BackOrderZone.com?

[Name Trader]

Does anyone know anything about BackOrderZone.com? I can't find much out about them from their website or whois. Who is behind this website?

Has anyone tried them? Can they compete against NameJet/SnapNames/Reberry? How much are their backorders?

I'm reluctant to give them my credit card info just when signing up. I think they could at least register me first so I could try them out. Then if I try to backorder something with blank credit card info, they send me there to complete it.

 

[biggie]

:talk:

watching....

---------- Post added at 03:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:12 PM ----------

Don't think he would've been bothered to do it if he was a scammer?

:talk:

not saying he is



but scammers do post on forums, that's how they get suckers.


watch out for a "too good to be true deal"


imo...

 

[BackorderZone]

but scammers do post on forums, that's how they get suckers.

watch out for a "too good to be true deal"

Absolutely, but we probably would have also created a new thread to promote our business, and given out discounts/promos, rather than resurrecting this one that already makes us look terrible.

Now, we would hardly expect to find suckers here. We have seen other threads where the community has torn apart people trying to scam or hurt the domainer name. It's the primary reason we wanted to clear these things up. If we want promotion, we'll pay for an ad!

 

[biggie]

Absolutely, but we probably would have also created a new thread to promote our business, and given out discounts/promos, rather than resurrecting this one that already makes us look terrible.

Now, we would hardly expect to find suckers here. We have seen other threads where the community has torn apart people trying to scam or hurt the domainer name. It's the primary reason we wanted to clear these things up. If we want promotion, we'll pay for an ad!

:talk:



what looks dark now could lighten up in the future


and general "word of mouth" discussions, sometimes, can be best form of advertising



depends on which way you take this.


imo....

 

[Kate]

The intrustdomains control panel @ 173.236.119.105 is down. Who pulled the plug ?
You have nothing to hide right ?

 

[BackorderZone]

The intrustdomains control panel @ 173.236.119.105 is down. Who pulled the plug ?
You have nothing to hide right ?

Our CTO took it down. What exactly are we hiding? I already admitted in my own reply to you, that we provided intrust with a domain control panel to manage their domains they won with us. Up or down, it proves nothing except that they were a customer of our service. If you'd like, I will even get a screenshot of the exact login page for you as soon as I get back in the office tomorrow. As I said, it was an outdated system that isn't used anymore. I had no idea it was even accessible, so it was disabled as soon as our CTO found out to prevent unauthorized access. Now that the link is public, we don't need people trying to login and access a system which has been out of use for over a year. We already had multiple login attempts after it was posted. Not everything is a conspiracy!

 

[PeppyNames]

Our CTO took it down. What exactly are we hiding? I already admitted in my own reply to you, that we provided intrust with a domain control panel to manage their domains they won with us. Up or down, it proves nothing except that they were a customer of our service. If you'd like, I will even get a screenshot of the exact login page for you as soon as I get back in the office tomorrow. As I said, it was an outdated system that isn't used anymore. I had no idea it was even accessible, so it was disabled as soon as our CTO found out to prevent unauthorized access. Now that the link is public, we don't need people trying to login and access a system which has been out of use for over a year. We already had multiple login attempts after it was posted. Not everything is a conspiracy!

And your CTO has full power to remove the Intrust Domains page without asking your customer Intrust Domains because you are team is yourself Intrust Domains.

At one point of time Intrust Domains are just normal customers which they will be for NJ/SN but NJ/SN don't need to pull off any pages because they are honest backorder company.

And in the last how come your CTO and your team know that system has not been in a use for past one year because your team is Intrust Domains.

Too many login attempts is not your problem but your customer Instrust Domains problem but you appear to be worried about unauthorized access rather than your customer.

Why can't I get information about any other customer of yours other than Intrust?

Truth prevails. No matter how hard you try.

 

[Kate]

Okay, to sum up and keep it simple for everyone, here are the facts.

You have acknowledged a close relationship with namebind in the past, but you say it was a bad partner and you ditched them and this is now history.
I have shown the archived whois for backorderzone.com as of 09 Sept 2011. At that time the domain name backorderzone.com was owned by namebind, so is appears that namebind actually did own backorderzone.
A cache of backorderzone.com as of October 2011: http://web.archive.org/web/20120502110458/https://www.backorderzone.com/
The website was the same as it is today. So if I were to judge by the whois my impression is that namebind was more than a partner, it was the entity that was pulling the strings at the time. Or I am still missing something.
I am personally surprised that you decided to retain a brand that has been tarnished by the actions of namebind, with whom you say you cut ties.

As for Intrust domains, we are being told they are/were just a client, but they were important enough to have a turneykey management interface of their own with logo, hosted at BZ. Until yesterday there was a dedicated server and IP address that presumably was just for their own use. I must assume that there is no shortage of IP addresses or computers at your organization since you had forgotten about it, and did not bother to reclaim resources that allegedly haven't been used for a quite a while.
For the curious, this is a screenshot of the management interface that is no more:

Of course, every company may have to deal with bad clients at some point, but when those clients use your infrastructure to spam or defraud it becomes your problem too. Personally I would kick them out rather than sink with them or let them destroy my reputation. But money talks in this world, in this industry even more.
Just looking at the general patterns, two major spammers have come to you for their domain needs, and bellnames is always in the spotlight.
I have always wondered why BZ doesn't provide contact details on their website, just a phone number. Also, the phone number on MPI's website changed from a 719 area code to a toll-free number shortly after the connection was exposed in this thread. I believe somebody has been paying attention to this thread.
What I think is this: BZ would rather keep a low profile, and not show an obvious link with their owners (MPI). Or the other way round.
But now this is an open secret and they have no other choice than to acknowledge it.

Now on to MPI (http://www.mpisoft.com/): earlier in this thread a poster pointed out at the use of unlicensed stock images. Their website is still cheesy today, for example if you look at this page: http://mpisoft.com/methodology.php?t=confidentiality you can see it's a copy-paste from another website ("The India Development Center is fully protected externally and internally with secure and restricted access to all sensitive resources. Every employee is provided with an Identification card.").
While I wouldn't call it a serious crime, it doesn't give the impression of a trustworthy and professional company. It's just another red flag among so many. BZ/MPI doesn't pass the smell test for me.

In the end, it's all coincidences, errors of the past, bad clients etc abusing the good faith of honest service providers, like the CNM.com fiasco that was another unfortunate but selective error by intrust domains & epik.
As you can see a leopard cannot change its spots, and intrust domains will always stab you in the back when the stakes are high enough.
And Rob Monster/Epik is washing his hands of it, and turns a blind eye on what's happening at his registrar.
There is a cluster of shady entities out there, that use each other as an umbrella to confuse outsiders and skirt responsibility for their actions. Seriously, I think icann should police the registrars a little more. It is clear that some registrars are rogue and exist for the sole purpose of spamming, defrauding people, or selling fake pharma etc. Based on the present and the past, I am not convinced that BZ/MPI are qualified or mature enough to run a registrar let alone dozens of them. At the very least they are lacking the necessary ethics and sense of responsibility.

Everybody can make up his/her own mind, time will tell.

 

[Nitindomains]

Great thread, and great deal of insight.

Came across Goname.com, on an auction, and thus stumbled onto this thread.

 

[Kate]

Goname = intrust domains

 

[Zombies]

so what is the verdict in 2015?

Good or bad guys?

 

[Nitindomains]

so what is the verdict in 2015?

Good or bad guys?

Looking for the same answer.

 

[tonecas]

one of the things i don't understand is why these guys wont post previous auctions bidding history. or even during a running auction why can't we see ALL bids that have taken place. this is so since the appearance of BZ so they have had all the time to correct this. but again, it is better to look fishy because who cares?

 

[Sheogorath]

I thought to check them out a month ago and then I remembered the existence of this thread.
I have decided that it will be best to stay clear of them.
It would be great if more members will shed some light on this issue with updated information.

 

[BackorderZone]

Last week our team attended NamesCon and we had a great time, we talked to many domainers who personally use us, or have since decided to give us a try. Some loved us, some were wary. We don't advertise much, we rely on word of mouth. So when domains like TRAITS.COM go for under 4000 dollars in auction it would seem to be a poor business decision to let others know we exist.

It's almost ironic in a way, that we are one of the few backorder companies with no employees who own domains to sell, and we are the one under the most scrutiny for it. I guess sometimes it's better to have conflicts of interest and be cavalier about them, rather than having no conflicts of interest at all. We can't fall back on domain sales when we do a poor job, because we don't own a domain portfolio. Backorders, domain management and web services (Email, Hosting, SSL) are our only game.

As I offered in prior posts, just send me a PM or email me directly and I will be happy to give you free credits so that you can make your own judgement call. In fact, anyone that pms or emails me today (Monday, Jan 19th) will get 5 free credits, which we were offering at NamesCon last week.

Tonecas, you're right about that complaint. If we are guilty of anything, it's that our auction platform is outdated and in major need of a redesign. Regarding live bid history, this is more an issue with our auction platform. We agree that full bid history is preferable. We also want to make it more clear when proxy bids are made, and make the auctions generally more pleasant to view and follow up with. We do have plans for all of this, but I will check with our development team to see if its possible to expand the live history sooner than later.

Regarding post auction-history, the thought behind this was that only those in the auction could see the bid history. This way, if they tried to sell the domain, others could not come to our site to see the value which they paid and undermine the sale. This was important to us because of how low some of the high value domains we capture go for. We found this to be a benefit to domainers. If we're wrong, then please let us know and we'll reconsider on the redesign. If you have any other suggestions or opinions, please PM them to me, we are ALWAYS open to suggestions, even if we can't implement them immediately.

Again, I can't force anyone to trust us or even give us a try. But I would hope that you will all make that judgement call for yourselves. In the meantime, we continue to pick up great domains for our clients, at a fraction of the cost of the big guys. Excuse me now, I caught the Flu on the way back from Vegas and it's time to get back to rest.

 

[tonecas]

@BackorderZone, granted on your stance for other companies that work on the drop that have also issues. Personally, i don't think that ANY backorder company is working clear and without any conflict of interests. It is an inherently shaddy business.

DropCatch, the pubic drop service of the Reberry brothers catch domains from client backorders and then place them in public auction where anyone can bid.

SnapNames and Namejet, well, let me just say that they collect domains from their managing registrar companies that sell domains that they should not have any access in the first place, unless extenuating circumstances. Not to mention the infamous shill bidding that has occurred a few years back at Snapnames.

granted this, the problem with your service is that all dots lead the shady Intrust to your business. It is very hard for anyone to believe in your justifications. I can believe that you are clean and instead you have had very poor reasoning and very poor marketing notions and decisions. You f** up big time. It is now hard to believe in your story. In any case I can give you the benefit of doubt.

regarding the bid history, that doesn't make any sense. bidders that were placed in the *private auction* should have access to the bid history. the idea of protecting the winning bidder is nonsense. I can record the winning bid because you send it by email. I can monitor the auction until the end and store the winning bid and bidder. if you give access to the bidding history for past auctions to participating bidders you are only making your service more transparent. simple has that. sure you will have to spend some more database space and alter one or two web pages but I think in 2 years of business you could have done this by now.

 

[BackorderZone]

@tonecas Well first, let me say. I appreciate your comments even if I don't agree with all of it. I especially appreciate that you are looking at the issue from more than one side. I have had to basically stopped arguing the intrust point, because it all comes down to what I say vs. what anyone else says. Yes, it sucks that it does come down to my word. That's why I try to make it up with actions. I gave out plenty of credits last time this thread got popular, and no one came back to accuse us of fraud.

You're probably right on the marketing/PR, as prior to myself becoming COO there wasn't any communication with the domainer community. We're trying to do better. I invite any one of you to PM me when you are in the Orlando Florida area, and I will have you come see our office and then take you out to lunch. Look us up on linkedin if you'd like to see my history in web hosting and domains, none of which involves buying or selling them for profit. You can even add the owner of the company and speak to him personally. You can find my (not-so) handsome mug on many of the namescon photos if you care to look, we're out there in public, we're not trying to hide anything.

You all know the brand intrust uses now, and with some effort find the domains they register and who they are being registered by. That's really the only proof there can be, because no one has ever presented real evidence which we can dispute. It's like trying to prosecute McDonalds for murder because Charles Manson ate a big mac once. I will rehash though. We did business with intrust, we provided intrust with a copy of the bellnames.com turnkey domain management platform (a hosted service, closed source) so that their customers could manage domains with us as a branded solution. They bid on domains the same as anyone else, the only difference being where those domains got delivered. This isn't something uncommon at all in any industry. Enom basically makes this their business. Is Enom to blame for every single domainer who make someone angry? What about any registrar with an API? Looking back, it may not have been worth it, but at the time it was one way we were able to get large backorder customer to use our platform.

If you take a look, we don't even use bellnames anymore because it was a poor system not meant to deal with large registrars or evolving icann demands. We removed the intrust page, because it was no longer used and we didn't need the rest of the internet trying to crack a script which hadn't been updated in 3 years. We never hid the fact that it existed. What's the quote, "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." We're human and left an abandoned webpage up on a VPS server, if you have ever seen the inner runnings of a tech company, far stupider things happen! Ever hear the old joke about someone tripping over a datacenter plug and shutting everything down? There's truth to it. We learn from our mistakes, and we do better. We're a small team, and theres only so many human work hours available per day.

Again, we will look into the auction history. And as you said, anyone can self-record the bids. You are also notified of being outbid. If we're trying to hide something, we are not trying very hard. We still do not wish to publicly display the results of our auctions, just like we decline to open our auctions to the public, even against bribes as high as 5 digits to get entry. If the history policy we have now has such a large impact on the trust of the community, then we will look into allowing any bidding user to see that history. You say we had 2 years to do so, but we have honestly never had major complaints about it, it wasn't something we thought about the last 2 years while developing our management platform. I won't lie and say no one has asked for the history of an auction they took place in, but when they did we always provided it via email.

So to conclude, its again all down to my word. Take it or toss it down a hole. If its possible at all to do so in a timely manner, I will see changes made to the policies that worry you and others here. And as we always do, we'll let actions speak. Thanks to anyone who already contacted me today (I count 5 already) for free credits! I hope you come back to talk about your positive OR negative experiences with us.

 

[tonecas]

it is not to make the bidding history public to everyone. it is to make it available to every bidder that entered the auction.

there are two approaches to bidding system: 1) you hide the bidder alias and generate a new one for every auction to hide the bidder's identity. 2) you show the bidder alias and you should show the bidding history at any time to everyone on the auction.

anything in between these options won't make any sense and you will only making it a little more hard for people to get the information.

and this gives people an opportunity to look at it as having something to hide. and you can't blame them can't you? specially after all this story about Intrust. Why give more motives for suspicion?

and it is not needed nor welcomed the model of DropCatch which is insidious by showing all bidders, bids and open an auction to everyone.

 

[BackorderZone]

@tonecas

Again, thank you for the constructive posts. As I said before, I am disgusting and flu-ridden right now. Give me a few days and i'll get back to you on this with either a resolution or a timeline to do so. This is the type of stuff we want to hear and it's the reason we came to namepros in the first place. It wasn't exactly because of the warm welcomes.

Regarding the two methods you gave, it's actually something we have been considering on for the future expansion of our backorder program. Which do you prefer of the two methods? I feel like username is the more transparent, but we also considered allowing a change of username say once every 6 months to a year.

No matter which is best, I will make a personal effort to have auction history added to all users in the auction. In fact, if its possible I will have it retro-actively added for past auctions as well.

 

[tonecas]

that is great! thank you for your efforts to make BZ transparent and clean.

personally i prefer the method of showing the bidder alias because it is more transparent. I know that is is harsh for active bidders but they can have an option to change the bidder alias or create a new account. this is the model followed by NameJet and Snapnames.

 

[Jason.tv]

This is a great service, backorderzone has been successful numerous amounts of times for me and customer support is generous!