namecheap NameCheap.com's Questionable Marketplace Policy

[silentg]

I was part of a domain auction and ended up losing the auction to another bidder. That winning bidder tried to sell the domain before paying for it and didn't pay for the auction at the end since they couldn't find any offer within 2 day time period.

I was offered the domain for purchase but the problem was that the winning bidder had 17 bids in total and they only voided the winning bid. They wanted me to pay $2915 without removing the other bids. I went back and forth with their customer service team and they wouldn't see the issue. Worst of all their customer service team wasnt even reading the support ticket properly before sending the reply.

See the screenshot: Winning bidders bids are highlighted:



It took a twitter post and couple of days for them to notice the issue:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1505495549293871104

when they asked me to pay for it, they said there wouldn't be any penalty:


and then when they cancelled the auction the next day, they sent me the opposite e-mail:



This is their policy not to cancel bids.




This post is to warn others when you're offered to buy a domain that winning bidder didn't pay. Check the bidding history before paying.

 

[Anita]

They should simply reset the auction if the second highest bidder or third highest bidder is unwilling to pay their last bid price on being offered the domain name - for whatever reason they decline. Of course the words used and the arm twisting is a real put off for sure. I hope someone from NameCheap can come here and clear things up for the domaining community so that the trust is restored.

 

[robs01]

I do not know the feasibility of this, but how about if they place a hold on funds for bids over a certain amount, in order to avoid such activity?

For example, for auctions which go over say $500, 10% of the bid price is placed as a hold on your credit card used for payment. So if you want to bid say $1000, then $100 is held on your card BEFORE the bid is actually placed. If you up your bid to $1500 then of course the $100 hold will be removed, but the new $150 hold will have to be approved before your new bid gets placed.

If I were to bid on a higher priced domain I would have no problem doing this, as long as there were no stupid conditions attached like awarding the auction to the second highest bidder if the highest bidder fails to pay - the auction was already tainted so it should be restarted from scratch, and cunning domain owners could sacrifice 10% of proceeds to inflate the final price, so the winner should lose that 10% if they don't pay.

But somehow I get the feeling that this corruption in bidding benefits the auction houses and they will likely not try too hard to put a stop to it.

 

[accurate]

That's a lame policy.

Thanks for sharing. @silentg

 

[accurate]

NameCheap Market knowledgebase guide.

Auctions Bidding Guide - Domains - Namecheap.com

Learn more about Auctions Bidding Guide. Find your answers at Namecheap Knowledge Base.

www.namecheap.com

 

[silentg]

NameCheap CEO has taken action:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1525150952524812293

 

[accurate]

NC will re-auction domains that didn't sell or non-bidders.

Kind of lame.

 

[silentg]

This is still happening. These are some of the domains I found going through their sold list. I can find more if I go through their entire list.

 

[Anita]

This is still happening. These are some of the domains I found going through their sold list. I can find more if I go through their entire list.

Did you report these to them?? It has obviously not yet been handled inspite of the claims.

 

[silentg]

I did report and only action they took was they changed their policy on mandatory payment. 2nd bidder has the option to buy the domain. Before it was mandatory.
2nd bidder is overpaying for the auction because of the shill bids. Here's a recent auction example that ended at $11,000 and winning bidder didn't pay. They're offering the domain to 2nd bidder at $10,100
If they do the right thing and cancel the bids then the 2nd bidder only has to pay $1,xxx

 

[Anita]

I did report and only action they took was they changed their policy on mandatory payment. 2nd bidder has the option to buy the domain. Before it was mandatory.
2nd bidder is overpaying for the auction because of the shill bids. Here's a recent auction example that ended at $11,000 and winning bidder didn't pay. They're offering the domain to 2nd bidder at $10,100
If they do the right thing and cancel the bids then the 2nd bidder only has to pay $1,xxx
View attachment 6864

Yes I agree that this is shady. Dynadot also did this on an auction I participated few months ago. I refused as 2nd bidder and I don't know if they re-auctioned the domain name.

 

[accurate]

I've done this at GD Auctions.

Yes I agree that this is shady. Dynadot also did this on an auction I participated few months ago. I refused as 2nd bidder and I don't know if they re-auctioned the domain name.

 

[silentg]

This bidder "b9d2acc80da8" is still an active at NameCheap. Reported it to them yesterday and no action has been taken. Even though the bidder should've been banned, he/she is allowed to bid up auctions.

 

[accurate]

It's shill bidding.

This bidder "b9d2acc80da8" is still an active at NameCheap. Reported it to them yesterday and no action has been taken. Even though the bidder should've been banned, he/she is allowed to bid up auctions.

 

[silentg]

Same bidder that didn't pay for it before is now bidding on the domain again:



Support and product manager responded to my tweets saying they took action. Looks like they did nothing.

 

[silentg]

They have finally banned the bidder and cancelled the new auctions.

 

[accurate]

They have finally banned the bidder and cancelled the new auctions.

NC banned themselves!

 

[silentg]

This is still happening at NameCheap. Won and paid for 4 domains that had a shill bidder so I raised the issue with customer service. They confirm the other bids were not legitimate but won't give credit.

It's basically fraud / scam. They're making more money so they're allowing it to happen.

 

[silentg]

It's much worse than before: Instead of fixing the issue, they started censoring the usernames. Only first and last character is visible on usernames.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1652358629956243459