I got a notice yesterday from SnapNames.com that a domain I was bidding on Kat.com had been removed from the auction:
“”Dear SnapNames customer,
Due to circumstances beyond our control the auction for KAT.com has been
cancelled. Sorry for the inconvenience.””
Too bad for Snap.
The bidding on this domain was already at almost $20K last time I looked and the auction wouldn’t have closed until next Tuesday.
This domain was the highest priced domain in the auction at the time it was pulled.
Personally I would have liked an explanation of the “circumstances beyond our control” especially considering the recent problems with Snap.
The most logical reason for pulling the domain is that the owner of the domain did not submit it for auction but the domain is registered with Moniker.com and ownership and submission verification could have been done quit easily before the auction started.
Snapnames’ new public relations… no public relations. Just keep quiet and the problem with go away.
I would be interested to know why Directnic did not put Negotiation.net through Snapnames. Now the domain is in auction at namejet.
Is Directnic not feeding Snapnames their drops anymore?
War.net ran at Sedo auction and at Snapnames at the same time but ended below the $9,999 reserve. COA.com was on Sedo auction as well and was pulled AFTER meeting reserve of $9,999. Those two domains are owned by Register.com .
Coa.com currently sits at $15,500 high bid
Register.com has it (coa.com) listed on Afternic as well. $15K min bid with a $70K buy it now.
Jamie
But now that the domain is in an active auction with bidders and the reserve has been met, how does a domain just get pulled out?
That’s a good question Michael and it seems we rarely ever get answers.
Mike,
Kat.com is a Telepathy domain that I’ve had for five years. I have a lot of respect for Monte and the crew at Moniker, and I have the bulk of my portfolio with them, but I don’t think they handled this well.
I never authorized Kat.com for auction. I did a double-take when I was reviewing the auction inventory and saw it listed. I emailed them Tuesday afternoon to tell them the listing was a mistake and to ask them to pull it down. I received an immediate reply. From the reply I inferred that kat.com was included in a list of domains provided by a major seller.
Snapnames left kat.com on auction for two days after they knew it was listed by mistake, allowing the bidding to go up above $20k, and then contacted me again to ask if I really wanted to remove the listing. I confirmed that I wanted the listing removed, and at that point it came down.
Whether that qualifies as “circumstances beyond our control”, I’ll leave up to you.
Nat
Nat
I assumed that was the problem but being that your a very good customer of Moniker and the domain was registered there, its pretty amazing that allowed a domain to go into auction without verifying ownership.
Anyway thanks for the explanation and best of luck with the domain, its a good one.
I’m surprised this could happen. Isn’t it SOP for an auction house to verify ownership before they list a domain for sale?
Forgive my ignorance. What’s a “Telepathy” domain?
I should add that SnapNames tried to reach me at my office on Wednesday evening and left a voicemail message asking me to confirm that I wanted the listing removed, but I didn’t check messages right away. They followed up again by email on Thursday afternoon, and that led to the listing coming down.
@Pat Telepathy, Inc. is the registrant of kat.com.
Sorry to hear Nat, it’s hard to believe this can still happen with as many auctions as they have run.
*
Rob Sequin,
Clarification: Negotiation.net IS at auction on Snapnames with 53 bidders, currently at $366.00, two days left.
I’ve noticed that Namejet will sometimes start an auction before they acquire a domain–maybe they’re that certain that they’ll get it.
*
I heard this week that Snapnames auctioned off a domain and the buyer paid. But, Snapnames issued a refund because the domain was not suppose to be sold. And, now we hear about KAT.
I wonder how many domains are being sold out of Moniker that the domain owner did not want to sell? And, if the domain owner doesn’t catch it quick enough, they lose the domain forever.
Sure, Moniker might pay the domain owner the auction price minus a sales commission. But, the domain might have been worth a lot more.
Things are continously changing. I guess the registrars are too.
This has been a hole in MoniSnap’s system for a long time. They really don’t look at the names to see if it is in the actual account of the person putting the name into auction, all they care about is that it is at Moniker so they can put it into the new owner’s account themselves.
This same story has been repeated more than a few times, sometimes with the old unaware Registrant just getting fleeced out of his domain entirely. Since it has not happened to me, I can’t say what the truth is for sure but I have no reason to doubt the persons that have relayed this. It is a fact though that this is not the first time they have done this exact same nonsense.
WHY would a Registrar that claims to be the safest and most protective of its registrants not implement the obvious step of actually verifying the ownership on each and every domain submitted? Just the fact that the name is at Moniker is not enough… Duhh…
Why did Nat have to find out himself that his name was being auctioned off ? Why wasn’t there ever an email actually sent to the registrant confirming? That just seems insane.
…and unsafe.
Presumably Moniker would never have transferred this name if it was listed and then sold in error.
Good post Nat.
Cartoonz this isn’t just a hole in snap/moniker. I’ve had this same problem with sedo. I’ve had a handful of my domains showing up on sedo and then confused buyers emailing me wondering why I’m not closing the deal. . . nice eh?