With all the news from Oversee.net this week regarding the SnapNames bidding Scandal, It’s still is unclear whether Oversee has or will ever press criminal charges against Nelson Brady for his participation in the shill bidding scheme.
It seems the domain community thinks that Oversee is the only party that can ask for criminal charge to be brought, however, in my opinion, Oversee is not the only party that can ask for criminal charges to be brought.
Isn’t anyone who participated in an auction in which Halvarez bid to simply drive up the price of the auction, in a position to file a complaint with local and possibly federal authorities?
Isn’t anyone who participated in an auction in which there was shill bidding a victim of fraud?
I think so.
I think any bidder who wound up paying more than they should have due to Halvarez’s shill bidding has standing to ask for criminal charges to be brought.
Unlike a civil complain where you can just file a suit and get your day in court, victims of a criminal action can only file a complain with law enforcement and hope that law enforcement brings the charges.
However if a lot of complaints are received it would be hard for law enforcement to simply ignore all of them.
With 50,000 auctions at issue there are sure plenty of people who were effected by the shill bidding.
Snapnames.com offices are located in Portland Oregon.
The state of Oregon Department of Justice maybe the place to start.
If Halvarez is to face criminal charges it maybe up to domainers to make it happen.
Skin him alive.
I said it before in Ric’s blog – class action.
and I think its just a matter of time until we are going to have one.
Do u really believe that one guy could manage this all operation for so many years and at the same time take a full position as VP?
people need to wake up! this is not between Snapnames and “Halvarez” or between “Halvarez” and some domainers. this is between Snapnames and the domainers who have lost money and domains during all these years.
I have never used Snapnames, and I am not involved with ClassActionconnect .com, but I think everybody should take a look at http://www.classactionconnect.com/?q=node/819
Bull
No
Do not promote a criminal act. Do not threaten physical harm on Mr. Brady
If your going to act, act within the law
While neither I nor CCIN were effected by Mr Brady’s actions it is imperative that this is not swept under the carpet. If we really consider domain names assets (who doesn’t?) than this should be treated no differently than if it had happened with real estate or securities. I am not suggesting what type of criminal punishment Mr. Brady should receive, but from this point forward investors, media and the public will only respect the domain name industry as much as we respect ourselves.
I think those effected by Halvarez should definitely file a complaint with the Portland< Oregon State Attorney's office. The way things appear right now, the only way to find out if Brady acted alone is to get him indicted and have him turn state's evidence if others were involved. If you read Ricksblog,com, the signs all seem to point toward collusion of others at Snapname or Oversee or both.
I just read via Techcrunch that Snapnames is making people who want refunds to release them (snapnames) from liability. Nice.
Chris
Correct
I’m going to blog about this tomorrow.
If you take the credit snapnames.com is are offering you waive your rights now and forever to seek any other compensation or damages against snapnames and Oversee.
Before you sign any wavier you should consult with an attorney.
The domains that were lost to “Halvarez” should be just as concerning.
Also, with numerous domainers getting a check in the near future, it might temporarily inflate the aftermarket.
Mojito
The domains that Halvarez won the auctions for and paid for are of a concern as well but I do not think there is anything criminal about it.
Although the company had a rule that employee’s were not allowed to bid in company run auctions I’m not sure there is any state or federal law that prohibits this.
You have to separate out the criminal aspect from the civil aspect.
I believe that shill bidding is a federal felony, is it not?
WQ
I believe there are federal laws on this subject and other have been prosecuted:
http://www.originalprop.com/blog/2009/03/16/mastro-auctions-closes-in-midst-of-fbi-investigation-into-shill-bidding-fraud-allegations/#more-10916
MHB…under Syriah Law , it is Stoning to death.
I don’t believe their is any grounds for a criminal case. To really prove shill bidding, he would have to not of paid for any of the domains he won. who is to say he would not have paid for some of the domains he did indeed lose? Also Oversee would be the only party to have a civil case against for breaking a contract, but I doubt that would even happen.
Maybe one of the JDs can poke their nose in on this..
If shill bidding were a crime then everyone on ebay would be in violation. Need to face the fact that shill bidding happens in all auctions whether your aware of it or not. People want to make as much money as possible and when they can hide behind a computer to do it, they do it! As an ebay seller many times I have had my friends shill bid on an auction and Im sure many of you have to. So if your going to participate in auctions then you my as well get used to it because its just going to get worse as the auction system grows.
Re
You can’t make a statement there are no grounds until you see all of the 50,000 auctions and see if there is a pattern.
Since the guy was in charge of the snapnames system, he knew every proxy bid, in every auction and what if he regularly pushed the winning proxy bidder to the upper limits of his proxy bid?
So say you had a proxy bid of $5K on a domain.
If your bid got pushed up to $4900 time and time again by this guy, there would in my opinion be legal grounds for charges especially if any compensation Brady received was tied in to gross sales or other performance goals.
RS
Were talking about 50,000 auctions generating millions if not tens of millions in overpayments.
Its would also be a much different situation as in your example if the shill bidding was being done by an employee of ebay as opposed to another bidder
if a plea bargain happens and deep throat talks, Oversee will not live to see DOMAINfest
secure your assets before it’s too late
expect privacy guard to become an open book
Owen
First things first.
For a plea deal to happen there needs to be charges brought.
If charges are brought, they most likely will be brought due to complaints received from Snapnames customers as we have no idea if Oversee will press charges.
If charges are brought and “deep throat” speaks and has something to say that implicates the company on a broad level then it could pose a serious question to the companies survival.
skin him alive, lol…..
No we don’t do that in America. I bet he is sweating about going to prison though.
I think he should be fined $300,000. That is a fair amount for all the damage he did.
Then he can be fired and go on to his next job, whoever will hire him
Steve
Fines and jail time
$300K I think that is a fraction of the damages he caused.
Typically if it goes so far, like an in insider trading case, he should be made to disgorge all profits he made for himself and his company.
We are talking millions and millions
The more I think about this the more I think we may have a conspiracy here.
Did Brady sell his domains?
To whom and how often?
If that buyer knew that he/she was buying previously dropped domains from the VP of Engineering but didn’t say anything, now you’re talking conspiracy.
If Brady sold one domain to someone who knew this then you have a conspiracy.
Another shoe to drop?
Rob
I posted a link to the following story on another post, which clearly indicates that some of Brady’s names were sold to ireit:
http://dotsnews.com/domain-name-news/620
http://dotsnews.com/domain-name-news/611
Seems to me Snap Names without Brady’s tricks would look more like the results on Bido
Owen,
why the cheapshot at bido?
Two different things. Bido is building a business from scratch. Give them time.
Anybody that believes the “lone gunman” theory that is being proffered is not seeing the big picture at all.
This has been covered up and excused by Snap employees and execs for years. This is not something that has “just now” been brought to their attention.
Should Federal charges be filed (and no doubt they will be), I think we’ll see a far larger cast of characters swept into the net.
Criminal charges? How about Interstate / International Wire Fraud for starters….
Wasn’t a cheap shot at Bido- but contrast I am saying Bido is clean versus dirty– it’s saying imagine the smaller transactions at the bottom, pushing them up when there otherwise would be no bidders. A liot of crap domains sold that otherwise wouldn’t have
I would also suggest calling your state’s attorney general’s office. Depending on the laws of your state, they may file their own charges or investigation. And nothing is more powerful than (for instance) the attorney generals office calling the Oregon atty general and saying that they are investigating a fraud against one of their citizens.
Just a thought.
MHB,
Point taken! On your basis they could definitely prove shill bidding, if he did indeed bid up to everyones proxy bid amount. If this is the case it would make it kind of suspicious that he is not the only person in the scheme. Especially if he was not compensated on the profit of the business. It would seem like he is definitely not acting alone and that a higher up that is seeing a bonus or profit incentive is in on the game.
If the law is going to catch up to the domain industry, in terms of recognizing property rights and not just contract rights on domain names, then there has to be some kind of criminal action taken here. There was property affected, and that is the money that was spent to acquire the domain. Additionally, any action taken would probably be both state and federal, since many domainers who bid were likely not Oregon residents.
Keep in mind, like David Castello said, the only way the domain industry will be taken seriously is for everyone to take this seriously. There are multiple actions to be taken, criminal and civil, that will help ferret out the various problems that contributed to this situation.
I, personally, find it difficult to believe one man could have pulled this stunt, alone, for so long. If you ran an online auction and saw someone bidding on names, but never actually winning an auction, wouldn’t that, alone, raise at least a yellow flag?
I remember reading blog complaints about Halvarez years ago and there is simply no way Snapnames couldn’t have had full knowledge that Halvarez (Brady) was an inside bidder. Any honest online auction company receiving so many complaints about one bidder would have conducted a full investigation and quickly discovered the fraud. Hence, the “rogue employee” defense against Brady is complete BS.
Oversee.com may or may not have known what was going on, but it is extremely unlikely that there wasn’t systematic wide fraud and cover-up taking place at SnapNames. The “rogue employee” defense is nothing but a damage control strategy, as is the refund offer with settlement agreement.
Unfortunately for Oversee.com they will have to pay the price. Not only did they overpay for Snapnames, they now will most likely face a class action lawsuit that will cost them many millions of dollars.
I hope they sue Brady and the rest of the principals at SnapNames personally for fraud. They, as well as any customers who may have suffered damages, should also file criminal charges.
Correct me if I’m wrong here but accepting the rebate offer only waives my right to future claims of liability against Snapnames/Oversee.net but not Nelson Brady, right?
Keep Bido under radar!
oversee, snapnames and moniker are officially out of the domain auction business.
Mr Bishoff has a crystal ball no?
http://domainnamewire.com/wp-content/snap-classaction.pdf
Team of Experienced Domain Monetization Executives Join Initiative –
LOS ANGELES and FRANKFURT, November 26 /PRNewswire/ — DomainSponsor(R), the domain monetization division of Oversee.net(R), announced today that it plans to establish operations in Europe during the first quarter of 2010 and has appointed Joerg Schnermann as General Manager, DomainSponsor Europe. Joining his team are Jessica Besseling and Joe Higgins, experienced domain monetization executives with deep expertise working with European publishers
I would contact the Attorney General.
I would contact the best of the TV Media Investigative Journalists.
I would do preemtive flight risk measures…
I would contact the IRS .
Is waterboarding them off limits ??
(yes I said them… this gal wasn’t born yesterday — but
having said that – not everyone within those companies
are bad apples… there are many wonderful folks there getting
caught up in this mess… –stay strong– )
(kidding about the waterboarding – because I can…)
~Patricia