Bidding on your own names at NameJet...?

[webquest]

Once in awhile I see people bidding on their own domains at NJ. I would think it would be frowned upon.

Today's seems more obvious than normal. Or am I missing something here?

Airlinejobs.com owned by Andy Booth at Booth.com and high bidder is BQDNcom (James Booth).

3 bids down we see Boothcom as a bidder.

Same thing with MovieZone.com. Owned by Andy Booth in which he currently appears to be the high bidder.

High Bid: $2,475 USD by boothcom

They actually won their own domain airplanesforsale.com. Im guessing it didnt get as high as they wanted so needed to protect it.

Bidder Amount Date
bqdncom $2,001 7/17/2017 12:23 PM
boothcom $1,950 7/17/2017 12:23 PM

 

[offthehandle]

https://forum.freeadvice.com/computers-software-internet-law-10/shill-bidding-31189.html

Only the auctioneer and the consignor knew the item was being bid on by the owner. Imagine that! The "rules" are, there are no rules. This auction house runs 2 to 4 auctions per week with as many as 60 lots per auction.

The reason for asking was simple: Ebay NOW calls this shill bidding. They reference title 18 USCS 1343 as being the federal law/s governing this type of deception. I was hoping someone could point me in the right direction for researching. Again... Thanks!

 

[offthehandle]

https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/c...-of-sports-memorabilia-and-other-collectibles

William Mastro and Two Other Executives of Former Mastro Auctions Indicted for Allegedly Defrauding Bidders in Online and Live Auctions of Sports Memorabilia and Other Collectibles
Fourth Former Mastro Auctions Employee Charged with Lying to FBI Agents


Among allegedly fraudulent auction practices, the indictment charges that the three defendants and others placed fictitious shill bids for the sole purpose of artificially inflating the price of items being auctioned. They allegedly placed shill bids at various times using a corporate bidding account, their own personal accounts, and accounts of employees and friends. The defendants then ensured that when a shill bid was the highest bid, the shill bidder would not be required to purchase the item; instead, they canceled the sale and offered the item to the next-highest bidder, the charges allege.



Hmmmm. Recalling “Next bid wins” ???????? Sounds similar??

 

[Arca]

Maybe we need a thread merge now, but here is a post from Elliot Silver with an explanation:

https://domaininvesting.com/namejet-addresses-missing-public-auction-history/

When I first read this article there were a few lengthy long comments that were critical of NJ, asking them why they allow shill bidding, and why they are not responding to their users concerns about this. When I saw those comments I thought Elliot Silver might notify NJ and they might issue another statement (since they did issue a statement as a response to him notifying them about the missing records).

But rather it appears that all of those comments have now been deleted from the comment section (at least I no longer see them when I visit the article). I think there were somewhere between 5-10 comments. Now it says 3 comments, and I only see 2 of them displayed - are other's seeing the same when they visit the article?

 

[Chris Hydrick]

But rather it appears that all of those comments have now been deleted from the comment section (at least I no longer see them when I visit the article). I think there were somewhere between 5-10 comments. Now it says 3 comments, and I only see 2 of them displayed - are other's seeing the same when they visit the article?

Very keen observation! I think the comments you are referring to were left by a Filipe. Not sure if there was another commenter. But I do remember his comments being critical, yet if memory serves correct, also reasonable.

I also remember one of Filipe's comments being a duplicate post. So maybe Elliot mistakenly deleted the other posts while cleaning up the duplicate comments?

Either that, or a new headline might be coming soon - Elliot addresses missing public comment history.

 

[Arca]

Very keen observation! I think the comments you are referring to were left by a Filipe. Not sure if there was another commenter. But I do remember his comments being critical, yet if memory serves correct, also reasonable.

I also remember one of Filipe's comments being a duplicate post. So maybe Elliot mistakenly deleted the other posts while cleaning up the duplicate comments?

Either that, or a new headline might be coming soon - Elliot addresses missing public comment history.

Perhaps NJ requested the removal of those comments. Aside from this thread the industry is silent on the issue of NJ letting the shill bidders continue using the platform. I assume NJ want to keep it that way.

 

[wwwweb]

Namejet is a sponsor to many people, I am not sure if they pay commissions also, and some have direct connections to Namejet management so don't expect many to speak up about this.

Just a sad reality of the times.

 

[Chris Hydrick]

Perhaps NJ requested the removal of those comments. Aside from this thread the industry is silent on the issue of NJ letting the shill bidders continue using the platform. I assume NJ want to keep it that way.

I hear ya, and share your frustrations.

Though, here's I'm coming from is

• Elliot was the first major blogger to blog about the disappearance of auction logs. Then he linked this thread. Kudos for running with the tweet, obtaining a NameJetGM comment, and putting the update on domaining.com feed.
• I want to give Elliot the benefit of the doubt. I'm one of the more skeptical people on here, and if you can't trust domaininvesting.com as an industry information pillar, than mine and others foundation may be a little rocked. My foundation in respect to believing NameJet sales was already rocked when I pointed out a million plus dollars of cancelled NameJet sales HERE
• Sometimes you just have to take other peoples word for it. Remain skeptical in case that person had the wrong understanding. ie @Michael said HERE "When I think of the most ethical people in the domain space there are two people that immediately come to mind, and Elliot is one of them. I'm not exaggerating in the least, Elliot is as good as they come." ... and with that Michael has been instrumental in his efforts throughout this thread to call out wrongdoings. I think his word has some clout.

Let's hope it get's cleared up, so we aren't left in speculatory wonder.

 

[Addison]

I also remember one of Filipe's comments being a duplicate post. So maybe Elliot mistakenly deleted the other posts while cleaning up the duplicate comments?

I missed these comments but the Google cache of that article has been removed, presumably by website owner Elliot:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...jet-addresses-missing-public-auction-history/

The article is indexed by Google. Only the cache was removed.

That may insinuate it was intentional and then scrubbed from Google cache too.

 

[Chris Hydrick]

When I first read this article there were a few lengthy long comments that were critical of NJ, asking them why they allow shill bidding, and why they are not responding to their users concerns about this. When I saw those comments I thought Elliot Silver might notify NJ and they might issue another statement (since they did issue a statement as a response to him notifying them about the missing records).

But rather it appears that all of those comments have now been deleted from the comment section (at least I no longer see them when I visit the article). I think there were somewhere between 5-10 comments. Now it says 3 comments, and I only see 2 of them displayed - are other's seeing the same when they visit the article?

I missed these comments but the Google cache of that article has been removed, presumably by website owner Elliot:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...jet-addresses-missing-public-auction-history/

The article is indexed by Google. Only the cache was removed.

That may insinuate it was intentional and then scrubbed from Google cache too.

 

[Chris Hydrick]

here are the totals from the two accounts I'm pretty sure are him:

6ifd5lvs - Seek bid on 18, winner8888 bid on 318.
8fyd9zfl - Seek bid on 17, winner8888 bid on 286.
9rev0pcj - Seek bid on 46, winner8888 bid on 217.
2cpd2hzh - Seek bid on 25, winner8888 bid on 261.
7syi4nah - Seek bid on 42, winner8888 bid on 54.

I found a sixth featured auction account suspected to be Oliver's: 4mso1azf

From what I can tell, it only sold 6N.com's. It was active from around November 18th, 2015 to around January 8th, 2016. I wasn't able to confirm which featured auction 289952.com sold from, but based off of the November 28th, 2015 WHOIS, it appears the domain owner was Oliver at the time of the $504 sale. If Oliver was the seller, then this would be an another auction where Oliver manually bid up his own auction using his bidder alias seek.

Domain: 289952.com (appears to be a hand reg)
www.namejet.com/Pages/Auctions/StandardDetails.aspx?auctionid=3737065
WHOIS: September 12th, 2015 - Oliver (GoDaddy)
WHOIS: November 28th, 2015 - Oliver (eNom)
Sale Date: December 3rd, 2015 ($504)
Big Log: mkrules-504 seafoodman-494 jiggaman-454 seek (Oliver) -190 twotwo-160

Previously, @Michael had estimated that seek had manually bid on 148 of his own auctions using five featured auction account's believed to be Oliver's. Now, with the emergence of a sixth featured auction account believed to be Oliver's, that figure will likely increase.

... more to come.

 

[barefooted]

Starting from your Archive .org link, I found more info about the owner of the featured listing:

289952.com
In Nov. 2015 it received bids at pre-release.

Then in Dec. it was listed at:
http://web.archive.org/web/20151203225651/http://www.namejet.com/featuredauctions/4mso1azf Pre-release "NNNNNN.COMs - No Reserves!" and jiggaman won it (Goldnames.com and others reported the sale - $219.)

In April 2016 brandprotection won it for $109 at:
http://web.archive.org/web/20160420064626/http://www.namejet.com:80/featuredauctions/MediaOptions

Domain was listed at Afternic - user is "original" (September 7th, 2016.)
"Original" listed it in Flippa too.

In July 2017 chandldj (Dean Chandler) won it for $69 on Namejet and he is the current owner (according Whois, not Afternic/Flippa.)


One more domain with Dean Chandler's Whois:
jiggaman won 289965.com - $210 - 07/30/2015
chandldj - $151 - Aug. 2017

https://domainbigdata.com/283315.com - Oliver Hoger Sep. 2015
https://domainbigdata.com/241117.com - Oliver Hoger Sep. 2015

It is clear who the seller is.

 

[Chris Hydrick]

Starting from your Archive .org link, I found more info about the owner of the featured listing:

289952.com
In Nov. 2015 it received bids at pre-release.

Then in Dec. it was listed at:
http://web.archive.org/web/20151203225651/http://www.namejet.com/featuredauctions/4mso1azf Pre-release "NNNNNN.COMs - No Reserves!" and jiggaman won it (Goldnames.com and others reported the sale - $219.)

In April 2016 brandprotection won it for $109 at:
http://web.archive.org/web/20160420064626/http://www.namejet.com:80/featuredauctions/MediaOptions

Domain was listed at Afternic - user is "original" (September 7th, 2016.)
"Original" listed it in Flippa too.

In July 2017 chandldj (Dean Chandler) won it for $69 on Namejet and he is the current owner (according Whois, not Afternic/Flippa.)

Did you mean 281992.com? Jiggaman > BrandProtection > Chandldj? If so, you mistakenly wrote 289952.com.

289952.com was not included in the / 4mso1azf archive link. From what I can tell, the only publicly recorded sale of 289952.com is the $504 NameJet sale to bidder mkrules on December 3rd, 2015. Not sure if it was listed elsewhere.

(289952.com bid log)

Comparing the 100 domains on each archive.org page in your post:
(December 3rd, 2015) http://web.archive.org/web/20151203225651/http://www.namejet.com/featuredauctions/4mso1azf
(April 20th, 2016) http://web.archive.org/web/20160420064626/http://www.namejet.com:80/featuredauctions/MediaOptions

Five (5) domains that were sold from FA /4mso1azf on (or around) December 3rd, 2015 were also listed for sale on (or around) April 20th, 2016 via FA /MediaOptions.

281992.com
Registration Date: September 11th, 2015 (OH)
Date: December 7th, 2015
Auction ID: 3738554
Price: $219
Winning Bidder: JiggaMan
Featured Auction: /4mso1azf

Date: April 22nd, 2016
Auction ID: 3785211
Price: $109
Winning Bidder: BrandProtection
Featured Auction: /MediaOptions

Date: July 13th, 2017
Auction ID: 3954661
Price: $69
Winning Bidder: Chandldj

289965.com
Registration Date: September 11th, 2015 (OH)
Date: December 7th, 2015
Auction ID: 3738553
Price: $210
Winning Bidder: JiggaMan
Featured Auction: /4mso1azf

Date: April 20th, 2016
Auction ID: 3784302
Price: $151
Winning Bidder: Chandldj
Featured Auction: /MediaOptions

281995.com
Registration Date: September 11th, 2015 (OH)
Sale Date: December 9th, 2015
Auction ID: 3739400
Price: $190
Winning Bidder: JiggaMan
Featured Auction: /4mso1azf

Date: April 21st, 2016
Auction ID: 3784777
Price: $109
Winning Bidder: BrandProtection
Featured Auction: /MediaOptions

289963.com
Registration Date: September 11th, 2015 (OH)
Date: December 6th, 2015
Auction ID: 3738180
Price: $232
Winning Bidder: JiggaMan
Featured Auction: /4mso1azf

Date: April 21st, 2016
Auction ID: 3784776
Price: $111
Winning Bidder: BrandProtection
Featured Auction: /MediaOptions

282125.com
Registration Date: September 11th, 2015 (OH)
Date: December 12th, 2015
Auction ID: 3740693
Price: $200
Winning Bidder: JiggaMan
Featured Auction: /4mso1azf

Date: April 20th, 2016
Auction ID: 3784303
Price: $131
Winning Bidder: TwoTwo
Featured Auction: /MediaOptions

 

[Chris Hydrick]

DomainInvesting.com (@EJS) recently published a new article about a NameJet change, in which he describes as, "...a step towards more transparency..." HERE

I haven't seen any comments from 'Filipe' yet, but a special thanks to Ryan for keeping it real.

 

[Chris Hydrick]

Five (5) domains that were sold from FA /4mso1azf on (or around) December 3rd, 2015 were also listed for sale on (or around) April 20th, 2016 via FA /MediaOptions.

281992.com
Registration Date: September 11th, 2015 (OH)
Date: December 7th, 2015
Auction ID: 3738554
Price: $219
Winning Bidder: JiggaMan
Featured Auction: /4mso1azf

Date: April 22nd, 2016
Auction ID: 3785211
Price: $109
Winning Bidder: BrandProtection
Featured Auction: /MediaOptions

Date: July 13th, 2017
Auction ID: 3954661
Price: $69
Winning Bidder: Chandldj

289965.com
Registration Date: September 11th, 2015 (OH)
Date: December 7th, 2015
Auction ID: 3738553
Price: $210
Winning Bidder: JiggaMan
Featured Auction: /4mso1azf

Date: April 20th, 2016
Auction ID: 3784302
Price: $151
Winning Bidder: Chandldj
Featured Auction: /MediaOptions

281995.com
Registration Date: September 11th, 2015 (OH)
Sale Date: December 9th, 2015
Auction ID: 3739400
Price: $190
Winning Bidder: JiggaMan
Featured Auction: /4mso1azf

Date: April 21st, 2016
Auction ID: 3784777
Price: $109
Winning Bidder: BrandProtection
Featured Auction: /MediaOptions

289963.com
Registration Date: September 11th, 2015 (OH)
Date: December 6th, 2015
Auction ID: 3738180
Price: $232
Winning Bidder: JiggaMan
Featured Auction: /4mso1azf

Date: April 21st, 2016
Auction ID: 3784776
Price: $111
Winning Bidder: BrandProtection
Featured Auction: /MediaOptions

282125.com
Registration Date: September 11th, 2015 (OH)
Date: December 12th, 2015
Auction ID: 3740693
Price: $200
Winning Bidder: JiggaMan
Featured Auction: /4mso1azf

Date: April 20th, 2016
Auction ID: 3784303
Price: $131
Winning Bidder: TwoTwo
Featured Auction: /MediaOptions

Has anybody looked into 6N.com sales at NameJet?

_______________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

namejet.com/Pages/Auctions/StandardDetails.aspx?auctionid=3791400

______________________________________________________________________________

 

[offthehandle]

Well, you sure can say there is consistency and frequency in the bidding by the same alias. Kind of difficult for that alias to use the excuse that was made early on in the thread by someone as an accidental bid. When it happens over and over again.

 

[Chris Hydrick]

Well, you sure can say there is consistency and frequency in the bidding by the same alias. Kind of difficult for that alias to use the excuse that was made early on in the thread by someone as an accidental bid. When it happens over and over again.

Well, that depends which alias you're referring to. I used seafoodman as the above example, because it is believed that seafoodman is andrew rosener (the ceo of mediaoptions) Thus, in accordance to this thread, the above screenshots are auctions where it looks like archive.org confirms seafoodman bid on mediaoptions featured auctions. When you're talking consistency and frequency, the question becomes how many private seller (public) 6N.com auctions did seafoodman win, and how many of those were his own auctions?

So far, I have found (6) NNNNNN.com auctions where seafoodman was the winning bidder. I can't confirm the featured auction account for every auction, but historical WHOIS show a company of Virtual Real Estate Limited (Oliver Hoger) or MediaOptions S.A. digital footprint. Also, note that all of the mentioned 6N.com wins of seafoodman have a registration date of September 2015

Domain: 299159.com
Registration Date: September 11th, 2015
Winning Bid: $220
Winning Alias: Seafoodman
NJ sale date: December 16th, 2015
Auction ID: 3742700
Historical WHOIS:

Domain: 338963.com
Registration Date: September 11th, 2015
Winning Bid: $105
Winning Alias: Seafoodman
NJ sale date: May 12th, 2016
Auction ID: 3792064
Historical WHOIS:

Domain: 366382.com
Registration Date: September 11th, 2015
Winning Bid: $111
Winning Alias: Seafoodman
NJ sale date: May 10th, 2016
Auction ID: 3791400
Historical WHOIS:

Domain: 396683.com
Registration Date: September 11th, 2015
Winning Bid: $131
Winning Alias: Seafoodman
NJ sale date: May 10th, 2016
Auction ID: 3791399
Historical WHOIS:

Domain: 396863.com
Registration Date: September 11th, 2015
Winning Bid: $89
Winning Alias: Seafoodman
NJ sale date: August 18th, 2016
Auction ID: 3824278
Historical WHOIS:

 

[Chris Hydrick]

If they rename a featured seller's page it updates all of the links. Pretty sure the 6ifd5lvs featured seller was renamed to hotdotnets (both are Oliver by the way), but it is the same account.

Featured auction 6ifd5lvs and hotdotnets now resolve to http://www.namejet.com/Pages/Auctions/Featuredauctions.aspx

Hey Ryan - It looks like Oliver is now using http://www.namejet.com/featuredauctions/hotshortnames

 

[wwwweb]

Why hasn't @NameJetGM addressed these multiple bidding accounts if this is such the case, is namejet covering this up, are they colluding, deal with it!

 

[Chris Hydrick]

So far, I have found (6) NNNNNN.com auctions where seafoodman was the winning bidder.

Edit: So far, I have found (6) NNNNNN.com auctions where seafoodman was the winning bidder **of at least $89**. I will write another post that includes which 6N.com seafoodman [and others] (a) backordered and (b) bid above $69. In said future post, there might be an example where seafoodman won a 6N.com for $69. If so, I will include the historical WHOIS and other details such as above.

 

[Chris Hydrick]

Why hasn't @NameJetGM addressed these multiple bidding accounts

Forget about @NameJetGM, let's talk about whomever is responsible for monitoring bidding patterns on NameJet? Are bidding patterns not monitored at all? If there is somebody monitoring this, then what's the deal... are they sleeping? Do they ever show up for work?

I have a feeling this is going to go from bad to worse before NameJet does anything. And they may not decide to do anything until this hits national news. In which case, that type of coverage would be bad for the entire industry. And even then, that might not be a guarantee that they will do anything. Is this discussion better fit for Reddit?

The below image is from ShortNames.com. It is a chart of 6N.com chinese premium [numeric without 0 or 4] sales from July 5th, 2015 to November 23, 2017. I believe the chart contains sales from multiple market places.

http://shortnames.com/6n/charts

I'm not saying NameJet's lack of security (allowing sellers to bid on their own names, and apparent lacking of sufficient of fraud detection / prevention) is responsible for this chart, but I think the lack of detecting any funny business potentially could have contibuted to it. IE why bidding patterns between IP, alias's, and featured auction accounts should be monitored. If it was found that they don't enforce the rules, a certain group of sellers, or boys club, potentially could have colluded to bid on each others auctions or other things that result in not having proper / sufficient auction oversight. Per shortnames 6N.com chinese premium sales, 4,105 were from NameJet. (though it's worth mentioning shortnames didn't record every private seller public 6N.com auction sale from NameJet)



Thus, I wonder how many of NameJet 6N.com private seller sales have a digital footprint tracing back to Oliver Hoger or MediaOptions.com?

Would anybody be alarmed to find that over 3,000 NameJet 6N.com sales have a WHOIS digital history tracing back to Oliver Hoger and/or MediaOptions.com? And that those 3,000+ NNNNNN.com's appear to be hand regs from a three day period between September 10th, 2015 and September 12th, 2015?

 

[offthehandle]

If there is somebody monitoring this, then what's the deal... are they sleeping? Do they ever show up for work?

They were reassigned to mop the floor, no reason for such scrutiny, right? Then erasing the past auction data to cover up the mess. What a joke.

If it was found that they don't enforce the rules, a certain group of sellers, or boys club, potentially could have colluded to bid on each others auctions or other things that result in not having proper / sufficient auction oversight.

Kudos to Rick for speaking out too.

 

[barefooted]

And that those 3,000+ NNNNNN.com's appear to be hand regs from a three day period between September 10th, 2015 and September 12th, 2015

And it is funny to watch how desperately they are trying to sell them later.

One classic example is 382119.com.

In Dec 2015 it was sold for $180 - http://web.archive.org/web/20151203225651/http://www.namejet.com/featuredauctions/4mso1azf (OH FA.)

Archive.org shows OH drid and affiliate ID from Jan till Oct 2016.

In Aug 2016 first won it for $79 on MO FA, followed by seafood and seek - $69.

In Oct 2016 first did it again:

... and again in March 2017 $79

... Sep 2017 $79

 

[barefooted]

What about "jiggaman" and the other "men"?

I found an interview from Aug. 2016, advertising NNNNNN.coms:

"During the past 24 months, the demand for numeric domains has skyrocketed, thanks to the opening of domain trading with China.
The Chinese domain investors have been focusing on short domains in general, but the hottest item by far has been numeric domains.
Numbers can substitute words in China, and although short sequences of domains are preferred, the 3,4 and 5 digit .com domain ranges have long been depleted.
The asking price for these numeric ranges can be in the thousands or tens of thousands of dollars, or more.
With that in mind, enterprising domain investors, such as Drew Rosener, founder of Media Options, began to tap the 6 digit .com domain range.
Over the course of several weeks, Media Options has been selling its NNNNNN .com domains, many of which – but not all – end up in the hands of Chinese domain investors.
Here is a list of domains that recently changed hands:...."​

I took a random name - 338615.com won by jiggaman in Jun 2016 (MO FA) http://web.archive.org/web/20160731...s/StandardDetails.aspx?auctionid=3804490&cat=

Second domain - http://web.archive.org/web/20160621...s/StandardDetails.aspx?auctionid=3805741&cat= - the same owner, the same FA, the same bidders.

Third - http://web.archive.org/web/20160715...s/StandardDetails.aspx?auctionid=3802544&cat=

And so on...

As it was not clear if he does not update the Whois, or has returned domains he won back to the seller, I continued with LLLL.com-s won by jigga, looking for updated records.
dtcr.com was won by jiggamanin March 2016 for $1,550 at (MO FA).
Its Whois showed "Jigga Man" for a second before update to privacy. y

I used reverce Whois lookup of some of his domains and found zzttp.com, won by jiggaman in March 2016 (MO FA.)
2015/March 20, 2016 - Registrant Name: Andrew Rosener.
Then changed to Jigga Man in 2016 https://wa-com.com/zzttp.com
Now shows MO.

Jiggaman uses API, like the most of the others in the auction, and places multiple bids at 12:34 AM.

So, jiggaman is a bot named Jigga Man, from Palma de Mallorca and he does not like to have domains registered at his name.

 

[creataweb]

I thought only suckers bought 6N with no clear meaning or usage.

 

[Chris Hydrick]

In Oct 2016 first did it again:

... and again in March 2017 $79

... Sep 2017 $79

For GoldNames.com, you have to verify through their internal search. The three above screenshots were cached by google via a namejet tag, and only referenced the two previous sales. I can't confirm if it was listed on NameJet more than twice.

ie. I only see two records of this sale recorded on GoldNames.

One classic example is 382119.com.

In Dec 2015 it was sold for $180 - http://web.archive.org/web/20151203225651/http://www.namejet.com/featuredauctions/4mso1azf (OH FA.)

Archive.org shows OH drid and affiliate ID from Jan till Oct 2016.

Featured Auction (Assumed O.H.):

Bid Log: namejet.com/Pages/Auctions/StandardDetails.aspx?auctionid=3737472

In Aug 2016 first won it for $79 on MO FA, followed by seafood and seek - $69.

Featured Auction: MediaOptions
Bid Log: namejet.com/Pages/Auctions/StandardDetails.aspx?auctionid=3829242

Historical WHOIS: