A public invitation to Pool

[RJ]

Lately there seems to be a lot of questions for and interest in the drop catching company Pool.com. Their CEO Richard Schreier has recently expressed an interested in joining the public domain forums to answer these questions.

On behalf of the NamePros community, this is a public invitation to Richard or anyone from the team at Pool.com to join and participate in discussions.

NamePros Members - If you have questions for Pool.com, they can be posted here in this thread.

Sincerely,

Ron James
Webmaster

 

[Marck]

Dear Pool.com,

Why did I have to wait 3 weeks to discover my domain is waiting at some second-rate German registrar I've never heard of, that still hasn't contacted me with any account info?

Thank you for allowing me to ask this question of you.

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[homebuyer]

Civility and Professionalism

I'll contact pool.com's CEO this evening. Let's attack the problems and not the person.

 

[.X.]

A great invitation , Imo..RJ...I would like to see a SnapNames Rep in here as well.

 

[Spade]

And I thought RJ was inviting me to hang out by the pool.....

But this is good too.

 

[AdoptableDomains]

I would like to know what registrars are partnered with Pool for catches. knowing this can make backordering before real drops easier since you you know you only have to expect the auction at one place by knowing where it will be first available. Without that you need to hedge and backorder at multiple catchers. Someone used to publish this, but I haven't see it in a long time.

 

[whitebark]

When catching .ca domains why are we paying in US$'s? Not that there is much difference but on the surface it doesn't make much sense. Of the big drop catchers doing .ca, Pool is the only one charging in US$'s.

 

[rasman]

Greetings from Pool and a few answers

Hello all and thanks for the invite to join your discussion and provide answers to your questions. I hope I can shed some light on Pool.com and in the process dispel some of the myths that exist out there.

So, in regards to questions already posted...

Marck... without knowing the specific domain you had problems with I'm not sure what may have gone wrong. Our systems should notify you automatically when you win a domain. Emails are dispatched the same day a transaction closes. So, there may be a possibility that the email got caught in a spam filter or something like that. If you have further problems, contact me when it happens and I'll do the research. Our registrar partners receive the data about successful buyers at the same time. If there is a delay with a partner notifying you of login details then I want to know about it and I will contact them directly. So, if you can provide the specific domain to me, I'd be happy to do more research.

Adoptable... we have a fairly long list of registrars that we use and I'm sorry we don't publish that because it would allow our competitors direct access to a very key resource in the drop. I don't quite understand your question about where to place your orders for dropping domains. You will always need to place your orders at multiple catchers because it is very likely that all catchers are trying to get the same list of domains. At Pool.com, placing a backorder doesn't cost anything so it is a risk free transaction. As you know, you only incur an obligation to pay if we successfully catch the domain.

Whitebark... I guess the easy answer to the currency issue is simplicity for our internal accounting group. However, we have been looking at bringing in support for multiple currencies and as the US and CDN dollar get so close to each other, you're right that it doesn't make much of a difference in terms of the actual costs.

Cheers

Richard Schreier

 

[Michelle]

And I thought RJ was inviting me to hang out by the pool.....

But this is good too.

Great idea - could have been a great chance to buy a new bikini :hehe:

-RJ- good call :tu:

 

[DomainBuyerBroker]

I have not put many backorders into pool for quite sometime because of the pool auction model of enticing customers to bid against themselves for domains they backordered.

So Mr. Schreier, do all names still go into "auction" even if there are no other bidders?

If so, why do you make your customers bid against themselves?

I really would like to see an answer to this question. Not answering the question will mean to me that this shady practice is still in place.

 

[bobdigital]

rasman, why don't you let us know who is in each auction?
It bothers me when someone named "POOL_1234" who never bid in the first 72 hours, outbids me at the last second.
Do you see how this non-transparency could lead bidders to believe someone from pool is doing something shady?

 

[rasman]

Pool auction model

DomainBuyerBroker: Pool does not entice bidders to bid against themselves, I'm not sure how that would be possible. If Pool has only one backorder for a domain, then it is automatically awarded to that person who placed the single order backorder. When more than one backorder is placed, we hold an auction. Each auction participant, identified by their bidder ID is a unique Pool.com customer. If I have mis-read your question please clarify.

bobdigital: We have been toying with some ideas about revealing more about bidders but most of our customers prefer being anonymous. Of course, once an auction is over it is an easy task to associate the winning bidder ID with the whois data and keep track that way.

You may have also noticed that we have recently changed the "default" setting from the old Pool_12345 format to a Bidder_12345 format. The former was confusing and suggested that Pool was actually participating in the auction which we do not do. We are also encouraging our customers to create their own unique bidder ID. Interestingly enough, any Pool.com customer could put their real name in their bidder id but I don't know of any situation where that is the case. Again, I believe most of our customers prefer to bid anonymously.

We can see how bidders gaming in the last few minutes of an auction are seen as odd practices and I can assure you these bidders have nothing to do with Pool.com. We are also looking at a new auction extension protocol that will make extensions longer than 5 mins allowing people more time to react to last minute bids and to prevent gaming the timing of the auction closing.

 

[.X.]

It's great to see you here "rasman" ..Welcome aboard :wave:

 

[Badger]

Perfect, spin by here:

http://www.namepros.com/warnings-and-alerts/101114-dont-ever-use-pool.html?highlight=pool

Never used Pool since I had 2 serious (and I mean extremely serious) situations and they just left me high and dry and holding the baby.

Its a great concept and they do just what they say on the tin - However, after theyve caught your name, youve won the auction and then paid them, thats when pool get off the bus and lose all interest.. And when youre talking in terms of several thousand dollars a time, if something goes wrong with one of their questionable registrars (like the time dodora hijacked one of my names, a year or two after Id bought it from pool) you are on your own...

 

[AdoptableDomains]

I have a questions as to how the lists work. I have a list of current and past backorders in my account. some past ones still show the previous drop dates. why can't they updated with the new expire dates when they change. Some are also blank, and some show bold coming expire dates even though those dates are several months past.

It would be much more user friendly if the lists automatically updated with new expire/drop dates, or updated with the status of drop catch such as failed, renewed, or etc.

 

[rasman]

Update for Badger and Adoptable

Badger: The situations you reference were back in 2005, before my time so I can't really comment. I'm sure your data is accurate. I can say that we do play close attention to our registrar partners and make every attempt to ensure they are both credible and reliable. I think the times have changed a little since 2005. We have a stable base of registrars and we provide a single interface to manage your acquired domains through Namescout where out partners allow us (most cases). Note that you may consider transferring domains into your own registrar after the 60 day hold placed by the registry (in .com for example).

And sometimes s*$t happens! Pool.com has been the victim of fraud for examle and domain hijacking and we are quite active in usinmg whatever legal means necessary to get domains back. While I can't categorically promise 100% that something like you describe would never happen, I cna say we would not leave you high and dry if it did.

Adoptable: Ah!!!! You have found one of my favourite "bugs". The current status of domains backordered is not updated properly in the backorder list and is on our list of bugs to fix. Thanks for pointing it out!

 

[Skinny]

I rasman,

I've kind of checked out services like Pool.com and others but all (including your sercvice) force you to use a credit card when backordering.

Is there any reason I can't use Paypal.

I ask that because I currently don't own a credit card so I can't really do anything in the domain name after market.

Skinny

 

[hmcintyre]

I have one question which may be just my computer or may be a small glitch. When I'm searching for domains which are expiring soon, and I change the items on the search bar (for example only searching .ca domains) and click search, nothing ever comes up. I have to go to another page and then come back to the domains dropping list before the .ca names show up.

Just wondering if this is a known issue or if I'm the only one it happens to. Thanks

 

[Charley]

My only question is

- Why don't you have Paypal as a mode of payment ? Consider your competitor SnapNames which has it, dont you think you are letting potential customers go away.

 

[jmcc]

How many .eu domains did Pool.com register?
How many .eu domains on auction at Pool actually end up being sold rather than dropped?
Did Pool.com lose heavily on .eu domains?
How vibrant is the .eu post-landrush secondary market?

Regards...jmcc