SAV auctions advice: DON'T BID against user s_n...

[HDmarketing]

Hi all, this is quite a specific issue but will interest users engaged in SAV auctions.

It happened several times already and from what I understood from SAV support, nothing will be done to prevent it, so I might as well make it public, it may help some of you.

s_n_7cf63f, one of the frequent bidders on SAV auctions, defaults payment lately. So don't enter a bid war with him because it will only lead to the following situations where you overpay for the name:

1. You loose the bid war and end up second behind him. What happens in this case is that when his payment method is charged and fails, you, as second highest bid, are charged immediately. You win the name , but at a high price.

2. You win the bid war and end up paying a high amount. But you could have paid way less.

Here is what you should do instead when you find that user s_n_7cf63f is the current highest bidder:

1. Bid the lowest amount possible allowed by the bidding system (usually = "highest bid + $1").

2a. If you are then highest bidder, don't enter a bid war if user s_n_7cf63f tries to beat you. Let him add $1 and wait for the end of the auction. You should end up with the name. (True on 29th of june 2020)

2b. If you are immediately beaten by a s_n_7cf63f proxy bid, don't enter a bid war. Just wait the end of the auction.

You understood that to win you should make sure you are second behind s_n_7cf63f and not try to outbid him.

===

A bit of background: got caught up in bid wars in at least two auctions (probably more, but didn't document it back then).
Last time was last week when I ended up overpaying for two domains on the same day. That's when I realized that there was a repeating scheme.

Some would say it's all part of the game, but I felt cheated because had I known in time that the user had defaulted on the first domain, I would NEVER had entered the second bid war!!!

I also feel that SAV could easily act in the case of this specific user by banning him (temporarily) from auctions. I know it's possible because... it was done to me! During the first weeks I used SAV, I had MANY problems with the charging of my visa card. Was banned from auction quite fast!!!!!
Could never sort it out, had to take a new card with a different bank just to pay SAV... (saw on different threads many users had similar payment problems).


@Nick R See below for suggestions on how to change that.

Your support made me understand that user s_n_7cf63f was acting fair and no special measures needed to be taken. I was even answered that I was outbid by a proxy bid (which shows a complete misunderstanding of the problem raised by the way...)

Shouldn't you implement a better system to take in account these situations?

Two suggestions :
- relaunch auction erasing the defaulting user from the bid history.
or
- In case of a duel ending with the winner defaulting, charge the second bidder only the amount of his first bid at the start of the bid war.

Don't know if it's worth the pain for you implementing all that, maybe the ban would simplify things.

In the meantime, my advice to all users is, you can win against s_n_7cf63f if you act like mentionned above. (disclaimer: True today, will not be true anymore if the user uses a valid payment method).

Good luck to you all.
Hagop

 

[Nick R]

isnt the premise of this thread that he mostly did not pay? your statement contradicts op

We pulled the logs for every auction bid on by s_n_7cf63f and can confirm that the majority of auctions they bid on did complete successfully and s_n_7cf63f paid as expected. This thread only mentions a select number of auctions where that was not the case. Since we do require all bidders to be able to pay for the auctions right as they close we opted to prevent this user from participating in any future auctions.

 

[Samer]

We pulled the logs for every auction bid on by s_n_7cf63f and can confirm that the majority of auctions they bid on did complete successfully and s_n_7cf63f paid as expected. This thread only mentions a select number of auctions where that was not the case. Since we do require all bidders to be able to pay for the auctions right as they close we opted to prevent this user from participating in any future auctions.

How many times paid, as opposed not pay?
Anecdotal evidence seems point otherwise.

 

[Nick R]

We are unable to release any specific auctions, numbers, success rates, etc... However we do understand the need for clarity on our policy so we be doing a new code push to auto ban anyone who wins an auction but is unable to pay upon completion more than once.

 

[Samer]

We are unable to release any specific auctions, numbers, success rates, etc... However we do understand the need for clarity on our policy so we be doing a new code push to auto ban anyone who wins an auction but is unable to pay upon completion more than once.

The user is exposed; The user is banned;
The user is a repeated non-payer

Why refuse to divulge; how many times, paid?

Leads me to believe; was a chronic non-payer.

 

[D Haynes]

Yikes! Who in their right mind would join a SAV auction now? Automatically charged the second highest bid amount if the winner doesn't pay? Madness! Have to question the legality of this practice but I guess the Ts and Cs negate that.

 

[Recons.Com]

We pulled the logs for every auction bid on by s_n_7cf63f and can confirm that the majority of auctions they bid on did complete successfully and s_n_7cf63f paid as expected. This thread only mentions a select number of auctions where that was not the case. Since we do require all bidders to be able to pay for the auctions right as they close we opted to prevent this user from participating in any future auctions.

you expect anyone to take your word for granted after keeping a violator that happened to act in a way that financially was profiting SAV?

I asked @Nick R to disclose all the financial gains received from the immoral and illegal activities of this user and he chose to ignore that.

SAV also so far has not made any commitment to refund everyone that has been wronged by this user.

You fail to understand that banning him and not allowing this is just one issue. The other one is returning every penny to users that you charged the violators bid minus 1 dollar or in cases where he "lost", you pocketed all the money difference between the winning bid and the third bidder.

 

[RapidNames.com]

This is why I stopped bidding in SAV.

If they didn't hear customer's feedback then we should stop using them. That's it.

They should change the auction model.

 

[Samer]

This is why I stopped bidding in SAV.

They should change the auction model.

Right after they add; Paypal, afternic, Sedo, and maybe, just maybe, update on DAN.

 

[Recons.Com]

Right after they add; Paypal, afternic, Sedo, and maybe, just maybe, update on DAN.

Didn't DAN permanently block them from the platform for some funny business?

I think SAV calls for one of those memes "how I see myself" vs "how others see me".

 

[dirk]

Didn't DAN permanently block them from the platform for some funny business?

I think SAV calls for one of those memes "how I see myself" vs "how others see me".

Yes, they won't do business with them. They started bad by somewhat copying Dan's landers which set some bad blood.

They supposedly sent them a cease and desist.

 

[Recons.Com]

Yes, they won't do business with them. They started bad by somewhat copying Dan's landers which set some bad blood.

They supposedly sent them a cease and desist.

I think they did something on top of that bad start. Reza wrote somewhere that he was disgusted, that normally he doesn't ban regisrars from the platform, but SAV did something awful (apparently after the copyright issue) to warrant that.

Considering that SAV is still holding tight to the money it should be returning to clients cheated out their money via the shill bidder, I can believe that.

I can't believe how gullible SAV thinks people are coming up with the most lame excuses, like majority bids were paid. What counts as majority? 51%? So, if the guy was in 1000 auctions, lost 500, but cause someone pay through the nose helping SAV, won 500, but paid 251 of those, while for 249 making others pay WAY over what they could have bought it for, again, benefiting SAV, then the guy is all good? No refunds necessary, no ban...

 

[Windoms]

The Domain King 25 Point Step by Step Guide to Domain Investing

#6 Select a secure registrar.
Better transfer all your keepers away from sav.

 

[Windoms]

I can't believe how gullible SAV thinks people are coming up with the most lame excuses, like majority bids were paid. What counts as majority? 51%?

If true that many were paid for (3% for the upcoming screenshots).
Youre either straight or shady.

Reimbursement (refund) using @Arfy 's model.
Close review on public NP thread of any future misbehaviour.
If you want to save your reputation.

 

[Nick R]

Good Morning Everyone! We appreciate everyone feedback and can assure you we are taking it into account and have added numerous auction improvements to our to-do list. As you can imagine, changes to how an auction system function can be a massive undertaking. Yesterday we rolled out a code push to auto ban bidders who do not pay multiple times which will permanently resolve this issue moving forward. This improvement is a direct result of the feedback in this thread and we thank everyone for bringing this to our attention.

 

[alcy]

Good Morning Everyone! We appreciate everyone feedback and can assure you we are taking it into account and have added numerous auction improvements to our to-do list. As you can imagine, changes to how an auction system function can be a massive undertaking. Yesterday we rolled out a code push to auto ban bidders who do not pay multiple times which will permanently resolve this issue moving forward. This improvement is a direct result of the feedback in this thread and we thank everyone for bringing this to our attention.

plz define multiple times. it is a specific # within yer code. ty.

 

[Nick R]

plz define multiple times. it is a specific # within yer code. ty.

The new code will restrict bidding on any future auctions if a bidder is unable to pay for two auctions that they are the high bidder on upon auction close.

 

[Windoms]

Good Morning Everyone! We appreciate everyone feedback and can assure you we are taking it into account and have added numerous auction improvements to our to-do list. As you can imagine, changes to how an auction system function can be a massive undertaking. Yesterday we rolled out a code push to auto ban bidders who do not pay multiple times which will permanently resolve this issue moving forward. This improvement is a direct result of the feedback in this thread and we thank everyone for bringing this to our attention.

Are you going to refund people who were affected by 1 user's actions, shouldnt be much right?

Because otherwise we going to be thinking you had some urgent bills to pay.

Lots of people seem to have dealt with him/her.
We dont know how many auctions were affected by this.

1 user's behaviour, or organized crime affecting xx% of total auctions at sav.

We'd like to know.

 

[pinkdragon]

Hmm, interesting.

biobank(.)co auction ended yesterday at SAV. If you type the name, you'll see it has already been sold ... at DAN.

 

[Recons.Com]

Apparently, SAV will not act as a) there still be people that will keep going for more b) most their customers never heard of NP.

I'd advise everyone wronged by SAV to go and leave the review at Trustpilot as it seems SAV shows their 4.5 mark proudly as trusted business on all their pages and landers.

https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.sav.com

 

[Nick R]

Hello Everyone. We wanted to be sure we could push this today before we announced it but, we just rolled out one more code push! Per the consensus of the NP community, we have modified our auctions platform not to charge any other bidders if there is a legitimate high bidder who is just unable to pay at the time of auction close. When this happens, we will now reset all bids and start a new auction for the domain.

In line with this new policy, we will be reaching out over the next day to all buyers who were charged for an auction where the highest bidder was unable to pay at the time and allow them to choose to have the auction restarted and the full amount of their bid refunded.

Thanks again for everyone’s feedback and help making a better Sav!