$1277 seems to be a magic number this week, but something does not seem right

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In the Sedo weekly sales report it seems a lot of names that should fetch a price far greater than $1277 sold this week.

cleanser.com 1,277  USD
extinct.com 1,277  USD
through.com 1,277  USD
synagogue.com 1,277  USD
bitt.com 1,277  USD
thighs.com 1,277  USD
their.com 1,277  USD
gaiters.com 1,277  USD
broth.com 1,277  USD
chard.com 1,277  USD
chose.com 1,277  USD
monologue.com 1,277  USD
saviour.com 1,277  USD
byline.com 1,277  USD
succubus.com 1,277  USD
trying.com 1,277  USD

As astutely pointed out in the comments by Dan, Jose and Todd there seems to be something odd here.

Thighs, Their, Byline, Broth, Chose, Monologue, Gaiters, Chard, Succubus, Saviour, and Trying all bought for $1,277 each all by the same person. They were sold by the the same owner Virginia Comito. She was featured in Beta Beat back in 2011

Virginia Comito, d.b.a. V.L. Raymer, is a California-based domain investor who bought occupy.com in 1998. Now, she’s selling it to the one percent.

Other names for $1277 include cleanser.com which VL Raymer was the registrant up til  August of 2012  when the name went under privacy. 12/3/12 it was now under a new registrant “New Ventures Services” NVS is affiliated with Network Solutions.

The same pattern for Bitt.com which was once owned by VL Raymer at one time then went through a bunch of changes that included “New Venture Services” to Hot Media to One Ventures out of Belize.

There was a mention of an obit of a Virginia Comito who was 77 from Edison, New Jersey.

Virginia Comito the domainer looks to be out of California, here is a link to a UDRP that involved her and her domain Tonsil.com, She did lose the name as the panel found:

8. Decision

The Panel decides that:

1) the domain name tonsil.com is confusingly similar to the trademark “Tonsil”;

2) Ms. Comito has no rights or legitimate interest in respect of the domain name tonsil.com;

3) the domain name tonsil.com has been used in bad faith by Ms. Comito.

Pursuant to paragraph 4(i) of the Policy and pursuant to paragraph 15 of the Rules, the Panel requires that the Registrar, Network Solutions, Inc., transfer the name tonsil.com to the Complainant.

Comito under the name VL Raymer did win $30,000 in the Primp.com counterfeit case.

You can read that story on karenbernsteinlaw.com

So there could be something else at work here with all these sales at $1,277 we will update the story. A phone call to the number listed in whois went to an automated voicemail with no name just for the number.

Comments

  1. Louise says

    Domains are likely an excellent vehicle to transfer the ownership from one subsidiary to another to take a tax write-off.

    The names on the whosis are just administrators, or secretaries, paid by the concerned companies.

    Last week also saw some $1277 domains:
    extract.com 1,277 USD
    crashes.com 1,277 USD
    manikin.com 1,277 USD
    roulettewheel.com 1,277 USD
    mosquitocontrol.com 1,277 USD
    dmvhours.com 1,277 USD
    bennettawards.com 1,277 USD

    Extract would never sell that low at auction. This must have been part of a huge portfolio transfer, for tax purposes.

  2. todd says

    I noticed this same thing last week and some of these names that sold last week for $1,277 have the same whois as the ones that sold this week for $1,277. The new whois info on these names is a Brian F. which happens to be the same Brian F. that was part of Rick Schwartz domain lease draft back in March of 2013. I matched up the whois info from these names to the Brian listed at Ricks and they are the same person. Link below

    http://www.ricksblog.com/2013/03/final-results-of-first-ever-domain-lease-draft/#.Uuh92zn0DJw

  3. Acro says

    Research gone the Area 51 route 😀 Sorry, but there is no Virginia Comito linked to those domains. Someone simply got very lucky with these domains, all part of a portfolio sale. Here’s a freebie: evils dot com $1,877 at Sedo by the same seller.

  4. todd says

    @Acro

    Sorry Acro I don’t believe in aliens. Here is a paragraph from an article about Virginia Comito (link below) that shows the domain Thighs.com which is one of these domains that you say she is not linked to

    “Ms. Comito owns on the order of 4,000 domain names, which she started purchasing in the late 90s–cakebooks.com, cherokee.com, thighs.com, citydata.com, sportscoverage.com–many of which are sitting empty or with placeholders.”

    http://betabeat.com/2011/10/owner-of-occupy-com-wants-to-sell-it-to-the-one-percent-for-six-figures/

  6. jose says

    @acro. no, Comito/ VL Raymer is shown in the historical whois. but it is now clear what probably happened.

    the owner passed away and “New Ventures Services”, the shady and untold affiliate of Network Solutions, snagged the domains instead of releasing them to the general public.

    a great buy for the buyer but yet another shady story in our business. and when you have a seller unloading domains like these for this price you can bet that there is even more shady business involved.

    we can run from area51 to being simply naive but the facts are there for everyone to see.

  7. Cartoonz says

    nice try, but no cigar… the correct Victoria is very much alive and much younger than the recently deceased one. While I have no idea what actually went on here, it looks screwy with a Registrar change and then a New Ventures registration.

    Maybe Karen will chime in and tell the story… she surely knows it 😉

  8. KJB says

    VL Raymer is still alive and kicking. I can’t comment in detail but I can that whoever sold those domain names it wasn’t my client.

  10. Raymond Hackney says

    @Cartoonz I contacted Karen and let her know. I pointed out in the post that the mention of the other Virginia Comito was too old and not the right one.

  12. Acro says

    @todd – Obviously I am referring to who sold these domains at $1,277; who owned them before that is irrelevant.

    @jose – Exactly, and someone ran the list against a wordlist, picking the best cherries at a killer price. The entire portfolio is on Sedo. Do some research.

  13. jose says

    @acro. your point is? in what way being listed at sedo or afternic changes what i wrote? do some thinking.

  14. Acro says

    @jose – I missed an extra carriage return; the “Do some research” part was a reference for the general public.

    I just bought an aged .com from that list for under $1k. Insane.

  15. alotofmoney says

    I also bought a few names from their sedo list. What I think is going on is, New Ventures Services owns about 300,000 names and the person responsible to list domains on sedo does not know how to price names. I inquired about a name via their website, and they gave me a quote of $5000 and the same name was listed on sedo for about $1000.
    I also called them and they said they prefer dealing directly rather than sedo.
    I bought a few names from sedo and later they increased their prices.
    🙂
    Some of us just got lucky because of a pricing glitch.