Bird.com and Fish.com sales fall through.
The big buyer in February’s Right of the Dot domain name auction has failed to pay.
One person bid $4.85 million on three domains: $2.5 million for Bird.com, $1.6 million for Fish.com, and $750,000 for Tattoo.com. According to a lawsuit (pdf), the bidder never paid.
Right of the Dot and Bolten Properties (owner of the domains) have sued David Lizmi, who the Plaintiffs say is the deadbeat bidder. The lawsuit involves only Bird.com and Fish.com, the two domains that Bolten sold. Monte Cahn previously said that he sold Tattoo.com to another buyer.
In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs allege that Lizmi told him his “backers sidelined me after the auction and left me holding the bag.” It states that Right of the Dot owner Monte Cahn tried to help Lizmi set up financing and to work with his backers, but Lizmi eventually stopped responding.
Right of the Dot says its commission of the failed auction items was $1.2 million.
The case was filed in circuit court in Broward County, Florida on April 21. Howard Neu and Stevan Lieberman are representing the plaintiffs.
[Update: John Berryhill noted that Lizmi was also a seller in the auction, netting $57,500. Right of the Dot wants to place that with the court pending the outcome of the case. So it has a leg up on collecting something from Lizmi for the failed purchases.]
Steven Chang says
What can the seller possible get out of the lawsuit, just curious?
Samer says
Why would you want that? I wish DropCatch would do this, i stead of re-auctioning the damn expired name a lot, if buyer fails to pay.
Samer
Andrew Allemann says
Money. Presumably, the guy has some.
John Berryhill says
You are missing a piece of this:
https://twitter.com/Berryhillj/status/1392178123014393863/photo/1
Dave says
So how can Lizmi be held liable as an attorney representing the alleged buyer(s)? He’s just an attorney hired to handle the purchase right?
Andrew Allemann says
No, he’s an entrepreneur. It sounds like he had some investors lined up who backed out.
Dave says
Gotcha, misunderstood. Googled him and everything came up attorney, so just assumed buyer’s hired him to represent them.
Nose Candy says
No. There is a David J. Lizmi who is a federal prosecutor in New York. No relation. This David Lizmi is a former guitar player for a minor band.
Dave Lizmi says
Wrong, we are related. He’s my cousin.
Drew Platt says
1. What can Monte get from this lawsuit?
This prick David Lizmi doesn’t have any money and is a deadbeat.
2. I thought to bid on 6/7 figure names you have to send proof of funds to become a verified bidder.
How did that prick bid if he is a deadbeat?
Andrew Allemann says
He should probably require at least a deposit to bid that much.
Drew Platt says
I think we should ask Monte to chime in
John Berryhill says
If you link the last motion on that docket, it may answer a few questions here.
Drew Platt says
John
I am sure, everyone would like to know what deposit/proof of funds Monte/ROTD got from him to participate in the bidding on those 7 figure names.
John Berryhill says
Obviously, if there had been a deposit, the lawsuit would be seeking to keep that.
My comment was directed to “what’s in it for Monte”. Mr. Lizmi also sold domains in that auction to the tune of $76k, so the plaintiffs have deposited those proceeds with the court and are seeking those proceeds.
Clearly there was no deposit.
Dave Lizmi says
I never asked to bid. I simply signed up at HiBid so I could watch my domains sell.
I was never vetted, never checked, never ANYTHING. Monte is running an illegal auction and the FBI and Attorney’s General of MD and FL are investigating him now.
Andrew Allemann says
So you didn’t have backers? You didn’t plan to bid millions on these domains but you did?
Drew Platt says
>>>>I never asked to bid. I simply signed up at HiBid so I could watch my domains sell.<<<>>Monte is running an illegal auction and the FBI and Attorney’s General of MD and FL are investigating him now.<<<
Really!!!!!
Any evidence we can refer to?
Drew Platt says
>>>>I never asked to bid. I simply signed up at HiBid so I could watch my domains sell.<<<<
So how did those bids on the 7 figure domains show his name?
Drew Platt says
>>>Monte is running an illegal auction and the FBI and Attorney’s General of MD and FL are investigating him now.<<<
Really!!!!!
Any evidence we can refer to?
Drew Platt says
>>>>>It states that Right of the Dot owner Monte Cahn tried to help Lizmi set up financing and to work with his backers, but Lizmi eventually stopped responding<<<<<
Monte, did you meet these backers in person?
Andrew Allemann says
Paragraph 21 of the linked document. Attempted to set up a meeting, which I assume means he was unable to.
Samer says
will prob claim “Corona”
Anyway, Thanks for the great article, Andrew!
Samer
Davis says
Lizmi is bad news, did jail time in Maryland
William says
Let me be clear: I don’t know about these domain matters, or about claims made against him by those buying products on his music-related site.
BUT…. I know some things about his incarceration, and he was definitely innocent, taking the hit for XYZ (that I’m not at liberty to discuss)…. and on trumped up charges to begin with. The officials and officers were corrupt. Completely. I’m sure they didn’t much like a long-haired former rocker living in their midst…. One who was rich with no tangible source for the money.
He was a very successful domain holder back in the 1990s to 2000s. That was back when regular people didn’t fully understand these matters. So, as the theory goes, they wanted to take Lizmi down, believing that he was trafficking drugs. And they just couldn’t catch him with the goods. That’s because there was none.
That’s the theory, and it’s true, in my opinion.
I know people need evidence, and that’s completely legit. I just can’t provide any.
Take it however you want.
Michael says
It seems Lizmi has $2K in federal Corona Bailout money to go after:
https://projects.propublica.org/coronavirus/bailouts/loans/david-lizmi-8014028102
Andrew Allemann says
That seems like a ridiculously low amount of money to go through the PPP process for, doesn’t it?
Mik says
That bidder bid you countless other auctions, class action suit, give us our bids back Monte
The second auction has a similar ghost bidder, who kept pushing bids.
Drew Platt says
The prick Lizmi doesn’t respond to communications, however tells Monte to sell it to the second bidder who no longer were interested in the names.
Duh!!!
Dave Lizmi says
Incorrect. I never ceased communications with Monte.
Drew Platt says
>>>Incorrect. I never ceased communications with Monte.<<<
He filed a lawsuit against you.
What did you do to prove your innocence?
Dave Lizmi says
Yup!
Mike says
Very irresponsible of auction let this person bid millions without any deposit, also put other bidders at risk, and harm by being bid up, and out, how much damage was truly caused here. Auctioneer wants their money, but what about the people who were bid up by this party who was not vetted properly?
Dave Lizmi says
Exactly right.
snoopy1267 says
ROTD should spend some time cleaning up their system instead of wasting time with lawyers, the same thing happened last year ADD.com and it seem nothing has changed. Those top three auctions were obviously not going to get paid for as soon as the bids were placed.
Personally I would not bid one cent on these auctions because a lot of it is bidding against yourself or bidding against people who are not likely to pay.
Bill Kara says
Thats really too bad a ton of effort goes into these types of events. I hope Monte and the sellers get some sort of positive outcome from all of this.
Mike says
Are you guys like frigging blind, this happens year after year. Bill your smart enough to see thru this.
Drew Platt says
This prick David Lizmi doesn’t have any money. His backers left him holding his nuts. This is all bullshit!!
What positive outcome do you expect?
Andrew Allemann says
Drew, I don’t understand. Are you trying to defend the deadbeat bidder?
Drew Platt says
After posting these many comments, how does it make me defend a deadbeat?
Additionally, whatever he says is bullshit.
Andrew Allemann says
I misunderstood your response to Bill.
Dave Lizmi says
Andrew, you are very transparent. I know exactly who you are and your relationship to Monte. Sickening.
Andrew Allemann says
[Edit: one of your comments was in spam. It was recovered. I’ll email you.]
I have no idea what you mean by my “relationship to Monte”, but I’d love to hear your side of the story. Right now, all I have is what’s in the lawsuit. None of your comments seem to deny that you bid on these domains and didn’t pay.
Squarely says
As I said many times, auction is a scam…bidding against somebody who we don’t know and just jerk up the prices.
Fake!
Ali says
To be fair he may have stopped responding to Monte for a whole host of reasons. I used to be the head of domains for pokerstars and reached out to monte for the slots domain he was auctioning, he went above my head to board level in the most rude manner ever, and the board asked for my view on acquiring the domain and I voted against it hence it was sold to another party. So that’s my experience with Monte when he tries to sell domains.
I’m sure his a nice guy outside of domains, but business wise I’d never want to deal with him again.
thelegendaryjp says
Not sure if bragging about voting against a good decision is something you want to do.
At any rate I can only say personally Monte has always been approachable and helpful to me in the past.
The bottom line is someone agreed to purchase a name and isn’t paying, everything else is noise.
Ali says
I don’t see slots.com doing much also the strategy for pokerstars was always brand orientated than generic nonsense (they own a huge portfolio of generic names like poquer.com etc which they do nothing with) and clearly you’re limited in knowledge of American gambling laws and the issues of black Friday for gambling so all in all was a great decision, reached 95% by logic 5% by Monte’s rude behavior. like I said i’ll never do business with him again.
snoopy1267 says
I think the bottom line is why this seems to come up regularly, with this particular auction. Second issue is how many other people overpaid because of it.
Those bids were extremely suspect as soon as they were made. What verification was done before allowing someone to place millions of dollars worth of bids at this auction?
Give ROTD the benefit of the doubt the first time, but this is just a rerun of what happened last year.
John says
I’m just going to assume you are telling the truth at face value for now.
Are you referring to Slots.com? If so, passing that up was a huge mistake. Long story short, it’s very possible or likely little old me had some part in making sure it didn’t go for less than the huge steal casino.com had gone for.
As far as pokerstars goes, that’s really interesting? Did they ever try to buy poker.com? What can you say about that? What kind of offers did they make, etc.?
Ali says
Poker.com was way after my time at pokerstars but I don’t assume they attempted to buy those generic terms either, their marketing and dev teams are setup in both local and global basis, it’s extremely difficult to develop domains into sites for them with the setup so doesn’t warrant bidding on generic names. Also the brand is strong enough to be associated with poker without the need of poker.com
Also their acquisition drive of berfair, paddy power and skybet only shows they prefer brands vs generic domains to develop from scratch. In general pokerstars will not buy generic domains unless you’re friends with the board members and they just throw you a bone (which I’ve had todo in the past for them by force), and like I said they own a huge portfolio of generic domains they do absolutely nothing with, I personally expanded that portfolio at the start then decided on a reduction and their model at my time was very affiliate orientated forwarding to pokerstars with affiliate tag to track actual play money player and real money players, those data output was a clear indication to never waste millions on silly generic domains.
thelegendaryjp says
This where he lost me John “clearly you’re limited in knowledge”.
And….. I’m done!
John says
Interesting. After looking at the additional comments I see that he was indeed talking about Slots.com. And I would characterize his view on that as being extremely flawed to put it mildly, so I don’t blame you one bit. Would have liked to see it go to PokerStars or 888 or some other entity now operating in the US market, so they really missed out there.
impulsecorp says
I sold 9 domains at this auction and all the buyers paid.
John says
9? Cool. Which ones?
impulsecorp says
They were:
CheapFlowers.com
Ailments.com
Hoaxes.com
YoMamma.com
KindActs.com
ThrowUp.com
Carolling.com
Russians.net
Confessions.net
Mike says
ImpulseCorp, and Borgos are a class act, Monte is not
John says
Thanks, interesting…
John Berryhill says
“backers sidelined me after the auction and left me holding the bag.”
Here’s a free tip for everyone:
If you are going to commit to the terms of a sale on behalf of someone else who is the real party in interest, then you had better have a binding agreement in place with that person, and you had better be sure they have the ability to back up that agreement.
Otherwise, you are simply being irresponsible.
Dave Lizmi says
I was OUTBID on Bird.com and Fish.com. I received notifications from ROTD saying so EXPLICITLY. However, on these exact bid amounts I was notified on, I found out later from Monte the “I won”. Never received a winner notification, never was a high bidder. Period.
This is all provable by the emails and documents I have – which will be part of the court case. Happy to share them though, if you ask.
Drew Platt says
Your previous comment says
>>>>I never asked to bid. I simply signed up at HiBid so I could watch my domains sell.<<<<
Dave Lizmi says
That’s correct. I don’t understand your point/question.
impulsecorp says
It seems like it would be easier for everyone if you just explained exactly what happened, from your point of view. It seems you signed up as a seller at the auction, but then also placed some bids also, but no verification was done as a buyer. You then thought you were outbid, and by the time you “won” you either lost your partners or decided not to buy at the prices you previously bid. I am not saying any of that is what happened, that is just what I understand from your comments (I never read the lawsuit).
Drew Platt says
He filed a lawsuit against you.
What did you do to prove your innocence?
impulsecorp says
What changed on your end between the time you placed your bid and the time you were eventually told you were the winner? Even if you were not officially notified you won, at some point you found out, so why did you not want the domains like you originally did? I am not trying to be difficult, just curious.
Drew Platt says
Any new updates on this scam?
Andrew Allemann says
There haven’t been any additional court filings since I published the story on 5/11.
Dave M Lizmi says
We’ve filed our answer and counter complaint. It’s just not going to show publicly until next week.
It’s going to be a brutal hit to Monte and domain auctions in general.
You all can thank Monte later.
Drew Platt says
Where will it be available for the public this week?
Drew Platt says
Is it publicly available? Everyone wants to know.
Silence is not appreciated!!!!
Archangelica says
Can someone chime in and explain a “ghost bidder” to me. I experienced something similar at this last auction. Someone kept bidding up the prices within seconds of my bids. I also could not figure out if I won or not. The email system sent emails for every bid but not to notify of a successful win.