About a month ago I placed a private offer on a domain at Flippa that triggered my interest, after missing the end of the auction by mere seconds.
The offer was for a few hundred dollars, and the seller was seeking more than twice that amount. I could not justify such a price and countered higher in case the seller was willing to sell.
At that point, the seller told me he has sold millions of dollars’ worth in domain names, and that he would have to cover the cost of this domain that was acquired via a drop-catcher.
Indeed, I confirmed his multimillion dollar history in sales, which is quite impressive.
Regardless, he declined my offer, and said that the domain was sold – at his asking price – to a person he often does business with.
A few moments later, I received a notification that the domain was relisted and sold. The price was higher than the seller’s asking price in our conversation. I found that odd, but soon forgot about the incident.
Fast forward almost a month later, and the domain is still in the possession of the seller, according to the WHOIS. The “buyer” who bid on that second listing has a sizable amount in transactions at Flippa, however there is no trace of any completed sale for this domain.
This incident left me wondering whether the seller listed the domain the second time, just to claim a sale had occurred. While the numbers were miniscule, one’s ego can be quite huge at times.
My concern is about how trustworthy a highly-praised domain investor can be; should there be blind faith in all that they say? My gut feeling tells me no, and I won’t be partaking in any more bidding for domains he’s listing.
I’m not sure if this has happened to anyone else on Flippa, but I’d be curious to find out.
I’m sure it happens all the time at various auction sites. Buddies bidding on each other’s auction to boost up the bids. It’s dirty.
DNSelect – I don’t think it’s that serious in this case, as I was the only one offering and the seller never claimed there was another offer on the table. The game was over when he declined my final offer and stated the domain was sold to that other guy. Then, he apparently relisted the domain with a BIN and the other person “won” it. So my concern is whether this was a fib to keep one’s ego intact.
Don’t be so pessimistic. I assume the sale he was referring to had ended unpaid, so he has relisted the domain name after that.
Yes, I’ve seen that happen repeatedly on Flippa.
One incident springs to mind. It was a brokered listing, involving a well known Flippa broker and a domain owner who is also a well known broker outside Flippa.
The comments below the auction listing were absurdly fawning, full of praise and promises to bid huge amounts later. (You know the shills’ style.)
Sarcastically, I posted a comment myself in the same vein – something along the lines of “omg! This is the greatest domain opportunity the world has ever seen. All of these comments are 100% serious. And I’m totally buying this at the BIN price right now unless one of you does.”. Blatantly tongue in cheek, right?
Well, this happened around midnight when nobody is expected to be watching. The auction had days to go yet. I pointed out my comment to a domainer acquaintance I was talking to at the moment, and we speculated about how long the seller would leave my comment up before deleting it. He and I have butted heads a few times; so that was expected.
Nevertheless, that isn’t what happened. Literally within a few minutes, somebody bought the domain at the BIN price! Late at night with days left.
Who would be notified of my comment so quickly or have noticed it at that late hour except the seller, I asked myself? Who could possibly take my comment seriously and feel a need to buy?
Well, 2 brokers with egos were involved. And 1 of them had a 100% sell-through rate on Flippa to uphold. So my assumption has always been that he arranged to buy the domain himself or via an acquaintance partly to stick it to me for doubting his powers.
Maybe I’m wrong. But I’ve seen such things a number of times on Flippa.
Every reader here knows both people by name, but I won’t name them without solid evidence.
Wouldn’t he have to pay a sale commission to Flippa to do this?
Though if he sold it to someone he deals with all the time why sell through Flippa to the person and not directly?
And in the end does it really matter? People shill bid all the time on Flippa so that when people view by “Most Bids” then get extra views on their domains. Happens on Sedo’s Great Domains auction, the reserve range is 50,000-99,999 and someone bids 49,999. Like that’s not a suspicious bid, lol.
Mark – The first auction ended without bids, as I missed it. There was only one BIN bid the second time around, so the person who bought it was advised of its existence and bid right away. However, the domain didn’t change hands since.
Joseph – Thank you for the information. I try not to be overly paranoid, but some things don’t make sense at times. 😀 My point is, that even a top tier domainer with an impeccable record might be doing childish things at times. No, this wasn’t a brokered sale.
Anticareer.com – Good questions. Engaging “paranoid” mode, I’d say that he wanted to show off the sale completed, and thus eat the commission fees. Exactly, why not sell it directly to the person he did business with so many times before? I am not fully familiar with the Flippa rating system in the event of a claimed non-sale.
I don’t trust Flippa much, a lot of bid shilling going on there and Flippa just keeps hammering my inbox with spam every hour when you’re interested in some domains there.