- Impact
- 26
Last Wednesday and Thursday, Namejet auction activity was dominated by more than 1,800 LLL.net and LLL.org domain names for sale. Most didn't meet their reserve prices, but many did sell at high values (pet.org for $34,100, see.net for $15,700, ccc.net for $9,600, lab.org for $7,901, etc.) I personally bought 8 names for a total price of $16,778. These were private portfolio names, not expires.
My credit card was charged last week, but today I got an email that my purchase of 3 of the 8 names was "canceled". It sounds like the seller had second thoughts or decided to sell some to another party, even though the reserve prices chosen by the seller were met! When you agree to sell your domains this way, you are entering into a binding contract that you shouldn't be able to back out of. Especially after the buyer has already paid! Cherry picking the sales to only honor the ones which you like is particularly egregious!
The origin of these domains is rather murky. They belonged to Marchex for years, then these 1,800 LLL's were transferred to GoDaddy a couple months ago. Most use GoDaddy's privacy service to hide the owner's identity. But they seem to have missed privacy on some domains, which showed "Lease Domains, Inc." as the owner. That company seems to be run by domainer Anthos Chrysanthou in Chicago.
I called Anthos today at the number in Lease Domains' whois. He admitted to being Anthos Chrysanthou, but then became extremely evasive. He refused to confirm whether he was the owner/seller of the domains, but asked about my interest in them. When he found out that I was upset about the canceled auctions and that I just wanted wanted to receive the domain names for which I paid more $16,000, he said "there is nothing I can do for you" and hung up on me.
Namejet says they will refund the money, but I still feel wronged. Even though I only won 8 domain names, I spent many hours researching all 1,800 and rearranged my whole schedule last week to accommodate the bidding. Anthos and Namejet should honor all the sales, not just the ones which were taken to the stratosphere in bidding wars. If they wanted more, they should have chosen a higher reserve price. Even if someone bid more to them directly after the auction, they should honor the auction results.
Did anyone else here win names in this bogus LLL Namejet auction? Did the seller also renege on some of your buys? Does anyone know more about the murky way that these domains were transferred from Marchex and soon ended up in this giant Namejet auction? Does anyone know more about Anthos Chrysanthou or "Lease Domains, Inc." (leasedomains.com). The whois contact also references some "DNMAgroup".
My credit card was charged last week, but today I got an email that my purchase of 3 of the 8 names was "canceled". It sounds like the seller had second thoughts or decided to sell some to another party, even though the reserve prices chosen by the seller were met! When you agree to sell your domains this way, you are entering into a binding contract that you shouldn't be able to back out of. Especially after the buyer has already paid! Cherry picking the sales to only honor the ones which you like is particularly egregious!
The origin of these domains is rather murky. They belonged to Marchex for years, then these 1,800 LLL's were transferred to GoDaddy a couple months ago. Most use GoDaddy's privacy service to hide the owner's identity. But they seem to have missed privacy on some domains, which showed "Lease Domains, Inc." as the owner. That company seems to be run by domainer Anthos Chrysanthou in Chicago.
I called Anthos today at the number in Lease Domains' whois. He admitted to being Anthos Chrysanthou, but then became extremely evasive. He refused to confirm whether he was the owner/seller of the domains, but asked about my interest in them. When he found out that I was upset about the canceled auctions and that I just wanted wanted to receive the domain names for which I paid more $16,000, he said "there is nothing I can do for you" and hung up on me.
Namejet says they will refund the money, but I still feel wronged. Even though I only won 8 domain names, I spent many hours researching all 1,800 and rearranged my whole schedule last week to accommodate the bidding. Anthos and Namejet should honor all the sales, not just the ones which were taken to the stratosphere in bidding wars. If they wanted more, they should have chosen a higher reserve price. Even if someone bid more to them directly after the auction, they should honor the auction results.
Did anyone else here win names in this bogus LLL Namejet auction? Did the seller also renege on some of your buys? Does anyone know more about the murky way that these domains were transferred from Marchex and soon ended up in this giant Namejet auction? Does anyone know more about Anthos Chrysanthou or "Lease Domains, Inc." (leasedomains.com). The whois contact also references some "DNMAgroup".
