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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.
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Want to begin my thanking @Arca for starting this thread and to all the great work put in by others here who have worked hard to make domaining more rewarding so we don't pay too much on dropcatch.I really appreciate all your efforts.I just got an email crediting me back $156 for an auction I won at 181 but after credits refund now means I paid $25 after the bidder GoodX1 bid me up.

Thanks for the refund dropcatch and that is a good way to begin and listen to the people here who I owe a lot for their openness and transparency.

God Bless You All for your hardwork.
Skyvisum.
 
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Can confirm received high $xxx credit in the form of an account credit.

I respect their ability to do this, but it should have never happend in the first place

I consider this matter now closed from a personal standpoint.

I see above someone was bid up by Goodx1, my refunds came as a result of wittynut
 
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Kudos to the Reberry brothers.
 
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What do you expect when companies compete with their customers? Shady operation that cherry picks domains for itself or its partners; shill bidding; no transparency, etc.

They obviously wouldn't have paid anything unless they were publicly outed here.
 
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Excellent to take time necessary to investigate and put in all the effort to review past auctions and actually give refunds. The internal cost and manhours must have been quite high too, nor a simple process. Hope that clears the air now with those of you who don’t believe in the platform.

Thank you @Jeff Reberry @Rebies, but wish I would have read about it here on Namepros before on an unrelated blog! I didn’t receive any email alert about dropcatches blog post, which you might want to send out to all customers in the future. I would like to be on it.

What do you expect when companies compete with their customers? Shady operation that cherry picks domains for itself or its partners; shill bidding; no transparency, etc.

They obviously wouldn't have paid anything unless they were publicly outed here.

Where does your thinking originate? They don’t compete. You bid $59. And if you are the only bidder you get the name. If you and 12 others want the same name, then it is in auction and they don’t bid against their customers.

They’ve invested megabucks in their platform, and in sharing the resources with the rest of us, we ride their coattails, if you bid minimum and lose it to a “partner”, which happens to me frequently, I take personal responsibility for my decision and don’t blame someone else. You or I want a name bad enough, pay $59. Why should they give it to you at little or no profit? They have to pay for their overhead.

Please give some examples of shill bidding, as I have not seen any data anywhere posted by anyone.
 
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They obviously wouldn't have paid anything unless they were publicly outed here.

NameJet.com was publicly outed, and they didn't pay anything. [besides I think a full refund to @Hemanttilotia in exchange for him relinquishing two domain's he won that I think HKDN had bid on]

ie. two companies were recently given an opportunity to do the right thing, but only one company [DropCatch] had the integrity and fortitude to do right for their customers by auditing their auction history, issuing 'bid up' refunds, and making moves towards more transparency.

Where does your thinking originate? They don’t compete.

He might be talking about HugeDomains.com. ie their participation in GoDaddy auctions, and frequent registering of dropped domains.
 
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ie. two companies were recently given an opportunity to do the right thing, but only one company [DropCatch] had the integrity and fortitude to do right for their customers by auditing their auction history, issuing 'bid up' refunds, and making moves towards more transparency.

So Dropcatch is less of a crook than NameJet? You might be right, but its probably closer than you think.
 
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Offthehandle, of course they compete. Are you saying that they don't register domains for themselves or their partners?
 
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Offthehandle, of course they compete. Are you saying that they don't register domains for themselves or their partners?
Not if there is a private backorder for the domain on their platform
 
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By the way, DropCatch did not refund money where xdaydreamx (arirangcnt) was the 2nd highest bidder even though they admittedly to banned him. I'm talking about the period where he didn't pay for domains.
 
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I can't edit my post above, but DropCatch reached out to me and clarified some dates and checked up on the auctions I had questions about. All is well.
 
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Never paid for.
Looks like this domain has now been paid for.

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Keep in mind that these terms and conditions only apply to regular users, and there are a number of buyers who are allowed to play by a different set of rules. Privileged DropCatch buyers can can delay payment for weeks/months and at the same time continue to win more domains and accumulate outstanding payments.
 
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What do you expect when companies compete with their customers? Shady operation that cherry picks domains for itself or its partners; shill bidding; no transparency, etc.

They obviously wouldn't have paid anything unless they were publicly outed here.
thier all dirty:punch:
 
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I had a very bad experience on dropcatch !!
 
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PerformanceTraining.com sold for $3200 to "tintin" on Nov 22. Tintin did not pay. The domain auction has now been restarted.

The auction for tuncan.com has also been restarted. The domain sold for $390, also on Nov 22. I don't know who won this auction.
I don’t know why “tintin” was allowed back on the system, but he has defaulted in paying once again today in a 4 figure bid for xtremes.com

A year after being a deadbeat, who knows how many other bids he did not win, or intend to pay for they disrupted. I can’t stand bidders who are playing with money they don’t have, or are front running. Innocent bidders are being fleeced, and it’s not fair.
 
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FYI I got a second chance offer on a 4 figure canna name thru Godaddy, 48 hours after placing the parked nameservers on it, guess who a inquiry came in from, none other than Wittynut. My guess he is still active at Godaddy, and probably didn't pay for that auction, causing me to be the second highest bidder. I also have other inquiries from him on names he didn't pay for that were on at dropcatch after the fact.
 
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Do you happen to have bidder handles for the deadbeats of such auctions, I guess we need to police Dropcatch just to make sure they are blocking these bidders from bidding again. Or to see if they are creating similar usernames.
Publicly out the deadbeats!
 
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Just my 2c on their registration policy and attempt to properly qualify legit customers. I opened an account at DropCatch.com last week and I thought their vetting policy was as good (maybe even a tad better) than Escrow.com. They required a Credit Card, also a Govt. Issued ID/ ie. Drivers License, and then a close up "selfie" of you holding your Drivers License (so they could compare photo on Drivers License to person holding), and of course email confirmation etc.

I am sure the bidding process can be "gamed" but i give them credit for trying to make sure they have done their best to confirm the identity of new customers. They might consider adding a phone call to new registrants as well so they can confirm phone and additional way to contact bidders, as well as to reconfirm the registration.
 
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All,
a.) What Jeff said above is absolutely correct. Especially with our making this issue right and figuring out a workable solution to where people were bid up by fraudsters.
Perhaps stop pissing of half the internet might help ?

If you want to claim fraud, please know I have stated on here in the past, and continue to state, NOT ME, NOT OUR COMPANY, NOT OUR EMPLOYEES. Not in the slightest chance. And if fraud is happening as you are claiming, I SHOULD BE IN JAIL, just like Halvarez should be. (In my opinion.) That is absolutely not the case. Much of what is here is speculation but far from a conspiracy as some are suggesting!!
Now this pissed me off, had to reply it will be deleted before i can blink but oh well.
No you are not a fraud you just operate in the grey area, Fair business capturing domains to extort them in the hope people pay up, It's brilliant but not nice. So don't be a freaking hypocrite and yell Bloody murder.

You are despicable truly, but yes not a fraud.
 
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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:
Show attachment 71846

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.
Thanks for sharing!
 
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