discuss Crap I just bid on a domain I did not want!!

[MapleDots]

HeHe

So it's late for me, have not eaten and have a bit of a sugar low. I see this domain for sale on GoDaddy and it's actually pretty sweet. Starting bid was quite reasonable and I figured it was way too low for a premium domain so I wanted the seller to think I was serious.

So guess what.... I bid twice the opening bid amount and felt pretty good that I had a chance the offer would get accepted.

Then..... a wave of something overcame me and I went to dictionary.com and sure enough I had a misspell on my hands, the domain had an extra letter that did not belong.

CRAP

So there I sit looking at the domain name trying to justify how I could possibly put it to use. No matter how I flipped it I figured I just wasted some good money. The owner of the domain would surely be accepting my offer.

Almost an hour to the T the seller came back with a counter for a couple hundred bucks more than my double sized offer.

HeHeHe.... I just chuckled to myself. The guy had a solid offer on a misspell and got greedy, he had to ask another couple hundred bucks. Well, that lets me of the hook, now I can go spend the money on something I actually want.

Lesson to seller: If you have a misspell that is close to the real word there is a chance the bidder did not realize it was a misspell. If you counter, you let him off the hook.

Think about accepting the bid on a misspell because you might not get a second bid when the guy on the other end realizes its a misspell.


So how was your day

 

[MapleDots]

You bring up a good point though Brad

I found this in their forums....

 

[BaileyUK]

You sure it was due to a 'Sugar low' or more like a 'Beer-high' I still cant understand people in our game getting spelling wrong. sure if it's UK or USA variant but that's about it

 

[bmugford]

Almost an hour to the T the seller came back with a counter for a couple hundred bucks more than my double sized offer.

HeHeHe.... I just chuckled to myself. The guy had a solid offer on a misspell and got greedy, he had to ask another couple hundred bucks. Well, that lets me of the hook, now I can go spend the money on something I actually want.

Not necessarily. Unless GoDaddy changed their system recently, the original offer is binding for a week even if the seller countered. I have countered before, then accepted the original offer after a few days if it is close enough.

Brad

 

[BaileyUK]

Get ready for all the desperate "acceptance emails"

 

[MapleDots]

OK, here are the sedo rules....

Now I just have to find the godaddy ones

 

[domainventure]

As Brad said, the offer is binding for 7 days irrespective of what you counter it with. I has a similar scenario. I got an offer, asked for more, no response from buyer, on day 7, I just went ahead and accepted the original offer. The transaction moved to "sale pending, waiting for buyer....."

You are off the hook only when the accept/push to auction buttons are gone, IMO

 

[MapleDots]

I have it officially.....

Thank you to all members who responded.

GoDaddy differs from services like Sedo.

When you make a bid on GoDaddy and the seller counters it does NOT cancel the original bid. If you make a bid it is binding for 7 days. So if you offer 1k and the seller comes back at 1.5k it does not void your original bid. If you do not answer the seller he can decide at any time in those 7 days to accept your offer.

I must say that I find that whole process a bit strange but I guess it is what it is.

Kinda like I go to the butcher and offer 60 bucks for the steaks and he says 80. You say no thank you and the butcher says... too bad I'll hold you to the 60.

In this case I prefer the sedo way where the latest bid or counter bid becomes the binding one.

To refresh your memory here are the sedo terms...

All that said, I can live with the way GoDaddy does it and won't complain about it but their documentation leaves a lot to be desired. Not one member of their support team was able to show me anywhere in their terms where it is as clear as with the sedo terms.

There you have it... thank you so much to everyone who chimed in previously.

Keep in mind my opening post is not correct for godaddy, it is correct for sedo only so the advice still applies, just not for godaddy. If on sedo you get a bid and you are thinking about taking it be careful if you make a counter offer because it will annul the previous bid and the buyer walks away. This is probably the most important on misspells because sometimes the bidder does not see the misspell until further in the transaction and if you counter offer the original bidder walks away.

 

[Joe Styler]

What is the penalty for all these non-payers @Joe Styler.

It depends on the account. Normally we give people a $10 fine if it is their first offense and they did this on one domain. If it is more than one domain the fine rises. If it is the Second offense the fine is typically $50 on one domain. Again it would rise based on # of domains. There is no fine on a third offense, we ban you for good, cancel all your listings and you do not pass go. Now we give ourselves leeway in the penalties we hand out but that is the standard procedure. We want leeway because your first offense may be your last if we find that you have done it maliciously or if you are negatively impacting the auction and we do not think it was a mistake etc. So if you make an honest mistake we will usually let is slide with a small fine and an understanding that you know the rules and better understand them going forward. We are a pretty good sized selling / buying platform so being banned from using us normally keeps people on the right side of things and in my experience most people want to do the right thing anyway.

 

[SuperNames]

Brad is correct.

The seller can still accept the original offer up to x amount of days from the date of offer (I think 7-10 days); even after he has countered your original offer (seller can send numerous counters) he can elect to accept your lodged offer anytime up until the expiration date published.

 

[johname]

Godaddy says "You can accept or decline any counter offer."

"Any" would be any offer not time expired

https://www.godaddy.com/help/responding-to-offers-when-buying-domain-names-931

 

[MapleDots]

Neither. It was a Maple Syrup high

HeHe.... actually a maple syrup low.... now that I've added some on my pancakes I'm in great shape

 

[Kate]

Yep. I've surely done that before. Now I Google EVERYTHING.

I try to always get both versions: British/Canadian English & US spelling = peace of mind, possibly more leverage to sell

 

[equity78]

If anyone does not honor their bid they face some action as outlined in the terms. In this case it seems we need to clarify the wording which I let the auction product manager know and they will get it updated as part of another project.
I asked the team that handles support and they said they almost never get anyone who does this and I cant remember us having a problem on this myself so I think it is fair to say that it would be extremely rare but something we should still clarify if people are confused.

Thanks Joe I did have a comment on my blog where Manos stated he noticed a lot of non payment.

We list all our names at both platforms for years and as we are constant sellers can write some notices for comparison.

1) tdnam seems to have bigger exposure, at same names list receiving much offers there
2) huge advantage for seller that can raise and roll back later to initial offers, there are some minus i list below.
3) at sedo can be paid even same day buyer pays , if not, will be next business day, as transfers are super fast with push.
4) at tdnam now payments are 20 days after buyer pays and need to transfer the name at buyer’s godaddy account that is time costly as need to communicate directly with buyer.
5) usual fee at sedo is 15%, 20% at sedomls and some exotic tlds, at tdnam always 20%.
6) noticed that accepting initial offers at tdnam after a raise have very high percentage of non payments

http://tldinvestors.com/2018/03/a-big-difference-in-negotiating-a-sale-on-godaddy-vs-sedo.html

 

[MapleDots]

"How often, in a face-to-face negotiation, does a buyer offer $1000 and the seller says how about $1500, but before the end of the conversation he/she says "well go in then, I'll take your offer of $1000" and the deal gets settled immediately. You cannot insist that the seller cannot go back to the initial offer, because of the initial offer was cancelled by their counter offer. That doesn't make any sense either."

Yes but look at it like this...

You meet face to face and offer $1000 he says no he wants $3000. You go home and 5 days later the guy says you owe him $1000 because he changed his mind.

 

[Ategy]

I'm having a good laugh at all the debating here on the way people think it "should" be .. lol

Fact of the matter is .. either way is fine AS LONG AS everything is clear to everyone involved.

Let me preface this by saying that while I've found a ton of bugs at GoDaddy .. and can be quite critical of them at times .. overall they are a really big machine that mostly gets thing right enough for thing to work for 99% of people in 99% of cases. Plus they've got a huge selection of expiring domains that you can usually get at better prices than if they were elsewhere. So kudos to them on all that ...

... HOWEVER ... lol ...

The one area they really fail at .. is clarity .. particularly for (but certainly not limited to) automated communications/emails. There are times I feel like I would get a clearer answer from a steel plated brick wall! lol

lol

I understand how it happens ... platform upgrade creep .. little changes and improvements that aren't documented well .. things that don't make it into instructions / communications / FAQs / terms. Not so bad when something is new .. but can get particularly bad when a features/options change.

I want to be fair in saying that it certainly is not in any way unique to GoDaddy .. it happens at virtually all large organisations .. usually the bigger the organisation the worse it gets (Government agencies for example). with GoDaddy being by far the biggest in the industry .. compounded by the fact they have multiple overlapping departments .. the end result is an almost impossibly unmanageable communications mess.

What differs GoDaddy from government agencies however .. is that GoDaddy is making tons of money hand over fist .. so the solution is likely a few thousand person-hours of work .. admittedly certainly no small task .. particularly if they want to do it right .. it's often easier to fix code than it is to fix communications issues because wrong code gives you an error, while wrong/ambiguous information is just wrong information and just sits there until someone actually notices it AND also decides to be pro-active about it (which rarely happens) .. so it's a big task .. but definitely something possible.

 

[Daniel Owens]

I run each word through google to make sure it's spelled correct. On computer I just highlight it and click search google. If on mobile I highlight and paste into google. I do this even if I'm 99% sure it's spelled correctly.

 

[MapleDots]

Ask me win 10 days, I have never sold a misspell but if I am the proud papa I will let you know

 

[BaileyUK]

That's actually a real education as the domaining years go-by. how much North-American spellings differ (usually less lettering) with some really common words. I think the yanks got most right - spell it as it reads.

though I still can't get use to the 'Z' where European/Australian English uses the 'S'

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Keep us posted on how this turns out @MapleDots. I hope it works out for you - and lay off drinking that Maple syrup when you are domain buying, eh?

I realize not directly related, but has anyone done a study to look at the sales prices of US vs UK spelling of words I looked at a couple, and not direct word comparable, but it seemed the US (e.g. harbor) sold for more than the UK (harbour). Would be interested if someone has done a more definitive study. Of course we Canadians use both, trying to get along with everyone.

 

[Name Trader]

You sure it was due to a 'Sugar low' or more like a 'Beer-high' I still cant understand people in our game getting spelling wrong. sure if it's UK or USA variant but that's about it

Neither. It was a Maple Syrup high

 

[Galaxy Traveller]

English is not my first language and thats why I almost always check spell and natural word flow.

 

[equity78]

Thats what the general support guy said but then he contacted auction support and they said when a counter offer is made the originating bid is no longer binding. So after 1/2 hour on the phone with two departments (including the auction department) you're telling me I still do not have an absolutely clear answer.

I waited for 15 minutes while the original support guy scoured the printed material and everything is very vague. There needs to be a clear statement that set it out when you agree to bid. That link does not specifically say what happens when a counter offer is made.

Joe if you scan up and look at the Sedo auction screenshot I posted it is VERY clear. Why can we not get a clear answer from GoDaddy? It is a bit odd that a counter offer does not cancel out the original bid. Seems even the guys at godaddy are giving two different responses.

It's odd I agree because it gives you a free shot to counter, and then accept the lower amount, so it makes negotiating better for the seller.

Perfect example I just got a $500 offer on Sedo, now I countered at $2,000 no reply. It lets me know this is not the end user I thought it could be, $2,000 would be an easy pay and instead now I cannot make them pay $500.

 

[johname]

It can be double edge sword though as if its a Broker Service deal (or on own buyer smart )the Godaddy broker will generally tell the client to let the first offer ride out, hindering the chance of getting the second offer accepted. Almost forcing an accept first offer. But yeah better than the Sedo wipeout.

 

[wwwweb]

In general business to each their own, but if someone refuses a counter a deal is dead in the water, unless the buying party counters back. I have seen this is real estate transactions where sellers think they can get more, or play off bids, and it doesn’t work out, and then they have to do the walk of shame, and say hey is that deal still good?

I had no idea a price is live on decline, but good to know, but fair enough if your going to submit an offer you better be prepared to back it up for 7 days, only fair I guess.