For Sale Enom encourages auction fraud

[Fearless]

Enom encourages auction fraud with their system. It may or may not be intentional. They repeatedly allow bidders to avoid paying for auctions won without any penalty whatsoever. I got a little auction fever bidding against one such bidder for birdie.com. Then 5 days later, the time given to pay, I get the following email from Enom.

Gregory,

Are you still interested in the domain at your orginal bid of $12,600.00?

Kind regards,

Deborah Burditt
Director, Business Development
eNom, Inc.
2002 156th Ave NE #300
Bellevue, WA 98007
Phone (425) 274-4500 ext. 226
FAX (425) 952-0794
*****@eNom.com
http://www.eNom.com
"An ICANN Accredited & Anti-spam Registrar"

I gave Deborah a call. I told her to remove every bid made by the non-paying bidder and I'll pay $100 over the last legitimate bid. No dice. It was $12,600.00 or nothing.
I also told her big buyers have lost faith in their system thanks to situations just like this. I went round and round with her. The end result is I took one for the team. I won't be getting any emails like this again.

I have a simple solution for Enom that would allow them to keep their present system. Require a $500 deposit to bid if you're bidding on any name in excess of $500. Then if the bidder doesn't pay take the $500 and approach the runner up with an option to buy the name for $500 less or $100 over the last legitimate bid, whichever is less.

I guarantee at least a 90% reduction in non-payers for names over $500.

 

[GeorgeK]

That's a start. Also start posting the names (email addresses, IP addresses, etc.) of deadbeat bidders.

 

[JuniperPark]

There are many MANY ways that eNom can avoid the fraud that is happening now with their auctions. It's clear that they don't want to.

By the way, DigitalUnderground.com is up for auction for the 90th time... HAHAHAHA!

 

[mole]

Shill bidders can be very damaging to your wallet, I agree.

By the way, DigitalUnderground.com is up for auction for the 90th time... HAHAHAHA!

Must be all those high school hacking geek bums having their daily chuckle at eNom's expense.

 

[actnow]

Chris announced in another thread that Enom initiated new rules about bidding.

I went back to find his comments. And here is his quote

eNom now requires positive identification of anyone who wishes to bid more than $200 on a name. If a bid is not paid, we can then ban you from bidding in the future, and with positive ID required, creating throw-away accounts is not an option.

It's not a perfect solution, but it's a start. I'd love to hear your ideas on what else we could do (including, please, how it would be done. It's one thing to say "ban them" but another to explain how we know who "them" are).

 

[JuniperPark]

The end result is I took one for the team.

I'm not sure what this means... did you pay the shill bidder amount? Or delete your account?

If they really do the ID check as Ambler said, then that ID should be disclosed to you... otherwise that shill bidder may well be 'ol Deborah herself. Did you ask her whereablouts while the shill bidding was taking place?

 

[Fearless]

I'm not sure what this means... did you pay the shill bidder amount? Or delete your account?

If they really do the ID check as Ambler said, then that ID should be disclosed to you... otherwise that shill bidder may well be 'ol Deborah herself. Did you ask her whereablouts while the shill bidding was taking place?

By being outspoken, I will no longer receive emails giving me a chance to pay the artificially inflated price.

The other bidder was not revealed to me.

 

[nitronet]

Enom is a joke, They want the names in the public auctions and it is probably them bidding them up.

I paid $7000.00 for a name there a few weeks ago, and I'm sure if I had lost, the competing bidder wouldn't have paid and it would have been public. But I guess ENOM ran it up high enough and they were happy.

Enom is also breaking Visa, Mastercard, and American Express Merchant rules by charging a 3% service fee on all credit card transactions to refill your account.

I would recommend doing a complaint to the credit card companies to stop this illegal service fee also.

This is why I've transferred all 3500 of my domains out of ENOM and would never keep a domain there.

 

[JuniperPark]

Something else kinda of bothers me about this.... why did you get this letter at all? I've lost many names to the shill bidders, and not only did I not get the letter, the name went up for PUBLIC auction, rather than a private one. (which ALSO is a screw-you to the honest, paying customer)

 

[Fearless]

Oops

 

[nitronet]

Yes, eliminating a bidder with deep pockets is very smart business.

I just checked my Enom account. Now all my private auctions are gone. All that remains are public auctions. I guess Deborah is showing me who is boss.

 

[JuniperPark]

I just checked my Enom account. Now all my private auctions are gone. All that remains are public auctions. I guess Deborah is showing me who is boss.

You know those "Darwin Award" lists they pass around every year of the dumbest ways people kill or maim themselves? We need to start doing that for the registrars. I nominate THIS MOVE by eNom as the first entry!

"Faced with enormous problems from non-paying bidders and customers susicious of shill bidding, eNom's Director of Business Development strikes upon an ingenious plan: Prevent the long term industry leaders with deep pockets from bidding!"

 

[gariben]

All these drop catchers are getting way over their heads.

Bring on WLS!

If anybody can think of a better registrar, let me know. I have about 700 domains at eNom. I hate the fact that they charge 3% for credit card. It should be the merchant that is responsible for paying the fee! Not the consumer. If the merchant decides to take credit card, they have to abid to Visa/Mastercard's rule. One price! Not two different sets of prices. They want to take Credit Cards YET not pay for charges. That is not how it works.

 

[seeker]

I was bidding for 'occultbooks' but the price just got wayyyy to high.
Let's see if it goes public now...

 

[Fearless]

I was in my other account. Now I can bid. Yay!

 

[seeker]

Maybe Enom just needs feedback from us?
Have people actually tried to politely tell Enom about these problems?
I am not sure that this would work, but surely, they would want to hear feedback as well as get good exposure on DNF???

 

[nitronet]

I was in my other account. Now I can bid. Yay!

Dork!

 

[OnSpec]

eNom should know better than to openly say as much as "up yours" to paying customers. Vote with your $$$. Find yourself a registrar (or 2) of choice, move your domains and your bidding business elsewhere.

 

[Deleted member 4749]

eNom seems to be taking grugs lately. If it doesn't change I head to Moniker once and for all with all of my 2300+ doms.

 

[seeker]

thats a good move blink.
however, perhaps we should ask enom for anwers first?
I have posted several enom warningthreads myself.
and I have said on this forum so many times, that I think Moniker is the best.
However, let us all give them a chane to reply.
and when (and If) the time for the full change comes, I sure as heck will be transfering well over 5000 domains.