discuss Has Anyone Had HugeDomains Purchase their BrandBucket Names?

[The Rover]

This actually happened to a domain that I had listed on BB for a fair price. I say "fair" because I would have actually liked to have listed it for higher, but obviously BB puts a limit on the price for any particular domain. For obvious reasons, I won't disclose the domain, however, I'm curious if anyone has recently had any of their BrandBucket domains purchased by HugeDomains? When this happened to me, immediately after they purchased the domain, it was then listed on their Hugedomains marketplace for literally 3X the price than what was allowed to be listed on BrandBucket.

Things are really beginning to look increasingly wicked in this industry as of late. If others have experienced this, it would make me wonder how often they deploy this type of strategy. After reading this thread, it certainly appears that we need more transparency regarding TurnCommerce. With the (alleged) business practices of bidding up their own listings at DropCatch using foreign bots or whatever else, if proven true, would really explain how they would be able to pay higher prices for other domains, in addition to bidding up auctions on both GoDaddy and paying "premium" prices on BB.

We should be greatly concerned that literally 50-60% of the active, expired GoDaddy inventory is being snatched up (and artificially bid up) by TurnCommerce. With those type of numbers, this ain't capitalism at this point, folks. It would simply be a rotten monopoly at best (and at worst) potentially violating antitrust laws if any of the other alleged business practices are ever found to be true.

Thoughts?

 

[The Rover]

Did you request a price increase from BB? If so, when was the price increase request submitted and when was the sale? I'm asking this because BB has let it be known in instances when a trending keyword or what not is more valuable that day, then when they reviewed it, as depicted by the market.

You are not obligated to list with them. You could have listed it anywhere else if you felt confident enough to ask the 3X that HugeDomains is allegedly offering it for.

I say allegedly due to your refusal to provide the facts. You're looking at this from your prospective that you've fully vetted your side for errors. Everybody else, who doesn't know the domain, sales date and etc, hasn't been afforded the opportunity to (a) Validate the alleged domain went from BB NameServers to HD NameServers without any chance of HD acquiring the domain via expiration process to include registrar expired auction or fully dropped domain.

Or do you have additional information such as BB giving you enough info to indicate the buyer was HugeDomains.

Look, you don't have to share the details. Just as President Trump isn't obligated to share his tax returns, but if you or him, would like to gain the support of the people, you're going to have to try and be as transparent as possible. You might be weary to share a hot hidden keyword or whatever your reasoning is, then blur that part out, yet still provide the details one would have looked up, if the domain name was known.

It's like telling tech support you plugged in your laptop and it won't turn on. You'll show me the laptop, but you won't allow me to troubleshoot the cord.... How would tech support know if you are using (a) the right cord (b) the cord is plugged into the wall (c) the cord has a short in it (d) anything else that an extra set of eyes might see

Jesus, so now suddenly Trump and taxes are being injected into this discussion? Wow..

I was simply inquiring as to whether anyone else here has had any domains acquired via BB by TurnCommerce. Easy question right? I was also curious as to how others felt (in general) about the curious rumors floating around. Regardless of what specific domain that I had purchased by HD, it's clear that this thread has turned strangely upside down.

The specific domain that I sold doesn't matter when I am simply wanting a macro view (as another member above nicely put it). The fact that I did indeed have a domain that was acquired, really has no bearing on whether anyone can post that they too, have had a domain purchased by HD, nor should it prevent a general discussion. If you don't "believe" that HD purchased one of my domains, then I can't help you, nor do I care.

 

[The Rover]

If you want to find out what people think about HD then there are 2 threads of substance you can read - I doubt you can find someone here who think it´s a problem that HD buys BB names and tries to resell them for 3 times as much.



The only sad things here are you not share the name.

You and others here are attempting to use sneaky, multiple straw man arguments within this thread, by virtue of me simply not wanting to disclose the specific domain that is sold. As I have stated many times, you having knowledge of the specific domain that was sold, actually has nothing to do with my opening post. Why? Because the original topic at hand was to find out whether anyone else had a domain that was sold. I wasn't asking for specifics. I also never claimed whether others would be happy (or not happy) if they had HD acquire a BB name from them. I was simply asking if they had a sale. A general conversation can be had without knowing the details. It happens all the time, every day on NP. This is a general conversation to get a general idea whether HD has been known to purchase BB names. Again, the keyword is general. Threads on NP happen everyday, where members are saying "yeah I sold a domain on sedo etc".

Listen, I understand that someone could be dishonest about a sale, but in the context of this thread, there really is very little to gain from being dishonest. If you choose to not believe someone who's been in this business for well over a decade, then that's your issue. Also, by your own admission, there are multiple threads regarding TurnCommerce, correct? So clearly I'm not alone in my concerns. It seems very unreasonable that I should be receiving this degree of of push back, given the facts and context of what I was asking in my opening post. In fact, you want to speak about agendas? Some of the responses seem a little too contrived at this point.

So, again, I am simply choosing to not disclose sales data, no different than the majority of other domainers here. Judging from the negative response thus far, I can see why most of you don't disclose anything. It's like throwing red meat to the wolves.

 

[Chris Hydrick]

Listen, I understand that someone could be dishonest about a sale, but in the context of this thread, there really is very little to gain from being dishonest.

I don't think this is a matter of honesty. More of a quest to understand what happened.

Either it's exactly like you believe it to be.

(Assuming you checked all historical NS/ WHOIS records to ensure the domain went directly from you to HD, and that there wasn't an unknown third party in between)

Which isn't that hard to believe considering several domain investors and hobbyists regularly check BB for either an underpriced domain, or a quality domain that interests them, despite the price, because unlike most NPer's, some investors hardly ever handreg or buy cheap domains. Why wouldn't the biggest buyer of domains be interested at BB inventory? Tagging @Rebies @Jeff Reberry as an invitation to join this discussion.

Or, if there was a third party intermediary, then the question becomes how did HD get ahold of the domain?

Drop?

Expired Registrar auction?

The BB buyer sold it to HD?

Thus, why the dates and facts are important.

Was the domain pushed from your registrar account to the buyers registrar account? Thus not adding an additional year of registration time. And making an expiration based acquisition much more likely opposed to a transfer out which adds an additional year of registration time.

 

[topdom]

What would be unethical: You are a marketplace, and you get an offer for some domain and instead of transferring this offer to the domain owner, try to get the domain elsewhere for a fraction of the actual bid for higher commission. But if you do outbounding and get 30 percent instead of 20 percent this may not be unethical. For example your BIN may be 1K , floor 700 at AN, and AN gets 900 offer and tells you that they got 800 offer, and the name sells, and they get more than 20 percent. Not necessarily a bad thing if they sell a domain which normally wouldn't sell. But if there is a big gap (ratio) between prices this would be very unethical, because it would both prevent sales, and make sale prices low for sellers.
I think hugedomains is taking risk here, by trying to make 200 percent profit. We try to make 10000 percent profit on a few names to cover costs associated to the rest.

 

[ksusha64]

Hugedomains buying from BB is like Godaddy buying your new hand registrations. It will never happen.

 

[branding]

Such as what happens if the buyer didn't intentionally let the domain expire (e.g. didn't receive the renewal emails and wasn't aware of the expiration), and he/she finds out the domain he/she just spent $2,000 is now being offered for sale by HugeDomains for $6,000, less than a year after their $2,000 purchase?

Nah, that's all fine with me. Its how this business works. Doesn't matter who picks up the expired name. I'm actually fine with HD buying A LOT of inventory but I do share his concerns in the long run.

That being said, Again, I think their pricing structure is spot on so it wouldn't matter for end-users which should be our main concern.

 

[The Rover]

As others has mentioned there are other threads discussing domainers grave concerns of their dominance. Have you read all 930 posts from: https://www.namepros.com/threads/hu...50-of-expiring-domains-at-godaddy-com.988898/ It really is a great thread. A lot of effort has been put into that thread by @Arca and others for quite some time.

Again, that's why I originally included my own thoughts about those concerns in this thread as it pertained to what I thought (at the time) was a new strategy possibly being developed by TurnCommerce. Even though now it looks like TC isn't acquiring BB domains directly, if there is indeed a genuine problem regarding their market share or acquisition rate, I don't think it does anyone any good to keep it wrapped up into one thread where others may never see it. If we're being open an honest here, if it's a problem that needs to be addressed, then the more eyes the better.

I don't think it's about gloating. It's about moving on with the facts. I'm oddly alarmed how little importance you seem to place on fact checking. But I guess that's an issue most Americans struggle with, seeing how we ended up with a president who is fact checkingly challenged.

Sorry, but I really need to call you out on this one. Not only is your response a gloating statement, I would imagine that it's actually a very offensive one to a lot of Americans. Feel free to elaborate on how it's productive to the topic at hand to inject a completely unnecessary and divisive comment like that. No, I'm not supporter of Trump by any means, but there are likely many here on NP who are. In one breath you speak about being efficient, not wasting time and getting quickly to the facts, and then a second later you're casting broad stereotypes across the people of an entire country. So tell me, are we truly trying to keep things efficient and professional here or are we not?

 

[The Rover]

I was trying to. But your responses are leading me to consider otherwise.

.

Everyone can see that your stereotype comment was made right after my last apology comment. Don't try and pin this on me. It was offensive, completely unnecessary and divisive. So, I'm afraid that's 100% on you. However, I'll give you props on your quick attempt at deflecting it. To answer your other question regarding the acquisitions, not only have I read pages and pages, but have also been engaged in conversations with others in this industry, outside of NP.

 

[The Rover]

This was more of a comedic punchline to my earlier joke, that was some may feel was made in poor taste.

In an attempt to lighten the mood, seeing how you were wasting everybody's time by depriving us the ability to verify your claim to come to the viewpoint you had reached, I made this joke in jest...

And now, seeing how it turns out you didn't fact check, and your claim turns out to be false, yeah, I saw a punch line joke. President Trump knows himself it's not all about the facts. He just wants a discussion. Headliners start debates and conversations. I get it...

Let's see if we can recap here:

1.) I offer a genuine apology for my honest mistake.
2.) You immediately use that opportunity to take a big dump on Americans and allude to their ignorance.
3.) You then get completely called out on it and quickly try to deflect and "justify" your hateful comment by saying that it's my fault because I was the one that "wasted" everyone's time.

I think that about sums up it rather nicely. As far as I'm concerned, I'm just actually glad everyone gets to see how you really feel, so that I know what I'm actually dealing with here.

There really is nothing further to discuss at this point. I have already repeatedly told you that we seem to have a "huge" disagreement with TurnCommerce's acquisitions. It should have ended with the apology, yet here you are, wanting to continue this "debate" ever since I called you out on your "punchline". And yet I'm the one who's deflecting? Yeah, I don't think so.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to guess that this would happen after I realized I was wrong about the BB domain, which is why I stated in my apology that I feel that it would be a mistake for people to "throw the baby out with the bathwater" when it comes to the multiple concerns that I posted. Truth be told, I was actually feeling rather good after I apologized, as I thought this thread was starting to turn around. Unfortunately, as predicted, you and a few others are now passive aggressively attempting to use a rather trite tactic of dismissing everything I stated on the basis that I was wrong about one element of my opening post. It's transparent and freaking exhausting at this point.

So, don't get it twisted. There's no "spinning" coming from this end. The only continued spinning I see at this point, is from you and a few others here who are absolutely focused on defending TurnCommerce when it comes to their acquisitions. I (and many others who shall likely remain silent) disagree with the premise that TurnCommerce's volume of acquisitions are harmless in the long term, and I will continue to stand by that position. The fact that there are actually comments on this thread that even suggest that TurnCommerce does not acquire an alarming volume of GoDaddy auctions (and no, they're not all crap domains) is utterly asinine at this point.

 

[The Rover]

Don't kid yourself. Failing to fact check, or provide facts for others to verify, is not honest. Especially when you continually insist on your facts being factual, and we have to take it at that. Nobody is mad at your mistake. It was your lack of transparency that bordered somewhere between what seemed delusion and dishonesty.

No, I offered a genuine apology because it was an honest mistake, not a dishonest mistake. By your own admission, you accepted my mistake as being "seemingly honest". Yet now (imagine my shock) you're back peddling, attempting to accuse me of being somewhere between delusional or dishonest.

Funny how you suddenly change your position right after being called out for your anti-american comments. That's precisely what happens when you're overconfident; there's this strange tendency to let your true nature slip out. However, I'm glad that happened, because it shed a little light on the nature of the person that I'm attempting to exchange with. You seem obsessed with labeling people. You're intentionally conflating my OP title as "fake news", despite my genuine intentions and concerns. You also literally suggested that I (and most Americans) are too dim to fact check correctly and discern the difference between real news and fake news.

So, since you are still attempting to deflect and spin everything that I have tried to post after my apology, I will be as clear as I can, one last time:

1.) The BrandBucket question has been resolved. We now know that HD isn't really acquiring BB domains like I genuinely thought they had. However, that was clearly only half of my concerns as anyone can read in the OP. Again, I was pleased after your detective work discovered that HD didn't actually acquire my domain directly from BB. Having been in this industry for nearly 12 years, I am very disappointed in myself that I didn't check deeper before creating the post. I could have easily done that, and I failed to do so. However, I have already repeatedly stated that the reason I didn't feel that it was necessary to dig deeper, was because I distinctly remember seeing the domain listed rather quickly on HD's inventory. After learning that this was a clear mistake, I apologized and attempted to move on. However, you, as predicted, are absolutely determined to use my original mistake as a means to slowly and very passively dismiss my other legitimate concerns around HD's acquisitions. You might have some fellow NP's here that agree with your position, however, I don't think many others here are as stupid as you insinuated in one of your previous posts. Many serious domainers don't even bother posting these days; they lurk..and why should they post after seeing this utter dumpster fire?

2.) HD is acquiring an alarming % of GD expired domains, ranging in all types of quality. There's really no refuting this fact. This isn't "fake news" as you apparently love to spout with a dozen hashtags. If anything, it's old news, yet increasingly alarming, nonetheless. When I continually see at least 50% of the domain auctions that I personally engage in, routinely won by HD, yeah, I get a little concerned. Not just for the current state of industry, but also for the future. I am by far, not the first nor the last that finds this troubling. You and a few others here have clearly stated your positions on this issue. You can try to dismiss, excuse, distract and "fluff" HD's acquisition strategy as much as you like. You can attempt to suggest that you're much more knowledgeable on this subject and are privy to the "facts" surrounding HD's acquisition strategy, until you're blue in the face. However, I and many others will likely hold steadfast in our position. Again, it would likely be a mistake to assume that I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, simply due to my original mistake.

P.S. It might not be a bad idea to offer an apology to those on NP who happen to be American.

 

[The Rover]

Anti-American comments? How delusional are you?!...

You can try and continue your gaslighting tactics all you want. However, it's not working.

As previously stated, it was a political joke. And there wouldn't be as much of an issue with fake news if more Americans fact checked...

Fake news, fake news, fake news. We get it. Everyone is wrong and you're right. The current President is an imbecile. Americans are dumb and don't have the cognitive abilities to discern the truth. Hilarious stuff.

True or False: HugeDomains bought your domain directly from BrandBucket?...

False, and you keep bringing it up again, and again, and again, and again, as an obvious attempt to avoid criticism.

You've been rude throughout to anybody questioning the validity of the events...

I can definitely be rather snarky, but I was never genuinely inappropriate to anyone who wasn't already hellbent on being rude to me, intentionally manipulative or dismissive of my concerns. Your entire interaction with me is actually a fine example of that.

Dear NPer's,

I'm sorry some pretentious domainer failed to perform due diligence before trying to add fuel to a real crisis with false premises that HugeDomains bought his domain for X,XXX and immediately listed it for sale for only 3X on HD; an obvious contradiction to their known business and a would be anomaly to their known acquisition model. This type of reporting, or lack there of, gives a bad reputation for americans as fact checkers.

What can I say though, US military veterans generally have a better attention to detail than civilians. Which branch stereotypically has a better attention to detail is debatable amongst service members. I will continue to perform my duties as a proud NP member, and provide assistance whenever and wherever it's needed. Whether that means combating fake news, fact checking the willing, or aiding victims of stolen domains. I am here willing, and ready to assist.

Yours truly.

This has to be one of most self-entitled, self-important statements that I have read in a long time.The fact that you feel so "insulted" (immediately after being called out) that you feel compelled enough to gloat publicly that you're a veteran and that you have these super human fact checking skills beyond the average civilian, is so incredibly unbecoming.

I have friends and family members who have served (most people do) so, I truly appreciate anyone who has served this great country, from the bottom of my heart. Which is why I find it utterly nauseasting that you feel as though having served somehow makes you immune to criticism after casting aspersions to anyone who may have voted for our President. Your behaviour might seem subtle to some folks, but I can spot that nonsense a mile away. You don't get an "I-can-insult-people's-intelligence-and-make-insulting-remarks" free card. You don't get to be the hero, bully and the victim. Judging from your last couple of responses, you're obviously not used to being called out on this. In fact, after seeing the direction that this thread has taken, my guess is that you use this military angle as a means to passively aggressively strongarm and bully people, quite often. So, feel free to project, deflect, spin and gaslight all you want. I personally won't tolerate it, but hey, you do you. So, thank you for your service, but I'm afraid you are not "above" anyone else here just because you happen to have served in the military. You're not "better" than anyone else here on the basis that you've convinced yourself to have secret agent fact checking abilities.

At this point, I think it's fairly safe to say that the conversation is beyond done. I know that I'm at least certainly done conversing with you. At this rate, I wouldn't be surprised if this thread ends up being one of the most derailed, dumpster fire spectacles that NP has ever seen. However, at least you've finally admitted the fact that HD has a very concerning high acquisition rate. I'm not sure it is an absolute "crisis" as you called it (as of now) but nice save, nonetheless.

 

[lock]

Drop test domain if the Mann snaps it then your okay at domaining but you probably should have kept it.

 

[Soofi]

so, if I had bought it and did the same by listing it on Sedo, Afternic, UniReg, etc. then would it be such a big deal?


that's not HD fault because you chose to list it on bb, which imposes a price limit



if it was me, i be happy that somebody bought the name, and would take the money and move on

imo....

This post sums up everything for me!!

 

[The Rover]

This post sums up everything for me!!

LOL. Really? The resale price was never the actual concern as that was stated many times.

 

[elevator]

But that is the normal routine in every business all over the world and in domaining is the only business you buy and sell for about ten times rollover profit.

There is nothing bad in price control at BB; if the price does not go with you, you can withdraw your listing.

Just be happy someone buy your domain name; take your money and forget about the sales.

Cheers