Bidding on your own names

grandwizard · Jul 19, 2017

Apparently is it okay to bid on your own names on namejet if the Auction is set at no reserve.
This practice is supported by industry pro's a discussion broke out yesterday here
It is really acceptable to bid on your own names? Surely that is Shill bidding at the very least unethical.

My own view is this is absolutely unacceptable and for industry pro's to be defending the idea is just mind boggling.

Your views..

Adam H · Jul 19, 2017

Shill bidding is wrong full stop, So is bidding on your own a "no reserve" auction to prevent a name selling at below market value. If they didnt want the names to sell below market value they should have put a reserve price on it.

That said, unless the system prevents them from doing so or unless Namejet enforce the issue by preventing the seller from selling again...............who can complain or protest, just don't bid on their auctions anymore.

If they got banned and given a swift wack with a big stick as a telling off It's likely they would just sign up with some anonymous usernames to shill bid instead, using their own, very obvious names to bid, to me is either them trying to be a little transparent, or them being extremely stupid.

ian · Jul 19, 2017

Sounds like a poor excuse for Namejet to allow knowing it increases their commission regardless of who wins! Shill bidding of any kind is wrong.

Adam H · Jul 19, 2017

I just signed up to Namejet to have a look around, what clunky old place that is. Along with the ball ache of having to "scan" in government documents to become a verified bidder and be able to list you domains for sale.....................ill give it a miss I think.

Coldtrigger · Jul 19, 2017

grandwizard said:
Apparently is it okay to bid on your own names on namejet if the Auction is set at no reserve.

It's against namejet's TOS. There are two separate discussions going on there.

gimpydog · Jul 19, 2017

grandwizard said:
This practice is supported by industry pro's

You mean 'industry narcissists'? These people are mostly crooked by nature. Just avoid taking advice from anyone calling themselves a 'guru' or 'sherpa' or 'king' & you'll be fine.

As for the auctions, can you name one that isn't bent??

martin-s · Jul 19, 2017

gimpydog said:
As for the auctions, can you name one that isn't bent??

DL.

Edwin · Jul 19, 2017

Sounds illegal as in "against the law" regardless of what a TOS says or the mechanics of the system permit.

Companies can't wave their hand a magic away law by means of a cunningly worded TOS.

gimpydog · Jul 19, 2017

martin-s said:
DL.

Doh! I knew someone would say that.

I use DL occasionally & I know Denys does a great job of weeding out the crooks. But he's not taking a cut of the sales, so it's really a different kind of marketplace to Namejet & the others. Perhaps there just isn't the hype in the .UK space?

Having said that, no man is infallible &, imho, there have been a couple of sales over the years that have looked a little 'suspicious'. [edit: don't ask!]

The Namejet furor is more reminiscent of "halvarez" & has the potential to end very badly for some. I'm sure some US lawyers will see this opportunity as a dripping roast.

Time for popcorn.

grandwizard · Jul 19, 2017

There is a full blown investigation at Namejet, A huge shill bidding scandal has erupted over the internet so buyers take note check out the link above and protect yourself.

Lucky Luke · Jul 19, 2017

Sorry for the slightly off topic...

You should try buying a house in Sheffield! The estate agents there ring around to take the best offers from anyone slightly interested in a property and even say "it doesn't matter if you don't follow through with your offer". The estate agent then tells the one buyer that they know is very keen what the latest bid is and would they like to improve on it (the bidder has no idea if the rival bids are real). Then to cap it all, once the estate agents have got the final squeeze out of the top bidder and the bidder has gone as high as they dare, the estate agents then say, "Please let us have your best and final offer in writing by noon on..." (usually three days time). And the highest bidder never gets to find out if any of the rest of the bids were real. It stinks.

I even know if one bloke who found out where his disliked neighbour was moving to and placed a bid (that he knew he'd never follow through) against the property that his neighbour was trying to buy. This bloke moved the bid up by £20k. He knew that his neighbour really wanted to move and not remain a neighbour, so he managed to cost his neighbour an extra £20k on the way out. Lucky for the vendor, I guess.

gimpydog · Jul 21, 2017

Well, it's turned into a 1000-post monster. The highlights are..

Andrew Rosener [mediaoptions.com] says he did NOT engage in shill bidding - there were merely "mistaken and accidental instances......where we bid on a name we were selling without knowing"

Andy Booth [booth.com] says he did NOT engage in shill bidding - "There was a misunderstanding......I naively wasn't fully aware of the TOS at NJ"

Oliver Hoger [virtual real estate ltd.] says he did NOT engage in shill bidding - "I have a automated bidding system......Im trying to fix to be able to exclude all my domains"

NameJet say they did NOT encourage shill bidding, despite their platform actually allowing users to bid on their own auctions - "We obviously do not condone any kind of shill bidding on NameJet, so we take this very seriously"..."there are not many domains involved, so it is not some large coordinated campaign to improperly inflate auction values"..."We do not tolerate any kind of shill bidding at all"..."our position is clear – it is never allowed on NameJet!".

That last statement is alarming. It emerged in the thread that TLDPros [TLDPros.com] most certainly DID engage in shill bidding, but weren't banned by NameJet & Oliver Hoger admitted to bidding on his own auctions using a second account & is alleged to have bid on 148 of his own auctions using his primary account, but wasn't banned either.

Prima facie, it would appear that NameJet have a very high tolerance of shill bidding.

The offenders were not barred from the auctions, neither were the poor victims who overpaid as a result ever reimbursed, or compensated by NameJet. They played it down. Nothing to see here. Money talks!

If you want to get a flavour of things, I would recommend reading this one post.

grandwizard · Jul 21, 2017

So called top industry guys ripping people off left right and center its always amazing how Namejet has totally gone quite not a peep. A massive shill bidding ring has totally been busted.