I’ve been using NameJet for the past 3 years; I don’t want to even think of the exact amount of money I’ve spent on old NetSol/Register.com domains auctioned there, but it’s in the mid-five figure range.
Another registrar that “tosses” its domains onto NameJet is eNom; a domain that was in pre-release status was with eNom at the time that I backordered it.
Three days later, the domain was secured with a single bidder, me.
I was expecting the domain to be awarded but no charge took place. Several days later I contacted the NameJet support.
Was my $69 bid not good enough? NameJet had an interesting response, which was articulated through the exchange of several messages.
Namejet first responded thus:
In reviewing the domain, it appears this was a pre-release domain. Keep in mind, pre-release domains are those that have expired and are typically still in the renewal grace period at the sponsoring registrar.
That’d be cool, if it weren’t for the fact that the domain was still parked with eNom’s “backpack girl” page *and* a link to backorder that domain on NameJet at the bottom of the page!
NameJet responded to my observation:
Unfortunately, eNom, Inc. can choose to remove the domain from a Pre-Release auction at anytime, if they wish. As they are the registrar it is their choice if they choose to list the name. I’m showing that this domain was not auctioned and we did not receive a payment for the domain name. We did receive your backorder bid and should it come up for auction again in the future you will be notified. However, at this time, I do not know if eNom is planning to release the name as they have chosen at this time to not list the domain name.
At first I thought I had not understood the response, as it’s been obvious to me – perhaps by means of naivete – that when a domain is marked on NameJet as being in pre-release it’s actually going to be awarded; either to a single backordering individual or auctioned among several bidders.
I guess I was wrong to assume the obvious!
NameJet support did not address the fact that eNom was *already* pointing the domain back to NameJet with a link to backorder! The follow-up response came as such:
It is common for our partner registrars to encourage backordering for domains that they are considering to release for auction. It does not mean that it will be available for auction at that time; everyone has an opportunity to place a backorder on a domain name at anytime, regardless of the domain. In the case of, [ domain ], the registrar eNom.com, has not released the name for auction, hence the current Wish List status.
In a nutshell, eNom – or any other partner registrars at NameJet – can play a carrot and stick game with bidders, perhaps sampling participation in the domain backorders and thus cherry-picking the ones most suitable for their parking pages (as in the case with this domain).
I must say, that after today’s conclusion I’d be very skeptical when placing bids at NameJet; in fact, I think that I will give NameJet less of my money from now on – by choice.
Wow, this is just ridiculous! I have actually encountered similar issues with NameJet; while I am sorry for what has happened to you, I am glad I was not a singular case, as I really thought I may have screwed up some part of the acquisition process.
I guess not.
Still better than GoDaddy, though.
hi Danny – It was not the first time for me, but it was the first time that I actually realized it was not “random” or an error of some kind. It seems that it’s actually common practice.
I once had a domain taken back a few weeks after I had won it at Namejet via backorder. I also commonly see names at Namejet coming up for backorder in the next few days which mysteriously disappear by the actual backorder deadline. Yes, Namejet is auctioning off expired names which the current registrant still has the right to renew. Thus one needs to be cautious about announcing recently acquired domains at Namejet. Technically they aren’t yours yet…
hi Leonard – the situation is indeed very complex and it appears to be registrar-dependent. For example, domains at NetSol can be moved out as soon as they hit your account past the successful charge of your CC. However, in the case of eNom they impose a 42-day lockdown period. Fabulous – another participating registrar – apparently has a much longer timeframe – 90 days – during which a domain that you actually paid for can be taken back. In the case described at my post, the domain wasn’t even awarded.
There is a lack of ethics concerning the dropped domain auctions… I wrote about Snapnames previously and how they and/or their registrar partners have shady ethics. It is not surprising (at least to me) because there is no oversight. They consider dropped domains their property to do with as they wish, whether this is true or not I’m not sure, but how they go about it displays a clear lack of ethics.
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This happened to me as well. I will never bid on a Namejet pre-release auction again.
They hide behind slippery language and pretend that their partner eNom is actually independent, when, in fact, it’s all the same company.
The best thing to do is to boycott Namejet by refusing to bid on their auctions. Period.
They do this crap because domainers allow it by putting up with this sh*t.
Slippery slime.
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hi Jennifer – For the most part, a system works until its operators decide to “milk” it. Those of us that desire to only play by the rules are often treated as the village idiots, while money and domains go elsewhere.
Remember that eNom can also choose to keep some domains for their own portfolio, they will never drop or go to auction. It will be renewed and the whois will change to their privacy info.
If your really pissed and tired of the changing rules, contact your state Attorney General, then the WA state Attorney General and tell em.
Also happened to me with snapnames over cigarettebins.com when in pre release, melbourne it wouldn’t release it when i was only bidder. Subsequently went to pending delete and was caught by snapnames and sold to when had multiple bidders.
This has happened to me a few times and I’ve been given the same response. I’ve also noticed that some domains will be at pre-release for today and if nobody bids…tomorrow….the next day and so on and so forth. I thought they might be a private owner but the whois says expired. I don’t get it!
So they will sell it to you unless they think they want it for themselves.
The torpedoes are in the water…
I have long believed that namejey does not as a rule allow the only bidder to get a domanin ( although we have had the odd one)In general, they want at least TWO bidders so they are pretty certain to get more than $69 – and they also routinely move auction dates further out to garner support.
That said, they get a lot of domains….
Hi Acro,
I’m not surprised. I quit using NameJet, Snapnames, Pool a long time ago.
Namejet are in my opinion are shit. Read all their terms and conditions before entering auctions with them.
They DO hide behind slippery language and various terms and conditions hidden away on pages and more often than not, they manage to price things to their benefit.
I have bought a few domains from them in the past, but I bought my last one the other night.
I put a $69 bid for a pre release domain name, which then went into private auction with me and 3 bidders. Immediately as soon as the private auction took place I put a $150 max bid in order to test the waters to see what the other players would do.
The other bidders put bids of $80 max so at this point I was the highest bidder.
Then for the next few days (6 days?) there were no other bids for the domain……..not until 45mins before the closing of the auction, after which all of a sudden one of the $80 bidders started oubidding me, so I increased my bid to $200 then $260 then $300. This lasted for a few minutes until the other bidder stopped outbidding me at around $300….which to me was an indication that he was not going to bid anymore.
So I sat glued to the screen until 5 minutes before the close of the auction, then all of a sudden the other bidder out bid me again by $10.
Agghhhhh!!!!! I had better get my bid in. So I increased my max bid a little, then the other bidder increased his bid. Time was running out on the clock, and we were down to 1 min to go.
My strategy now was, well if he is outbidding me $10 every time using his own max bid and there is only 45 seconds to go, then if I put in a high bid, say $750 then I should win. (I was only really prepared to bid max $300 but it was worth I think going to $400.
So I put a max bid of $750 probably around 25 seconds before the closing time of the auction.
So I sat there thinking “I have got this!!! I am going to win the domain”.
So the namejet screen was counting down and said on the screen “less than 5 seconds to go”…..and I was still the highest bidder…
BUT THEN…..WAIT….without warning…..the auction closing time increased by 5 mins and the other bidder increased his bid by $10 again, then of course seeing I had put in $750 max bid, my bid increased.
This went on for 45 f*cking minutes until I won the auction at $602……which was $300 more than what it would have been if the auction had closed at the time it was supposed to close.
I was not happy and there was no explanation on the screen as to why the auction kept extending itself.
After I had the domain name, I checked the small print and apparently they have some bizarre rule that if someone places a bid 5 mins before the auction ends, then the auction gets extended by 5 minutes.
This is not explained clearly on their auction screen and at the time I was thinking that it was some kind of fraudulent activity by namejet to inflate the bids on domains from unsuspecting buyers like myself.
Oh, and by the way, if you complain, they will close your account, because if you win the domain and then either refuse to pay or do not pay, they terminate your account.
So yeah, watch out for namejet people.
NameJet is not the only backorder service to operate like this. I’ve backordered from SnapNames and had the same thing happen to me. It was a single word .info that would appraise in the low-mid five figures. When they saw that I was the only bidder they quickly screwed me out of it.
My lawyer talked to a top intellectual property attorney in Houston and he said my case is not unique. Said he had dealt with this several times. Hmmm, seems like this is rampant in the domain backordering industry.
I had a similar problem with an Enom name at NameJet just recently. I backordered the name during prerelease and was the only bidder. After going several days without receiving confirmation, I contacted support. After receiving copy-paste messages almost identical to what you posted, they eventually told me tough luck read the TOS. I was able to get the name from NameJet when it was deleted.
I also had a problem with some Fabulous names that I backordered at NameJet. Apparently the original registrant renewed them at the last minute and NameJet had not removed the names from the auction list.
I’m not sure how much of all this is devious intentions or just poor handling of problems (name not being handed off, name renewed at last minute, etc).
I had *no* idea so many others shared the same problem or faced very similar issues. Call me naive, but I believe that a company of NameJet’s caliber would want to provide clarity and transparency. This sounds more like a situation of unfolding the rules as the game progresses.
I’m in the same boat as everyone here but, you know what, this this their game and they make the rules. Most of these issues are in the legal agreement that we agree to whenever we register an account. Just read the agreement so that you know how the game is played. As “domainers” we are in the third or fourth position in controlling or owning these things called domain names. If we want better for ourselves, the way to do is to start a registrar ourselves and encourage everyone to use our registrar so that when the names drop, we can make the rules. Until then, we are stuck with the trailings of what the registrars and their partnership entities decide to keep for themselves. Yes, it sucks, but that is the reality of the situation. To change our situation we must move up the value chain to gain more legal rights.
Logan – I disagree. The rules aren’t disclosed until the problem hits us. That’s why transparency is necessary, to avoid those “oh wow” situations. If eNom or NetSol can do as they please, maybe the game is not as clean as it appears to be.
Acro – under Terms of Use at NameJet.com, it cannot be any clearer:
NameJet is a Venue.
3.1 NameJet is not an Auctioneer. Although we state that the Site includes online auctions, it is important to realize that we are not a traditional “auctioneer.” Instead, the Site acts as a venue to allow parties to offer, sell, buy and register domain names, at anytime, from anywhere, in a variety of pricing formats, including a fixed price format and an auction-style format commonly referred to as “online auctions” or “auctions.” We cannot ensure that a buyer or seller will actually complete a transaction. Consequently, we do not transfer legal ownership of domain names from the seller to the buyer. Also we do not and cannot guarantee the acquisition of any domain name through our auction process. There is also no guarantee that one of our registrar partners, on its fully-automated Web site, will not facilitate the registration of the name you want by someone else who applies through the registrar’s own Web site interface.
To my point: read the agreement first!
Logan – I read the agreement when I first registered, a long time ago. There was no such detailed and masterfully crafted provision. The statement above is so generic and vague and does not contain any of the verbiage that the NameJet support used.
Not only this but also I have experienced auctioned domains with many participants being cancelled when assumingly the amount of bidding is not enough. So expect to pay heaps or if your looking for a bargain, get a worthless domain or try your luck at godaddy.