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SAV auctions advice: DON'T BID against user s_n...

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Hi all, this is quite a specific issue but will interest users engaged in SAV auctions.

It happened several times already and from what I understood from SAV support, nothing will be done to prevent it, so I might as well make it public, it may help some of you.

s_n_7cf63f, one of the frequent bidders on SAV auctions, defaults payment lately. So don't enter a bid war with him because it will only lead to the following situations where you overpay for the name:

1. You loose the bid war and end up second behind him. What happens in this case is that when his payment method is charged and fails, you, as second highest bid, are charged immediately. You win the name , but at a high price.

2. You win the bid war and end up paying a high amount. But you could have paid way less.

Here is what you should do instead when you find that user s_n_7cf63f is the current highest bidder:

1. Bid the lowest amount possible allowed by the bidding system (usually = "highest bid + $1").

2a. If you are then highest bidder, don't enter a bid war if user s_n_7cf63f tries to beat you. Let him add $1 and wait for the end of the auction. You should end up with the name. (True on 29th of june 2020)

2b. If you are immediately beaten by a s_n_7cf63f proxy bid, don't enter a bid war. Just wait the end of the auction.

You understood that to win you should make sure you are second behind s_n_7cf63f and not try to outbid him.

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A bit of background: got caught up in bid wars in at least two auctions (probably more, but didn't document it back then).
Last time was last week when I ended up overpaying for two domains on the same day. That's when I realized that there was a repeating scheme.

Some would say it's all part of the game, but I felt cheated because had I known in time that the user had defaulted on the first domain, I would NEVER had entered the second bid war!!!

I also feel that SAV could easily act in the case of this specific user by banning him (temporarily) from auctions. I know it's possible because... it was done to me! During the first weeks I used SAV, I had MANY problems with the charging of my visa card. Was banned from auction quite fast!!!!!
Could never sort it out, had to take a new card with a different bank just to pay SAV... (saw on different threads many users had similar payment problems).


@Nick R See below for suggestions on how to change that.

Your support made me understand that user s_n_7cf63f was acting fair and no special measures needed to be taken. I was even answered that I was outbid by a proxy bid (which shows a complete misunderstanding of the problem raised by the way...)

Shouldn't you implement a better system to take in account these situations?

Two suggestions :
- relaunch auction erasing the defaulting user from the bid history.
or
- In case of a duel ending with the winner defaulting, charge the second bidder only the amount of his first bid at the start of the bid war.

Don't know if it's worth the pain for you implementing all that, maybe the ban would simplify things.

In the meantime, my advice to all users is, you can win against s_n_7cf63f if you act like mentionned above. (disclaimer: True today, will not be true anymore if the user uses a valid payment method).

Good luck to you all.
Hagop
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
We just used "they" to refer to this user in a generic way.
 
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Nick with upto 10 days of auction any user can create a lot of mess for other users before the 2 high bids are declined.


Automatically charging the next higest bidder kind of encourages people to take advantage of the system. Dont you think some other mechanic needs to be in place?
Hello All,

When we reviewed the bidding history of this bidder, we saw that the majority of the auctions they bid on complete as intended, with them as the high bidder successfully paying. We even reached out to them to confirm what we saw and verify the legitimacy of their bids, which we were able to do.

However, because of this higher than acceptable payment issue, we have banned them from placing any bids on any additional auctions. Per our How Auctions Works page (https://www.sav.com/pages/how_auctions_work), if their payment method does not go through, the auction will immediately be awarded to the next highest bidder.

In addition to this, we are going to do a code push later today to automatically ban any bidder with more than 2 declined high bids to prevent this in the future.

Thank you again to Hagop for bring this to our attention and to everyone on this thread for the great feedback and suggestions. We will look into all of them and see what makes sense for us to implement in the future as well.


@Arfy made some very nice and practical suggestions, I think me and all other users would appreciate if you consider his suggestions



Hold on, if shill bidder SN_... has bidded up to $5000 for a name and you were second at $4999, and there was a third at $199, why should you be charged $4999? In my opinion, there was no such bidder as SN_ as he failed to pay and so you should be charged as if you are bidding against person 3 and therefore pay $200.

Yes, I worked in technical audit for a few years and put together remedial methodologies for many companies who need to reimburse customers. My opinion is that you should probably revisit all auctions SN_ has participated in and reimburse the second bidder using the model of 3rd bidder's highest bid +$1 - amount charged to second bidder due to failure of SN_.. to pay.

@Nick R - Let me know if you need help with the above. I can suggest a methodology.
 
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I confirm that Sav payment system is bugged as hell.

Yes Nick and others seem to be nice guys and many times they have jumped to solve different problems with their system for me. Which doesn't repeal the fact the payment system lags big time. I had few cases when my payment didn't go through and the auction was lost for the 2nd bidder, although the cards were working! Also many times adding new card doesn't work, etc etc.

In addition to this, we are going to do a code push later today to automatically ban any bidder with more than 2 declined high bids to prevent this in the future.

Yeah, then ban me right away, because your payment system bugs are what causes my declines. Very fair business.
 
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I hope someone finds out the identity of this shill bidder and clears sav from any alleged illegal activity
 
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Hello All. Members in this thread have made some great suggestions that we will definitely take a look into for future improvements into the system.

If anyone is concerned about their card getting flagged by our fraud detection system like @golan is referring to, just reach out to our support team and we can lift that check for your account pending some additional verification.
 
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Here, right now:

gh8hqRu.png


Whom shall i be bidding against?? Why start min 6.88?
 
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How can I check past auctions in which I participated? No direct links in e-mail, no history in the panel.
 
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How can I check past auctions in which I participated? No direct links in e-mail, no history in the panel.

Google it. Lookup your username/bidder id and Google for this:
Site:sav.com username

I used it to track actions s_n_7cf63f was involved it.
 
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Google it. Lookup your username/bidder id and Google for this:
Site:sav.com username

I used it to track actions s_n_7cf63f was involved it.

Thanks, but it just so happens that the auction I was most looking for is not indexed... :xf.rolleyes:
 
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it never ceases to amaze me how certain crap names io or other across basically all markets
often end up with final price that makes no sense... and if bought by supposed reseller, then certainly ends up with price that leaves his with zero room for profit reselling it,

i think thread like this may offer some explanation why such things happen,
 
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OMG
I have seen the user s_n_7cf63f in many auctions at Sav. In fact I was bidding against him for few names but I didn't go higher as I had a fixed price in my mind for each name which I guess saved my card from being (over)charged. I have won many names at Sav auction and my highest winning bid has been $12. So I think it is up to us to decide what is the maximum we ought to bid for any name. But I support the concerns raised by hagop and others & these must be properly resolved. BTW I can recall some auctions (specially for .co names) where bidding looked insane and made no sense to me, obviously s_n_7cf63f was involved in a few.

@Nick R
I'd suggest Sav team to take corrective measures for the present issues else we'll stop participating in its auction. Additionally I have two suggestions (which I had already conveyed to Sav over call)

1. Immediately incorporate the full time chat support on your website (it was available for few hours on random days).
2. Add paypal as a payment method to avoid card related issues.

Regard
 
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The guy is alive and still bidding, not banned. Here are few current auctions:

xdev.io
s_n_7cf63f $51.00
r_s_38f245 $27.95

biobank.co
s_n_7cf63f $116.00
a_k_santa monica_c78 $100.95

e-health.co
s_n_7cf63f $32.00
k_s_89d9a7 $5.88
 
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We pulled all the logs and saw that the majority of the auctions s_n_7cf63f bid on complete successfully, without any payment issues. Because of that, we have only banned the user from participating in any new auctions moving forward.
 
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We pulled all the logs and saw that the majority of the auctions s_n_7cf63f bid on complete successfully, without any payment issues. Because of that, we have only banned the user from participating in any new auctions moving forward.

isnt the premise of this thread that he mostly did not pay? your statement contradicts op
 
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isnt the premise of this thread that he mostly did not pay? your statement contradicts op

We pulled the logs for every auction bid on by s_n_7cf63f and can confirm that the majority of auctions they bid on did complete successfully and s_n_7cf63f paid as expected. This thread only mentions a select number of auctions where that was not the case. Since we do require all bidders to be able to pay for the auctions right as they close we opted to prevent this user from participating in any future auctions.
 
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We pulled the logs for every auction bid on by s_n_7cf63f and can confirm that the majority of auctions they bid on did complete successfully and s_n_7cf63f paid as expected. This thread only mentions a select number of auctions where that was not the case. Since we do require all bidders to be able to pay for the auctions right as they close we opted to prevent this user from participating in any future auctions.

How many times paid, as opposed not pay?
Anecdotal evidence seems point otherwise.
 
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We are unable to release any specific auctions, numbers, success rates, etc... However we do understand the need for clarity on our policy so we be doing a new code push to auto ban anyone who wins an auction but is unable to pay upon completion more than once.
 
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We are unable to release any specific auctions, numbers, success rates, etc... However we do understand the need for clarity on our policy so we be doing a new code push to auto ban anyone who wins an auction but is unable to pay upon completion more than once.

The user is exposed; The user is banned;
The user is a repeated non-payer

Why refuse to divulge; how many times, paid?

Leads me to believe; was a chronic non-payer.
 
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Yikes! Who in their right mind would join a SAV auction now? Automatically charged the second highest bid amount if the winner doesn't pay? Madness! Have to question the legality of this practice but I guess the Ts and Cs negate that.
 
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We pulled the logs for every auction bid on by s_n_7cf63f and can confirm that the majority of auctions they bid on did complete successfully and s_n_7cf63f paid as expected. This thread only mentions a select number of auctions where that was not the case. Since we do require all bidders to be able to pay for the auctions right as they close we opted to prevent this user from participating in any future auctions.

you expect anyone to take your word for granted after keeping a violator that happened to act in a way that financially was profiting SAV?

I asked @Nick R to disclose all the financial gains received from the immoral and illegal activities of this user and he chose to ignore that.

SAV also so far has not made any commitment to refund everyone that has been wronged by this user.

You fail to understand that banning him and not allowing this is just one issue. The other one is returning every penny to users that you charged the violators bid minus 1 dollar or in cases where he "lost", you pocketed all the money difference between the winning bid and the third bidder.
 
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This is why I stopped bidding in SAV.

If they didn't hear customer's feedback then we should stop using them. That's it.

They should change the auction model.
 
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This is why I stopped bidding in SAV.

They should change the auction model.

Right after they add; Paypal, afternic, Sedo, and maybe, just maybe, update on DAN.
 
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Right after they add; Paypal, afternic, Sedo, and maybe, just maybe, update on DAN.

Didn't DAN permanently block them from the platform for some funny business?

I think SAV calls for one of those memes "how I see myself" vs "how others see me".
 
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Didn't DAN permanently block them from the platform for some funny business?

I think SAV calls for one of those memes "how I see myself" vs "how others see me".

Yes, they won't do business with them. They started bad by somewhat copying Dan's landers which set some bad blood.

They supposedly sent them a cease and desist.
 
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