DropCatch Bidder Verification Hits New Lows

[dnrabbit]

There was a time when DropCatch had a very strict bidder verification in place. You had to supply proper IDs and do a credit card verification and shill bidding was very limited.

However, in recent times DropCatch bidder verification has new lows. Now, you don't even need to upload any kind of credit card and any other financial instrument.

All you need to send them is a government I'd (which can be easily photoshopped), and voila, you are certified.

You can then participate in any auction, bid to whatever level you want .. and if you find a buyer higher than your bid, then you can pay for auction and sell to buyer.

However, if you are unable to find a buyer within the 3-4 day period, then you don't pay for auction. On non-payment, DropCatch suspends your account, which doesn't matter because next day you can create a new account in a new name and get certified immediately for next auction.

DropCatch then sends a template mail to all buyers that they are restarting the auction for 'suspected fraudulent activity'. Auction happens again, maybe ends at a slightly lower price (say $800 vs $1000) but DropCatch is happy as that $1000 was never real in the first place.

And the cycle repeats. Plain and Simple!

===

This has become a plague now. DropCatch doesn't give a shit as they make more money as bidders that contact end users prior to auction are likely to bid higher and drive the auction up.

I am now THINKING TWICE before bidding in any auction as I don't know whether the guy on the other side has an option not to pay at the end if he doesn't feel like it.

The very fact that your counter-bidder isn't serious enough is extremely dangerous for the domain industry. I would caution all domain investors before bidding on any auctions on DropCatch now.

When everyone stops using the platform, they will be forced to bring changes and incorporate best practises to their verification and compliance.

===

Just yesterday, the auction for LUMEO.COM ended at over $14k on DropCatch. I watched the bidding pattern carefully, and I am sure it was a bogus auction.

I am hereby predicting that the winning bidder won't pay for it, and DropCatch will re-auction the name. Check your inbox few days later announcing the re-auction. Bookmark this thread and do come back and post here telling me that I was right.

 

[deez007]

You are spot on... sadly, it seems things have gone downhill there

 

[OralB]

I couldnt agree more.
All these venues are becoming a big nightmare for honest domainers.
DropCatch.com is actually is a cesspool and should be avoided at all costs, most of the bids at DropCatch auctions are fake and I doubt that DropCatch would do anything to prevent such bids in the future, in fact by removing all the safeguards in place such as genuine ID verification and CreditCard pre-approval, DropCatch is condoning such immoral behaviors and as such making their platform susceptible to all sorts of so called bottom feeding leeches.
Time to put a stop to all this and boycott DropCatch altogether, maybe then they would take notice and do somthing about it.

 

[DropCatch Support]

We wanted to reach out to address your concerns regarding our verification process. The verification process on DropCatch requires each user upload a valid government issued photo ID that is reviewed in the verification of any DropCatch account, and while this is the main verification process that the user is required to participate in, it is not the only method we utilize in the verification of DropCatch Accounts.

Although we have never required authorization of a credit card as you mentioned, we have increased the security of our platform by adding additional verification requirements, such as phone verification. Recent changes and increase to security in verification was the implementation of phone number verification for DropCatch’s platform.

We are continuously monitoring the reauctions to identify behaviors that we are able to eliminate by updated verification processes. While we are not able to prevent nonpayment 100% of the time the rate at which we have reauctions on domains has not increased. Because the integrity of our auction platform is of the utmost importance to us we monitor this behavior verify closely.

We do take non-payment very seriously and in addition to immediately and indefinitely suspending any account who has demonstrated a failure to complete payment we make significant efforts to prevent users from creating multiple accounts. We are continuously improving our tools utilized in this process and really appreciate feedback and are always working to ensure our platform meets the needs of user’s, so please feel free to contact us either by DM on Namepros or direct email at [email protected] with any comments, concerns, or questions we may answer for you.

We do reauction any domain we feel may have been compromised due to fraudulent behavior within the auction or regarding nonpayment on the domain name. We consider all forms of nonpayment as fraudulent behavior on our platform, even in the case of buyer’s remorse. As previously mentioned these accounts are indefinitely suspended. Reauctions are something we are continuously working to prevent and continue to explore ideas on how we can efficiently make our platform secure and easy to use. We want to ensure the best experience for our user’s.

Again, If you have any questions for DropCatch we are happy to answer them.

 

[brianbrytus]

We wanted to reach out to address your concerns regarding our verification process. The verification process on DropCatch requires each user upload a valid government issued photo ID that is reviewed in the verification of any DropCatch account, and while this is the main verification process that the user is required to participate in, it is not the only method we utilize in the verification of DropCatch Accounts.

Although we have never required authorization of a credit card as you mentioned, we have increased the security of our platform by adding additional verification requirements, such as phone verification. Recent changes and increase to security in verification was the implementation of phone number verification for DropCatch’s platform.

We are continuously monitoring the reauctions to identify behaviors that we are able to eliminate by updated verification processes. While we are not able to prevent nonpayment 100% of the time the rate at which we have reauctions on domains has not increased. Because the integrity of our auction platform is of the utmost importance to us we monitor this behavior verify closely.

We do take non-payment very seriously and in addition to immediately and indefinitely suspending any account who has demonstrated a failure to complete payment we make significant efforts to prevent users from creating multiple accounts. We are continuously improving our tools utilized in this process and really appreciate feedback and are always working to ensure our platform meets the needs of user’s, so please feel free to contact us either by DM on Namepros or direct email at [email protected] with any comments, concerns, or questions we may answer for you.

We do reauction any domain we feel may have been compromised due to fraudulent behavior within the auction or regarding nonpayment on the domain name. We consider all forms of nonpayment as fraudulent behavior on our platform, even in the case of buyer’s remorse. As previously mentioned these accounts are indefinitely suspended. Reauctions are something we are continuously working to prevent and continue to explore ideas on how we can efficiently make our platform secure and easy to use. We want to ensure the best experience for our user’s.

Again, If you have any questions for DropCatch we are happy to answer them.

Dude, your platform is buggy as hell. I registered today to bid on around 10 domain names, all $10, I verified my account, verified, pone #, email, added credit card, added funds, then tried bidding all morning and got the same error ""We're sorry, an unknown error occurred placing bids."
I don't think anyone should take this company seriously lol.