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More Fraudulent Bidding Activity at DropCatch.com

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Arca

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DropCatch.com just can't get rid of fraudulent bidding activity on their platform. Fraudulent bidders bid up prices, don’t pay when they win, and then the names are re-auctioned again and again until a legit bidder wins.

It is a win-win system for DropCatch. If the fraudulent bidders bid up a legit bidder, DC cash out even more thanks to the fraudulent bidder driving up the price beyond where it would have gone with only legit bidders. If the fraudulent bidder wins, they simply hold and re-auction the name over and over until they get a legit bidder that pays. It's a problematic system for regular bidders, because before these fraudulent bid handles get suspended, they bid up legit bidders in various auctions.

DropCatch's system enables them to get paid for names even with so many fraudulent non-paying bidders on their platform. But even with this auction restarting system in place, there are simply so many fraudulent bidders that they sometimes struggle to find a legit winner, despite multipe re-auctions. Take CannaMarket.com. The domain has already been won by THREE DIFFERENT fraudulent bidders. The first winner, in the original auction, was fraudulent. The name was re-auctioned. The second winner was fraudulent. The name was re-auctioned. The third winner was fraudulent (he bid the name up to $4K). When a name can score a triple fraudulent bidder combo streak on their platform, with no legit winner in sight, it’s clear that there is something wrong with how their system works. They are currently holding cannamarket.com in a dropcatch.com holding account, and I wonder whether they will try to re-auction the name a fourth time, or just let it drop since this is obviously a bad look for them when three out of three attempts of auctioning off the name ended up with fraudulent bidding activity (and who is going to be brave enough to bid against all the fraudulent bidders in a fourth auction? This name is apparently a fraud magnet).

Then there was this auction for lumeo.com recently (it was bid up to $14K by a bidder that most likely is fraudulent, and the winner has not yet paid, and the payment deadline passed a few days ago). How long until this name gets re-auctioned due to fraudulent bidding activity?

I often get emails from dropcatch saying "due to complications involving potentially fraudulent activity, the following auctions you had participated in are being restarted". A quick search shows an inbox full of emails notifying me of fraudulent bidding activity and auctions being restarted:
M.png


I just received another one today. It contained another SEVEN auction names that closed recently with fraudulent bidding activity:

cybercorp.com - Sold for $1251
sefin.com - Sold for $665
devlog.com - Sold for $343
thermair.com - Sold for $457
simplypretty.com - Sold for $515
finte.com - Sold for $350
kinovo.com - Sold for $330

All these auctions involved fraudulent bidding, and have now been restarted (you can go to dropcatch.com and bid on them right now). A quick visit to the dropcatch.com website shows a other restarted auctions as well, such as for evinite.com (sold for $142) and acercloud.com (sold for $370). Will legit bidders win these restarted auctions this time around?

DropCatch.com is very much like a game of hot potato, where fraudulent bidders bid up auctions and don't pay when they come out winning. There is a significant amount of auctions being restarted due to winners not paying up, when compared with other expired domains auctions platforms. The result is that legit bidders have to pay, literally, for the presence of so many fraudulent bidders on this platform that bid up the prices for legit bidders. Just an advice for everyone to be aware of this issue when participating in auctions at dropcatch.com.
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
The auctions for these domains have been restarted due to fraudulent bidding activity on November 5:

unilogistics.com sold for $2,950
iside.com
sold for $518
elizabethrichardson.com
sold for $244
No wonder they taking so long to figure out this by now, since you started this thread on Oct 28th, and support was telling us, everything was fine, and dandy back in those days. Fast forward, and they still can't control the deadbeats, and front sellers.

Easy fix, unauthorized accounts cap at $500, but then less money for the house :( BUT hey at least your loyal customers aren't getting ripped off as bad anymore :), what a dilemma :xf.eek:.


#StillWaiting
 
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I don't know if it was like this before, but it looks like DropCatch is requiring accounts to get verified to bid above $60.
 
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Show attachment 73116

I don't know if it was like this before, but it looks like DropCatch is requiring accounts to get verified to bid above $60.

That looks like the mobile version that has always been there, for anything over a backorder.
 
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MicroSD.com sold for $8,251 on Nov 4 @ dropcatch.

The winner did not pay and the auction has been restarted.

Did anyone catch the winning and second highest bidders for this one?
Looks like it sold at a 50% haircut today $4,050 was where I last saw it.

Looks like PowerOfArt.com finally got paid by HK buyer a full 2 weeks after it closed, about 10 days after payment should have been received according to TOS, or maybe it got reauctioned, I don't know, as I tend not to use Dropcatch anymore.

Another week has gone by, another week users who have been defrauded by improper bidders such as WittyNut etc.. that were allowed to run wild, and bid up honest users, and nothing still has been done a week after the promised action date.

Good to see this is a priority!
 
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First of all, I want to thank you all for your feedback and criticism. We are truly dedicated to making our platform a great place to do business, and we are definitely not interested in “turning the other cheek” to fraudulent activity, as has been suggested. We recognize the more fair and transparent we can make the platform, the better it will be for our long-term users, regular customers, and therefore DropCatch as well. We appreciate the constructive criticism and suggestions of how to improve the fairness and usability of our platform.

One issue we’ve noticed is that when we re-start an auction because the winning bidder failed to pay, the message that goes out to other auction participants is poorly worded. We say “Due to complications involving potentially fraudulent activity, the following auctions have been restarted…” All it means is that the winning bidder failed to pay for the auction in the required period of time, and that bidder may have been doing business with us for years or might have joined DropCatch right before the auction. The bidders are not necessarily “fraudulent” in that they are falsifying their identity or operating duplicate accounts, nor even trying to defraud the system. These users simply did not pay by the deadline. In many situations this was due to international wires, due to credit cards being declined, due to credit card splits, due to holidays, due to an abundance of other payment issues. But not actually “fraud.”

We now realize our system is partly at fault for most of the re-auctions. Most significantly, we did not require users to have a valid credit card on file prior to bidding. Thus, it was up to the auction winner to take their time and return to DropCatch and complete payment. Many legitimate accounts have been suspended for this very reason.

We stand by our practice of re-auctioning domains. As @Michael points out, when there are one or more non-paying bidders in the auction, it is the only fair way to ensure the domain gets sold for a fair price. For instance, it could be argued that a non-payer may have caused more than one legitimate bidder to bid higher than they would have done, so simply offering the auction to the second place bidder would end up costing legitimate bidders more money. It can also open the door to other scams where multiple fraudulent bidders try to "scare off" legitimate buyers by bidding a domain up very high and then end up taking it for only $59 because nobody else participated.

In the event of non-payment from the winning bidder, we believe re-auctioning the domain continues to be the best policy, as it is more transparent and removes all questionable bids. It is simply best to start a brand new auction.

We are currently implementing tighter controls to keep fraudulent users out of our system and to prevent old fraudulent users from creating new accounts. This morning we rolled out a credit card verification process for all new users. Next week this verification will be expanded to all existing users who do not have a credit card on file. We also recently added in a mobile SMS/voice verification for your phone number. In the coming weeks, we are going to roll out additional security measures, including a back-end reputation based scoring system as well as better verification processes. We are confident our efforts will significantly cut down on the number of re-auctions as has been seen on the platform recently.

With regards to the display of the original auctions (in the case of a re-auction) – it has been brought to our attention we are not being fully transparent. We agree. Thus, going forward we will make all auction history available to all participants of that auction. The original design excluded the former bid history for technical reasons. We hope to have this live within a week. Thus, if you bid in an auction and it is re-auctioned, you will see the original auction data.

This thread also has bought up one more item. If a user wins an auction, does not pay, and is then suspended, they may have also bid in other recent auctions and not have won those auctions. They may have "bid up" those other auctions and arguably caused the legitimate winner to pay more than they would have. We are identifying all of our prior auctions where this “collateral damage” occurred and determining a fair correction for the legitimate winners of those auctions. In total, we have currently identified 280 auctions where this occurred and we will have another update by next Tuesday with a proposed resolution for all affected users. Going forward, hopefully tighter controls will prevent this from occurring very often, but when it does occur, we will figure out a method to make right on any auction that went for a higher amount due to a non-paying user.

Our goal is to create the most fair and transparent domain name auction platform! Transparency always wins and we are fully committed to your success.

Thank you for giving us time to fully research, investigate and respond. We will have more details next week.
 
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First of all, I want to thank you all for your feedback and criticism. We are truly dedicated to making our platform a great place to do business, and we are definitely not interested in “turning the other cheek” to fraudulent activity, as has been suggested. We recognize the more fair and transparent we can make the platform, the better it will be for our long-term users, regular customers, and therefore DropCatch as well. We appreciate the constructive criticism and suggestions of how to improve the fairness and usability of our platform.
@Jeff Reberry - Thank you for keeping NamePros informed. Constructively, I have a few questions, comments, and suggestions.
One issue we’ve noticed is that when we re-start an auction because the winning bidder failed to pay, the message that goes out to other auction participants is poorly worded. We say “Due to complications involving potentially fraudulent activity, the following auctions have been restarted…” All it means is that the winning bidder failed to pay for the auction in the required period of time, and that bidder may have been doing business with us for years or might have joined DropCatch right before the auction. The bidders are not necessarily “fraudulent” in that they are falsifying their identity or operating duplicate accounts, nor even trying to defraud the system. These users simply did not pay by the deadline. In many situations this was due to international wires, due to credit cards being declined, due to credit card splits, due to holidays, due to an abundance of other payment issues. But not actually “fraud.”
I see your position, and understand why you feel it might have been poorly worded. Though, some could argue that if it wasn't for the wording in the first place, your customers wouldn't have been alerted to WittyNut and/or other instances of possible fraud.

On August 10th, 2017 @Arca wrote
DropCatch.com is troubled by lots of "potentially fraudulent activity", or bidders bidding up auctions and not paying, where auctions have to be re-run as a result.

I get emails from dropcatch all the time saying "due to complications involving potentially fraudulent activity, the following auctions you had participated in are being restarted".

The cannamarket.com auction has already ended three times (!), and been restarted two times, because the first two winners didn't pay up. However, the last time the auction ended, for the third time, is 5 days ago, and the name has still not been paid for, so I wouldn't be surprised if they have to restart the auction once more, and run it a fourth time... The win is certainly past the auction payment deadline, and the name has still not changed WHOIS to reflect the winner, which happens immediately upon payment. So there has been at least two "fraudulent activity" non-payment wins for the name, and it's looking like the third win is not going through either. Will they really run the auction a fourth time if the third winner turns out to be a fraudulent bidder too? This kind of scenario is playing out over and over at DropCatch.

DropCatch.com is just like a game of hot potato where bidders bid up a auctions and don't pay. There is just an unbelievable amount of auctions being restarted due to winners not paying up, and I have not seen this king of thing on any other pre-release or dropcatching platform. DropCatch is clearly not taking serious enough measures to vet their bidders, or not doing enough when they catch people engaging in fraudulent bidding. The amount of auctions that have to be re-run due to fraudulent bidding is just unbelievable. Who knows how many times these "fraudulent bidders" have driven up prices for legit bidders that pay up? There are simply far more re-auctions on dropcatch than on any other platform.

@DropCatch Support has ignored and avoided questions about this and other "challenging" dropcatch.com issues in the past, and there is no transparency about what they do when they discover fraudulent bidding. A fraudulent bidder may have driven up the price in a number of different auctions before getting discovered/banned, and it seem they do not address this retrospectively in any way. They just re-run auctions until they finally get a winner that pays up. Considering how many auctions have to be re-run, I don't know if they even ban these bidders, and if they do, they make it back onto the platform anyway, because there are endless re-auctions due to fraudulent bidding activity. I feel less "safe" bidding on DropCatch than I do on any other domain auction platform, because they are having so many issues with fraudulent bidding activity.

If dropcatch is not able to stop fraudulent bidders from winning in their auctions over and over again for dropcaught in-house names, how are they going to be able to stop coordinated shill bidding where private sellers can directly benefit from engaging in shill bidding? As long as they are having major issues weeding out fraudulent bidding activity on expired domains auctions, I think there is a high risk that they are not going to be able to stop shill bidding and coordinated unnatural bidding activity that aims to drive up the price in private seller auctions. Some of the shill bidders that got banned from NameJet are probably going to be selling at DropCatch instead now. I hope DropCatch has taken and will take adequate steps so that they don't end up facilitating another shill bidding scandal.

@Jeff Reberry - With that said, can you confirm or deny if there was potentially fraudulent activity in regards to the CannaMarket.com auction? Or with regards to bidder WittyNut?

In respect to poorly worded content, and bidder WittyNut, [in the dropcatch private auction thread HERE] @Arca had voiced concern over DropCatch's ability to stop coordinated shill bidding where private sellers can directly benefit from shill bidding.

Poorly worded content: Why does the current landing page say the domain expired / dropped on 2017-08-09? Weed.cc was sold via dropcatch private seller auction. WHOIS creation date: August 22nd, 2010. Based on the current landing page, anybody who goes to and/or has went to weed.cc may mistakenly assume weed.cc was caught with dropcatch. upload_2017-11-20_17-43-46.png

WittyNut: WittyNut had bid on Weed.cc. upload_2017-11-20_17-56-44.png

Private Seller: I don't know if WittyNut bid on any other private seller auctions. But for those who don't know, Weed.cc was a beta auction by @Domain Shane. Shane comments on his beta seller experience below.
When selling you will put in your auth code and give NameBright permission to transfer. As soon as your name meets reserve, or gets a bid at no reserve, the name will transfer. You obviously need to make sure that lock is off. If you put up an auction and it is not eligible for transfer it will tell you right then that you can put it up. The auth code assures them it will transfer and if can't be moved it can't be auctioned.

When will it open up? I'm not sure. We're doing beta and giving them feedback on things that are good and bad. Mostly good so far. You will like the system. Of course, bad names will still be bad names, even with an easy to use platform. But for good names, I think you'll be able to get some great prices out of NameBright.

Namejet and Godaddy are great too but its nice to have another strong auction platform at our avail
@Jeff Reberry - Can you comment on the weed.cc auction?
We stand by our practice of re-auctioning domains. As @Michael points out, when there are one or more non-paying bidders in the auction, it is the only fair way to ensure the domain gets sold for a fair price. For instance, it could be argued that a non-payer may have caused more than one legitimate bidder to bid higher than they would have done, so simply offering the auction to the second place bidder would end up costing legitimate bidders more money. It can also open the door to other scams where multiple fraudulent bidders try to "scare off" legitimate buyers by bidding a domain up very high and then end up taking it for only $59 because nobody else participated.
If you stand by your practice of re-auctioning domains, then what's going on with Weed.cc? Did you re-auction it yet? If not, do you plan on re-auctioning it? Will it be listed for sale HugeDomains.com? Or will it serve as a landing page to notify people the domain expired / was caught with DropCatch?

In NamePros first AMA, Shane answers a question regarding weed.cc HERE
Was waiting for someone to ask this question. Weed.cc sold at auction. Guy didn't pay. They asked if I would like to reauction the name. I got what I thought was a terrible price for my numeric so I was already disappointed with my results then this. I wasn't exactly thrilled. Non pays have been an issue but this was the first time for a private seller to have it happen since I was a beta tester. We agreed NameBright would buy the name for the price I sold it at auction since it was a test. I can't make a fair assessment of the platform based on two sales but I won't be listing anything else until the search is better. Hard to find names unless they have top bids on them. I will say the Reberry brothers are good guys and enjoy talking business and working with them. Tackling a private auction system is a lot of work

If I read Shane's response correctly, DropCatch requested to re-auction Weed.cc, Shane opted to sell NameBright the domain for the price it sold at auction since it was only a test. Shane goes on to explain that it's hard to find names unless they have top bids on them. Though apparently, as evident by WittyNut bidding $520, Weed.cc had received a fair amount of interest, and PR. With 10 days left on the auction, Weed.cc had 8 bidders (including WittyNut) and 25 total bids. @Jeff Reberry - I don't know why you decided to buy Weed.cc at the price a nonpaying bidder was willing to pay? There are several trickle effects to this, besides the obvious precedent this example shows [that DropCatch will purchase a domain that was won by a nonpaying bidder] your purchase also assigns value to .cc domains, including weed.cc. Last night, Tourism.cc sold for $5 + renewal at Namesilo. I didn't feel that domain was worth $50 + renewal a few days prior, thus I don't understand why WittyNut would bid weed.cc. In October of 2015, Shane discussed the acquisition of Weed.cc on DomainSherpa HERE In that episode, Mr. Rosener (jokingly?) offers Shane $5,000 for it on the air and Monte Cahn (jokingly?) offers $5,001 citing he'd buy it to sell it to Mr. Rosener (who owns Marijuana.cc). I thought that was a ridiculous price for a .cc. Anyways, according to NameBio, Shane purchased Weed.cc for $1,283 via GoDaddy auction. As a newer investor, I still don't understand why a .cc domain such as weed.cc would be worth $X,XXX. Especially on the reseller level. Maybe DropCatch has .cc insight to justify the price tag?

In the event of non-payment from the winning bidder, we believe re-auctioning the domain continues to be the best policy, as it is more transparent and removes all questionable bids. It is simply best to start a brand new auction.

Agreed. Hence why I am confused to the weed.cc purchase. Without speculating too much, did NameBright buy it because Shane was unwilling to re-auction it, and DropCatch felt it needed to purchase the domain so they could re-auction it?

Shane had mentioned that he had gotten what he believed to be a terrible price for his numeric prior to citing he wasn't exactly thrilled about his beta seller experience at DropCatch. Shane had wrote that he got crushed selling 888733.com at a big loss (though he knew it was coming). Not sure if the is the numeric he was referring to but...

upload_2017-11-20_20-51-54.png

Personally, I don't think DropCatch did a bad job selling 888733.com for $1,202.
upload_2017-11-20_20-55-21.png


But, I also think purchasing it for $4,000 was a horrible decision. 888733.com reported sales.
upload_2017-11-20_20-58-59.png


Ironically, 888733.com was also discussed on DomainSherpa HERE
Cyger: How much did shane pay for 888733.com?

Mr. Rosener: $700

Ammar : I wouldn't pay more than a couple hundred. I wouldn even pay that but I don't know anything about this stuff.

Shane: I paid $4,000.

Mr. Cyger: **searches NameBin.com starts with 888 > NNNNNN.com *** "...888527.com" $10,099

Then they talk about the next highest bidder also thinking the name had value, so somebody else also believes it has a similar value.
These domains were marketed multiple times on NamePros, and even in DropCatch's blog. It's not like DropCatch didn't try and do their part to market these (IMO) sub par domains.
upload_2017-11-20_21-7-56.png upload_2017-11-20_21-8-37.png upload_2017-11-20_21-9-7.png

We are currently implementing tighter controls to keep fraudulent users out of our system and to prevent old fraudulent users from creating new accounts. This morning we rolled out a credit card verification process for all new users. Next week this verification will be expanded to all existing users who do not have a credit card on file. We also recently added in a mobile SMS/voice verification for your phone number. In the coming weeks, we are going to roll out additional security measures, including a back-end reputation based scoring system as well as better verification processes. We are confident our efforts will significantly cut down on the number of re-auctions as has been seen on the platform recently.

With regards to the display of the original auctions (in the case of a re-auction) – it has been brought to our attention we are not being fully transparent. We agree. Thus, going forward we will make all auction history available to all participants of that auction. The original design excluded the former bid history for technical reasons. We hope to have this live within a week. Thus, if you bid in an auction and it is re-auctioned, you will see the original auction data.

Are you aware of how Namesilo.com handles their auction bidding / account funding / credit limits? I assume they don't have as many nonpaying bidders as other auction platforms, but IDK.

Screenshot from an account with bidding and transaction history and several domains upload_2017-11-20_21-20-48.png

Screenshot from an account with not a lot of bidding history or domains. upload_2017-11-20_21-23-50.png

**reached screenshot limit in this post. Will continue responding in a second post**
 
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There is a very active bidder with the bid handle “wnnrscrs”. It belongs to a domainer with 8000+ domains. It appears that he has not paid for any won domains over the past month. I was not able to locate anypaid for domains earlier than mid September. All names won since September 29 appear to not have been paid for yet.

Until you pay for a domain at DropCatch WHOIS will say “This domain was caught by DropCatch.com” and “[email protected]”. All names not yet won or paid for have this WHOIS info. That’s what names won by wittynut still say this if you look up WHOIS for those names. And that’s what WHOIS for all names won by “wnnrscrs” over the past month reflect too, a DropCatch holding account. And they forward to a dropcatch page. If he had paid for them, the names would have been promptly moved to his account and WHOIS would have reflected his personal information. Or could there be another reason for this to be happning? Please let me know if there are other valid reasons for DropCatch to be holding your won and paid for domains for more than a month. I have not been able to think of any reason they would do this. I get domains into my namebright account within 60 seconds paying. But that said, I am not completely excluding the possibility that this domainer just likes DropCatch to hold his domains after he has paid for them (though that would be very counterproductive as he can't sell them when he doesn't have them in his account). So based on what I have seen I assume this is another wittynut situation where a bidder has been allowed to continue to bid without paying, but I am also open to the possibility that I am wrong too (and that's why I have left out his name in this post). Please let me know if you find any evidence that indicates that these names are paid for, or if you think these names are not paid for yet.

Now the strange thing about these seemingly unpaid for auctions is that if I don’t pay for a domain, I can’t do anything at all. I can’t bid on domains, I can’t place backorders, nothing. My account is entirely frozen until I pay. That’s how it should be. But based on the many examples that have come to light so far, this restriction does not affect all bidders. And it does not affect “wnnrscrs” as he is still bidding on domains. Shouldn't he have lost bidding functionality on in September if he didn't pay for a domain then? Letting people continue to bid day after day when they owe money for won auctions doesn't make sense. At least freeze their accounts while you wait for the funds to be added.

Furthermore, here are DropCatch’s terms and conditions regarding this:

Failure to make a payment for a successful backorder within 96 hours (4 days) of that backordered domain being registered by DropCatch will result in an immediate termination of your DropCatch account and the domain will be treated as an “Unpaid Backorder" per this Agreement.

Based on the various examples that have come to light so far, “immediate termination” of a DropCatch account upon non-payment is not applied to all users. If DropCatch followed this part of their terms and conditions, they would have suspended “wnnrscrs” on October 4. Other fraudulent bidders have also kept bidding for longer than 4 days (though if the same rules applied to them as regular users, they would not have been able to keep bidding for a single additional day until they paid). “wnnrscrs” continues to bid on domains. One of the most recent auctions won by “wnnrscrs” is the foodball.com auction (an auction that was restarted due to the prior winner being fraudulet).

Here are some of the auctions won by “wnnrscrs”:

foodball.com - Won for $554 on 1 November - Payment deadline: 5 November
dutchtouch.com
- Won for $505 on 26 October - Payment deadline: 30 October
fairmeadow.com
- Won for $125 on 15 October - Payment deadline: 19 October
hoefs.com
- Won for $418 on 06 October - Payment deadline: 10 October
petitspois.com
- Won for $131 on 04 October - Payment deadline: 8 October
paget.com
- Won for $1,355 on 04 October - Payment deadline: 8 October
aerts.com
- Won for $827 on 29 September - payment deadline: 3 October

Screenshots:
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Arca, Nov 6, 2017 Report
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These names are still held by DropCatch, indicating that they have not yet been paid for (paid for names are moved to the buyer immediately upon payment):
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Please let me know your thoughts on this. Have I misinterpreted a legitimate situation or has this bidder been able to continue bidding on domains for more than a month without paying for them?

I don't think Dropcatch is trying hard enough to be honest, if I wasn't on here calling them out on their own deadlines, they couldn't give 2 sh*ts about responding or meeting their own deadlines to serve their customers, who have been so rightly wronged by their inactions to control fraud within their own platform. I have a feeling there is more here in the background that they are trying to clean up quickly.

Bidder "WNNRSCRS" who ARCA referenced, and called out his unpaid bidding history which still stands unpaid, but to this day this person is still outbidding up a storm. Is this a bot you can't turn off? Terminator 3.0?

wnncrs.jpg


Talk is cheap Dropcatch, and you seem to do a lot of that, actions are expensive, and your inability to take any actions sure shows how cheap you really are.

It's time to stop stalling, and make restitution for all the times you looked the other way to further your own cause at the cost of your own clients.

When you let 69 auctions go unpaid on a platform of this size, that is a sizeable sum of money that you didn't care to see missing, or maybe you liked WittyNut's brash style of no holds barred when it came to bidding up anyone in his way, without consequence.

Either way the people who have been cheated have been patient, and it is time to start doing some paypal refunds, and credit card refunds.

Dropcatch wants this to go silent, go away, and if they wait long enough they think they can wear you down, you guys who have been bid up by deadbeats, or rogue bidders need to start speaking up, that is the only way you will get any sort of action. Let them know what these people have cost you in damages. It is great that dropcatch wanted to help their friends buyout their auctions when WittyNut did not pay, funny they didn't seem to want to cover any of your overbids at the same time...

And YES, Dropcatch we hear you loud and clear, you are INVESTIGATING, for the past 3 weeks, Given you didn't know what was going on for the past few months, I guess nobody here should be surprised by how slow things move over there. Only thing that seems to move fast is the outbids, and the bidders disappearing act when it's time to pay.

Maybe we need to contact Mueller and see if Russia was in on it also?
 
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Last I checked, WNNRSCRS still had unpaid auctions dating back to at least September. Allowing this to go on is unfair to everyone else who has to pay for their auction wins immediately. Plus it opens the door to a Wittynut 2.0.
 
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Last I checked, WNNRSCRS still had unpaid auctions dating back to at least September. Allowing this to go on is unfair to everyone else who has to pay for their auction wins immediately. Plus it opens the door to a Wittynut 2.0.
Dropcatch needs people like this to outbid everyday users, and cause average prices to increase hence more profits for them.

Why do you think they left the juice flowing for Wittynut for so long, after about 70 other failed, and non paid for auctions. They know their average daily take, and with WittyNut job on the loose, those numbers were way up.

The lack of action, or compensation to honest customers shows a lack of empathy. Words mean very little, the words were already put into their mouths, when they open their wallet, and refund the tens of thousands of dollars of defrauded customer bids, well that might mean something.

They are looking for the cheapest solution out of this, probably take your money, and give you backorders credits to be bid up again by deadbeats.

Not much confidence in drop auction operators these days, You have to self audit and protect yourself, otherwise they will clean you old cold, and walk you backwards with the talk of sweet promises. 💋

You only need to go back, and read supports comments, then read all the facts after the fact, and it will show you just how much they give a sh*t about you, and your money, oops I mean their money now, because you are never getting it back. 😜🤑🤗
 
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Addressing bidder WittyNut, who won and did not pay for 69 domains, @Jeff Reberry noted that "there was a glitch in our system which allowed this user to continue winning auctions, even though he had outstanding items in his shopping cart."

However, the continued activity of wnnrscrs casts doubt on this explanation. It is hard to believe that WittyNut turly was a "glitch" when bidder wnnrscrs has been allowed to continue bidding for at least 53 days with outstanding items in his shopping cart, and is still actively bidding on names.

Here are your terms and conditions regarding this:
tc.png

wnnrscrs is at least 1150+ hours past a the initial 96 hour deadline for the first unpaid domain of his I discovered (there might be unpaid auctions going further back) and continues to bid on, win, and not pay for domains. There seems to be an alternative set of terms and conditions for certain privileged users, like WittyNut and wnnrscrs.

I've never missed a single payment, and I can't bid on any names or even place any new backorders once I have outstanding items in my shopping cart. Why does my account get frozen instantly until I pay, while others are allowed to bid for months without paying?
 
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Another suggestion which has been mentioned before but ignored... Make the discount club more transparent. There is no way for a customer to truly know if Huge Domains did planned on getting a particular domain that was backordered by a customer on the discount level or if they are getting cherry picked by Huge Domains.

Being a domainer for 8+ years, I can tell you this platform has really done bad to the serious domain investor, which happen to be your long term customers. Sure, there are people with money to throw away who don't know what they are doing, but these are the short term customers. They blow their bank account and then leave. Which takes me to another suggestion. Make auctions private. Or make auctions with xx numbers of bidders private. Like if an auction has 5 or less bidders make it private. If 6 or more bidders, then public. I just can't see dropcatch as a sustainable platform long term without needing money injected from huge domain sales. I could be wrong but seeing the numbers that's my opinion.
 
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Another suggestion which has been mentioned before but ignored... Make the discount club more transparent. There is no way for a customer to truly know if Huge Domains did planned on getting a particular domain that was backordered by a customer on the discount level or if they are getting cherry picked by Huge Domains.

Being a domainer for 8+ years, I can tell you this platform has really done bad to the serious domain investor, which happen to be your long term customers. Sure, there are people with money to throw away who don't know what they are doing, but these are the short term customers. They blow their bank account and then leave. Which takes me to another suggestion. Make auctions private. Or make auctions with xx numbers of bidders private. Like if an auction has 5 or less bidders make it private. If 6 or more bidders, then public. I just can't see dropcatch as a sustainable platform long term without needing money injected from huge domain sales. I could be wrong but seeing the numbers that's my opinion.
You are correct, and probably is the reason they have so many deadbeat bidders, and restarted auctions, just don't get caught on the wrong side of that bid, it has costs others thousands.

According to the initial contacts of support, they had everything under control, and running smoothly until people started cutting, and pasting the facts, then the floodgates opened up, and a truth serum elated the room to a degree.

Some of the things you mentioned would bring in lower revenue amounts for Dropcatch, so that is why they are not on the table, albeit a more fair system for the user, but bad financially for them.

The bright side is the house always wins!
 
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In regards to WittyNut – we had an internal glitch whereby this user was allowed to bid without having to pay for domains in his cart dating back to March 2017. Therefore, over the course of many months, the user WittyNut was able to continue participating in auctions even though they had unpaid items in their shopping cart. This issue was isolated to this one account. We discovered the issue with WittyNut back in August, prior to this thread. In fact, it was the weed.cc marketplace auction that ultimately made us aware of the unpaid items in this users shopping cart.

Upon discovery, we immediately prevented WittyNut from participating in any additional auctions and demanded payment. This user quickly responded and we agreed on a payment schedule on the remaining balance. This user started making payments and made us believe we would be paid in full for the entire outstanding balance. However, this user still has 69 domains unpaid for and we will be re-auctioning next week.

With regards to CannaMarket.com – user WittyNut won this domain and it is still not yet paid for. This domain will be re-auctioned next week.

With regards to Weed.cc – the user WittyNut won this domain. This was a marketplace auction (not a Dropped Domain Name.) We explained to the domain owner that we were having a hard time collecting payment and offered several different options, and the domain owner opted to have DropCatch cover the winning auction amount. Keep in mind this was a “private seller” domain as part of the new DropCatch Marketplace. This was not a dropped domain. This is why this domain was not automatically re-auctioned and we ate the extra cost to satisfy one of our first marketplace sellers.

We take responsibility for the issues we had with WittyNut. It was our internal error which allowed this user to continue winning auctions without completing payments for outstanding amounts in the shopping cart. But at the same token – WittyNut should not have continued winning auctions that he could not afford. This user will be indefinitely suspended from the platform.
 
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In regards to WittyNut – we had an internal glitch whereby this user was allowed to bid without having to pay for domains in his cart dating back to March 2017. Therefore, over the course of many months, the user WittyNut was able to continue participating in auctions even though they had unpaid items in their shopping cart. This issue was isolated to this one account. We discovered the issue with WittyNut back in August, prior to this thread. In fact, it was the weed.cc marketplace auction that ultimately made us aware of the unpaid items in this users shopping cart.

Upon discovery, we immediately prevented WittyNut from participating in any additional auctions and demanded payment. This user quickly responded and we agreed on a payment schedule on the remaining balance. This user started making payments and made us believe we would be paid in full for the entire outstanding balance. However, this user still has 69 domains unpaid for and we will be re-auctioning next week.

With regards to CannaMarket.com – user WittyNut won this domain and it is still not yet paid for. This domain will be re-auctioned next week.

With regards to Weed.cc – the user WittyNut won this domain. This was a marketplace auction (not a Dropped Domain Name.) We explained to the domain owner that we were having a hard time collecting payment and offered several different options, and the domain owner opted to have DropCatch cover the winning auction amount. Keep in mind this was a “private seller” domain as part of the new DropCatch Marketplace. This was not a dropped domain. This is why this domain was not automatically re-auctioned and we ate the extra cost to satisfy one of our first marketplace sellers.

We take responsibility for the issues we had with WittyNut. It was our internal error which allowed this user to continue winning auctions without completing payments for outstanding amounts in the shopping cart. But at the same token – WittyNut should not have continued winning auctions that he could not afford. This user will be indefinitely suspended from the platform.

0 mentions about wnnrscrs
 
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main -

wnnrscrs is a long term customer. We have special terms and payment process setup for this user due to a restriction with their bank (along with a few other long time customers), and we have zero reason to believe this user will not pay for a single domain that they have won. This is not in our general terms, as we have an agreement that extends the time this user is able to pay. This user pays for every domain they win, no exceptions, and if they do not, they will be suspended like everyone else. For the record, this user is paying the full amount on domains and does not have any type of “special deal”.

While we have been asked for this dozens, maybe hundreds of times, nobody gets special or preferential discounts on won auctions.
 
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We have special terms and payment process setup for this user
So WittyNut actually had "special terms" and then went rouge and did not pay according to those special term, is that correct?

As others have pointed out, it seems extremely unlikely that such a significant amount of unpaid domains could go unnoticed for so many months. If not deliberately granted this privilege, I assume the "glitch" was that he was accidentally granted with wnnrscrs-like payment delay privileges. As you said, multiple account holders have these kinds of privileges, so it's a status that can simply be applied to any chosen account.
This user pays for every domain they win, no exceptions, and if they do not, they will be suspended like everyone else.
"like everyone else"? No, these users are not treated like everyone else. "Everyone else" gets suspended after 96 hours, and can keep bidding for 0 hours after they have an outstanding payment. Bidders like wittynut, xdaydreamx, and wnnrscrs can bid for extended periods without paying (and without being suspended), so I disagree with your notion that they are being suspended like everyone else.

You say that you "have zero reason to believe [wnnrscrs] will not pay for a single domain that they have won". In another post you also indicated that you had zero reason to believe xdaydreamx would not pay for domains he won. Despite that, xdaydreamx didn't pay, and lots of auctions had to be restarted as a result. You also said that wittynut "made us believe we would be paid in full". Despite your belief that he would pay, he didn't pay, and you have to restart 69 auctions as a result. There is a pattern here, which unsurprisingly reveals that simply believing that someone will pay does guarantee that they will pay! Backed only by a belief that they will pay seems like an extremely weak basis for granting certain users such super privileges, and then let them rack up tens of thousands in outstanding payments... No wonder there are so many auctions being restarted. Perhaps it's not going to be wnnrscrs, but like xdaydreamx, you are surely going to have other privileged users win lots of names and then for one reason or another not pay (and that's not going to change even if you had no reason to believe they would not pay).
 
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The fact that wnnrscrs gets special payment deadlines for his active participation is actually active collusion to keep him bidding, and outbidding on the platform. It puts real bidders at a disadvantage, and is a backdoor deal with the fine considerations. This is not something that is disclosed but has been discovered thru erratic bidding patterns. This person has many unpaid auctions going way back now, are these illegal sources of funds that they can't make a wire transfer like everyone else.

Not having money to pay for an auction is considered special treatment, otherwise make them, pre fund the account with a deposit. You are letting them play god with other peoples money, in the hopes they catch enough sales to cover their buys.

This makes perfect sense, my guess is wnnrscrs is not the only person with this special advantage, maybe he has to place a set number of bids every month to maintain such status.

Anyone that uses Dropcatch should be very careful given that backdoor deals are made with specific users, as to the specifics of these deals nobody is going to tell you the truth to them, but you have to protect your bankroll, as you will be bled dry as past history dictates.

It amazes me a user such as Wittynut alone account got magical powers, and how this one magical account chose to abuse such powers to the extreme. I would say the truth would be this person was a small time bidder, making payments, bid got ahead of him, he got behind, he got extended credit, and time, and he abused it to the max. It came back to bite Dropcatch, but it bit their honest bidders even moreso.

All these one off considerations that just happen to keep on randomly happening, nothing seems random here, the more layers you peel off, the more this stinks.


Dropcatch is a deeply conflicted!

You give these bidders special considerations on payment, WHAT DO THEY GIVE YOU IN RETURN?
 
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Arca when you started this thread a month ago, I really didn't think this would go on so long, or would go so deep.

This just solidifies how dirty these dropcatch exchanges are, when people are not able to prefund, or fund their purchases they are playing with borrowed money. Money they do not have in hand to make payment to cash the bids they place. If they did, they would wire $50K into the account, and bid away, and deduct from the total.

The fact Dropcatch extends such terms means these people are able to bid fast, and loose as the term goes, against real money in hand bidders. Which would put you dead in the water before you even got off the ground.

Having a dozen or so bidders with such special considerations, can really turn a small inventory platform like this upside down when it comes to bidding.

At the end of the day there is no guarantee these bidders will pay, all they have to do is walk away, just like what WittyNut did, who is left to hold the bag, all you poor bastard bidders.

These guys have not made any restitution for the consequences of their violation of TOS actions, people are owed thousands of dollars, and they continue to play with your emotions telling you to wait another week, another week, if they wanted to make it right, it would have already been made right.

I think this is a new low in the auction dropcatch business, honest bidders were used like guinea pigs, and these guys should be ashamed.
 
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Horizon Client > Bid > Win > Client drop > Postpone $ > Find more clients > 0 > Drop (DC left in the middle of field > restart auction)
IMO possible scenario
 
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So dropcatch now offers 0% interest credit lines for customers? If everybody can sign up, then that would be fair.
 
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In regards to WittyNut – we had an internal glitch whereby this user was allowed to bid without having to pay for domains in his cart dating back to March 2017. Therefore, over the course of many months, the user WittyNut was able to continue participating in auctions even though they had unpaid items in their shopping cart. This issue was isolated to this one account. We discovered the issue with WittyNut back in August, prior to this thread. In fact, it was the weed.cc marketplace auction that ultimately made us aware of the unpaid items in this users shopping cart.

Upon discovery, we immediately prevented WittyNut from participating in any additional auctions and demanded payment. This user quickly responded and we agreed on a payment schedule on the remaining balance. This user started making payments and made us believe we would be paid in full for the entire outstanding balance. However, this user still has 69 domains unpaid for and we will be re-auctioning next week.

With regards to CannaMarket.com – user WittyNut won this domain and it is still not yet paid for. This domain will be re-auctioned next week.

With regards to Weed.cc – the user WittyNut won this domain. This was a marketplace auction (not a Dropped Domain Name.) We explained to the domain owner that we were having a hard time collecting payment and offered several different options, and the domain owner opted to have DropCatch cover the winning auction amount. Keep in mind this was a “private seller” domain as part of the new DropCatch Marketplace. This was not a dropped domain. This is why this domain was not automatically re-auctioned and we ate the extra cost to satisfy one of our first marketplace sellers.

We take responsibility for the issues we had with WittyNut. It was our internal error which allowed this user to continue winning auctions without completing payments for outstanding amounts in the shopping cart. But at the same token – WittyNut should not have continued winning auctions that he could not afford. This user will be indefinitely suspended from the platform.


Looks like there is going to be a big "Witty Nut" auction coming next week. Based on what I saw, it should be a good group of names.

And like I tried to tell everyone in the AMA, Jeff has been nothing but open and honest with every dealing we've had. Like all platforms, there are things that go bad. He has always tried to make it right and again, been honest about what happened. As evidenced in these responses. Of course, there will be people that aren't satisfied with anything but a perfect auction flow. Which after watching auctions for 15 years I have yet to see
 
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Looks like there is going to be a big "Witty Nut" auction coming next week. Based on what I saw, it should be a good group of names.

And like I tried to tell everyone in the AMA, Jeff has been nothing but open and honest with every dealing we've had. Like all platforms, there are things that go bad. He has always tried to make it right and again, been honest about what happened. As evidenced in these responses. Of course, there will be people that aren't satisfied with anything but a perfect auction flow. Which after watching auctions for 15 years I have yet to see

Jeff may have made it right for you, but can you please tell me how he has made it right for all of WittyNut's other victims?

That sounds great a big WittyNut sale coming next week, hooray, but that is not the topic of conversation.

In theory since Wittynut didn't pay, you shouldn't get paid, but I guess you have a special bond, and they felt the need to make it right with you, but they haven't done SH*T for anyone else, except make promises, and miss deadlines.

Sorry, if the words are harsh, but facts, are facts.
 
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It appears that DropCatch is not going to fix the things in correct way (or at all). Sorry to say this, but facts are facts. Among other facts, constant silence on various "inconvinient" issues speaks for itself.

Yes they may finally be forced to issue some refunds or comps, and even buy "forum/blog silence" by asking to sign something to receive a comp, but they cannot buy loyality this way.

Since they are able to maintain such a big number of registrars only because they are serving both dropcatch and hugedomains, and revenue generated by dropcatch will go down due to lack of appropriate actions and failure to improve the system, it may well be that they will soon follow pheenix way and drop some registrars. Which opens a question - will icann transfer the affected domains to namebright registrar (Icann/IANA id 1441) so the customers will still be able to manage domains @ namebright dot com as they currently do, OR will icann transfer the domains from voluntary dropped registrars to some other registrar entity, that is not connected with namebright in any way?
 
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Jeff may have made it right for you, but can you please tell me how he has made it right for all of WittyNut's other victims?

That sounds great a big WittyNut sale coming next week, hooray, but that is not the topic of conversation.

In theory since Wittynut didn't pay, you shouldn't get paid, but I guess you have a special bond, and they felt the need to make it right with you, but they haven't done SH*T for anyone else, except make promises, and miss deadlines.

Sorry, if the words are harsh, but facts, are facts.

I get it. I was on a different side though. I was a seller. I was owed money. I believe I was the only one owed money so I wasn't being given special treatment other than being allowed to beta test domain sales.

Does that mean I was still treated special? If anyone didn't get paid then yes, otherwise not true
 
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I feel dropcatch has two different class of bidders, there is the house bidders who probably have an extended line of credit which allows them to bid a bit more aggressively, and freely, moreso with domains that might be able to be flipped quickly to generate proceeds to pay for their purchases, then you have the regular domainers who bid around at godaddy, namejet, etc... mix these two classes into an auction marketplace, and the fireworks go off, the bids start going up.

You can put a proxy bid at dropcatch, and some guy will just sit there pushing you up $50 at a time, until they feel they are close to maxing you out, never place proxy bids at dropcatch, let me say that again never place proxy bids at dropcatch.

I don't even know how one has a conversation about getting a line of credit, and what dropcatch has for such a credit line, it could be a minimum spend every month of $50K to maintain that credit line etc... these could all play out to be dangerous scenarios as their is an added value in deferring payment. This is an incentive, and a discount all at the same time.
 
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