Bidder says he didn’t think he won the domains, and he shouldn’t have been allowed to bid more than $2,000.
The person who bid nearly $5 million in February’s Right of the Dot domain name auction is countersuing the auctioneer.
Right of the Dot sued David Lizmi when he failed to pay $2.5 million for bird.com and $1.6 million for fish.com, which the auctioneer says Lizmi won in its auction.
In a response and counterclaims (pdf) to the lawsuit, Lizmi admits that he bid these amounts for the domains but says he didn’t believe he won them and alleges that the auction violated its own terms and conditions.
Lizmi says he never requested to bid over $2,000 on domains in the auction and that the terms state that he needed to undergo separate identity verification to bid over $2,000.
He also received outbid notices on both of the domain names after placing his high bids (see exhibits, pdf). He alleges there was improper bidding or the use of false bidders to drive up the bids. (My recollection of the auction is that Lizmi was bidding against the reserve, which is why the bids continued to escalate and probably why he received the outbid notices.)
Lizmi filed 21 affirmative defenses and countersued for fraud, breach of contract, promissory estoppel, and conspiracy.
According to the suit, Lizmi sold $76,775 worth of domains in the auction. Right of the Dot asked the court to let it deposit those funds with the court while the case proceeds.
A “bird” in the hand is worth two in the “fish”…
Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!
The only interesting thing is if he was indeed verified or not. That part was not handled very professionally by ROTD, in my opinion.
Having Monte look at a scanned driver’s license from someone he already knew anyway, would not have changed the situation. Verifying the identity of the bidders is intended as a safeguard for sellers – that the bidders are whom they claim to be. Obviously, in this instance, ROTD already knew Mr. LIzmi was whom he claimed to be, based on prior dealings between the parties (and indeed the parallel role of Lizmi as a seller in the same auction).
Was it Mr. Lizmi bidding? Yes. Would looking at his driver’s license have changed anything? No. Not verifying his identity would be significant if it was not actually him, but that aspect of the counterclaim is a complete nothingburger.
Asking for attorney fees in a pro se counterclaim gets bonus points for creativity, though.
Long time no talk Mr. Berryhill
You’re missing (almost) the whole point.
Maybe UDRP’s are your lane?
♂️
I’d really like to know the point too. I’m not a lawyer but I’ve hired Mr Berryhill before . He slays. Who is your lawyer ? Gotta remember to steer clear.
Dumbest lawsuit of all time, ROTD need to run these auctions in a transparent way or hang up their hats. Same stuff happened last year with ADD.com.
The auction lifted verification, I wasn’t verified and I was able to bid way over the mins , obviously they needed people to bid crazy, his counter suit has merit as the auction operators were negligent, anyone who participated in that auction should start a class action to be honest
“his counter suit has merit”
Lol. In what way was Lizmi harmed by ROTD not looking at his driver’s license to confirm that it was actually him?
I have to hear this.
You know, an interesting question is if he bid in (but didn’t win) other auctions.
Really?? bidding over 5m without being verified??
I’ve said it before I’ll say it again I’ll never trust monty in any domain selling or acquisition business or transaction ever his so money hungry and rude in business I would never ever ever use his service or buy from him. All this leads to extremely unprofessional actions and shows undefined levels of arrogance.
Anyways there is a huge law firm called bird and bird who I’m sure would actually be interested in the domain bird I have friends who work there if he was a little smarter regarding silly lawsuits I’m sure he could have just resold this name over time to them anyways.
Now all his done is devalue the domain showing no one in auction would and was and is willing to pay that rate for the name and really the owner of the domain needs to sue ROTD and monty.
This Monte guy once quoted me $100,000 on a domain I was offered from the actual owner for less than $10,000 after the fact. He is a joke, never deal with him, go to the owners direct, he probably takes in offers, and then buys the domain from the owner, and takes the difference. I don’t trust him either.
I guess moniker didn’t work out, this annual auction keeps his bills paid, and he doesn’t need to hold domain a real job.
Verified bidder is not the issue here but if bidding on a name and win the name, you pay, like any other legal agreement. If you fail to pay, you caused harm both in time spent, emotion, opportunity cost and now legal. The counter claim is bs, he should have never bid on those names and sure all the bidders on those auctions will be revealed. If there was no shill bidding found, my Lizmi should have to compensate for damages to the seller and go after his partners or financing source who gave him false hope he had millions to spend. Blaming Monte for a bidder bidding on domains and failing to pay shows how much a counterclaim joke that is and only used to try and save face. Time you can’t get back, when you waste someone’s time, you need to compensate them. Mr Lizmi wasted a lot of people’s
Time, energy and Resouces and now his reputation. Haters just hate but in this case, he failed to pay and it should sting a little for his actions.
No matter how badly the auction was or was not run, I don’t see how that has any bearing on bidding for a domain and then not paying. If you bid on a domain, you should pay for it. But, what I still don’t understand is how this bidder received a notice saying he was outbid (via automated reserve bidding), yet still ended up winning. Sometimes in auctions other bids get disqualified, which then means you are the high bidder again, but I have no idea if that is what happened here, or if the terms even allowed for that (I did not read the terms).
I would never trust Monte either. Have seen too many cases of bad behavior.
I’ve noticed Monte has been involved with a lot of lawsuits in the domain industry over the years.
I hope this case gets settled amicably.