Suspicions about Backorder Company Shill Bidding...

[domainer666]

Hello friendly fellow domainers. I just registered at this forum and this is my first post. I've been a long time domainer going back almost two decades...so no, I am not a newbie.

Through the years, I've used various companies to backorder dropping domains with varying degrees of success. "XXX company" has always been the go to company for me.

By no means am I a big time domainer, but I do put down enough enough nickel that it matters to me that a company is on the up and up as it affects my cashflow and bottomline.

Lately, I've noticed some suspicious happenings with my bidding activity at "XXX company".

Specifically, I would place a backorder for a dropping domain and it would end up with just me and one other bidder, so of course, it goes to auction. Fine, fair enough. I've been through this before. But what piques my suspicion is that this other bidder would drive up the final price to hundreds of dollars for a fairly pedestrian domain. Again, fine. But the THING that makes me suspicious is that if I search google for a history of this domain bidder, NOTHING comes up. Namely, this is the first auction that this bidder has participated in at Snapnames.

Again, this is not a one off but has happened with other domains I have bidded on and is happening as we speak with current auctions. Two bidders. Me with an extensive history and the one other bidder with ZERO history.

I have no concrete evidence with any of this. Just a suspicion.

But due to the history of these domain backorder companies, I am now taking a more tempered approach to acquiring domains. Not only "XXX company", but I believe others have been implicated in ripping off their customers as well.

The problem is that the domain backorder industry really has no oversight. There is no independent auditor to check and balance the domain name game. So we, the domainers are at the mercy of the backorder company and hope that they play fairly. But it is such a ripe situation for shenanigans as they are privy to so much information that we don't have as they control the computers.

I've never participated in domaining forums as I've always been sort of a lone wolf when it comes to domaining. So this may or may not be my last post.

Thanks for listening.

 

[JB Lions]

So in those auctions, if the other bidder happens to win. Why not just check them out afterwards? See what happens with the domain. Does a site get put up? Can you check the whois, is it under privacy, etc.

"with other domains I have bidded on"

Have you checked any of them out, what I mentioned above?

 

[domainer666]

So in those auctions, if the other bidder happens to win. Why not just check them out afterwords? See what happens with the domain. Does a site get put up? Can you check the whois, is it under privacy, etc.

"with other domains I have bidded on"

Have you checked any of them out, what I mentioned above?

Honestly, I have just in recent days noticed this and in the cases where the dropped domain ends up with two bidders, I ended up with the winning bid. I have been in this game long enough that I know all the regular bidders so new, one off bidders really pique my suspicions.

What I will do now is just "sacrifice" a desired domain and see who shows up in the whois. But then again, this is not proof as we all know you can put anything in the whois.

But now that my suspicions are heightened, I will take the necessary means and measures to investigate as I deem necessary.

Domaining has been good to me. It has allowed me to decrease the hours at my "day job" and through the years, I have acquired some choice domains that I hope will allow me to retire early.

One of my faults is that I am sometimes an aggressive bidder if there is a domain I really desire. I will no longer do that.

 

[Ms Domainer]

Google "Halvarez."

 

[Kate]

Why not mention the alias in question ?
Or show a screenshot, so the name won't be indexed.
It might be an alias we are familiar with.