Remarkable Action by NameJet & *Allegedly* Its Partner - Should I Sue, or How Soon?

[Nova]

Hello Bill, what an unusual surprise. I had not even decided to reveal the registrar yet. Not exactly certain of the propriety of such a thing now, though it certainly serves the cause of those of whom wrongdoing has been suggested. Does anyone even seriously expect anyone else to believe such a "remarkable" 11th hour claim now, or do you even believe it?

How convenient what you have related would be for everyone involved except me if it might possibly be even the least bit true, (not to mention how potentially expensive and money raising for some if one were to be sucked into such an auction). Do you perhaps believe I don't have reams of screen capture evidence which shows that I was the 1 and only bidder for the pre-release sale of the domain I have alluded to here? Or do you suppose it's even possible that Tucows itself is now being defrauded by its partner in this new claim, assuming Tucows itself has also actually done nothing wrong, a claim which so conveniently now suggests the absence of wrongdoing despite the evidence, and which was so conspicuously absent from the support ticket reply of the NameJet customer support rep the day after the sale?

Honestly what you have presented here is even doubly worse than the original facts already in place, and looks even doubly more dirty. If I didn't read it here myself I might scarcely believe anyone would even try it.

@Nova (and everyone else),

I work for Tucows and have just finished investigating this, and for the record I have emailed the following reply to "Nova" (who had also emailed Tucows directly):

Dear ("Nova"),

Thank you for your February 15, 2010 email about the expired domain ("domain name").

I manage the Tucows expired domain integration with our auction partner, NameJet, and I have looked into this matter and also spoken with NameJet about it.

This expired domain received at least *one* auction pre-order at NameJet (perhaps by you; we at Tucows are not privy to that confidential information) and our automated systems took the correct action at the end of the 40-day Grace Period and renewed this domain and moved this domain to a special auction account we have setup where names that have *one* or more auction pre-orders on them are held (which means these domains are about to be placed in a live auction). So, based on what we are seeing, this is a domain that is destined for a live NameJet auction.

I spoke to NameJet earlier today and they confirmed there were 2 pre-orders on this domain, which means that NameJet will be starting a 3-day, private live auction of this domain in the next 24-48 hours. I kindly suggest that you wait until NameJet notifies you of the live auction for this domain (or check your NameJet account for an update). Assuming you were one of the 2 people that placed a pre-order, then you will be competing with 1 other bidder for this domain in the private live auction.

Rest assured, this domain was *not* taken by Tucows or NameJet, and there is nothing underhanded going on. The live auction for this domain simply hasn't started yet, that is all.

So, in summary, this domain was renewed because it received 1 or more pre-orders at NameJet and will soon be placed into a 3-day live auction at NameJet. You may want to speak to NameJet again to get more help around timing of auctions, when domains actually enter live auction mode, and general information on how expired domain auction services like NameJet work.

Best of luck in the auction, and please contact me via email if you have any more concerns or questions.

Regards,

Bill

--
Bill Sweetman
General Manager, Domain Portfolio
Tucows

---------- Post added at 05:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:19 PM ----------

P.S. Did I mention "conspicuously contradictory" in addition to "conspicuously absent"? Hmm, can't say that I did...

 

[Theo]

I hate to break the news to you, Nova, but there are numerous "last second" bidders that take advantage of the known closing window at Namejet (1:00am Eastern). Just like on eBay, sniping works. To seek conspiracies simply because you are pissed that you didn't outright grab the domain for $69 is not smart, in my opinion.

---------- Post added at 06:16 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:15 PM ----------

Correction: 11:00pm Eastern daily.

 

[DN BROKER]

i just found this on my godaddy page where it shows won auctions - i have not purchased and TMs, but the warning is listed on top of the page:

Go Daddy Auctions™ sellers are responsible for ensuring that offered domain names do not infringe on third-party trademarks.

---------- Post added at 06:32 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:31 PM ----------

oops wrong thread - lol

 

[barefoot]

Exactly right. Why bring unwanted attention to the domain you're interested in by bidding earlier than necessary?

I hate to break the news to you, Nova, but there are numerous "last second" bidders that take advantage of the known closing window at Namejet

 

[Sweetman]

@Nova,

After I replied to you I received some additional information from my counterpart at NameJet, which further explained the situation. He promised to reach out to you, likely tomorrow, with a detailed explanation of what happened.

Once all the facts have been shared with you, by NameJet, I believe you will see that there was no grand conspiracy at play here. It is unfortunate that you think you have been victimized when, as you will learn from NameJet (off list), that was not the case. NameJet is a fantastic and ethical business partner of ours, and my experiences with them have been nothing but positive.

May I humbly suggest that you wait until all the facts have been presented to you before you continue making accusations of evil wrongdoing in a public forum.

If you wish to discuss this matter with me any further, please email me at the email address I have already provided to you.

Regards,

Bill

 

[Nova]

NameJet is a fantastic and ethical business partner of ours, and my experiences with them have been nothing but positive.

Trust me Bill, although I asked if you thought perhaps they were now defrauding you, it was merely a question and you needn't necessarily think my money wasn't really on Tucows as the principal party at fault from the start.

I would also like to suggest to you as well that there may be much more to know about a person than one could ever find in an online search, and much more to know about how any official or body of peers for instance might regard that person when they learn what there is to know.

Now, unfortunately Acro and I have a long history going back years of regrettably acrid and acrimonious interaction in the forum, even predating both our name changes, so his statement above and some of his other posts were more or less predictable; however, I would suggest for you, Bill, and others in general that insulting statements and insinuations do not exactly endear oneself or help a situation when the other guy is holding the goods so to speak. Moreover, it is also a tired and painfully predictable tactic to try to discredit the other guy in such and similar ways.

Now I don't know how many different ways there are to mention the various before, after, and day after screen shots (and other items) which prove what I have been posting about here, and how I was the sole successful bidder for the domain, though perhaps the time for such talking is winding down.

Not surprisingly as well, and about as predictably as the other more or less predictable elements, I have just logged into my NameJet account to reply to the support ticket there where I discovered that not only does my account no longer show the 1 bidder pre-release order that I won on 2/13/2010 for the domain alluded to, but that it now shows I have no back orders and even no auctions at all in the account. At least I did not find a brand new "2 bidders" notice your last post may have led one to expect. Yes, no surprise at all.

 

[Sweetman]

@Nova,

If you truly believe that Tucows is guilty of a crime of some sort, please have your lawyer(s) contact us at our corporate offices. We did no wrong, have nothing to hide, and I am growing tired of your groundless accusations in a public forum.

I do not understand your comments about doing an "online search" nor do I know or care about some forum member named "Acro" or a beef you may have with him.

If you are suggesting that I somehow insulted you, or made insinuations, then you are mistaken. Any sensible person re-reading my responses to you here in the forum would conclude I have been nothing but helpful, polite, and professional.

Although I told you that NameJet will be contacting you privately to explain what happened, since you continue to badger me about this I am going to publicly summarize what NameJet told me earlier today, and that is that NameJet records show that you *deleted* your backorder for this domain 4 minutes after first placing it. This was probably a mistake on your part, but since the net result was that you didn't ultimately have a backorder on this domain, that is why you didn't end up getting this domain (and why a different bidder did.)

I am sure that learning that this was because of a mistake that *you* made won't fit neatly into your conspiracy theory, but at least other people reading this thread will know that Tucows and NameJet were not to blame.

If you have any more questions about this matter, please contact NameJet directly. Clearly you do not appreciate my attempts to help you, so I am not going to bother any more.

Sincerely,

Bill Sweetman
General Manager, Domain Portfolio
Tucows

 

[INVIGOR]

He has the "reams" of screen shots (which few of us capture) cos ??? U tell me? Does anybody else do this? Sounds fishy...

 

[Nova]

Although I told you that NameJet will be contacting you privately to explain what happened, since you continue to badger me about this I am going to publicly summarize what NameJet told me earlier today, and that is that NameJet records show that you *deleted* your backorder for this domain 4 minutes after first placing it. This was probably a mistake on your part, but since the net result was that you didn't ultimately have a backorder on this domain, that is why you didn't end up getting this domain (and why a different bidder did.)

I am sure that learning that this was because of a mistake that *you* made won't fit neatly

Bill this is indeed a truly most remarkable claim on your part as to what your partner NameJet has allegedly communicated to you in light of all the email I have also just discovered and received from NameJet today, not to mention a remarkably abrasive and offensive post that contains entirely false and even absurd allegation about my having deleted the order. Are you really the "General Manager, Domain Portfolio" of Tucows, and are you quite certain you wish to stand by the claims have just made here now? Your post here is indeed most regrettable for Tucows sake and also NameJet's. I strongly suspect your employer may wish to reevaluate your status after a post like this and the false allegation it contains, and would strongly suggest reevaluating such a post if I were you.

Now, please tell us exactly what time you received this alleged communication from NameJet today, so that if I return to post the exact times of what they have emailed to me today it might interest everyone to compare the times. Here is what I have received from NameJet today now:

Dear NameJet Customer ([me]):

Congratulations you successfully won a domain auction.

The next step is for NameJet to add the name to the appropriate account for you to manage at the sponsoring registrar. This can take up to 3 business days, but is typically much faster. You will receive an email from the sponsoring registrar with login and account information at that time.

Below you will find a summary of the domains ordered for your NameJet account:

Type Amount Description / Status
=========================================================================================
Domain Name Sale $69.00 [domain].com / Successful TOTAL BILLED: $69.00 USD against your credit card


------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you for using our domain name aftermarket services. As this email is not monitored, please visit our support center at http://www.namejet.com/Pages/Support.aspx if you have any questions or to contact us.

Sincerely,
NameJet Support
http://www.namejet.com

And now this evening, after my reply in the NameJet support thread I posted about making in my last post here at DNF:

Subject Successful pre-release order needs status correction Discussion Thread Response (David M.) 02/15/2010 [**:**] PM Hello,

Please disregard my previous response; I was mistaken about the domain's status. We have charged $69 for the domain, and it will be placed into an account with the sponsoring registrar, Tucows (MyHosting.com). They will send you your login credentials by e-mail. This typically takes 72 hours from the time the charge was processed.

Please let me know if you have any additional questions regarding this matter.

Thank you,

Dave M. | technical support
My Support Hours: 3:00PM - 11:30PM PST, Thursday through Monday
Out of the office Tuesday and Wednesday

Now I had truly hoped to only be posting further about the amicable and favorable resolution to this matter for everyone concerned as well as the industry itself, but unfortunately your most recent post has necessitated an entirely different kind of reply altogether. Since I am about to receive the domain with Tucows as registrar after all, can I count on Tucows doing the right thing as I attempt to manage and maintain it, or can we expect to wind up in a public forum all over again? Most regrettable your post here now.

 

[INVIGOR]

I would appreciate it if you or BILL could share this great domain with us...

 

[Nova]

Sorry, wmloz, but neither Bill nor any other party has my permission to share what the domain is or anything about it beyond the tld, which is .com, and that would be regarded as a serious breach of privacy and confidentiality now. As I mentioned earlier, I wasn't even going to mention the registrar yet before Bill appeared.

---------- Post added at 01:04 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:29 AM ----------

P.S. Have verified the $69 charge from NameJet:

02/15/2010

[Payment Source] - NAMEJET 425-974-46

$69.00

02/13/2010

[Payment Source] - NAMEJET 425-974-46

$1.00

---------- Post added at 01:51 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:04 AM ----------

Well, looks like allegations of likely corruption on the part of NameJet are back in full swing. I just received the following email from a Steve Brown, General Manager, dated 2/16/2010, at 12:08 AM. I guess this must be the "reaching out" to me I was supposed to await. Somebody needs to tell Mr. Brown that whoever may have fabricated the alleged data in this email really screwed up in big way. You see, the email contains an image which purports to show a data table demonstrating two bids before the 8:00 PM deadline of 2/13/2010; however, whoever concocted this tabular data image used the wrong account bidding alias and not the NameJet account alias for the account in which I bid for the Pre-Release sale. Pretty sloppy indeed:

Dear [Me],

I wanted to follow up with regarding your backorder for [domain].com. When I reported to Tucows earlier today that there were 2 backorders I was looking at a report that did not show the status of those backorders.

Upon closer inspection of the backorders for that domain your backorder was deleted 4 minutes after it was entered, just before the deadline and was therefore not considered when the auction was started. Below are the backorder details for the auction. Therefore the domain was awarded to the other bidder.

[IMAGE HERE - CONTAINS THE WRONG BIDDER ALIAS]

This would explain why customer support reported that you did not make the deadline as the backorder would not have been visible once it was deleted. Please accept our apologies for any confusion that resulted from the report provided to Tucows.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Best Regards,

Steve

steve brown | general manager
__________________________________
NameJet
[phone & email]

And to think I was starting to think NameJet was trying to do the right thing. Shame, shame, Mr. Brown.

---------- Post added at 02:40 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:51 AM ----------

Update: Just replied to "Mr Brown" a little while ago. By the way, how truly remarkable - a 2/15/2010 charge to my account for the backorder pursuant to the reply from customer support, and yet "[upon] closer inspection of the backorders for that domain your backorder was deleted 4 minutes after it was entered" from the information allegedly received by Mr. Brown, not to mention the other bogus info alluded to above. "4 minutes after" was even before the 8 PM expiration no less. Can anyone help spell the word "inconsistency," or at least any of the attorneys present in the forum? How about "extreme inconsistency," to go with all the rest?

 

[Mr. Deleted]

Wow these threads used to get me excited...

 

[Nova]

Wow these threads used to get me excited...

lol. Almost better than television sometimes, ay?

There's been another new development which I tried to post earlier, but became unable to load DNF for a while as I was in the middle of it. I logged into the NameJet account again tonight and found all of what's quoted below there about the domain. The bidder alias appearing is the one mentioned by S. Brown, which I've used in the past, though it differs from my account name which I expected to find as bidder alias (I've obscured the domain and bidder alias below):

Domain Name / Due By Status Type Source Winning Bid My Max Bid End Date
[domain].com Won Private Pre-Release $69 $69 2/15/2010


Order ID Domain Name Status Amount Date BilledAscending
[#] [domain].com Order complete $69 2/15/2010


Order ID Order Type Domain Name Description BillStatus Amount Billed to CC Bill to Balance Rem. Balance Order Date Date BilledDescending
[#] Domain Name Sale [domain].com Order Successful $69 $69 $0 N/A 2/15/2010 2/15/2010

[domain].com
(View UpperCase)
You won the auction.
Auction Details:
Refresh
Current High Bid: US $69
Your Max Bid: US $69
Auction End Time: Feb. 15, 2010 11:01 AM PT
Bid History: 1 bid(s) from 1 bidder(s)
High Bidder: [bid alias]
Additional Details
Type: Private Auction
Registration Price: Included
Starting Time: Feb. 15, 2010 11:01 AM PT
Duration: 0-day listing
This auction is closed
Winning Bid: US $69
High Bidder: [bid alias]
Payment: Received*

*Go to the Manage My Domains page to connect with the partner registrar that manages your new domain.
Once you place your proxy bid on a public auction, you cannot be removed from the auction, nor can your bid be reduced.

Bid History Details: 1 bid(s) from 1 bidder(s)
Bidder Amount Date
[bid alias] $69 Feb. 13, 2010 7:51 PM PT

 

[Cartoonz]

so you've now been told that the domain is indeed yours and yet you are still *****ing about it?

 

[TheLegendaryJP]

Hi Bill, welcome to the forums

 

[tomsa]

Why would they award you the domain without auction if there were a second bidder?
It looks fishy at this point.

 

[Sweetman]

Bill from Tucows here with a quick update for those of you who are still following this thread:

NameJet has been in dialogue with "Nova" and confirmed that he was, after all, the winning bidder for this domain name. There was a second backorder placed by another bidder, however it was that backorder (not Nova's backorder) that was deleted (by the bidder who had placed it in the first place).

Since Nova was the only person with who had actually placed and kept a backorder on the domain by the deadline, no auction was held and Nova will get the domain name.

So...

Did Nova turn out to be the winning bidder? Yes.

Was there an unfortunate miscommunication about the auction status of this particular domain name? Yes.

Was there an evil conspiracy? No.

Will Nova be getting the domain? Yes.

Enjoy your new domain name, Nova.

Cheers,

Bill

--

Bill Sweetman
General Manager, Domain Portfolio
Tucows

 

[Theo]

Bill, thanks for the analysis. Personally I had no idea we can delete backorders at Namejet. Is this another Snapnames / halvarez combo in the making?

 

[Mike Cruz]

hrmmm.... quite interesting....

---------- Post added at 02:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:52 PM ----------

Bill, thanks for the analysis. Personally I had no idea we can delete backorders at Namejet. Is this another Snapnames / halvarez combo in the making?

hrmmm

 

[Sweetman]

@ Acro, *all* expired domain auction platforms that I know of allow the user to place and delete backorders (that they placed in the first place) before a certain deadline. There's nothing odd about that; it's a common feature. If you are not familiar with this feature, speak to the support folks at the expired domain auction platform(s) that you use. I'm sure they'd be happy to explain how this feature works.