GoDaddy Auction Seller Backing Out

[clarkemarketing]

Anyone ever won a GD auction just to have the seller claim they no longer own the domain? I won BlockchainLegal.com BlockchainTrust.com and BlockchainStack.com on GoDaddy a few weeks ago, paid, and then had the seller contact me to see if I received the domains yet (which I had not). I noticed that one of the domains was developed in the meantime, and wouldn't you know it today the seller contacts me to say he made a mistake and no longer owns all 3 of them. They are all still registered at GoDaddy btw (doesn't GD verify ownership of domains that are being auctioned?). Seems to me like I was "freerolled"... auction a name on GoDaddy, if it goes for a high amount sell it, if it doesn't just claim you no longer own the domain. Anyone have any thoughts on this? I've got to be one of the biggest buyers on GoDaddy auctions lately and other than never buying on that platform again I'm not sure what recourse I really have? I know people make mistakes, and I have overlooked such situations many times before, but this involves multiple names that quite frankly sold for significantly less than I was expecting to pay and now the seller is clearly trying to back out.

 

[equity78]

Names might have been added when they owned them, at somepoint they moved, and were never removed by the owner. The one still in her name, if in the same matching account should have a lock, and move when payment verification is completed. Unless they were pushed into a different account.

I purchased a $2,700 domain thru godaddy auctions, that was owned by huge domains, huge domains claimed they repriced, and the update failed, and they wanted $3,300, godaddy said there was nothing they could do to get them to move the domain to me, even though I bought it at bin, and paid. They cannot force them to hand over the domain, they will either warn, or ban them. Not sure what you paid, but sure their inbox has some nice offers, so maybe some are sold, and the ones they still own they want to keep for a bigger payday. Given they own the foresight to own such names going back they must have some insight into the space.

Godaddy domains linked to the same selling account, are supposed to auto lock, and transfer once payment verification is completed. Your best is to get godaddy to contact them.

Seems like @Joe Styler got some explaining to do.

 

[Coinking]

@Joe Styler

 

[DomainRecap]

I just listed 555 domains on sedo and a ton of them were already listed there by the previous owner.

Are you sure it was the previous owner?

I ask because Sedo is rife with scammers who literally have tens of thousands of domains in their portfolio, but own none of them, and just hope to get a juicy offer (Sedo pre-holds funds on offers) so they can hit up the *real* owner with a lowball and just send the transfer code they get to the actual buyer.

If not, they just refuse the offer and wait for the next one to hit. Rinse and repeat.

 

[MapleDots]

Are you sure it was the previous owner?

I ask because Sedo is rife with scammers who literally have tens of thousands of domains in their portfolio, but own none of them, and just hope to get a juicy offer (Sedo pre-holds funds on offers) so they can hit up the *real* owner with a lowball and just send the transfer code they get to the actual buyer.

If not, they just refuse the offer and wait for the next one to hit. Rinse and repeat.

Could be but I happen to know who I bought these from and I know some of them were listed on godaddy and sedo. A lot of times the owners sell the domains and forget to remove them.

I'm sure your scenario does come into play but I'm pretty tight with a lot of the folks I buy from.

 

[Joe Styler]

I bought a few domains in the 1k range and they ended not hitting my account.
It was a joke.

Now I just contact owners via whois and make my offer directly. It gives me an advantage over auctions because the seller saves the 20% auction fees.

Nothing says you can't look at auctions and make a few private deals with a couple of strategic whois inquiries.

As far as your situation goes..... if the domains have left the sellers hands there is very little you can do but move on. You have no recourse, godaddy has all the fine print stacked in their favor.

Actually our terms of service say you cannot do that and if we find out we normally ban you for life so I wouldn't recommend people try that.

 

[MapleDots]

Actually our terms of service say you cannot do that and if we find out we normally ban you for life so I wouldn't recommend people try that.

You would think that banning will fix the issue, instead it makes it worse because now there is even more reason to contact directly. In the end godaddy cannot control what people do and the more people they ban the more persistent the problem becomes.

Why do you think godaddy want to hide contact information so badly, they say because of spammers but it's really to protect their auction profits.

I'm going to have an article about that soon, I've just purchased some GDname domains to talk about some interesting things I cannot discuss on this forum.

 

[Joe Styler]

Anyone ever won a GD auction just to have the seller claim they no longer own the domain? I won BlockchainLegal.com BlockchainTrust.com and BlockchainStack.com on GoDaddy a few weeks ago, paid, and then had the seller contact me to see if I received the domains yet (which I had not). I noticed that one of the domains was developed in the meantime, and wouldn't you know it today the seller contacts me to say he made a mistake and no longer owns all 3 of them. They are all still registered at GoDaddy btw (doesn't GD verify ownership of domains that are being auctioned?). Seems to me like I was "freerolled"... auction a name on GoDaddy, if it goes for a high amount sell it, if it doesn't just claim you no longer own the domain. Anyone have any thoughts on this? I've got to be one of the biggest buyers on GoDaddy auctions lately and other than never buying on that platform again I'm not sure what recourse I really have? I know people make mistakes, and I have overlooked such situations many times before, but this involves multiple names that quite frankly sold for significantly less than I was expecting to pay and now the seller is clearly trying to back out.

Those listings were more than 4 years old when you bought them. When they were originally listed the domains were not at GoDaddy and were not listed by the current owner. Had the domains been listed by the current owner while at GoDaddy they would have in most cases moved to you automatically. Since there was a mismatch on the information of the listing party and the owner etc the names cannot move they were not listed by the current owner. The support team would take action to ban the offending lister who no longer owned the domains. It is their job to maintain current listings. We do audit listings but not all the domains get caught. I am sorry that you had this happen.

 

[Joe Styler]

You would think that banning will fix the issue, instead it makes it worse because now there is even more reason to contact directly. In the end godaddy cannot control what people do and the more people they ban the more persistent the problem becomes.

Why do you think godaddy want to hide contact information so badly, they say because of spammers but it's really to protect their auction profits.

I'm going to have an article about that soon, I've just purchased some GDname domains to talk about some interesting things I cannot discuss on this forum.

It has nothing to do with that. You can easily check whois information at who.godaddy.com and get the full data.

 

[MapleDots]

It has nothing to do with that. You can easily check whois information at who.godaddy.com and get the full data.

Yup you said it.... Now remember that

YOU HAVE TO CHECK AT GODADDY

I'll be blogging all about that soon

 

[Joe Styler]

So I can put my Namesilo and Namecheap domain into Godaddy auction?

Yes

 

[Joe Styler]

I do not believe they verify ownership for public auctions, I could be wrong but know plenty of people who bought a name to be told the seller doesn't own the name anymore.

Sedo has plenty of 3L.coms listed that are not owned by that seller account anymore.

We do verify ownership on public listings at the time they are listed. However ownership can change and might slip past our audits which is why we state in the terms of service it is up to the listing party to be able to deliver the domain name with no issues.

 

[equity78]

Actually our terms of service say you cannot do that and if we find out we normally ban you for life so I wouldn't recommend people try that.

Joe GoDaddy has no authority to say someone can't contact another domain owner, some people use whois and would never check GoDaddy anyway. @MapleDots wasn't talking about expired domains, he was talking about someone having domains listed at GoDaddy.

 

[equity78]

Those listings were more than 4 years old when you bought them. When they were originally listed the domains were not at GoDaddy and were not listed by the current owner. Had the domains been listed by the current owner while at GoDaddy they would have in most cases moved to you automatically. Since there was a mismatch on the information of the listing party and the owner etc the names cannot move they were not listed by the current owner. The support team would take action to ban the offending lister who no longer owned the domains. It is their job to maintain current listings. We do audit listings but not all the domains get caught. I am sorry that you had this happen.

Joe one of the names @clarkemarketing mentioned was BitcoinStack.com that was one of Jane Both's domains, that name has been at GoDaddy and did not change like the other two he purchased. Thankfully that one didn't expire like that batch of names that netted GoDaddy over $100,000 a few months back.

How would he have not gotten that name, been at GoDaddy for years.

 

[Daniel Owens]

Well, considering I've bought domains off NP and other platforms then found out someone had them up for auction at GD (even though they hit my account) your problem doesn't shock me. Most likely they sold the domain and godaddy didn't end an auction, they probably had on there 30+ days and maybe even forgot. There is a reason many domainers say remove it from all platforms, that is so buyers like you don't win a domain only to find out they can't get it!

 

[MapleDots]

Joe GoDaddy has no authority to say someone can't contact another domain owner, some people use whois and would never check GoDaddy anyway. @MapleDots wasn't talking about expired domains, he was talking about someone having domains listed at GoDaddy.

@equity78 You've got it exactly right but that falls on deaf ears at godaddy, they seem to think they own the domains as soon as someone lists with them.

Person A lists a domain and it has no bids.

Person B decides the domain is too expensive but the minimum bid is 5k. Person B contacts via whois and says 4k direct is like 5k at auction. They make the deal, the auction was never involved.

Person B gets banned if godaddy finds out.

 

[tonyk2000]

Joe GoDaddy has no authority to say someone can't contact another domain owner, some people use whois and would never check GoDaddy anyway. @MapleDots wasn't talking about expired domains, he was talking about someone having domains listed at GoDaddy.

So, in light of the following statement -

Actually our terms of service say you cannot do that and if we find out we normally ban you for life so I wouldn't recommend people try that

@Joe Styler-
Joe, since GD may not be able to ban enduser who sent an inquiry to a domain owner (enduser does not necessary have an account @ GD to begin with) - did you mean to say that a domainer who has an active GD auction listing should not respond to inquiries received directly to whois email?

 

[Joe Styler]

Joe GoDaddy has no authority to say someone can't contact another domain owner, some people use whois and would never check GoDaddy anyway. @MapleDots wasn't talking about expired domains, he was talking about someone having domains listed at GoDaddy.

We say in our terms of service that if you find the domain on our auctions you cannot circumvent the auction. I am not a lawyer so I will refrain from saying what we can and cannot do and simply point you to the terms of service. https://www.godaddy.com/agreements/showdoc.aspx?pageid=dna_member
Specifically: Should GoDaddy determine (which determination shall be made by GoDaddy in its sole and absolute discretion) that you are circumventing the Services, GoDaddy reserves the right to terminate your account and cancel all of your listings.

This is different from finding a great name on your own and contacting the person directly. This is searching for and seeing names on our auction and then trying to cut us out of that auction which is sounds very much like Maple Dots is advocating in his comment. Find the name contact the owner directly and save them 20%. This behavior will get you banned. No one is saying you cannot find domains on your own and contact people as you please.

 

[Joe Styler]

Joe one of the names @clarkemarketing mentioned was BitcoinStack.com that was one of Jane Both's domains, that name has been at GoDaddy and did not change like the other two he purchased. Thankfully that one didn't expire like that batch of names that netted GoDaddy over $100,000 a few months back.

How would he have not gotten that name, been at GoDaddy for years.

It is the same as I said, the original listing party no longer owns that domain.

 

[MapleDots]

We say in our terms of service that if you find the domain on our auctions you cannot circumvent the auction. I am not a lawyer so I will refrain from saying what we can and cannot do and simply point you to the terms of service. https://www.godaddy.com/agreements/showdoc.aspx?pageid=dna_member
Specifically: Should GoDaddy determine (which determination shall be made by GoDaddy in its sole and absolute discretion) that you are circumventing the Services, GoDaddy reserves the right to terminate your account and cancel all of your listings.

This is different from finding a great name on your own and contacting the person directly. This is searching for and seeing names on our auction and then trying to cut us out of that auction which is sounds very much like Maple Dots is advocating in his comment. Find the name contact the owner directly and save them 20%. This behavior will get you banned. No one is saying you cannot find domains on your own and contact people as you please.

Go daddy auctions can be viewed by anyone so you cannot impose your TOS on the general public. If you publish it and don't wan't it to show up then put it behind a password protected barrier. One can go incognito, not signed in, and view all domains for sale.

Are you telling me I have less rights as a regular consumer if I am a member of your auction? If I have not bid and decide the domain is too expensive it is NOT my right as a consumer to contact who I see fit?

Just because you find out still should not give you the right to ban someone when they then want to place a bid on auction. It looks to me like godaddy wants to control the part of the aftermarket that does not even belong to them.

 

[Joe Styler]

Go daddy auctions can be viewed by anyone so you cannot impose your TOS on the general public. If you publish it and don't wan't it to show up then put it behind a password protected barrier. One can go incognito, not signed in, and view all domains for sale.

Are you telling me I have less rights as a regular consumer if I am a member of your auction? If I have not bid and decide the domain is too expensive it is my right as a consumer to contact who I see fit.

Just because you find out still should not give you the right to ban someone when they then want to place a bid on auction. It looks to me like godaddy wants to control the part of the aftermarket that does not even belong to them.

If you are advocating that people use our auction marketplace to find potential domains to purchase and then purchase them outside of the auction that is a problem.

 

[Joe Styler]

So, in light of the following statement -


@Joe Styler-
Joe, since GD may not be able to ban enduser who sent an inquiry to a domain owner (enduser does not necessary have an account @ GD to begin with) - did you mean to say that a domainer who has an active GD auction listing should not respond to inquiries received directly to whois email?

No you do not have any way to know if the buyer is coming because they saw your domain listed on the auction. You would not be at fault.
I am simply saying that what Maple Dots is advocating is against our terms of service, finding domains on the auction and after looking for them for the purpose of buying and then going outside our marketplace to complete the transaction.
His comments seem to indicate this as he quotes our commission and stated that there are names he found there and then went to the owner directly.
So for instance a name he saw listed for sale for $20k and then went to the owner to get for $16k seemingly to save himself the $4k by not buying it on the marketplace.
I could be wrong but it seems that he is advocating using our marketplace to locate domains and get an idea of the seller's pricing and then use that information to go outside our platform to complete the deal.
You as the seller if you have no idea of what is happening are not at fault.

 

[tonyk2000]

@Joe Styler - for the sake of completness (thread subject) can you please also confirm that GD auction seller who really owns the listing, and decided to re-price it, but failed to do so in timely fashion or at all, still has an obligation to honor the shown price if the domain is sold (and will have their account banned if they refuse to sell)?

 

[MapleDots]

I could be wrong but it seems that he is advocating using our marketplace to locate domains and get an idea of the seller's pricing and then use that information to go outside our platform to complete the deal.
You as the seller if you have no idea of what is happening are not at fault.

You assume yours is the only marketplace we look at. Domains are often listed in numerous places and if I am an auction member at godaddy I would get banned for telling a domain owner they can save money on a private sale.

Many of your big sellers buy/sell in numerous places and they may download all of your inventory to draw inspiration. You don't ban them from auction because they are too big.

In the end though who really loses when godaddy bans?
GoDaddy loses the 20% but the domainer gets the domain.

Nothing to be scared of, there are a lot of marketplaces around including namepros. I see domains on godaddy all the time that I also see here. I'd better not ask to buy them though because just because they are also on godaddy I would risk getting banned!!

ie: I see it on namepros for 2k, I see it on godaddy for 2k
I come back and tell namepros member I should get it for 1.6k because there are no auction fees here.

Joe Styler reads the topic and the ban hammer comes down.

Yup, that's not too much power

 

[Joe Styler]

@Joe Styler - for the sake of completness (thread subject) can you please also confirm that GD auction seller who really owns the listing, and decided to re-price it, but failed to do so in timely fashion or at all, still has an obligation to honor the shown price if the domain is sold (and will have their account banned if they refuse to sell)?

That depends. I don't know what happened here. I don't have a domain to look at. Normally yes unless we are at fault or something technical caused an error there is action taken against the seller.

 

[tonyk2000]

Joe Styler reads the topic and the ban hammer comes down

I think that @Joe Styler does not actively monitor Namepros member-to-member sales...There are too many sales promoted here, but Joe still has time to respond in GD/Afternic related threads (thanks Joe).