800.com goes for $250,000 because no one knows about the auction.
You might call it Toy Story, part 2. It goes like this: domain sells at bankruptcy auction, few people know about the auction, more buyers emerge after news of auction gets out, potential buyers challenge sale in court, auction is repeated.
That’s what happened with Toys.com, which ended up selling for about 4 times the initial “winning bid”.
And it almost happened with 800.com, which was sold in a Circuit City auction. The winning bidder picked it up for a song, at only $250,000.
Here’s the setup. The auction for 800.com is planned, but no one reaches out to the domain community to let them know. Therefore, only a few bidders participate. One is Loren Stocker, who filed a claim with the court that he had a first right of refusal agreement with Circuit City. Another is Bill Quimby of TollFreeNumbers.com, who claims he’s “bidding seriously”, although he couldn’t muster up much more than a couple hundred thousand dollars.
Then there was QuamTel, which ended up winning the bidding with an opening bid of $250,000.
Then news gets out and real serious bidders come out of the woodwork. In this case, another company petitioned the court to throw out the sale and offered $500,000 for the domain.
But unlike with Toys.com, the court denied the request.
So QuamTel walks away with a sweet deal on a killer domain. And it’s putting it to good use.
Jeff says
Is there a copy of the court’s decision available? What was the judge’s grounds for denying the request?
Tracy Sampson says
I’d say putting up over $200,000 is bidding seriously, just not enough.
Joe says
Last time I checked when you have an auction the highest bidder gets it. In this case the highest bidder won. Now after all that is said we have people saying this is not fair. Put up or shut up and that should have been done at the auction, not now..