Shill bidding

[gina ferrano]

Curious as a followup to snapnames shilling scandal. Should I be concerned that other auction, drop houses participate in that as well? The reason being is, I won a name on XYZ for low $$$$ and when the other bidder dropped out, they had three days to pay yet I was contacted in two days to procure the name. I overpaid, but decided to purchase anyway. Caveat emptor....but now I'm concerned.

 

[DU]

Yes. Some more than others. Flippa and e-bay for sure. Godaddy somewhat...but who really knows.

There are laws and regulations for running an auction.... In domain land they're pretty much still in the wild wild west

 

[gina ferrano]

I only know of snap, name jet, dyna, ebay, GD, Flippa. Any info on any of these or others?

 

[FPForum]

Shill bidding is definitely happening at a majority of the sites.. There is one I can think of which is pretty good against it, that is CAX..I think they are one of the safer ones to use. There is also DNX.com but I've never tried them...

 

[gina ferrano]

I thought that might be the case...which sucks. I ended up paying much more than I should have, but oh well.
Anyone have any experience with Dyna? Are they reputable are are they shill bidding too?

 

[DU]

I don't think shill bidding by the companies exists as such... just users manipulating the platform.

So a pending delete auction has little incentive for anyone to do anything.

Dynadot etc are unlikely to be up to no good but bidders 1,2,3 might be.

No way to know if you overpaid.. you may have just paid end user pricing which is fine if you're the end user. Some bad names go for more than they seemingly should all the time... They're not all fake or manipulated.

Depends where and what type of auction you participated in.

 

[gina ferrano]

Thanks H4CK3R, relieved I suppose. I'll assume the bidder who actually won the auction and didn't pay within the time allotted may have just had a case of sticker shock. Or if they were in it for the thrill, they'll get booted. One can get carried away in auctions lol. And yes...I'm the enduser so all is not lost. Worse case scenario, I'll get some if not all of what I paid down the line.

 

[NameFu]

Please share the link to the snapnames scandal

 

[gina ferrano]

I'm not able to post link it seems...but do a search. Techcrunch, snap names shill bidding scandal

 

[FPForum]

@NameFu - There are threads all over this board about the SnapNames shill bidding. Here are just a few links:
https://www.namepros.com/threads/sn...ing-customers-with-shill-bidding-scam.827442/
https://www.namepros.com/threads/snapnames-discussion.758513/
https://www.namepros.com/threads/unclean-hands.659092/

I would also have to agree with h4ck3r, I think most of the shill bidding is happening from the ones who are running the auctions. Not really sure you got ripped here gina.. It may just be the you really did outbid the other buyer. I think most sites like DynaDot, Flippa, Ebay would have shill bidding come via the auction starters (or pissed off buyers trying to make the price slightly higher for you), not the company themselves. SnapNames on the other hand, has documented history of doing this!

 

[gina ferrano]

Thanks Desktop I wasn't actually the winner of the auction, they just didn't pay within the time allotted, and as the next bidder I was given a chance to buy the name and I did.

 

[NameFu]

Thanks guys. I've known about shill bidding from auction holders, but the actual platform? That's really disturbing...

 

[johname]

Extensions like Dot XYZ are going to get a higher amount of people dropping out/not paying. So always assume you will be the top bidder at your ceiling when typing in an amount.

 

[hawkeye]

.. I won a name on XYZ for low $$$$ a..

Curious, was it an .XYZ name you won for $$$$, or were you indicating the platform as XYZ? 4 figs for an .XYZ would be interesting to hear more specifics on.

 

[equity78]

I don't think they won an XYZ, John, I believe Gina did not want to list where they won the name.

Was this an expired auction Gina or a public auction ? Big difference, for example on Go Daddy Auctions a lot of them are expired, but people can start their own 7 day public auction.

There is no incentive for members to shill bid an expired auction, there would be for Go Daddy.

On the public auction then the person who started the auction can ask a friend to bid the name up.

It seems like the high bidder decided not to pay and then you got the name. Maybe they felt it got bid up too high and reneged which is not ok but happens sometime.

 

[gina ferrano]

Equity78 is right...it definitely wasn't an .XYZ name, but rather I wanted to be discreet about where I won and what I won. I also didn't want to falsely accuse an expiry auction house of shill bidding if that wasn't the case. I had sticker shock but I still paid b/c, even though I could have the name.lalala for less, I chose a .info as it fit the word (99% of my names are .com). Crazy that someone would let it drop, but they did. It just fits nicely into my portfolio in a particular niche, as the enduser. The other person might have wanted to flip it.

 

[DU]

x, xxx for a .info is slightly worrying. Imho.

 

[gina ferrano]

H4CK3R worrying you say? Suggesting what exactly? Caveat Emptor as they say. Well it was on the 1 k scale. Yes I likely over paid, or paid enduser prices, which is what I am in this case. I kind of play both sides. One of the dangers of getting swept in an auction. Too rich for my blood!

 

[carob]

Well if you are the enduser and you don't think you could have got the name for less, and it is worth it to you then all is well and congrats on the new name.

If you were buying it for resale it would be a different story, next time you know. Do any of these platforms let you flag up suspected shill bidding during an auction?

 

[gina ferrano]

carob...that would be a great option. We don't really know who bidder 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 is. I don't think there's that kind of transparency in any auction house though. People get into a bidding war and might go beyond their ceiling. I do think I could have gotten it for less, the "winner" bid it up (shill?) Had it not been for them the price would/should have been closer to 1k. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt though, they were probably a reseller and just choked.