Firstly, english is not even my second language, so sorry for mistakes and thanks for your tolerance and understanding.
Now, What is "shill" bidding?
A "shill" bid is any offer or bid placed on a domain name
for the purpose of fraudulently representing interest or
raising a domain�s current auction value.
2 days ago, I was bidding on a Dynadot Expired Domain Auction, I have started bidding a low amount and I was continuously outbid by a proxy bid.
Every time I placed a bid I have recived the following message:
"Your bid has been successfully placed, but you have been outbid by another bidder."
So, I have decided to keep increasing my bid to see if I could beat the other bidder, when I reach the price of 388 usd I gave up and forgot about this auction.
Today I got an email saying that I am "the new auction winner" because the previous high bidder for the expired domain auction failed to submit their payment in time.
So far so good, until this moment. :)
Now my surprise was enormous (and my anger was epic) when I saw the price ($388.00)
Are you not going to remove the fake bids??????
Is this some kind of joke ????????
The problem is that the price isn't necessarily fair to me because I was bidding against a fake buyer, which raised the price beyond what it otherwise would be. (see "shill" bidding definition)
In Godaddy if for example you have a bid of $25 on an auction and a bid war starts with you and a some bogus bidder and the bid ends at $200 with the bogus bidder having the highest bid then at least when this bidder doesn't pay up I don't have to pay $195 but only $25 since that was my highest bid before this non-paying bidder jacked up the price.
Before to end this usless post I want to ask you 3 more questions:
1) Does the people behind dynadot knows the meaning of the word ethics?
2) Do you realize that it will be very easy for someone to open fake accounts at dynadot and rise all auction prices to the sky, harming the honest bidders AND your own auction platform?
3) How much do you care about your HONEST clients and customers?
We are sorry about what you have gone through in the auction. But there are no fake/bogus bidders in this or any auction. Customers will have to place at least one successful order with us within the past 365 days before they can take part in our auctions and preorders. You keeps getting outbid because other customers are using proxy bid:
https://www.dynadot.com/community/help/question/how-to-proxy-bid
And it is also true that you won this auction because the previous bidder for the expired domain auction failed to submit their payment in time. And the account has been banned from taking part in our auction because of the payment issue.
About the price, it is understandable that you think the price is unfair. There are more than two of you participating in this auction so we will choose the second highest bidder as the winner. However that is a good advice for our auction service. Your advice will be forwarded to our team. Also, you are welcome to tell your advice and opinions to us at [email protected] to help us improve our service.
Thank you for visiting Dynadot. Please feel free to contact us again if we can be of any further assistance.
This is STILL the poicy?! I am also dealing with this issue right now but with $3000 bid so as the "new winner" I have to pay for the amount a deadbeat bidder bid up to? Makes NO sense whatsoever.. Great way to punishing people like myself who use your platform and are willing to make substantial bids and reward the guy who isn't.. in this case the 3rd runner up will get to pay $150 for the name.. at least allow me to bid against that bidder, don't you think that would make more sense and be more fair for Dynadot and it's users? just outrageous... I'll be trying to avoid the Dynadot aftermarket platform when possible because of this..
Not a fan of this policy. Actually this is what stopped me from using the auction house here on Dynadot (Still love Dynadot in general).
> it is also true that you won this auction because the previous bidder for the expired domain auction failed to submit their payment in time. And the account has been banned from taking part in our auction because of the payment issue
So it's pretty clear that the account was a junk one made solely to artificially increase the price. What other use did the account have? It was expected to be banned. You are very cheeky at Dynadot by acting like it's no big deal and claim the other buyer was 'real' and turn a blind eye because you are making a fortune off it I'm sure.
I agree with OP, those bids should be void and the next lowest price should be used otherwise the auction should be rerun. It's just totally unfair otherwise.
I don't think it would be a fake bid since you need to have funds (as credit) in your account before you can make a bid, am I right? or correct me if I'm wrong
That's true... dynadot has many fake bidder.
i bid on 1 domain and watch how the auction for it for more than 7 hours. just before it end suddenly got outbid and have no chance to place a bid again since the auction already end.
another domain, the bid rising at the same time i place a bid. every time i put a bid on that domain, i get outbid at the same time.
so i can confirm dynadot auction is not fair. they set fake bidder on a "good domain" and just let worse domain for us.
I think about to make a dispute on all bad domains i won, and move all my domains to another registrar.
https://www.namepros.com/threads/dynadot-com-auctions-are-completely-crap-and-time-wasting.1112919/
https://www.dynadot.com/community/forums/f0-customer-feedback/scam-expired-domain-auctions-10364.html
damn i should googling first before using this shit auction!!
Shill Bidding at Dynadot - I have to pay 388 usd just for bidding against a FAKE/BOGUS bidder!