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Terrible situation with GoDaddy stealing searches!

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tasaki25

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Hello guys, today was the forth time in this week that godaddy steal the domain exactly at the moment of buying. This time was a deleted domain which was available. I used the Godaddy appraisal tool and in same moment I was logged in with everything in my basket and it was only one step....proceed to payment.
After I used this damm tool, it was a nice appraisal price and I am 100% sure that these guys get informed about nice domains.
Suddenly the price changed ! Some thousands of dollars. This domain was available ! I took a screenshot. This is robbery !
Ok!!!! I can understand that this is about who is fast and who is not but they play really dirty game! Is not that 2,3,5 or 100 persons fight to grub the domain....this is like inside job and organized well. Like this is almost impossible to grab something . Godaddy you are the most terrible and dishonest registrar I ever saw.
This is the fourth time in a week, you guys be careful ! If you want to keep your idea safe don’t don’t don’t do what I did.
And if godaddy is honest I wait for an answer right here in public , and to reply and explain if I am wrong or not. I called customer service and answer was mmmmm, aaaaa’ maybe, maybe someone bought it .....how is possible ? Every time with nice domains happens this . Only with nice domains .
Pm after I received the slap with the no available anymore in 5 seconds I looked at least 6 registrars and was available . After some minutes everywhere was not available which means that this happened in that moment
 
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Fun fact. The registrant who bought this domain on Friday at Epik has the domain listed at the Epik Marketplace:

https://marketplace.epik.com/how.tv

They received a 5 figure offer this morning via the Epik Marketplace. Love that.
 
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Well folks, the news here just got better.

We have a confirmed buyer for How.TV closing at $75,000 *.
For those who are new to the story, this was a new hand registration on Friday. The transaction is currently in escrow at Epik. Congratulations in advance to the registrant for some outrageous ROI. Love that. I hope the registrant consolidates all their domains at Epik so we can keep closing big exits for them for many years to come.

* Note: Traditionally, Epik does not disclose customer domain sales. This is in line with our positioning as the Swiss Bank of Domains. However, because this is such a "David vs. Goliath" story, it had to be shared. The Domaining industry is alive and well. I think the key in this sale negotiation was that instead of saying "make offer", the prospects were invited to either (1) lease the domain, or (2) pay the full asking price. The buyer choose option 2.


Pro Tips for working with Epik:

1. Bulk Domain Search

For anyone still searching for domains at Godaddy, I recommend using our fast and accurate bulk search engine which you can find here:

https://registrar.epik.com/index/bulk-register-domain

If you need to search more than 500 domains at a time, contact our support team for approval and we will increase your search limits.

2. Fast Domain Registration using your default WHOIS settings


If you want to complete registrations quickly, you can skip the confirmation steps by activating our express checkout option. It is in your advanced settings for Epik:

upload_2018-10-7_17-20-24.png


Or you can use our free API and write your own scripts.

And yes, you can use our 2 Factor SMS, Google Authenticator, or even free MaxLock to protect your domains at Epik. Privacy is free as usual and you have the option of holding your proceeds from sales and leases in the form of tax-free Masterbucks, or simply cash out to check, ACH, wire, PayPal or major cryptocurrencies.

It is time to Celebrate Liberty from bad registrars!


Where is Godaddy? Even my dear friend @Joe Styler (come to Epik Joe!) is AWOL on a response because there is no defense for crap software and we all know it. Since this initial post on Friday, I have
been told through multiple private messages that inaccurate domain search results for newly dropped domains is routine at GoDaddy. That's crazy! Do the math. This was a $75,000 mistake! Seriously folks, why does anyone not use Epik at this point?

Here are the special Epik bonus offers valid through end-October:

(1) Fund your new Epik account this week with bank transfer, PayPal, or BTC, and we'll add a 5% bonus

(2) Transfer your .COM domains for just $6.49 -- $2 off the normal price through October 31, 2018


Stop accepting mediocrity. Vote with your domains and liberate yourself from bad registrars today! As you can see, liberty pays for itself!

Any questions, email me at [email protected].
 
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We have a confirmed buyer for How.TV closing at $75,000 *.

Incredible sale. Congrats to seller.
Will this sale be reported to DNJournal.com?
 
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What was the acquisition cost?
 
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Incredible sale. Congrats to seller.
Will this sale be reported to DNJournal.com?

Will discuss with the seller on Monday. I was mostly sharing this case study with the NamePros community to illustrate the true cost of bad registrar software. Godaddy is apparently using cached data and it would have cost a domain investor $75K. That was the true opportunity cost in this case.
 
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What was the acquisition cost?

The registration cost was $1770. The renewal price is $26.99, i.e. standard .TV renewal at Epik.

Assuming the sale closes on Monday, it will be 3 days to go from $1770, paid with a credit card, to get a $75K exit. I think even Mike Mann would blush.
 
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Amazing. Congrats to Seller + Epik team
 
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Exceptional result in such a short time. Congrats to the seller!
 
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Hi Everyone. I am currently taking a few days off I'll be back on Friday. I do not know why the name was not shown as available when it was searched for, but I do know the team that shows our results for domains when searched is aware of this thread and pulled extensive logs to flesh everything out. They will get to the bottom of what happened. It does not have to do with us using stale data to check for domain names. The development team has been keeping me in the loop on their findings.
It was an error on our side which they will correct. While that is certainly not something we ever want to have happen we are taking it seriously.
We do not ever and have never registered, held, sold etc etc any names being searched on our platform. If you search for a domain with us we don't tell anyone what you looked for or register that name. This was an unfortunate error.
I am glad the buyer was able to register the domain with Rob's help and that they look to have made a good sale already for the domain. Congratulations.
 
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Why was the registration price $1770?
 
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Why was the registration price $1770?

It was a premium .TV not a General availability domain. The renewals are standard .TV but the initial buy was premium. Not all registrars are able to process these premium registrations. There are some added steps required. We saw potential for premium .TV early on and still do.
 
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This post from 2016, is by someone who acquired some LLL.tv domains (not real words though) over two years ago and wasn't even able to sell them.

I got a few LLL.tv (zky, uxu, ezn) but can't seem to shift em for a decent price either. Not sure how to go about targeting end users on these.

If this $75K sale is legitimate, just proves that timing is everything. (Lately we have been seeing even three letter dot coms sell for not much more than $75K!)

I'd also suggest that perhaps this was some kind of brokered sale where the buyer already had the domain pre-sold. Or that there is something more to this than just a cold purchase on Friday with a random unexpected sale on Monday.
 
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This post from 2016, is by someone who acquired some LLL.tv domains (not real words though) over two years ago and wasn't even able to sell them.



If this $75K sale is legitimate, just proves that timing is everything. (Lately we have been seeing even three letter dot coms sell for not much more than $75K!)

I'd also suggest that perhaps this was some kind of brokered sale where the buyer already had the domain pre-sold. Or that there is something more to this than just a cold purchase on Friday with a random unexpected sale on Monday.

Random LLL.tv's could be sold for very little profit to re-sellers a few years ago but now many are available for registration. How.tv is not a random one though.

It was a premium .TV not a General availability domain. The renewals are standard .TV but the initial buy was premium. Not all registrars are able to process these premium registrations. There are some added steps required. We saw potential for premium .TV early on and still do.

I read somewhere on this forum that if a domain will be registered after 2010 it will have a standard registration and renewal rate. The domain dropped so it shouldn't have been premium, AFAIK.
 
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Random LLL.tv's could be sold for very little profit to re-sellers a few years ago but now many are available for registration. How.tv is not a random one though.

I read somewhere on this forum that if a domain will be registered after 2010 it will have a standard registration and renewal rate. The domain dropped so it shouldn't have been premium, AFAIK.

Always kindof a pain in the butt to explain but definitely well worth it to help anyone who is interested in a nice dot tv domain name.

Everything in dot tv land changed on Mar 18, 2010. All real good, lets call them (premiums) dot tv domains that were registered any time after this date are all standard yearly renewal fees ($25 - $35). This is a guarantee.

Verisign/Dot tv is the first tld ro create this premium pricing model. Just my words and thoughts here but this is something i firmly believe..

NewG tlds created their premium pricing structures after the dot tv premium pricing reg structure. Unfortunately many newG's added crazy inflated yearly renewal prices on top of the first year reg fee also.

Any killer name (premium) that is dropped is always repriced by Verisign. So lets say i dropped WTF.tv which is standard renewal, Verisign would reprice it at $1200 - $5/10k ish. This is a one time fee. Just like all new Gs do now. Only difference is after that one time reg fee, all yearly renewals are now standard unlike many new Gs that have crazy yearly renewal fees also.

If you ever want to buy a killer dot tv that was registered previous to Mar 10, 2010 there is no chart or directory anywhere to tell you what the yearly renewal pricing is so i always suggest to have seller show you a screenshot of the renewal fee of the current registrar.

Here is one more little goofy thing about these premium dot tvs which is probably the root of the problem you had w/your How.tv registration issue.

These premium dot tvs can only be regged at certain premium dot tv registrars. Last time i checked (which was years ago) i believe it was only 9 Registrars total. I know Dynadot and Name.com and Epik are (3) of those premium dot tv Registrars. This scenario could be frustrating if you wanted all of your domains at one registrar that does not participate in that program. I know, because i tried transferring all of my domains to GoDaddy one year and all of my premium dot tvs had to stay within that premium registrar network lets call it.

Not sure why it showed up at GoDaddy since last i checked GD does not accept premium dot tv domains.

Hope this helps a bit.

Either way, i hope the How.tv 75k sale goes thru. It really is a great domain for any videocentric "how to" site.

Any updates on if this sale completed @robepik ?
 
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Hi Everyone. I am currently taking a few days off I'll be back on Friday. I do not know why the name was not shown as available when it was searched for, but I do know the team that shows our results for domains when searched is aware of this thread and pulled extensive logs to flesh everything out. They will get to the bottom of what happened. It does not have to do with us using stale data to check for domain names. The development team has been keeping me in the loop on their findings.
It was an error on our side which they will correct. While that is certainly not something we ever want to have happen we are taking it seriously.
We do not ever and have never registered, held, sold etc etc any names being searched on our platform. If you search for a domain with us we don't tell anyone what you looked for or register that name. This was an unfortunate error.
I am glad the buyer was able to register the domain with Rob's help and that they look to have made a good sale already for the domain. Congratulations.

Without naming the registrar, I posted here in another thread a while back about my experience whereby an "available" domain name in my cart was "unavailable" by the time I attempted to pay for it at checkout.

That registrar was GoDaddy.

Now, about a week ago, I accidentally deleted a name from my cart before checking out - when I realized the error, I attempted to register the domain name to no avail (it was "already registered").

Here's the thing: Whois indicates had it been registered at GoDaddy within minutes of my having accidentally deleted it from my cart. Some coincidence.

I'm merely stating the facts...and this has only ever happened to me with GoDaddy. TWICE.
 
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Always kindof a pain in the butt to explain but definitely well worth it to help anyone who is interested in a nice dot tv domain name.

Everything in dot tv land changed on Mar 18, 2010. All real good, lets call them (premiums) dot tv domains that were registered any time after this date are all standard yearly renewal fees ($25 - $35). This is a guarantee.

Verisign/Dot tv is the first tld ro create this premium pricing model. Just my words and thoughts here but this is something i firmly believe..

NewG tlds created their premium pricing structures after the dot tv premium pricing reg structure. Unfortunately many newG's added crazy inflated yearly renewal prices on top of the first year reg fee also.

Any killer name (premium) that is dropped is always repriced by Verisign. So lets say i dropped WTF.tv which is standard renewal, Verisign would reprice it at $1200 - $5k ish. This is a one time fee. Just like all new Gs do now. Only difference is after that one time reg fee, all yearly renewals are now standard unlike many new Gs that have crazy yearly renewal fees also.

If you ever want to buy a killer dot tv that was registered previous to Mar 10, 2010 there is no chart or directory anywhere to tell you what the yearly renewal pricing is so i always suggest to have seller show you a screenshot of the renewal fee of the current registrar.

Here is one more little goofy thing about these premium dot tvs which is probably the root of the problem you had w/your How.tv registration issue.

These premium dot tvs can only be regged at certain premium dot tv registrars. Last time i checked (which was years ago) i believe it was only 9 Registrars total. I know Dynadot and Name.com and Epik are (3) of those premium dot tv Registrars. This scenario could be frustrating if you wanted all of your domains at one registrar that does not participate in that program. I know, because i tried transferring all of my domains to GoDaddy one year and all of my premium dot tvs had to stay within that premium registrar network lets call it.

Not sure why it showed up at GoDaddy since last i checked GD does not accept premium dot tv domains.

Hope this helps a bit.

Either way, i hope the How.tv 75k sale goes thru. It really is a great domain for any videocentric "how to" site.

Any updates on if this sale completed @robepik ?

Spot on, and I doubt it was ever on GoDaddy because they do not sell premium .tv names, I tried to get Paul Nicks to start years ago and he was thinking about it but then the new gtlds came along and all that work to market and integrate took priority. I don't think GoDaddy has any fault here, they have never offered premium .tv names for registration.
 
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Spot on, and I doubt it was ever on GoDaddy because they do not sell premium .tv names, I tried to get Paul Nicks to start years ago and he was thinking about it but then the new gtlds came along and all that work to market and integrate took priority. I don't think GoDaddy has any fault here, they have never offered premium .tv names for registration.

I agree 100%

I have never seen any premium dot tvs in GD at all. Its hard to believe HOW.tv was ever shown at GDs checkout as available.

Very weird.
 
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I agree 100%

I have never seen any premium dot tvs in GD at all. Its hard to believe HOW.tv was ever shown at GDs checkout as available.

Very weird.

I came across several domains registered years back shown available for regfee at GoDaddy 3 years ago, after that I never used GoDaddy to check available domains.
 
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OK, here is the recap of what happened.

The domain is How.TV. @tasaki25 now owns it at Epik:

https://whois.epik.com/how.tv

That's cool. This was a very nice .TV that had just dropped.

However, what is not cool is that Godaddy was showing this exact domain as not available earlier this morning when it was in fact fully available for registration. See here:

116320_231d2dad73142b2bf528768014c4e0ca.png


It was a time stamp from 7:05 am PT this morning, i.e. before the domain was registered.

We might get an explanation from @Joe Styler. Love Joe. Still waiting for him to come work for Epik.

Great job by you Rob, but also to be fair to GoDaddy that's what all registrars that don't offer premium names do. Go check Beb.tv at Name.com $312.50 premium, check GoDaddy taken.
 
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I came across several domains registered years back shown available for regfee at GoDaddy 3 years ago, after that I never used GoDaddy to check available domains.

It is kinda tricky. Verisign has been repricing many more dot tv drops with a premium price. You never know which ones they are choosing to reprice. Sometimes you get lucky and find a very good video-centric 1-worder that they did not reprice but those are getting harder and harder to find.

Since GD doesnt carry premium dot tv domains, you are better off looking for any premiums at Epik, Name, Dynadot etc.
 
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It is kinda tricky. Verisign has been repricing many more dot tv drops with a premium price. You never know which ones they are choosing to reprice. Sometimes you get lucky and find a very good video-centric 1-worder that they did not reprice but those are getting harder and harder to find.

Since GD doesnt carry premium dot tv domains, you are better off looking for any premiums at Epik, Name, Dynadot etc.

That was not a question and I am not talking about .tv domains. It was (and maybe still is) a bug at GD domain search.

Thanks for the explanation about .tv premium registration rate.
 
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That was not a question and I am not talking about .tv domains. It was (and maybe still is) a bug at GD domain search.

Thanks for the explanation about .tv premium registration rate.

Sorry about that. I thought you were referring to dot tv domains you were searching at GD. Now that i reread your post, i see you did not write any specific tld. Got it now.

I know i have had that happen also to me in other tlds. Cant pinpoint a specific domain but i know it has happened to me. Extremely frustrating to say the least.
 
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