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discuss GoDaddy expired domains appearing on dropcatch

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Domainer47

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Just noticed today that "tronlabs .com" and "watched .org" were sold at dropcatch as dropped names a couple months after they were sold at the GoDaddy expired auctions.

Any idea what is happening here?

I was the second-highest bidder for "watched .org" in the GoDaddy auction but I didn't get offered it after a non paying winner so I'm assuming they didn't not pay for it.
 
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...a couple months after they were sold at the GoDaddy expired auctions...

Complete speculation, but DropCatch does allow private party listings so could be the winner at GD needed some cash and chose to auction off at DropCatch.

But in some way or another it was almost certainly the buyer at GD who listed it. Why would GD list there when they have their own auction platform. And if thr winning bidder didn't pay for some reason as #2 they would've just offered it to you.
 
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Nothing surprises me anymore.
 
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Thanks for the replies. Yeah it doesn't make any sense.

Was definitely listed as a drop on dropcatch and I can confirm I wasn't offered it in July by GoDaddy.

dropcatch watched .org.PNG
Watched .org godaddy.PNG
 
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Domain Name: WATCHED.ORG
Registry Domain ID: D402200000014527957-LROR
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.namebright.com
Registrar URL: http://www.NameBright.com
Updated Date: 2020-09-03T19:01:39Z
Creation Date: 2020-08-31T14:30:43Z
Registry Expiry Date: 2021-08-31T14:30:43Z

So in that case the only possible explanation AFAIK is the domain was deleted from the registry, either by request of the owner, or perhaps due to abuse. I would guess it probably wasn't due to non-payment because in that case I'm pretty sure Godaddy would gladly sell it to you as the next highest bidder to get something out of it.
 
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Yeah I don't see why they wouldn't, just thought it was strange to see it again on dropcatch.

I hadn't bid on TronLabs at the GD auctions but I did hear it mentioned on the brandable insider podcast from July so it caught my attention when I seen it. I'm sure it was listed as 'dropped' on Dropcatch a few days ago, not a private auction.

Anyway, I want to be clear that I'm not in any way suggesting anything malicious is happening here. Only curious to see if any experienced domainers know how this could happen.

Thanks for your thoughts on this Ryan
 
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if hd wins the gd auction they dont pay and it gets dropped, then their dropcatch gets it on the drop and auctioned off
 
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if hd wins the gd auction they dont pay and it gets dropped, then their dropcatch gets it on the drop and auctioned off

Wouldn't that be interesting...

That's a pretty big speculation though...

Then their HD bot would just be ensuring that DropCatch sells domains and that's why they have no fear in bidding up people on worthless names. Maybe even a kickback to GoDaddy from their platform when something like this does happen.

Personally I don't trust DropCatch.
 
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That's a pretty big speculation though...

I think it's been discussed on here before and I thought it was already accepted fact that they do that. One thing we do know about the situation you mentioned based on creation date is that it was dropped, and you said that they won the GD auction in this case, so what other conclusion is there? Instead of not paying gd tho to make it drop, I think the API has a command to cancel purchases.
 
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if hd wins the gd auction they dont pay and it gets dropped, then their dropcatch gets it on the drop and auctioned off
Honestly can't see GoDaddy letting them do that on account of them being a 14 billion dollar company but you never know. For the most part whenever huge domains wins the auction, (you know its them by the bidder ID) the domain always ends up on their site with at least a 10x mark up. The ID that won watched .org in July was 33644, any idea who that would be? Tried googling it and never found anything discussing it or linking it to HD.
If it was them though, could it be that HD is winning auctions on GoDaddy then auctioning them off themselves on Dropcatch for a quick profit? Because HD own dropcatch they could potentially mark the auction as 'dropped' instead of 'private sale'?
 
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The ID that won watched .org in July was 33644, any idea who that would be?

no, but that's a low id number, I thought they were normally more digits than that. Well, if HD wasn't the party that won the auction, but it was this other ID number, then we have to assume that whoever it was just didn't pay for the domain (and was probably penalized for it), so it then went to the drop pile.. (instead of them offering it to you, which would have been nice) but, it would be speculation to wonder if the auction winner person secretly worked for HD. However, I do think there have been instances similar to yours where the HD customer number won the auction and then it went to the drop pile a few days later anyway and then they caught it. Speculating here, but as far as GD "allowing" this, they might even penalize them for it, but maybe the penalty is less than the domain is worth.. I don't think they would be applying any different rules to HD than they would to anyone else, but HD gets certain tactical advantages for having that much money to work with, having GD API capability, and having the fastest dropcatch on the web...
 
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Yeah I think thats true, HD get treated the same. If they didn't pay for a won auction then you would think they would get their membership terminated and wouldn't be allowed to bid on anymore auctions like everyone else.

I just find it strange how this is happening and it's annoying not knowing exactly whats going on haha. Will keep an eye out for other names showing up on dropcatch as drops after they've been through GD expired auctions.

Thanks for giving your thoughts on it Pairadice
 
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Thanks for explaining it @equity78

It makes you wonder why GoDaddy didn't offer watched .org to me as the second-highest bidder, are they not required to do that? Also, it's kind of surprising that someone with such a low bidder ID 33644 didn't follow through with payment.

Anyway, GD must be losing a significant amount if they are having to let premium names drop because of non-paying bidders.
 
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That's odd, I would have never of guessed GD would just drop the name like that without at least trying to offer it the second highest bidder first.

Though actually as I think about I wonder, if GD gives the winning bidder so long to pay that there is no enough time to offer it to #2 and still have the ability to delete the name for a refund of the renewal from the registry, so they just delete it to prevent any loss. Though ironically I think they are loosing out on more money by not offering it to bidder #2 because I imagine that would make more than enough from the second highest bid to cover the occasional situation where both of the top bidders don't pay.

I guess only @Joe Styler knows for sure, maybe he might be willing to shed some light on what happens here?
 
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Names that are expired are expired. So they can drop if they do not sell at auction. We don't always sell all the domains that expire, we don't always offer names to Second highest bidders. We sell a lot of names. One a month or so is so small without this thread I bet we would not even notice that it happened. Bottom line is most people pay for auctions when they win, sometimes we offer to 2nd highest sometimes its too late or not worth the manual effort to assign it to someone else as 2nd.
Anyone who bids is expected to pay and if they don't we would ban their account. Same with any indication of shill bidding. Those kinds of things are watched very closely and would not escape our notice even in small quantities. So end of the day, some names are going to drop that's the nature of expired auctions the names are expired. :)
 
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Thanks for explaining what's actually happening @Joe89 . I tried to figure it out by googling and didnt get anywhere; hopefully anyone else that wonders how this happens will now find this thread.
 
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Names that are expired are expired. So they can drop if they do not sell at auction. We don't always sell all the domains that expire, we don't always offer names to Second highest bidders. We sell a lot of names. One a month or so is so small without this thread I bet we would not even notice that it happened. Bottom line is most people pay for auctions when they win, sometimes we offer to 2nd highest sometimes its too late or not worth the manual effort to assign it to someone else as 2nd.
Anyone who bids is expected to pay and if they don't we would ban their account. Same with any indication of shill bidding. Those kinds of things are watched very closely and would not escape our notice even in small quantities. So end of the day, some names are going to drop that's the nature of expired auctions the names are expired. :)

Joe why would you not always offer to second Highest bidder? Shouldn't that be a standard policy. Paul Nicks tweeted as much

9FqgmeKS_normal.jpg

Aug 21
We go down the list of bidders, if all back out then we let it drop just like a name that no one bids on.
 
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Bottom line is most people pay for auctions when they win, sometimes we offer to 2nd highest sometimes its too late or not worth the manual effort to assign it to someone else as 2nd.

Ok so if it's a PDFzone.com which just closed at $75,000 you going down the list, a name for $200 you are not. But I would think you could give parameters so people know they will be offered it the way Paul mentioned, the tweet reads as:

We go down the list til we find a payment, only if many decline to pay does it drop.
 
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We don't always offer it because it is a manual process. Support does it. Depends how much they have on their plate any given day. Or perhaps the first highest said they will pay but they needed extra time for the banks to get the money to us internationally and we ran out of time before the wire hits. What if something broke on auctions and support is slammed with - well support that day, or they are doing extra training that day? There are several possibilities why names wouldn't get offered. Point being we try like Paul said but we are not under any obligation to do it. We could just drop it.
 
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It makes you wonder why GoDaddy didn't offer watched .org to me as the second-highest bidder, are they not required to do that? Also, it's kind of surprising that someone with such a low bidder ID 33644 didn't follow through with payment.

Anyway, GD must be losing a significant amount if they are having to let premium names drop because of non-paying bidders.

Apparently they don't care. See my case:
https://www.namepros.com/threads/0ne-com-bought-and-then-deleted.1198707/
 
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I think Joes answer explains it @pb - did you not buy your domain for the reduced price on dropcatch?

@Joe Styler Why does GoDaddy not make it an automated process for the second-highest bidder to get offered the name after say 3 days of non-payment or so? It seems like you guys are only losing money here. If there is a genuine problem with payment from the high bidder you could make it a manual process for them to get a payment extension from support?
 
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