot was sophisticated enough to jump in and actually place real money, live bids but was not sophisticated enough to avoid his own auctions.

And again, even if it was a bot it is still his responsibility to make sure it doesn't violate TOS and bid on his own auctions. The winners of these auctions that fought winner8888 need to be made whole, either by NameJet or Oliver, to the tune of nearly $20k.

And the fact remains that Oliver bid in 148 of his own auctions as seek. He claimed to be reviewing his auctions daily to send reserve price drops to NameJet (seems true), so I find it hard to believe he didn't recognize his own names just hours later when he was bidding. But again, even if it was an honest mistake those bidders need to be made whole who fought seek and won in his own auctions, to the tune of more than $3.5k.

If Oliver is HKDN then I don't think either NJ or Oliver can afford to make that right, it is more than $800k in refunds using a conservative method.

Regarding the Booth auctions, I haven't posted anything because I couldn't find anything really damning. Boothcom bid in four of Oliver's auctions and won one of them, and BQDNcom bid in 13 of Oliver's auctions and won 4. I believe only a couple were owned by Andy, so this seemed more likely to be an honest mistake than a shill bidding scheme.

But what @tld_org said is spot on, if Andy thought these were Oliver's why wasn't he clued in when he saw Oliver bidding to win? Andy claims he thought Oliver wasn't paying close enough attention, but he didn't think it was a serious enough problem to call/text/email him and let his close friend know he was accidentally shill bidding? Maybe he knew of Oliver's activities all along?
Great analysis.
 
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I guess everyone got to talk, and try to get their stories straight, but things still don't add up.

Why are these people still allowed to bid at namejet, Why has namejet failed to protect their clients from accidental, or coincidental fraud? Namejet seems very liable at this point.
 
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This is called an API. Almost every site in the world will give you one if they approve you. All larger businesses use them to automate actions. If you conduct a large business and work with websites it almost impossible to work without having access to their API.
Think most have heard of an API. As far as certain players in domain auction space using API w/out blocking out own auctions.
Absolutely. Having an API means you can remove your auctions if you want. Or not if you don't want
Having an API also means if you wan
 
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In view of Michael's research into the HKDN account, here is Oliver Hoger's own clarification about the ownership and legitimacy of this bid handle:
OHHKDN.png
 
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To any of the people that admitted to bidding on their own names:

(1) Did you do anything to retract these bids once you made these bidding mistakes?
(2) Did you inform NameJet of this accident?
(3) If you informed NameJet than what was the response?
(4) If you did it multiple times, accidentally, than why did you not alert NameJet of this flaw in their bidding system?
(5) Back to (3) what was their response?

This domain community deserves integrity and answers.

Thanks in advance If you can answer any of these questions.
 
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For those who are found guilty whether it's Oliver, Booth brother's etc, and you continue to defend them, promote them, broker for them, do deals with them, you are guilty by association as well.

Its great to see Namepros community step up here. Michael, Donny, and other's doing great research.

Yes exactly my point. Instead of condemning the practice, someone like mediaoptions / Rosener steps up and defends the practice "in theory." And then someone like xn--v4h.com steps up and defends the advocation of the theory!

There are two camps here. Those who believe this shill bidding (including bidding by owner or owner's friends/associates) is right. And those who believe it is wrong.
 
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If Oliver is HKDN then I don't think either NJ or Oliver can afford to make that right, it is more than $800k in refunds using a conservative method.

How did you calculate this?
 
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Yes exactly my point. Instead of condemning the practice, someone like mediaoptions / Rosener steps up and defends the practice "in theory." And then someone like xn--v4h.com steps up and defends the advocation of the theory!

There are two camps here. Those who believe this shill bidding (including bidding by owner or owner's friends/associates) is right. And those who believe it is wrong.
No. The two camps are those who can understand two different concepts at the same time, and those who can't.
 
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This industry is full of scumbags smh
 
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In view of Michael's research into the HKDN account, here is Oliver Hoger's own clarification about the ownership and legitimacy of this bid handle:
Show attachment 64825
Is it possible HKDN is a high-volume buyer interested in what Oliver has to offer and enjoyed doing business with him? @Michael
 
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Is it possible HKDN is a high-volume buyer interested in what Oliver has to offer and enjoyed doing business with him? @Michael

And don't forget they shared parking accounts.

Donny
 
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When users of the NJ auction platform have a "plan", are selling someone elses domains, bidding on them which gives the appearance that they are bidding there own names, setting Next bid wins after a mysterious HKDN bids high...all of this should be violations...just all seems like bad business for innocent people that are unaware of all of this going on in the background. All seems sloppy and questionable.
 
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Yes exactly my point. Instead of condemning the practice, someone like mediaoptions / Rosener steps up and defends the practice "in theory." And then someone like xn--v4h.com steps up and defends the advocation of the theory!

There are two camps here. Those who believe this shill bidding (including bidding by owner or owner's friends/associates) is right. And those who believe it is wrong.

The discrepancy is clear.... risk $17k to gain $800k (at the expense of the unknowing public). Would love to hear MediaOptions on how that is fair for anyone in his 'free market' theory.

I don't think NJ is going to do the right thing, this needs to go to David Brown at Web.com.
If NJ was interested in doing the right thing then a domain listed by Seek would not be able to be bid on by Seek but we see in the Moviezone.com case that NJ does nothing and allows this to happen.
 
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Why are these people still allowed to bid at namejet, Why has namejet failed to protect their clients from accidental, or coincidental fraud? Namejet seems very liable at this point.
TLDpros “had 4 or 5 people in their office bidding on names. Then canceled some of the bids and left users and tracking accounts as the new high bidders and stuck with the names.” NameJet gave them another chance and the NameJet.com homepage header right now is a TLDpros promotion.

Oliver Hoger’s winner8888 bid handle was suspended earlier this year after NameJet thought it “may be associated with Oliver Hoger”, and he was bidding up his own auctions for his own names with it. He has openly admitted here that this bidding account belonged to him. NameJet let him continue selling names even though he used another bid handle to bid on his own auctions. He's also been bidding on his own auctions with his main bid handle (seek). It's possible that HKDN belongs to Oliver as well.

NameJet is probably going to issue a series of stern warnings and second chances for those who have bid on their own auctions or participated in other forms of shilling and unnatural bidding.
 
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Is it possible HKDN is a high-volume buyer interested in what Oliver has to offer and enjoyed doing business with him? @Michael
Yes, it is certainly possible given that Oliver almost exclusively sells short domains, so a buyer interested in short domains would be in a high percentage of Oliver's public auctions relative to other sellers' public auctions. That said, there were some other big sellers of short domains, including Media Options and others.

Oliver's public auctions of 4L.com, 3L.net, 5N.com, or 3C.com totaled 6,908. There were 13,053 in these categories where the seller was not one of Oliver's five known featured auction pages. So that means Oliver probably represented about 53% of NJ's public auction inventory in these categories, but Oliver's auctions represented 94% of HKDN's overall public auction spend. That doesn't seem right to me.
 
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It continues to amaze me that some of you guys would throw people under the bus so easily.

It is wrong to lump people into one group when each situation might be different.

It is wrong to accuse someone of wrongdoing without clear evidence.

It is wrong to jeopardize people's livelihoods when there is no solid proof. They need to put food on the table for their families, too.

In summary, are you treating people like how you want to be treated? What goes around comes around, so it might be you in the future if we all decide to continue to play this ridiculous game. Does it really do any harm to exercise some prudence? If there is a problem, it can't be solved overnight anyway.
 
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TLDpros “had 4 or 5 people in their office bidding on names. Then canceled some of the bids and left users and tracking accounts as the new high bidders and stuck with the names.” NameJet gave them another chance and the NameJet.com homepage header right now is a TLDpros promotion.

Oliver Hoger’s winner8888 bid handle was suspended earlier this year after NameJet thought it “may be associated with Oliver Hoger”, and he was bidding up his own auctions for his own names with it. He has openly admitted here that this bidding account belonged to him. NameJet let him continue selling names even though he used another bid handle to bid on his own auctions. He's also been bidding on his own auctions with his main bid handle (seek). It's possible that HKDN belongs to Oliver as well.

NameJet is probably going to issue a series of stern warnings and second chances for those who have bid on their own auctions or participated in other forms of shilling and unnatural bidding.
I bought a few of those tldpros auctions at namejet, now I have to go review them also, to cross reference the user names to make sure I wasn't shilled.

Thanks Namejet

Jonathan you need to be fired, no trust!
 
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Yes, it is certainly possible given that Oliver almost exclusively sells short domains, so a buyer interested in short domains would be in a high percentage of Oliver's public auctions relative to other sellers' public auctions. That said, there were some other big sellers of short domains, including Media Options and others.

Oliver's public auctions of 4L.com, 3L.net, 5N.com, or 3C.com totaled 6,908. There were 13,053 in these categories where the seller was not one of Oliver's five known featured auction pages. So that means Oliver probably represented about 53% of NJ's public auction inventory in these categories, but Oliver's auctions represented 94% of HKDN's overall public auction spend. That doesn't seem right to me.
Not sure if you believe in the 80-20 rule but I would say I buy 80% of my domain from 20% of the sellers. Often I feel it's more like 95-5, especially when it comes to the niche domains I buy. Now I'm not sure if that's the situation with Oliver because I don't know him but it seems possible. Thank you for your answers.
 
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Guys, take a minute to relax. Don't fall for this trap set up by these villains.

"If you cannot convince them, confuse them." Truman was right, it works. It's pretty obvious that this is what they're trying to do.
 
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What is NJ doing about this? Kind of ridiculous. The admissions openly made here should be more than enough to take action with these individuals.
 
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Yes exactly my point. Instead of condemning the practice, someone like mediaoptions / Rosener steps up and defends the practice "in theory." And then someone like xn--v4h.com steps up and defends the advocation of the theory!

There are two camps here. Those who believe this shill bidding (including bidding by owner or owner's friends/associates) is right. And those who believe it is wrong.
The only ones supporting it, are the ones who profit from it.

Otherwise it has no place, in a domain auction format.
 
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