Dynadot

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

Spaceship Spaceship
Watch

HDmarketing

Top Member
Impact
1,097
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.

===

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
 
19
•••
The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
0
•••
I can confirm that the buyer has pointed the nameserves to DAN after the auction closed but I cant speak to why the domain would randomly point there during the auction aside from my guess in the post above.

I checked out Google Analytics for the Auction Parked Page and do see traffic going to the domain 19th and 20th.

Regardless of where the domain is pointing, there was only once instance of this auction running on Sav, and the auction was executed exactly as expected.

What are the odds that the winner of the domain also pointed the nameservers to DAN.com WITHOUT listing the domain, which gives you the same exact error page as in your hypothesis? And that's without any changes in between. As far as I've seen (from every time I've visited during that time period), the domain has been consistently pointing to the DAN misconfigured page since September 19.

So the cache error would need to have been constant until September 23 at which point the winner would have actually misconfigured his DAN lander, blending the two together. Some wicked coincidence.
 
0
•••
A wicked coincidence indeed!
 
0
•••
What are the odds that the winner of the domain also pointed the nameservers to DAN.com WITHOUT listing the domain, which gives you the same exact error page as in your hypothesis? And that's without any changes in between. As far as I've seen (from every time I've visited during that time period), the domain has been consistently pointing to the DAN misconfigured page since September 19.

So the cache error would need to have been constant until September 23 at which point the winner would have actually misconfigured his DAN lander, blending the two together. Some wicked coincidence.

A vile coincidence ;)
 
1
•••
This thread is entertaining...

BTW, did anyone asked how their dropcatching service work ?

A hypothetical unethical situation:

Ideally they want 1+ people backordering. Given this thread, what would stop them having a guy placing backorder on a backordered name and turning it into auction?

As an investor, it is in your best interest to seek only the platforms that take only ONE order per name.
 
2
•••
Ideally they want 1+ people backordering. Given this thread, what would stop them having a guy placing backorder on a backordered name and turning it into auction?

We do have a very strict policy preventing anyone who works at Sav from placing any bids or backorders on any domains at Sav.
 
1
•••
As an investor, it is in your best interest to seek only the platforms that take only ONE order per name.

Know of any decent ones? The now defunct domain monster has only caught one or two over the years and not a single nab from name.com
namedotfail.png
 
0
•••
We do have a very strict policy preventing anyone who works at Sav from placing any bids or backorders on any domains at Sav.

Are they as "strict" and "innovative" as your auction policies? Remember when a guy could drive multiple auction prices up and did not have to pay if he accidentally won? Remember SAV "awarding" the name to the poor second bidder at fake bid minus a dollar? Remember instead of then doing the right thing and giving it to second bidder at the price that he would have paid without the shill bidder, you just cancelled the auctions and "restarted" them?
 
2
•••
Know of any decent ones? The now defunct domain monster has only caught one or two over the years and not a single nab from name.com
Show attachment 168312

Not a good advisor here, but if it is a name many are after, SAV has little chance of getting it, as Dropcatch/HD have hundreds of registrars trying to snipe it, plus many others. If it is not something others thought of, you are better off not giving your idea to SAV and just trying to snipe it using the desktop catcher promoted somewhere on this forum.
 
0
•••
@Recons.Com It sounds like you still have some questions about Sav and thats OK. I would be happy to setup a call between the two of us and go over any lingering concerns or questions. If you are interested, just DM me you contact details and we can setup a time to talk.
 
0
•••
There is one thing I don't understand. There are currently 2 names on auction:

meyer(.)co - the first (and only bid) is $599.95
goa(.)co - the first bid is $599.95

They are great names, but why someone will place a $599 bid, as the first bid? Why not 20, or 50? To keep the competition away maybe? Maybe it is a proxy bid?

Anyway, if you read their "How Auctions Work" page, you'll see something funny (or not):

10. Sav reserves the right to modify these rules at any time for any reason.
 
0
•••
There is one thing I don't understand. There are currently 2 names on auction:

meyer(.)co - the first (and only bid) is $599.95
goa(.)co - the first bid is $599.95

They are great names, but why someone will place a $599 bid, as the first bid? Why not 20, or 50? To keep the competition away maybe? Maybe it is a proxy bid?

Anyway, if you read their "How Auctions Work" page, you'll see something funny (or not):

10. Sav reserves the right to modify these rules at any time for any reason.

It appears that those are user auctions. The owner could have technically set that as the starting bid. Although I don't know if anyone legit would pay $600 for meyer.co
It can't be a proxy bid because, well, the bid would be $1, not $599

As for the last part, I was looking at that yesterday, about to post it here. But it think it may be a misinterpretation. I think they just mean they can permanently change one of those rules in the future, not that they can act in any way they want in existing auctions.
 
0
•••
On mobile I can't see any data, but on desktop, both names I'm talking about are labeled as "Pending Delete".

As far as I can see on desktop, auction types are:

1. Pending Delete
2 . Exclusive Expiring
3. Customer
 
0
•••
Weird. On my phone, it says the following for the two domains:

meyer.co is owned and listed by a Sav customer. Get your domains listed today.

However, this is false. Whois says that this domain dropped and is now owned by Sav.com. So I guess it was caught by Sav.

BUT:

If multiple users submitted backorder requests for a domain we capture, we start a simple 10 day auction. All auctions start at $1 plus the registration cost, and anyone can bid on an auction.

So backorder auction start at $1. So someone did go ahead and bid $600 as the starting bid. HOWEVER again:

  1. Sav will automatically proxy bid on your behalf when a bid more than the minimum required bid is submitted.

So this is impossible. If someone entered $599, the bid displayed would be $1 seeing how sav accepts proxy bids.

Conclusion: more things that make no sense.
 
2
•••
Both of those domain names are registry premium domains which means the registry has set a higher price to register those specific domains. All Pending Delete auctions are domains caught via Backorder where multiple users placed a backorder on the domain. The starting bid is a the registration cost, which is higher for some domains depending on the registry.
 
1
•••
Registry premium dotco are $129, no?
 
0
•••
0
•••
Correct. While it varies from registry to registry, .CO has over 10 pricing tiers that range from the hundreds to the thousands depending on the domain.
 
0
•••
I'd love to bid on SAV auctions but I simply don't trust the platform. I've read that you charge money for every bid input into the auction and that there are also 120 day registrar locks which you can bypass by uploading ID. Nothing about this says user friendly.
 
1
•••
Hey @Lord Antares

From time to time threads on NP regarding tend to remind me of a scene from one my favorite movies so I understand the hesitation.


However, I am happy to clear up these, and any other concerns people have:

Charge money to bid: For new bidders, we do preauth their credit for bids entered to ensure they have the funds to complete the auction should they be the high bidder. Once a user wins a few auctions without a payment issue, this automatically stops.

Locks: We did previously put a 120 transfer lock on domains bought via auctions but thanks to feedback from NP this was reduced to 60 days a few months ago. If the domain has to be transferred in, or it was just caught via backorder there is a 60 day ICANN lock on it anyways so it rarely effects anything.

If you have any remaining questions, I would be happy to setup a time for us to talk directly to go over them. Just DM me and we can setup a time this week.
 
Last edited:
0
•••
My only issue is that you can't start an auction without a start price and all auctions start at $1.
I would like the flexibility of setting a start price.

Other than that I have sold domains with no issues.
I have drop catched domains with no issues

When multiple people backorder, they go to an action just like any other auction platform.

While SAV might not be the fast drop catcher, you can backorder a .com for 6.95 and .net for 4.49

.co back orders are also 4.88

For registry premium they are 99 (The ones that are 120 reg premium is 99 on SAV), I caught tyne.co for 99 yesterday

There are a ton of issues, and all they need is to hire few more programmers.
So many projects in the pipeline with no timeline.

I like SAV and i wish well, but comeon Nick, you have not rolled out anything new in months.
 
0
•••
My only issue is that you can't start an auction without a start price and all auctions start at $1.
I would like the flexibility of setting a start price.

Other than that I have sold domains with no issues.
I have drop catched domains with no issues

When multiple people backorder, they go to an action just like any other auction platform.

While SAV might not be the fast drop catcher, you can backorder a .com for 6.95 and .net for 4.49

.co back orders are also 4.88

For registry premium they are 99 (The ones that are 120 reg premium is 99 on SAV), I caught tyne.co for 99 yesterday

There are a ton of issues, and all they need is to hire few more programmers.
So many projects in the pipeline with no timeline.

I like SAV and i wish well, but comeon Nick, you have not rolled out anything new in months.

Our auction platform is designed to sell domains at their true market value, which is determined by the bidders on the platform and, is why all Premium Auctions start at $1 (or $1 plus their transfer in cost). However, we do offer multiple options to sell domains! If there is a fixed price you want to sell the domain for, you can list it as a Buy Now listing with a fixed price.

Regarding the size of our ToDo Pipeline - we could not agree more! We just are a small team now but are actually interviewing more developers as we speak! If you know any good Python developers in Chicago, please send them to Sav.com and click the Careers link in the footer to apply.
 
0
•••
Hello Everyone,

We are finding that we are answering a lot great questions within a ton of different threads, which makes it really had for people to find those in the future. To try to simplify this, we made a Sav Official thread within NP. If anyone has any other questions, please ask them in our Sav Official thread to help us consolidate everything in one spot. https://www.namepros.com/threads/sav-official-thread.1202323/page-3

Thanks!
Nick
 
0
•••
Last edited:
2
•••
it is not possible.
Since i saw sav restarts new auction if highest bidder fail to pay.
Second bidder dont get it anyway
 
1
•••
Back