Sale would be highest ever on Go Daddy’s auction platform.
[Update: sale didn’t go through.]
An auction on GoDaddy.com for the domain name WAN.com closed overnight for a whopping $670,005.
Of course, one of the first questions asked after an auction like this is “will the sale go through”?
The seller is definitely legitimate. Shane Cultra has a story on the seller who lives near him. If the deal closes then the seller will be able to buy Cultra a very nice dinner.
So the big question is if the buyer will come through.
I reached out to Paul Nicks, Director of the GoDaddy.com Domain Name Aftermarket, to find out if the company has any bid verification in place. For example, aftermarket Sedo has various levels of bidder verification that are required in order to place high bids.
“We don’t currently have bid verification in place, but we have been looking at implementing a system to verify bidders on high-priced auctions,” Nicks said.
Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean the buyer won’t follow through. If the sale is consummated, this will be the highest public sale ever transacted on the platform. The current leader is HomeOwnersInsurance.com for $570,000. If it’s not consummated, I suspect Nicks will fast track plans for bidder verification.
Here’s hoping the transaction completes — for the sake of the domain aftermarket and for that nice dinner Cultra is looking forward to.
I’m lost, why should the seller buy Shane a “nice dinner”?
@ I’m lost – ’cause Shane wrote about his story and he can afford to
Two fake bidders going against each other locking legit buyers out. It’s a shame.
Maybe they thought they were bidding on wank.com?
Only penalty GoDaddy has for deadbeat bidders is the auction account suspension. Even that suspension can be overturned by paying a small fee.
Namejet couldn’t close the Social.org auction. They got all the verification in place.
I am in the wan business lol
I just have a really hard time believing that sale goes through. The amount just doesn’t match the domain imo.
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Steve,
How do you know that two bids were fake? I mean, it’s kind of difficult to discern that info, at least on the outside.
I suspect that Godaddy will scrutinize that sale very carefully–at least they should.
Definitely they should implement a bidder verification system.
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It’s a good domain name in Chinese. Maybe the buyer is from China?
I hope the sale goes through.That being said…I’ve been burned by (alleged) bidders on the Go-Daddy system twice recently…for domains in the 10k range.Really burned my my bacon.The phone rep just shrugged.GD should’ve had a “verification system” in place by now.
They don’t even have a “verification system” in place for their sellers. Giving excuses like “domain no longer available” even after payment has been made and secured.