Dynadot

јр.com – I was a victim!

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Mods- leave it here or move it,but it is important.

Taken from my blog.

"You have seen the reported “sale” of јр.com xn--p1a1c.com for $1100
On contacting the new owner it transpires, that as we had guessed, he did not realize it was an IDN and in his words “I am a victim”.

Many of you will be aware that myself and others have been trying to get Sedo to take notice of these lookalike real English words that are in fact IDN this one “јр” being Serbo-Croat cyrillic.

I have no doubt that these names were created solely to confuse and part the unwary newbie from their money.

Currently the same Russian owner of јр.com (sorry ex owner) has these on Sedo, some had been on auction with the necessary one bid to get the name off and running.

ѕео.com Created 11th Dec 2011
аѕѕ.com Created 16th Nov 2011
арр.com Created 16th Nov 2011
есо.com Created 16th Nov 2011

More:

рі.com
ја.com
ѕі.com
хѕ.com
сі.com
іѕо.com
ріе.com
роѕ.com
еуе.com
рѕі.com

I hope nobody else has been caught out by this mutton purporting to be lamb!

Now you may say that the “buyer” should have been aware? But IDN are very new to the majority of the community and as pointed out these names are created simply to take advantage of this and already at least one person has been taken in by it. I am in fact sure he is not the first and will most definitely be the last.

Any chance the buyer could get recompense? Well Sedo will say we pointed out that the name(s) were IDN with a small logo to indicate that and on the auction page it refers to the punycode, a nice get out clause perhaps.

But wait, this seller has had a number of these recently registered names make it to auction. That of course requires an opening bid. I am willing to bet that each of those opening bids were either from the same person or new members signing up with the sole purpose to make a bid.

Yes, I am saying that I think that each of the names from this seller and similar names from other sellers currently on /or have been on Sedo auction are “shill bids”.

Now if that is the case Sedo had been advised on many occasions by myself and others what was going on and had done nothing about it. Sedo should look back at these names in question, check out the first bidder in each case, do a little sleuthing and show some transparency and let the community know if there is anything untoward going on or that they are satisfied that their current due diligence meets requirements.

If I was the buyer armed with this information I would be seeking legal advice at this point in time.

What do you think?"
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
Nice that you did the detective work to find out that the buyer thought he was getting jp.com. But begs the question did he see the warning statement that they are bidding on xn--p1a1c.com? And if you tell someone "warning" your bidding on a IDN with an explanation of what a IDN is, and they still dont research deeper into what they are dealing with, then whos to blame? Shill biding would not be unique to IDN names and needs to be looked at separately as increased overall auction security.
 
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To see how the IDN warning is presented to our Japanese friends.. open attachment.

Obviously it clearly makes sense of those fluent in Japanese.

Compare the Spanish...
Now judge how easy it is to tell what's going on assuming you don't really understand IDN and are Japanese.

I know, I know, do your research
 
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Perhaps a warning in their newsletter may be at least a positive step forwards

I'll do a template for them:

Dear Sedo Customers

We realize that that we have an issue with shill bidding and people being ripped off by sellers of some IDNs. We thought an adequate solution would be this newsletter. It's at least positive! Am I right?

Please avoid bidding in auctions that are obvious shill bids and blatant attempts to defraud. As just an escrow service we generally tend to not get involved in anything until payment time by which time it's all part of a contract between buyer and seller.

Hopefully you'll get this newsletter before you get ripped off. There's unfortunately not enough resources to monitor all these activities - we're still busy working on our search results to make sure that three word dot coms rightfully come before exact keyword match ccTLDs!! You wouldn't believe how hard that is. We're also spending more time than expected on teaching our transfer reps avoidance techniques.

Anyway. Be careful out there. Our marketplace might just have people trying to rip you off. Pretty sure we're good now.

Thanks

Sedo Management
 
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The next scam on Sedo is about to occur:

Code:
ѕо.com	3h 39m	1,550 USD
оі.com	3h 41m	1,000 USD
 
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Here how the so auction looks, there an icon and a warning. Red letters would help.

rszso.jpg
 
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..if they opened account on the buyer's name.. well, how could it be possible at all? isnt it illegal? i mean being unclear about IDN on the auction page is not illegal but kind of on the fence and all, and opening account on behalf of unaware person is a different story.. can someone please make it clear..

Answer:
5.2.3.3.1. Quick Transfer

In certain specialized cases, to effectuate a "quick" transfer, Sedo will conduct domain "pushes," which includes creating a domain registrar account on behalf of the Buyer, utilizing the contact information in the Buyer's User Account. Once the registrar account has been created, and the domain has been securely pushed from Seller's registrar account to the Buyer's registrar, Sedo's transfer agent will give the Buyer their respective registrar account information, including password and login details. Transfer of domain ownership is transfer of control of the domain, and once the Buyer has control over the purchased domain, he/she cannot claim that Sedo has not performed its duties under this User Agreement based solely on the fact that the domain is not at any specific domain registrar.

Also noteworthy:
5.1.3.3.1. Deleting Bids Made in Error

Sedo reserves the right to delete individual bids during the Auction Period if it believes that such bids were placed clearly erroneously, by mistake, or were determined not to be a bona fide firm offer. Mistake on the part of the User must be reasonably obvious. The User must communicate the mistake to Sedo, in writing and within a reasonable amount of time. Users may not claim mistake with the purpose of interfering with or circumventing the completion of a transaction. Sedo may suspend the User's account at anytime if the User is found to have placed a fraudulent bid during an Auction Period. In the event that Sedo invalidates a current high bid, the next highest bid, including the previous high bid, shall take the place of the active high bid with all due obligations should such bid remain the high bid at the close of the auction.
https://sedo.com/us/about-us/policies/terms-of-use/?tracked=&partnerid=&language=us
 
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When we put a lot of emphasis on trying to make buying a domain feel safe and trustworthy for end-users who aren't familiar with the industry, it's incredibly unreasonable to expect them to know that these domains are, quite literally, not what they appear to be.

I want marketplaces to give strong warnings, if they insist on having these names for sale at all. Not fine print. Huge red letters, and a pop-up, and a final warning before checking out: "THIS DOMAIN IS ACTUALLY dfw3f-w3-33-rsar.com and NOT Hi.com."

Just having a little sign that says "IDN" is not good enough. Many people don't know what that means. Buying a domain for the first time is already plenty confusing, between DNS, "Do I need privacy? Do I need whatever other super-duper upsell they're trying to push on me?"

We can, as an industry, say "Well it's buyer beware", but then we mustn't cry when the buyers decide to be so aware that they stay away from the aftermarket altogether.

It reminds me of selling those fake .extensions that don't actually work in regular browsers, without making it blatantly obvious that it's not a real domain name.

Thanks to OP for calling out nonsense in the domain industry, it's the only way we'll get better, and we'll build a stronger, more liquid market.

Edit: Just saw the date of this thread haha, this has been a problem long before my time I guess!
 
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perhaps a red color code would help, but if it's too good to be true there is normally something wrong
 
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I agree.. But then again you can say the same thing about .Mobi, the way many mobi investors hyped the extension for the purpose of unloading their inventory on unwary newbies.. Unfortunately, it's a cut throat business were in where many are in it for #1.

Sorry,no comparison at all!
 
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Perhaps a warning in their newsletter may be at least a positive step forwards

How about highlighting these two super domains on offer at sedo:



sedo.com/search/details.php4?domain=shillbidders.com" - shillbidder.com

and

sedo.com/search/details.php4?domain=shillbidders.com" - shillbidders.com



Themed auction anyone?



BTW shillbidding.com takes you to an Ebay policy page.
 
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I think people get excited when they see a short nice name and they bid for them blindly specially newbies.
 
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..if they opened account on the buyer's name.. well, how could it be possible at all? isnt it illegal? i mean being unclear about IDN on the auction page is not illegal but kind of on the fence and all, and opening account on behalf of unaware person is a different story.. can someone please make it clear..

The domain is registered at MadDogDomains.

Likely what is going on is that the scumbag piece of $hit seller transferred the name to a Sedo account at Maddogdomains as part of escrow.

Sedo wants to transfer to the poor buyers account.

That's what I get out of it.
 
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Likely what is going on is that the scumbag piece of $hit seller transferred the name to a Sedo account at Maddogdomains as part of escrow.

Sedo wants to transfer to the poor buyers account.

cant the buyer reject the push and file something somewhere against Sedo? consumer protection laws not working in this case? ..well, thats rhetorical
 
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cant the buyer reject the push and file something somewhere against Sedo? consumer protection laws not working in this case? ..well, thats rhetorical

The contract is between buyer and seller and has been signed and agreed. Buyer has already paid Sedo.

I'm not sure what happens if they dispute payment with paypal - I'm not sure that paypal would care.


Interestingly enough, apparently SEDO doesn't understand anything about IDN and reports the sale as JP.com in their RSS feed and confuses everyone.

http://www.dotweekly.com/sedo-reporting-jp-com-sold-for-1100/

Last post for me on this subject .. it's clear that Sedo posts a warning. It's clear that the buyers are still getting screwed.
 
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another one

sedo.com/auction/auction_detail.php?auction_id=125837&trackingRequestId=25164719&tracked=&partnerid=&language=us

regards,
tonecas
 
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I guess the first "buyer" realised what he/she was getting and pulled out so Sedo will have banned a potential buyer.

Never mind, Sedo allowed it to go back on auction and drew in 9 bidders this time!

Bidding History:
арр.com

Winning Bid:
6,255 USD

Reserve met!

Winning Bidder:

Bidder 4

Auction ended:

Mar/12/12 09:32 AM CET

Still in the name of the Russian so I am guessing the the deal fell through,hopefully! :tu:

I would like to post more details about the people who are doing this but it appears that it is now becoming acceptable with threads being deemed derogatory and inflammatory (honest imho) banished to the graveyard.
 
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so, until now "Elena" has scam at least 2 persons
http://sedo.com/auction/auction_det...stId=24398887&tracked=&partnerid=&language=us

and the buyer of the domain in this thread.

it has probably scammed more since her seller index at SEDO is at the top.

it has been a good raid since the sales cover in excess the cost in reg fee the domains (and a bunch of others).

notoriously, she has also been able to list and re-list for sale the same IDN on SEDO for 3(?) times without any problem:
http://sedo.com/auction/auction_det...stId=23860864&tracked=&partnerid=&language=us
and
https://www.sedo.co.uk/auction/auct...tion_id=125456&tracked=&partnerid=&language=e

and SEDO is acting in such a meaningful way that the scammer is still allowed to list and use SEDO. :lala:

the important seems not to stop scammers but to avoid any legal implication for SEDO. Here is the new "disclaimer":

Important Notice:

** This domain contains special non-English characters (i.e. "ä","ö","ü","á","é", "í") and is an Internationalized Domain (IDN). Please note that even if the signs in this domain name appear like regular signs, the domain may not be always reachable by typing in the name, due to browser limitations on IDN names and user setup. The domain can be reached by typing in: XN--80A6AA.COM.

http://www.sedo.co.uk/search/details.php4?domain=xn--80a6aa.com

regards,
tonecas
 
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Just looking back on this old thread and it appears that we had a big success and in general the majority of the crappy names have disappeared,despite the naysayers pessimistic attitudes.

Well done guys.
 
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I think sedo are a big business and simply don't care ......pity you are not working for them
 
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I have been watching this auctions and I was asking myself the same question, were the initial bids fake, to catch another bidders? So many IDNs with a "regular" looking letters in such a short time in the marketplace auction. There is something unusually going on IMO as well.
 
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Nice that you did the detective work to find out that the buyer thought he was getting jp.com. But begs the question did he see the warning statement that they are bidding on xn--p1a1c.com? And if you tell someone "warning" your bidding on a IDN with an explanation of what a IDN is, and they still dont research deeper into what they are dealing with, then whos to blame? Shill biding would not be unique to IDN names and needs to be looked at separately as increased overall auction security.

This is the exact response from the buyer:

"I am a victim,I didn't know it was IDN domain name!"

Not really an excuse but I was not surprised,the seller got the result.I am just trying to ensure that it does not happen too often in the future.

And I appreciate that shill bids happen across the domain spectrum but these on Sedo stand out like the proverbial sore thumb and they had been told about them!
 
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MHO is that like in any business there should be done due diligence from the buyer. SEDO puts an icon saying its an IDN, then when someone click the <div> section where the domain name is, he get a more detailed explanation of what the domain REALLY is.

i think in this case (Hurraaay!) Sedo has done its part. people should stop being naive and clear the dolar signs in their eyes.

what Sedo must do is detect better when there is shill bidding. i bet that some bids on those domains were shill bidding. others were serious. eventually the bidding bidders will not pay since it has passed more than a week now.

this is the first issue.

the second issue is that this new comer russian domainer blasts the opportunity in front of more astute domainers, new comers also or not, that can check and generate quickly words in Cyrillic that are similar to those in english who have value and enter the market with a few more IDNs.

namely, we have now a german domainer that following the idea of the russian domainer registered the "apps.com" and others equivalent in Cyrillic and has already two bids at $5,000. I suspect the first one may have been false also.

in the process we start to get a lot of attention and people start to think that at least there is the merit of having a domain that is almost identical to the US-ASCCI one. and yes, it's true that this brings value to a domain but should be the buying domainer that has to acknowledge this value intentionally and not by following fake bids.

regards,
tonecas
 
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MHO is that like in any business there should be done due diligence from the buyer. SEDO puts an icon saying its an IDN, then when someone click the <div> section where the domain name is, he get a more detailed explanation of what the domain REALLY is.

i think in this case (Hurraaay!) Sedo has done its part. people should stop being naive and clear the dolar signs in their eyes.

what Sedo must do is detect better when there is shill bidding. i bet that some bids on those domains were shill bidding. others were serious. eventually the bidding bidders will not pay since it has passed more than a week now.

this is the first issue.

the second issue is that this new comer russian domainer blasts the opportunity in front of more astute domainers, new comers also or not, that can check and generate quickly words in Cyrillic that are similar to those in english who have value and enter the market with a few more IDNs.

namely, we have now a german domainer that following the idea of the russian domainer registered the "apps.com" and others equivalent in Cyrillic and has already two bids at $5,000. I suspect the first one may have been false also.

in the process we start to get a lot of attention and people start to think that at least there is the merit of having a domain that is almost identical to the US-ASCCI one. and yes, it's true that this brings value to a domain but should be the buying domainer that has to acknowledge this value intentionally and not by following fake bids.

regards,
tonecas

Shill bidding-This is really the crux of the matter.

I can probably detect it just by looking and the minimum of research as can many members here,why do Sedo find it so difficult?

The German is not new to it probably just buoyed by the success of the Russian.
 
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