Today NameJet.com announced, a tougher new policy towards deadbeat bidders (my term, not NameJet’s; Namejet calls them non-paying or defaulting bidders)
NameJet.com amended its TOS, regarding payment, as follows:
“””2. Payment For Domains.
2.1. Creating an account with us and bidding on domain names at NameJet is free. If you are the winning bidder at auction, NameJet may, at its sole discretion, require you to tender payment for the domain name in the manner of its choosing, including but not limited to credit card, debit account, or wire transfer. All payments charged and collected by NameJet are non-refundable. We may choose to change our credits policy and such changes are effective when we post the changes on the Site. We may, in our sole discretion, change some or all of our services at any time. In the event we introduce a new service, any fees for that service are effective at the launch of the service. Unless otherwise stated, all payment must be made in U.S. Dollars. By using our services, you agree that you are responsible for making all payment associated with using our service and the Site and all applicable taxes and those payments are due immediately upon demand or may be charged to your credit card number or debited to your account which you have provided to us and are non-refundable. In the event of a charge reversal or chargeback by a credit card company or other payment provider, or if we determine in our sole discretion that we are unable or unlikely to collect payment, any associated domain registration will immediately terminate and/or the domain name will be transferred to NameJet as the paying entity for the registration.
2.2. In the event that you default on making payment to NameJet after being named the winning bidder, NameJet reserves the right to charge, and you agree to pay, a fee for defaulting on payment, the amount of which shall be determined by NameJet. You will be considered in default if you fail to pay within seven (7) calendar days from the date that the auction closes. After seven days, your account will be placed in “past due” status and you will be unable to bid for, or place any backorder on, any domain name on the NameJet Platform until you make payment. If you fail to make your payment within fourteen (14) days from the date the auction closes, your account will be closed permanently. Verified Bidders shall have an additional seven (7) days to make payment before their accounts are closed.”””
In discussing this matter with Mr. Steve Brown, General Manager of NameJet.com, he further described the policy as:
“””You now must pay for the domain you won or have your account closed.
Once their account is in a past due status bidders will not be able to move forward with any current auctions or backorders. When they are in a past due status they will not be awarded any domain for an auction that they are currently winning and they will not be added to auctions that are starting while they are in a past due status.
New accounts will not be permitted for individuals or companies that have their accounts closed by this process, we will proactively seek out related accounts””””
While we welcome this tougher policy we wonder if its going to be tough enough to stop some of the big time, big money domains from going on paid for an having to be re-auctioned.
Take the case of Toxic.com.
The domain, Toxic.com sold for $56,566 on May 4th. The high bidder defaulted and the domain was re-auctioned on May 17 for $40,500 .
However, the second auction winner has not paid for the domain and Toxic.com, is starting to live up to its billing, and maybe making a third appearance in a NameJet auction shortly.
Like you we are frustrated seeing domains go unpaid for, and as bidders we hate bidding against people who have opened unpaid auction items.
There are domainers who track bidders and there payment history. I know this for a fact because I get e-mails from people on this issue every week.
Hopefully by enforcing this tougher policy and watching all new accounts to make sure they are not related to any deadbeat bidders, there will be fewer non-paying winners at NameJet.com, especially for big money domains.
The second issue that bothered me about non-paying bidders, is that the domain, subject to the defaulting high bidder, was placed into a public auction.
My opinion is that a re-auction should be opened only to those originally in the auction. By placing a domain that was in a closed auction, into a public auction, upon the default of high bidder, only served to punish those who were in the original auction and was bidding against someone who either had no intention or ability to pay.
NameJet.com is announcing today that in the future any re-auction will be opened only to those who were in the original auction.
I think this is a fairer policy for all involved.
People who were bidding against a deadbeat bidder were victims in the scenario and should not be punished by having the auction opened up to the whole world.
We applaud NameJet.com for taking action to attempt to correct this problem and hope it is enough to stop the nonsense.
There is one more thing that disturbs me: in the reauction they use my highest bid without asking. They should start again from 69 UNLESS someone opt-in into program “always use my highest bid in re-auction”.
Why would they want to re-start at $ 69.??
They make as much or more re-starting from the second place bid.
As it has been mentioned many times, if the defaulting bidder wasn’t in the auction where would the price end?
I agree. It should re-start at $ 69.
I have noticed a number of times where they were forced to re-start at $ 69. But, only the “pro’s” know how to continously make Namejet lower the bids.
Otherwise, they give you the party line – “if you want your bid removed, you will be totally removed from bidding”.
I think they should do it the Godaddy way instead of re-auctions which I believe MHB advocated before also.
Take out all bids from the non-payor and the next highest bidder should be given a chance to buy the domain. If that person fails to pay, then re-auction.
What does Godaddy do when the next highest bidder doesn’t want to pay? Offer the name to the next to the next at their winning bid?
^That’s nonsense – for some really great domain I would do another account and drvien it to crazy hight immediately after auciton starts, so nobody would bid.
Then it would be
1. Fake account $200K
2. My honest account $199K
3. Some bidder $1K
Say the domain has value $20K but I would get it for $1100 with your “system”
There are several ways the re-auction process could work.
And none of them would make everyone happy.
I think the new approach which is to restart the auction with the participants from the orginal auction starting with the highest bid without regard to the defaulting bidders, bids is a fair approach and an improvement over what we have had up to now.
^No it’s NOT fair because if I was the 2nd highest bidder everyone KNOWS what my proxybid is and will bump me to the max
D
You always have the choice to opt out of the re-auction, however if you were willing to pay $3K for a domain, then you still should be willing to pay it a week later.
The old system, started the same way, with the highest bid, without regard to the defaulting bidder, the only difference is that the re-auciton was public opened to a ton of new bidders
So overall a good move; though the reauction methodology remains problematic for various bidders.
However, this part of their TOS: “… the amount of which shall be determined by NameJet. ” would prove to be not legally enforceable should anyone challenge it in court.
You can’t bind someone to pay whatever you unilaterally decide should be their penalty … after they’ve committed the “infraction.”
Steve M
I agree with you.
I urged them to adopt a fee of $100 or 5% of the defaulting bidding price, whichever is higher, but they rejected that.
It disturbs me greatly that so many good names are bid on by shill bidders, in an attempt to destroy the process for the good buyers in the auctions. I think this is incredibly important and some kind of bidder checks have long been overdue. Lately I have noticed more and more bidders using randomly generated names – a sure sign of bad behavior. It will be nice to see those losers hit the pavement.