discuss Do you trust the major auction websites?

[equity78]

Simple question, place your vote and feel free to leave a comment expanding on your vote if you like.

There have been many bidding scandals, GoDaddy’s refusal to show bidder id’s etc…

Do you trust GoDaddy Auctions, NameJet, Snapnames and DropCatch when it comes to platform integrity, fraud detection systems in place, etc…?

Please note this vote should only be based on auctions, not registrar or other services included.

 

[.X.]

In my experiences, I have had more problems with shoddy bidders than the actual auction houses themselves. I notice when a bid war begins, people get pissed off, and purposely hyper inflate the final price of the domain by bidding when they know they are done and out, It is easy to spot this kind of foolishness, and no one wins in the end, the auction winner ends up paying over what they would have to pay had this not been going on, sometimes substantially over paying. everyone else involved in the auction has simply wasted their time when it is over. In essence, it is a form of shill bidding, by vindictive idiots.

 

[OmarVG]

Do you trust GoDaddy Auctions, NameJet, Snapnames

Namejet and Snapnames AKA The SHILL BIDDERS are the worst auction platforms on the planet.

@NameJetGM I will wait until the manager of Namejet: Jonathan gets FIRED to list for auction some Premiums domains on Namejet. He has been the manager there for just 3 years and last year was the Shill Bidding Massive scandal, so make your own conclusions...

 

[Name Trader]

I voted yes

only because I know as a company/service, they will act in their own best interest.

which is money.

initially and thru out their existence, they have to have, or portray, a sense of stability and credibility, and to a degree have enough transparency in the process, that the general public finds acceptable and or reasonable....given what one can get in return for using their respective platforms.

so yeah, I may trust in the company's slogan, objective and or mission statement
​

but it's the individuals that may own, operate, administer within these systems, who have opportunity to increase the credibility in all facets, or corrupt it to the point of failure.


just puff-puff....snort, exhale slowly.... saying


imo….

Your reasoning sounds like a NO vote to me

 

[equity78]

I voted Yes, As i stated above, It is not the actual auction houses, It is the domainers that hyper inflate auctions with no intent to buy after a name has reached their max amount, but they keep bidding to raise the price of the auction, this is a vindictive act IMO. There is no way to control it. It has bumped me out of of more auctions than i can remember.

No disrespect but how would you know what limit someone was out at and just kept bidding? I think there are a lot of auctions that go higher than most experienced domainers think. That has been a rallying cry for many over the last three years, junk names or average names going too high. But I can tell you I have spoken to people who have paid big prices, what most would consider end user prices at auction, only to tell me they think they got a deal.

The vindictive comes from people trying to bid people up they don't like, I think when some see Frank Schilling on NameJet they try to stick it to him, just for the .com = A.M. radio comment alone.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

I rarely do business with Godaddy since Bob left

Now they don't have even the normal Support via email or ticket system (phone only, and just English).
LiveChat is also dead.

 

[Joe Styler]

Thank you for clarifying the reasoning behind you vote. But it certainly isn't working as smoothly as it one was. I'm still waiting on at least 2 domains I won but never appeared in my account, in the last month.

If you email [email protected] they can give you an update or I can look into them for you if you PM me.

 

[.X.]

No disrespect but how would you know what limit someone was out at and just kept bidding? I think there are a lot of auctions that go higher than most experienced domainers think. That has been a rallying cry for many over the last three years, junk names or average names going too high. But I can tell you I have spoken to people who have paid big prices, what most would consider end user prices at auction, only to tell me they think they got a deal.

The vindictive comes from people trying to bid people up they don't like, I think when some see Frank Schilling on NameJet they try to stick it to him, just for the .com = A.M. radio comment alone.

You can see the users "nick name" or handle at NameJet and DropCatch, over the years i have learned to spot patterns in the bidding process, and i keep up with the handles of people who bid on those platforms, It is not hard to spot a auction gone bad, you go in those auction houses enough, a person will become battle proven LOL

 

[anantj]

How would they know it is Frank Schilling they are bidding against?

His nick is known and visible on Namejet unlike GoDaddy who refuses to make bidder handles public!

FYI, it's taryn (one of them).

 

[eurorealtor]

I trust to my instincts. I have seen some suspicious activities (not with my auctions) but without proof I can't accuse anyone. I do use NJ, GD auction and Sedo Gread Domain Auction. I had some unpaid auctions, but it didn't make it to stop using them. So I voted yes, for now.

 

[Kate]

We do have outside audits on our auctions. We also are a public company which involves other outside scrutiny as well as third party companies investing in us etc. You can listen in on the investor calls quarterly and ask questions. gddy.com.

Care to share names ? You mean audit companies like EY and the sort ?

As far as the bidder handles the reason we do not want to show the bidders is because we want the domain to stand on it's own merit as we have stated several times. We do not want people to bid on or not bid on domains due to who else is bidding on domains. The name's value should stand on it's own value independent of any other factors.

Seriously ? So you are the only venue that wants to hide the action and doesn't want a bidding war among users ? Interesting.
But then you should get rid of this too:

 

[Joe Styler]

FYI, it's taryn (one of them).

That was the exact point I was making. Everyone knows the handles and knows who is bidding against them. We prefer the domain to stand on it's own, not be influenced by which domain investor is bidding on the domain. "Oh it's Frank, he's a really smart guy. It must be a good name. I'm going to bid." And of course various other scenarios. Our choice has been and currently is to let the domain stand or fall on it's own merit.

 

[.X.]

I am surprised how many have issues with auction sites. It is concerning, but also good to see at least some of the auction sites involved on NPs and responding to concerns. I wonder if people have similar concerns with general purpose domain sites like eBay when the auction does not involve domain names, or is it something unique about domain names?

For those on Twitter, I see that right now @Darryl Lopes is auctioning a 4 letter .com domain on Twitter. As far as I know this is first time this has been tried (if not, can you let me know, as I was thinking of a future blog post on the topic after the auction is over)? For those who have issues with the traditional auction sites, it does offer a different alternative that you control yourself. Obviously there are potential issues which I am sure Darryl has thought about, but it is a creative new way, and one where in a way transparency is obvious (as long as no brand new Twitter accounts are allowed to bid).

I think that is a very productive way to auction, and almost full transparency as well, I hope Twitter lets the auction happen

 

[equity78]

I think that is a very productive way to auction, and almost full transparency as well, I hope Twitter lets the auction happen

Twitter doesn't care, we tried this a couple years ago, some were afraid of shill bidding buy an egg account or relatively new account that used no real verifiable name. No way to guarantee payment.

 

[.X.]

I'm sure if you put this to a shareholder vote. They would vote for bidder handles

Agreed, no doubt about it.

 

[anantj]

I'm going to bid.

And the problem with that is? When you have no problems with inflated bids on domains not worth the price, with special access to certain users who automatically bid on domains that receive say one bid (and some other criteria that has been suspected/discussed on other thread), non-delivery of domains and several other problems with GD Auctions that have again been listed and discussed across multiple threads, a rationale like "let the domain stand or fall on it's own merit." is just hollow words and an empty statement at best.

Your statement definitely does not inspire confidence and more importantly trust in GD auctions.

 

[anantj]

That was the exact point I was making. Everyone knows the handles and knows who is bidding against them.

I'd also like to add that this works in reverse as well - If I see a big name bidder or a handle know to have deep pockets (Even without necessarily knowing who's really behind that handle), I back out from the auction because I'm fairly confident that the auction will go out of my budget (and that's what usually happens). Almost always, I stop participating in CVCV.com domain auctions caught by one of the dropcatchers when I see Frank, Rick or some of the other known big spenders (this is just an example).

 

[equity78]

So you tried it in an actual auction? Was it successful? How many bids were there?

I do agree if I was auctioning I would disqualify accounts newer than some date or with less than x followers or probably without website link.

This first one by Darryl seemed to go smoothly (saw a thanks from buyer, name already transferred) and more are planned.

There was too much squabbling, I thought it would be cool but then people were like I don't want bids from any account I don't know the bidder. So it went nowhere, now I have seen that someone could say went smoothly but it was like one bidder then someone else bid $10 more and it was over no other bids after the first two bids.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

There was too much squabbling, I thought it would be cool but then people were like I don't want bids from any account I don't know the bidder. So it went nowhere, now I have seen that someone could say went smoothly but it was like one bidder then someone else bid $10 more and it was over no other bids after the first two bids.

Thanks for info re your effort with Twitter auction @equity78 .

For those not on Twitter, this week's auction by Darryl as I read the stream had 12 bids by 8 different people with $121 final price (started $50). I hope I have that info right; tagging @Darryl Lopes in case I do not. I recognized a number of bidders as also NPs active people and all bidders seemed legitimate.

As long as Twitter TOS don't object I can see this working and potentially way to reach Twitter active potential purchasers outside domain community. I was as uninvolved outsider impressed how smooth it seemed. Clearly would be most effective for those with huge Twitter followings.

 

[Joe Styler]

I think it is great to see people trying new things in the space.

 

[ResoluteDomains]

Godaddy phone support is great, last week i have a issue with my card and they solved instantly.

I wish they'd go back to offering email support too. Too many times I simply cant get on the phone, cant get to the phone, too noisy to use the phone - I just want to fire off a quick email and I'll wait for a reply. 9 out of 10 times I can wait 4-5 hours or longer for a reply. If I cant then I make it a point to use the chat but even that I cant get to a lot of times. I used to love to ask a question in the morning and I would see a reply when I got back in, in the evening.

 

[JayT]

They changed it? hugedomains was winning ones I bid on when I first started domaining and tried them.

 

[JayT]

Sometime in early 2015. I just never went back after I tried a few domains. oh well thanks for letting me know now. I read terms conditions just now and see what u are talking about, they won't bid against you if you pay for the full dropcatch price. I would be afraid to try the discount club though. Whenever I tried catching somewhere else huge domains gets them anyway so was no chance still.

 

[.X.]

Your situation is correct. But the 2nd highest bidder pays only the winning price for his highest bid as if the the winner had not bid. Of course with more than 2 bidders, there can be also be bidding higher by more than 1 party. But I don't think you can blame GoDaddy for that. You cannot expect them to get into the mind of a bidder who wins the domain because of a default, and pays.

Yep, You are right, there is no way to actually control a auction, I have never had any problems with Godaddy auctions, when i have won, i have always received my name within a 14 day time frame. I can't really think of any negative experiences when buying from any of the auction sites, at least none that weren't my own fault.

 

[biggie]

I voted yes

only because I know as a company/service, they will act in their own best interest.

which is money.

initially and thru out their existence, they have to have, or portray, a sense of stability and credibility, and to a degree have enough transparency in the process, that the general public finds acceptable and or reasonable....given what one can get in return for using their respective platforms.

so yeah, I may trust in the company's slogan, objective and or mission statement
​

but it's the individuals that may own, operate, administer within these systems, who have opportunity to increase the credibility in all facets, or corrupt it to the point of failure.


just puff-puff....snort, exhale slowly.... saying


imo….

 

[.X.]

I voted Yes, As i stated above, It is not the actual auction houses, It is the domainers that hyper inflate auctions with no intent to buy after a name has reached their max amount, but they keep bidding to raise the price of the auction, this is a vindictive act IMO. There is no way to control it. It has bumped me out of of more auctions than i can remember.