Company releases statement including changes it is making.
Domain name auction site NameJet has posted an update about allegations of shill bidding and what it’s doing about it. You can read the full statement here, and here’s a summary:
1. NameJet has suspended some accounts that were bidding on their own domains.
2. The company made a technical change to prevent bidders from being able to bid on their own domains. (It’s surprising this was ever a possibility.)
3. It’s creating an activity tracking system to detect shill bidding.
4. It has created a dedicated email address (report_abuse at namejet.com) for people to report questionable activity.
5. It is suspending the “next bid wins” practice whereby sellers were able to lower their reserve so that the next bidder would win. This seems to be more of a perception issue than an actual shill bidding issue.
I think these are good steps in the right direction. I’d also suggest verifying ownership of domains before they can be listed and only letting the owner list domains, not a third party. Letting a third party list domains opens the system to abuse.
Nice work domain community, NamePros in particular. And yes Andrew, it is surprising this was even a possibility. Especially algorithmically.
Obviously this fix shouldve been put in when initial concerns were quite some time ago. Hopefully those who were wronged will be righted.
There’s no doubt in my mind they knew all along what was going on but as long as it lined up their pockets and it made no noise, they let it happen. I’m not buying on NJ anymore.
Geez this is a really dodgy industry where a lot of money is at stake. Too many ‘boys clubs’ and undeclared interests. How many more scandals can the crew at Domain Sherpa be associated with? Time for a clean out.
I don’t believe anyone who regularly appears on DomainSherpa is associated with this scandal.
Third Party Investigation!
After this was uncovered by users, I think it is reach for NameJet to just expect us to believe they can police themselves.
There are still many unanswered questions which require far more specific answers.
For example MovieZone.com. WHOIS was in the name of Andy Booth at the time the auction ended. Andy said he did not own it.
It appears it was listed by Oliver Hoger. The problem there is Andy and Oliver were #1 and #2 bidders in the auction.
There is no combination of who owned the domain and who listed the domain that does not equal some type of shill bidding as far as I can see.
WTF happened here needs to be addressed. This is not going to just get swept under the rug.
Brad
It would be the second time this year that they would try to sweep it under the rug.
T P I
NameJet should at least give the suspended bidders information so people should avoid dealing with them at other marketplaces and/or directly.
It’s really surprising to know NameJet allowed until now to bid on your own domains and made a change now! That’s really poor!
Entities that received suspended accounts should get lifetime bans.
Monitor payee details e.g. credit card details to get real identity of participants.
That’s absolutely not enough.
An independent third-party investigations is needed,
I’d suggest to inform the FBI and ask them to investigate the same way they did on eBay some years ago.
Only that way we’ll know how many auctions have been impacted by shill bidding an rigged, who are the shill bidders part of this ring, what are the refund due, if there has been COLLUSION among NJ and some “players”, etc.
Self-police, self-regulation here don’t work, as it didn’t in the past for NJ.
Shill bidding is a form of WIRE FRAUD, it has to be reported to authorities, and people found guilty and their accomplices should be jailed and heavily fined.
When I previously wrote about hundreds of domains at NJ over the past few months with bidders numbering in the twenties, thirties, and forties on domains that did not deserve such interest, I was referring to BuyDomains listings.
There are no longer any listings from BD at NJ!?
BuyDomains was running a ton of names through but they had reserves. I suspect a lot of poeple backordered but then didn’t participate in the auction once they saw the reserve.
There are no BD domains listed today…
Checking WHOIS doesn’t work for domains with privacy enabled…