8,998 trusted members. £4,834,605 in sales completed
It might not be obvious of what’s going on behind the curtains, but shill bidders are a major plague of domaining industry. As you know, DomainLore takes a very serious approach to detect and terminate these people and, at times, I am astonished of their count. Not sure whom to blame, but it seems there is a presumption of a total lack of enforcement, established previously for this majority of domain sellers, who don’t mind bidding on their own domains. In such a pleasant atmosphere they were really thriving. They thought DomainLore would be just another auction place to take advantage of.
Sorry to disappoint. Just in a recent couple of weeks another three shill bidders were caught. One was automatically blocked when attempting to put his bid, the other – an unlikely candidate with a reputation ‘beyond repute’ on a popular UK domaining forum, went wild frenzy when caught; third one demanded access to ‘advanced bids’ section, claiming ‘existing sales and auctioning domains on DL for years’, whilst on a closer look, appeared to have only one failed sale, after a lot of pain finally transferred to his second 'trading as' company name.
Those who get caught, are always, always trying to play a fool and pretend they have no idea what it’s all about. Lies, and lies, even when faced with the evidence, lies often continue anyway. Obviously, better be in denial, than to lose their dignity and reputation. I more and more incline to sue the hell out one of them – once and for all – hopefully with a jail time, to send a clear message that what they are doing is awful and illegitimate.
With a plethora of anonymous VPN services (one used HideMyAss.com), these people expect their asses to be ‘geniously’ covered. Unfortunately for them, DomainLore is quick and on top of the know-how, so changing IP addresses, using proxies and switching browsers does not help.
Instead of hiding shamefully in the bushes, one of those recently caught has started to aggresivelly attack DomainLore back, not just with the verbal abuse (which is usually a norm from these folks) but with false accusations of DomainLore administering fake bids in auctions run under DomainCatch scheme! Needless to say, it is not surprising to hear it in such circumstances, as people of shady nature always judge others by their own deeds, achievements and virtues.
I take a great pride of developing and running DomainLore to the best of trading standards, overseeing all auctions to run in an honest and impartial manner, dedicating time and resources to keep the dodgy lot out of DomainLore. This auction site is my long-term investment child and only a fool would sacrifice it (together with my own hard-earned domain trading reputation) for a brief monetary gain. But these fools believe otherwise (as this is what they would have done themselves), but they don’t know how much effort and development hours are put into this auction platform.
Lets take a look at the figures (compiled end of August 2011).
Firstly, out of 392 past sold DomainCatch auctions, only 23 sales have failed, i.e. were not transferred to the successful buyer in 21 day after the auction end (they might have been transferred later). So the total comes to 0.0586 of failed sales, or around 5.9%.
Looking at remaining 1261 'sold' auction, 68 sales have failed. That is 0.0539, or around 5.4%.
If there would be a foul play, failed percentage rate of DC auctions would have been much higher than the platform average, with fake bids ending up as winning bids and no real buyer to transfer to – a terribly unfortunate situation – something many of those shill bidders experiencing on their own skin.
But almost all DomainLore auctions are being transferred to some very real people. I don’t think many other auction sites can enjoy just 5% of failed auction sales.
Alas, domaining industry is full of hate, greed and envy. In this distorted environment, people no longer find it easy to trust others, hence, unfortunately, I don’t expect many of you to take my words for all of the above.
So to deliver a more convincing answer to those questioning DomainLore’s integrity, I am opening the ability for auction winners of DomainCatch auctions to see who the second highest bidder was. This will include their full name, contact e-mail and a competence level.
This information is now available retrospectively across all of the past DomainCatch auctions.
If you ever were in doubt whether you are bidding against a real person or in those cases when your proxy bid was ‘suspiciously’ close to the auction ending price – you can now see whom you were bidding against and I am sure you will recognize some well-known names there and be able to prove independently that all the bids ever placed are genuine.
Second bidder’s privacy is not being affected by this change in any negative way – I believe even opposite, it now provides him with the opportunity to hear first from the domain buyer, if/when he decides to sell this newly acquired domain name.
And last, but not least – your feedback is welcome here or to domains@domainlore.co.uk
-Denys
PS: Taking these drastical measures against offenders quite obviously results in scores of banned people doing their best to tarnish DomainLore’s image and reputation. I trust it is a worthy sacrifice to keep the rats out and help honest sellers & buyers carry on with their business activities. How you can help? Spread the word of all your good experiences.
PPS: Care to spot a shill? A list of banned persons non-grata could be compiled and made available for anyone interested to expand their ‘do not do business with’ notes. Share your thoughts.