discuss Do you trust the major auction websites?

I voted Yes, As i stated above, It is not the actual auction houses, It is the domainers that hyper inflate auctions with no intent to buy after a name has reached their max amount, but they keep bidding to raise the price of the auction, this is a vindictive act IMO. There is no way to control it. It has bumped me out of of more auctions than i can remember.

.X. said:

I voted Yes, As i stated above, It is not the actual auction houses, It is the domainers that hyper inflate auctions with no intent to buy after a name has reached their max amount, but they keep bidding to raise the price of the auction, this is a vindictive act IMO. There is no way to control it. It has bumped me out of of more auctions than i can remember.

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So none of my arguments about GoDaddy not being trustworthy didn't convince you otherwise?

I rarely do business with Godaddy since Bob left , and haven't for years now, I have tried a some auctions there though, the ones i won, i got my name without issue. So as far as Godaddy goes, i really can't say, i just don't do much business with them.

.X. said:

I rarely do business with Godaddy since Bob left , and haven't for years now, I have tried a some auctions there though, the ones i won, i got my name without issue. So as far as Godaddy goes, i really can't say, i just don't do much business with them.

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Thank you for clarifying the reasoning behind you vote. But it certainly isn't working as smoothly as it one was. I'm still waiting on at least 2 domains I won but never appeared in my account, in the last month.

stub said:

Thank you for clarifying the reasoning behind you vote. But it certainly isn't working as smoothly as it one was. I'm still waiting on at least 2 domains I won but never appeared in my account, in the last month.

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Really, that is a problem for sure. If they are going in that direction, I will cease all business with them completely, sorry stub, i didn't read the complete thread through and through. i hope your situation is taken care of immediately as it should be.

I voted yes but i only trust namejet, godaddy and dropcatch i dont

.X. said:

I voted Yes, As i stated above, It is not the actual auction houses, It is the domainers that hyper inflate auctions with no intent to buy after a name has reached their max amount, but they keep bidding to raise the price of the auction, this is a vindictive act IMO. There is no way to control it. It has bumped me out of of more auctions than i can remember.

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No disrespect but how would you know what limit someone was out at and just kept bidding? I think there are a lot of auctions that go higher than most experienced domainers think. That has been a rallying cry for many over the last three years, junk names or average names going too high. But I can tell you I have spoken to people who have paid big prices, what most would consider end user prices at auction, only to tell me they think they got a deal.

The vindictive comes from people trying to bid people up they don't like, I think when some see Frank Schilling on NameJet they try to stick it to him, just for the .com = A.M. radio comment alone.

.X. said:

I rarely do business with Godaddy since Bob left

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Now they don't have even the normal Support via email or ticket system (phone only, and just English).
LiveChat is also dead.

equity78 said:

No disrespect but how would you know what limit someone was out at and just kept bidding? I think there are a lot of auctions that go higher than most experienced domainers think. That has been a rallying cry for many over the last three years, junk names or average names going too high. But I can tell you I have spoken to people who have paid big prices, what most would consider end user prices at auction, only to tell me they think they got a deal.

The vindictive comes from people trying to bid people up they don't like, I think when some see Frank Schilling on NameJet they try to stick it to him, just for the .com = A.M. radio comment alone.

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How would they know it is Frank Schilling they are bidding against?

Jurgen Wolf said:

Now they don't have even the normal Support via email or ticket system (phone only, and just English).
LiveChat is also dead.

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We have email to the auctions team [email protected]. We have live chat, and we have phone support in so many languages and local country phone numbers I lost count. Here is a link to the different local phone numbers in local languages. https://www.godaddy.com/contact-us.aspx.

stub said:

By Major Auction Houses I presume you mean Sedo/Afternic/GoDaddy/DropCatch/NameJet/SnapNames. I've had bad experiences with all of them apart from DropCatch.

. This problem won't go away, until every 3rd Party Registrar is working under the same contract. Which should be the first, and most important thing to fix. IMHO. If the 3rd Party Registrar doesn't agree to these standard terms, they should not be allowed to sell their expiring portfolio, at GoDaddy Auctions. Period.

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We are working with the various registrar partners to make things smoother for domain sales. There are many variables, including various timeframes for renewal and even various companies under the main company with different policies, resellers etc. It is a long game but we are working to make things better for the buyers.
And as an aside, if we did not sell the domains someone else would and there would be similar issues with delivery and timing, or simply not be available as auctions etc. It is a big job but one we are actively working on.

stub said:

Thank you for clarifying the reasoning behind you vote. But it certainly isn't working as smoothly as it one was. I'm still waiting on at least 2 domains I won but never appeared in my account, in the last month.

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If you email [email protected] they can give you an update or I can look into them for you if you PM me.

Joe Styler said:

We have email to the auctions team [email protected]. We have live chat, and we have phone support in so many languages and local country phone numbers I lost count. Here is a link to the different local phone numbers in local languages. https://www.godaddy.com/contact-us.aspx.

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Thanks.
I'm talking about regular Support...
For example, last week I had issue with .BIZ registration - it was registered only after ~8h since I was charged.
I have emailed Billing team and got autoresponder that Email support is not provided anymore.

Joe Styler said:

We have email to the auctions team [email protected]. We have live chat, and we have phone support in so many languages and local country phone numbers I lost count. Here is a link to the different local phone numbers in local languages. https://www.godaddy.com/contact-us.aspx.

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We can't wait 3 days to get a reply to an email to [email protected]. I have 1 issue right now which is going on 9-10 days (3 rounds of email) without resolution. And the problem itself is older than that The days mentioned here is from my first email, only. But every reply takes the 3 full days to get an answer.

We also need email support for your control panel which you have dropped. What Companies drops email support worldwide on their core business?

However. I will say that phone support has been good-to-excellent, calling a local number from outside USA. No complaints. Although I've never heard 1 word of the native language I am calling from (which is good for me)

Kate said:

But they have all had their fair share of scandals right ? I mean, we are not talking about some stuff that could hypothetically happen, but that has happened already and may repeat itself in the future, because there is no oversight and no accountability really.


GD is also one of the few major venues that is resisting the use of bidder handles. Either they don't want to finance a costly overhaul of an old and buggy system (?), or they don't welcome the increased scrutiny and accountability that would ensue. At least, they now have a policy that forbids employees from bidding in auctions. But it took a mini-scandal for them to have a policy in place, remember. But other venues are not all that clear.
They certainly could do better.


But businesses that are not regulated surely care even less.

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We do have outside audits on our auctions. We also are a public company which involves other outside scrutiny as well as third party companies investing in us etc. You can listen in on the investor calls quarterly and ask questions. gddy.com.

As far as the bidder handles the reason we do not want to show the bidders is because we want the domain to stand on it's own merit as we have stated several times. We do not want people to bid on or not bid on domains due to who else is bidding on domains. The name's value should stand on it's own value independent of any other factors.

We do various checks for fraud and bidder verification etc as well as audits.

stub said:

We can't wait 3 days to get a reply to an email to [email protected]. I have 1 issue right now which is going on 9-10 days (3 rounds of email) without resolution. And the problem itself is older than that The days mentioned here is from my first email, only. But every reply takes the 3 full days to get an answer.

We also need email support for your control panel which you have dropped. What Companies drops email support worldwide on their core business?

However. I will say that phone support has been good-to-excellent, calling from outside USA. No complaints. Although I've ever heard 1 word of the language I am calling from (which is good for me)

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I am sorry about your wait times. We recently hired several people in the support side of the Aftermarket and are working towards getting to a 24-7 operation on that team. I am happy to look into the domains if you pm me.

Joe Styler said:

How would they know it is Frank Schilling they are bidding against?

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His nick is known and visible on Namejet unlike GoDaddy who refuses to make bidder handles public!

anantj said:

His nick is known and visible on Namejet unlike GoDaddy who refuses to make bidder handles public!

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True That, and the same at DropCatch.

equity78 said:

No disrespect but how would you know what limit someone was out at and just kept bidding? I think there are a lot of auctions that go higher than most experienced domainers think. That has been a rallying cry for many over the last three years, junk names or average names going too high. But I can tell you I have spoken to people who have paid big prices, what most would consider end user prices at auction, only to tell me they think they got a deal.

The vindictive comes from people trying to bid people up they don't like, I think when some see Frank Schilling on NameJet they try to stick it to him, just for the .com = A.M. radio comment alone.

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You can see the users "nick name" or handle at NameJet and DropCatch, over the years i have learned to spot patterns in the bidding process, and i keep up with the handles of people who bid on those platforms, It is not hard to spot a auction gone bad, you go in those auction houses enough, a person will become battle proven LOL

Joe Styler said:

How would they know it is Frank Schilling they are bidding against?

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anantj said:

His nick is known and visible on Namejet unlike GoDaddy who refuses to make bidder handles public!

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FYI, it's taryn (one of them).

I trust to my instincts. I have seen some suspicious activities (not with my auctions) but without proof I can't accuse anyone. I do use NJ, GD auction and Sedo Gread Domain Auction. I had some unpaid auctions, but it didn't make it to stop using them. So I voted yes, for now.

Joe Styler said:

We do have outside audits on our auctions. We also are a public company which involves other outside scrutiny as well as third party companies investing in us etc. You can listen in on the investor calls quarterly and ask questions. gddy.com.

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Care to share names ? You mean audit companies like EY and the sort ?

Joe Styler said:

As far as the bidder handles the reason we do not want to show the bidders is because we want the domain to stand on it's own merit as we have stated several times. We do not want people to bid on or not bid on domains due to who else is bidding on domains. The name's value should stand on it's own value independent of any other factors.

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Seriously ? So you are the only venue that wants to hide the action and doesn't want a bidding war among users ? Interesting.
But then you should get rid of this too:

I am surprised how many have issues with auction sites. It is concerning, but also good to see at least some of the auction sites involved on NPs and responding to concerns. I wonder if people have similar concerns with general purpose domain sites like eBay when the auction does not involve domain names, or is it something unique about domain names?

For those on Twitter, I see that right now @Darryl Lopes is auctioning a 4 letter .com domain on Twitter. As far as I know this is first time this has been tried (if not, can you let me know, as I was thinking of a future blog post on the topic after the auction is over)? For those who have issues with the traditional auction sites, it does offer a different alternative that you control yourself. Obviously there are potential issues which I am sure Darryl has thought about, but it is a creative new way, and one where in a way transparency is obvious (as long as no brand new Twitter accounts are allowed to bid).

MetBob said:

I am surprised how many have issues with auction sites. It is concerning, but also good to see at least some of the auction sites involved on NPs and responding to concerns. I wonder if people have similar concerns with general purpose domain sites like eBay when the auction does not involve domain names, or is it something unique about domain names?

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There are big differences:

1. Ebay displays bidder handles, something that most domain auctions sites do but not all of them - GD and Sedo being notable for this. With unique bidder handles you can keep track of user activity and notice suspicious patterns better.
   
2. Ebay shows your trader rating, so you instantly know how trustworthy and established the other users are
   
3. Ebay shows other info like your home country, and when you registered

Now compare Ebay to the auctions sites for domain names

anantj said:

FYI, it's taryn (one of them).

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That was the exact point I was making. Everyone knows the handles and knows who is bidding against them. We prefer the domain to stand on it's own, not be influenced by which domain investor is bidding on the domain. "Oh it's Frank, he's a really smart guy. It must be a good name. I'm going to bid." And of course various other scenarios. Our choice has been and currently is to let the domain stand or fall on it's own merit.