unfair terms in RoR dropcatcher's T&C

[mibut]

Just because there are a supposedly clear set of terms and conditions it does not mean that it is a fair contract.
When you negotiate and enter into the contract with your buyer, you should assess how likely it is that a court would think it reasonable for you to have included the exclusion or limitation clause in your contract.

 

[DropCatcher-co-uk]

Just because there are a supposedly clear set of terms and conditions it does not mean that it is a fair contract.
When you negotiate and enter into the contract with your buyer, you should assess how likely it is that a court would think it reasonable for you to have included the exclusion or limitation clause in your contract.

You've cut and paste one line from an article that talks about excluding liability when you breach a Sales contract. It's not relevant as I don't have any exclusion clauses and I haven't breached any of the terms.

https://nelsonsonline.secureclient.co.uk/nelsons/index.cfm?event=base:article&node=A76062D32725

 

[mibut]

You've cut and paste one line from an article that talks about excluding liability when you breach a Sales contract. It's not relevant as I don't have any exclusion clauses and I haven't breached any of the terms.

https://nelsonsonline.secureclient.co.uk/nelsons/index.cfm?event=base:article&node=A76062D32725

The exclusion clauses are no refund and no credits if not used in 2 years
Whether you carry out those or not, they form part of your contract

 

[PaulK]

I think an email to the customer would have been appropriate after seeing such a large payment come through.

At that point you could asked if he would be happy with having several thousand pounds on account for future catches if you failed to secure his booked names.

May have saved a lot of hasle in the future.

 

[timter51]

it's morally repugnant!

This is my takeaway from just reading through this thread... I am stunned this hasn't been resolved.

 

[dee]

I feel the need to clarify once more.

I do have 250 catch credits remaining on account from the RoR release. After checking my credit card statement and the account logs, it looks like I actually only booked 225 RoR domains. No idea why I have 250 credits now.

Just in case I got the extra credits as some kind of compensation: They are useless to me. I am a German domainer, and I am investing in .de only. The .uk RoR release was once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me. So extra credits won't help compensating. I might be consuming 1 .uk catch per year in future. And I am not getting 250 years old.

I am not in remorse. Just out of the 225 domains I got listed at DC, I got 65 at another drop catcher (WEBGURU), that is a 29% success rate. So the domains can't have all been that premium. Plus given the fact, that I started listing at DC on June 29, when all super premiums were long gone.

Just as my "opponent", I will not publish my own account statistics of DC's performance during RoR week for the obvious reasons, just this much:
-On July 1, DC did not even start catching before 14:07 (in minute 8)
-Catch Bonuses (extra cash bonus for being higher in the queue) were not honoured at all - just as an example: my highest catch bonus of GBP 1077 for a single domain was sent in minute 5, while others with no catch bonus were fired away in minute 1. So the agreed service is of unsatisfactory or poor quality, maybe it's even negligence.

Genuine question.How can you tell when someone elses requests are fired ? Im lost on that one.

 

[stitchbob]

I'd be interested to know how these terms and conditions, particularly in the case of the RoR release, comply with the Distance Selling Regulations and Unfair Contract Terms Act.

Neither of those regulations are relevant to a B2B contract. Businesses are assumed to be aware of the agreements they enter into and will generally be held to the terms in the contract. You'd have a tough time convincing a court that a £7k order for domain names is a consumer purchase.

 

[dougs]

Dropcatcher has a reputation for what it does and has a stated method of working, like it or not. Buyer accept rules to play in a risky game...if they had caught all 250 names would they be offering to let Dropcatcher have them in and split profits in an auction? Probably not. Is this really a debate for the open?

 

[daxio]

If another dropcatcher caught 39 from the same list there were clearly many non-premiums in that list. Was it really the exact same list?

 

[tim171080]

Out of the 225 orders at dropcatcher, 65 (29%) were caught by my other drop catcher (webguru). And yes, at least half of these 65 were non-premium, because I was the ONLY bidder at webguru. They accepted multiple bidders.

I even put a "catch bonus" at dropcatcher (between £5 and £1077) on every single domain. But not one catch.

 

[diablo]

Tim, with respect, I think you've been a little naive here however, while it may be legal to take so much money from someone in return for nothing, it's morally repugnant!

Morally repugnant? There are those that find domain catching itself "morally repugnant". Others who find any capitalist / market transaction "morally repugnant".

Money was taken with very clear terms in return for the chance to catch domain names, not in return for nothing.

 

[lazarus]

Are you going to share the list?

 

[Siusaidh]

I might be missing something, but 29% of all the domains you tried to catch is a good result isn't it? Did other people here, even prioritising their own names, manage to get a better % result.

I used multiple sources to get the names I wanted. Some of those catchers did well for me, while some didn't catch any. But if outcomes are what we really want, and that's certainly what I wanted, then you got the outcome you wanted, didn't you - because I think I, and most people here, would be happy with a 29% catch rate for the domains we targeted, bearing in mind that 100s of people were trying to get many of these names simultaneously.

I'm holding back from discussing your specific complaint here, but if you got an overall good result, then surely you won? It would be unreasonable to expect you could have got 50% of names you targeted, unless they were so obscure that no-one else in the world could possibly want them.

I think a £5 'catch bonus' was a waste of space in such a competitive situation as this. If I wanted priority listing I may have spent much more than that. And even then it would guarantee nothing. It was a gamble. What was the average 'catch bonus' you gambled, taking an average across all 225 names? £5 is so negligible it's not really worth thinking it would make much difference.

I believe in spread-betting on a mass name release like this, when hundreds of people are trying to catch the names at the same time, because there's no real way of knowing which catchers are going to have success. I spread-bet and that worked as well as I could expect. You spread-bet too, and you got 29% of your names. Personally I'd settle for that. The terms and conditions are known in advance. What can never be known in advance is which catcher will produce results for you on the day. But that's the gamble and the decision we take. You decided to spend £x overall. You got 29% success. Honestly that is a good result.

I have confidence in the catchers I used, and I believe they are bona fide, and I have used them before over years and continue to use them. I know I can never assume they will get my names. But over time I have come to trust them. At any time, in the past or in the future, if they got me 29% of the names I targeted, I would be happy.

 

[PaulK]

@suisaidh - you missed it, Dropcatcher caught Zero/nothing which in itself must be hard to do out of 250 names!

Another catcher (Webguru) he employed caught 29% of the names he booked with them........NOT Dropcatcher.co.uk

If DC had caught 29% of the booked names i don't think this thread would exist.

 

[PhilGreg]

I had about a 10% success rate with my main catcher and I was very pleased with that as it was about double what I was expecting. However, the other catch service I used caught nothing. But both of them operated a no-win-no-fee.

Anyway, your pre-orders must have been highly competitive because there were shed loads of perfectly fine domains left over after the drop that were available to register normally, without a catch-order, so your 225 domains must have been top-of-the-tree. It would be interesting to know if any of the 225 pre-orders that you made were left over and registered normally after the drop. I picked up 65 pretty decent ones that way, not A-listers or one worders but perfectly acceptable two-word branding names. Is your list available anywhere ? We might have what you want

 

[Murray]

Morally repugnant? There are those that find domain catching itself "morally repugnant". Others who find any capitalist / market transaction "morally repugnant".

It depends what chance you think you have of catching the domains booked

There was maybe 20+ excellent domains a day, but there was no point chasing them all because other people would have put them first, couldn't have a clear diamond 7th down your list, no point

So as a public catcher, when you know there's no chance of catching many of the domains booked, you know you're taking money for nothing and I would agree it's repugnant

 

[tomclowes]

Another Acorn thread that has a bit of everything !

Neither of the 2 parties involved in this dispute have answered the obvious questions:

- Tim, why did you ignore the obvious terms? I mean.. they are clear - you can't really complain.

- Dropcatcher, why did you take Tim's money. I would agree with @Murray that "as a public catcher, when you know there's no chance of catching many of the domains booked, you know you're taking money for nothing and I would agree it's repugnant".

If the answer is 'because I wanted the money', then.. fair play.. but it does make you a bit of a dick.

 

[keys]

Years ago, I had great success with DC. Historically they can genuinely claim to have caught many valuable domains, and thousands progressively down the quality scale. This is irrelevant for ROR release, but probably encouraged optimism and many bookings.

No refund policy, although controversial, is in plain sight. Ending up with not a single catch and a load of credits, having paid £7k+, is a dubious result. In another setting, this would have the hallmarks of a scam.

 

[Sean]

Morally repugnant? There are those that find domain catching itself "morally repugnant". Others who find any capitalist / market transaction "morally repugnant".

Money was taken with very clear terms in return for the chance to catch domain names, not in return for nothing.

I did acknowledge that nothing illegal had occurred and that the thread starter was naive to spend so much with no guarantees. As for my assertion that it's morally repugnant, my compass obviously points to a different place than yours.

 

[DropCatcher-co-uk]

Please could someone tell me what I can do to make it more clear than this.

I believe the order came through late on the 29th and I don't manually review purchases. No-one had any idea before the drop how competitive it would be or what strategies would work. I've posted my catch stats for the RoR and whilst I'd love to have done better I have many customers who were satisfied with what they got. Who knows I may have caught more had I not been monitoring so many domains for Tim.