Snapnames keeps the best domains for themselves

[Erdy]

I'm getting tired and annoyed with snapnames pre-release domains. I have just finished scanning 17,402 dot com snapnames pre-release that are closing tomorrow. Unfortunately I have not found 1 domain to pre-order.

I think snapnames has been doing this pre-filtering for quite some time but now they have lowered the criteria. Anything slightly above average doesn't make it into the auction anymore.

 

[DN BROKER]

I'm getting tired and annoyed with snapnames pre-release domains. I have just finished scanning 17,402 dot com snapnames pre-release that are closing tomorrow. Unfortunately I have not found 1 domain to pre-order.

I think snapnames has been doing this pre-filtering for quite some time but now they have lowered the criteria. Anything slightly above average doesn't make it into the auction anymore.

If that is true then that is something we need to investigate. Companies that have access to such databases should not be allowed to filter from the public. The public should be first in line for releases.

Domain industry is controlled by corrupt individuals/companies. Look at snapnames track record, x-executive steals millions from shill bidding and he gets axed while the company is not hold liable for violating the rights of citizens. A Multi Million Dollar Scam was exposed and yet the company bought their way out by offering refunds to users who were effected by the scam. No criminal charges have been laid and the law enforcement branches in USA and Canada have failed to reply back to request regarding this scam.

If it was up to me I would black list SNAPNAMES from the community for life. Once a company betrays its customers it could not be trusted again.

 

[thesempai]

If it was up to me I would black list SNAPNAMES from the community for life. Once a company betrays its customers it could not be trusted again.

I agree. Unfortunately it's quite common in the industry - not just in expired domains but WHOIS lookup services. I've checked domains a number of times in 'reputable' WHOIS lookup sites only to see the domain registered very soon after.

 

[DN BROKER]

God bless Bob Parsons for giving us all that we can use to make money!

I agree. Unfortunately it's quite common in the industry - not just in expired domains but WHOIS lookup services. I've checked domains a number of times in 'reputable' WHOIS lookup sites only to see the domain registered very soon after.

Indeed, recently I've had two suspicious activity using GoDaddy's expired auction.

Twice in the last 5 months I had a domain selected for purchase and checked out 20 minutes later to pay for it and noticed the domain was no longer available. The problem I have with this is that the two domains went through several drop stages before it got to me. So for someone else in the world to select the same domain and purchase it before me is suspicious to me. Some nights I feel like someone is waiting for me to select a domain and then snatch it from me! Their is also the possibility that the domain was purchased before me and was not removed from the dropped list.

Since the two incidents I'm very careful. I go through 5000+ .com's daily and copy and paste the domains I want and then when I'm ready for check out I search for the domains and select them and quickly purchase them.

For the record I'm very happy with GoDaddy and what I experienced was just bad timing.

If it wasn't for godaddy's generous reg fee prices I would not have survived as a Domainer!

Couple weeks ago I checked my spending total at godaddy and it added up to 12K+ since 2006 . For someone who started with a $16 investment flipping .com's I have done well using GoDaddy.

Critics over the years have bash godaddy and paid outrageous reg fee/renewal fees to other registrars who are now slowly being exposed as corrupt companies.

God bless Bob Parsons for giving us all that we can use to make money!

 

[winterwind.com]

Why would Snapnames want to do this though? Dont you think they want domains to go to auction so they make money and stay liquid?

I guess I can see the logic though. They might be waiting for a more high profile auction where they could make more.

A better question is because the domain is coming from one of them partner registrars if they are legally within their right to renew it for themselves and thus remove it from the pre-release auction.

I'm getting tired and annoyed with snapnames pre-release domains. I have just finished scanning 17,402 dot com snapnames pre-release that are closing tomorrow. Unfortunately I have not found 1 domain to pre-order.

I think snapnames has been doing this pre-filtering for quite some time but now they have lowered the criteria. Anything slightly above average doesn't make it into the auction anymore.

 

[Erdy]

winterwind.com,

These people are domainers. They have their own private portfolios of thousands of domains. They don't want to sell a valuable domain at reseller prices. They want to keep the domain and then sell at end user prices.

If there is an end user for a high quality domain, what are the chances that end user will be present in a snapnames auction for that domain? How should an end user even know a domain he is interested in is on auction? Let's say you are selling tickets and you have a big company. Do you keep checking snapnames every week? I don't think so. You wouldn't even know what snapnames is. The most you can do is, you will open cheaptickets.com between now and 5 years time to check what is there.

5 years reg fee is $40. It makes sense to keep the domain and pay $40 reg fee and sell to end user for 10K than to sell the domain now to 2K.

I spend 7 hours a day checking those lists. I'm telling you the lists are filtered. The best domains never make it to auction.

 

[siga]

Erdinc, I'm interested in hearing more about this. I'm sure having the opportunity of having there own personal prerelease company must be highly tempting. Do you have the facility to scan the zone files for .com and break it down to one of the partner registry then cross reference them with the snapnames list to check for discrepancys for say 2/3 days. I certainly dont but would be keen to know at what level this is happening.

 

[Erdy]

Hi Siga,
I see what you mean. You want to find out specific domains that didn't make it to auction. This is very difficult. You would have to create a list of expired domains that are supposed to go to pre-release auction and then compare it to the actual pre-release list. The zone file has only two things: 1. domain names 2. their nameservers. There is no other information. There is no expiry date, status or registrar.

Also notice that all pre-release domains show as renewed in the whois search because they get 45 days free auto renewal by verisign. You can't create a list of domains that have just expired. Pick any pre-release domain from snapnames or namejet and do a whois check. It will show as renewed.

There is one way to get some information. I checked if registrars use a specific nameserver for expired domains and it turns out they do. Here are the biggest snapnames pre-release partner registrars (ordered bigger to smaller according number of domains they send to auction) and the nameservers they use for their pre-release domains:

REGISTER.COM > NS1.EXPIREDDOMAINS.REGISTER.COM
TUCOWSINC > NS1.RENEWYOURNAME.NET
DIRECTI > DNS.PARKPAGE.FOUNDATIONAPI.COM
MELBOURNEIT > DNS1.NAME-SERVICES.COM
MONIKER > NS1.DOMAINSERVICE.COM

I tried to create a list of domains that use these nameservers, so I can compare it to the snapnames list, however our database is not designed to do this at the moment.

It is also possible that registrars keep some domains for themselves. Register.com for instance does extensive research and they set different custom prices for each quality domain they send to snapnames.

You can check my messages in this topic:
http://www.namepros.com/expired-domains/678386-snapnames-are-they-cheaters.html

 

[winterwind.com]

If Snapnames really wants an expired domain for themselves, can't they just renew it for their own portfolio? And with that removing it from the pre-release. I want to know if this is against the rules or just "being bad"

 

[Erdy]

The whole pre-release auctions are against the registry-registrar agreement but nobody is going to do anything because the only side that is losing are the domainers.

 

[HeyNow]

One thing you can surmise: We know close to nothing about the integrity of the drop & catch process. We know close to nothing about the integrity of the auction process. What we DO know is that Snapnames is an admitted auction fraudster, and wasn't entirely held to account for that fraud. You or I would be in jail if we stole to that extent.

 

[jimmyy]

I had a similar situation I wanted to buy an deleting domain, there was no bidder, I placed a bid in the last 10 min, and then snapnames got it actually for themselves, they did not award it to me...

I wonder whether it wouldn't have been better not to place the bid at all, and whether they got it for themselves just to resell it afterwards, or maybe they have some filters, all the domains that have domain priority or good google rank... and only one bid, they keep it for themselves.

Bad experience with snapnames...

I hope you have more luck with other services.

 

[tldboss]

What's the name?

 

[ixex]

You know it is going on.
I backordered a domain on Snapnames, waited for the drop. Gets taken by Snap, they hand it over to Hugedomains, and which then I receive an email from Snap, Hey! you want to buy the domain for $X,XXX!? If so, HD has it.

No I don't, you can have it and good luck. (its still for sale).