Snapnames.com - how honest?
 

How honest do you think they are?
We just scored a couple of premium domains.
We noticed with one of them the one that should have been least popular - there was someone that starting to bid against us and pushed up the bidding to over $2K - while the one that should have been most popular went to $300 then the other guy dropped out.

The question is this: Is there any verification on who the other betters could be? If snapnames wanted to play games - since the other bidders are secret - they could start pushing up bets just to put extra revenue in their pockets.

Same thing that happens with many bets within ebay - I guess its hard to control but I dont think that ebay is bidding things up - not as much reward for them todo verses the cost if they where caught.

What do you guys think? Am I off base?

They are pretty honest, i have bought many domain from them.. I recommend using them...

I have picked up a few there but there is no way to really know how honest they are.

hmmmm, it is possible....... i have many poker conspiracy things like that too....

We have also bought several domains from them - but that does not indicate if they could not falsely bump up pricing. There is no way to verify if the opposing bidder is real or fake.

I have bought alot of names from them, and I know most of the regular bidders, snapnames is by far the best!!!! and thats saying alot.

What were the nicknames of the people that drove up the bids?

No, you are not off base. I just won a domain from them. The domain was a obviously nice mainstream one. The "bidder" that started bidding against me was obviously fake. I thought I had time to finish bidding and I went out of town, forgot the bidding was ending and I lost... for just $61

Now, I don't know about you, but if I win a bid that costs $1 more than it cost me to backorder the domain I wouldn't let it go. But somehow, the bidder did just that. I was awarded the domain after all.

That leads me to believe the computer is setup to automatically start bidding to up the price. I can't say this isn't a smart tactic on their part. It's not illegal as far as I know. It is shady though.

At the end of the day I truly believe you can't trust anyone in the domain acquisition process 100%.

Interesting - just think how much revenue they could generate in a day, the numbers are crazy - if they just push up say 10 domains a day by $1K of the hundreds / thousands that are going through there - thats an extra $30K a month - of course if they did 50 a day - you see the potential for abuse.

I agree its not illegal - but I don't see anyway to possibly put a check and balance against this. The only thing I can think of is another competitor - and godaddy and others are not good compared to them at grabbing domains - the last 30 or so with godaddy have all failed.

Anyone with any ideas how to put in a check and balance against these guys?

Now that we won the bids and paid for them - the history does not show, I will try to find. I remember one of the bidders was something like 'CR'.

vaxis, bonkers, saggydimes, dagroup or benfranklin in that auction? What domain was it?

Or he didnt have the funds to cover the payment. I often start my bids @ $61 if they're insignificant domains and don't want to pay anymore.

I speak to Nelson quite a few times. I don't think this happens to be honest. I know sometimes it appears this way but it's not really in their interests in the long term.

Terry

Incorrect. Snapnames shows the bid history of all auctions you participate in. It will still show in your account who the other bidders were in your auctions and what bids they made. List their nicks.

the omnipresent halvarez

None of those names.
We are currently running the domains through trademark processes and other legal steps so we will not disclose now - but soon they will be promoted.

Just a FYI - for one of the domains - we already received an offer to buy it for $22K - but we rejected the offer. The poor guy/girl who didn't pay his renewal. :helpme

This is the truth of the matter. To say anything else is ridiculous.

That's nuts.

Say it ain't so Joe....

no one is honest in this world. accept it

snapnames is 110% legit.... i have spent almost 100,000$ buying domains there. I would not do this if i thought anything was going on behind the scenes....

Terry

I have an ebay auction for the Brooklyn Bridge starting in 15 minutes. The Buy it now price is only $150k. Maybe some of you want to get in on it.

Ok - but do you see my point on this? How large is their company / employee base? Even if they where doing this - would you or anyone else be able to know?

I noticed some strange bidding on an auction, but couldnt possibly tell if it was them bumping up the price.

it's not really my place to answer questions. If anybody has any issues please contact [email protected]

Thanks

Terry

halvarez is everywhere

This is what worries me about SnapNames... I once bid for a domain with 3 other people.. I was 3rd in line if 2 members above me couldn't pay for the domain... it turns out that the 2 other members couldn't in fact pay for the domain name and I ended up having to buy it.. imagine if i went on a bidding war with them.. and i won.. i wouldn't know if i'm bidding against a qualified individual..

suggestion: every bidder must deposit $60, if they bid on a domain name and can't pay for it.. they lose out on $60..

and yes.. HALVAREZ IS EVERYWHERE!!

the whole idea of expired domains being bid on is shady

yes its possible, but who knows...

I used them years ago and got my domain. It seemed very honest and no games. I don't know about these days though.