NameJet put out a press release tonight, letting everyone know what changes they plan to make.
Are you satisfied by the their announcement or what else would you like to see?
Shill Bidding Update And Platform Improvements
Jacksonville, FL
Our thanks to members of the domain community that have brought to light concerns regarding suspect bidding activity on our platform. NameJet has never promoted, encouraged, or condoned shill bidding on our platform and we are taking steps to ensure that our customers are properly protected at all times.
As to the current issues, we have confirmed that there was suspicious activity relating to certain names being sold on NameJet, and have taken actions to ensure that the integrity of the platform is maintained. We determined that the initially identified domains were owned by a bidder, which is a clear violation of our terms, and as such we have suspended the related accounts. We continue to investigate the additional allegations raised and will take further steps as needed.
Going forward, we want to assure everyone that we maintain a zero-tolerance policy on shill bidding. In order to improve buyer and seller protections specifically directed at shill-bidding activity, we have done the following:
1. We have made modifications to our user account system to prohibit the ability of a seller to bid on a name they have listed.
2. We are suspending the ‘Next Bid Wins’ practice. For those unaware, sellers may set their own reserves and may lower their reserve during a live auction provided the new reserve is not at or below the current high bid. Sellers may often lower the reserve to allow the next incremental bid to meet the reserve. We recognize this has created an unintended perception of suspicious activity, and therefore, we will suspend this practice until further notice.
3. We are working on improved bid-tracking reporting that will help identify unusual bidding and buying patterns so that we can more quickly identify instances of shill bidding and take the necessary actions.
4. We will be updating our Terms of Service with additional rules regarding shill bidding, to clearly express what activity is prohibited and the penalties involved with violation of such terms.
5. We will be enhancing our seller onboarding process to ensure that all sellers affirm that they have a clear understating of the rules and policies for selling domains on NameJet.
6. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we have created [report_abuse@namejet.com] as a means for people to report suspicious activity on our platform. While the previously-mentioned changes will be beneficial, nothing replaces the power of community oversight.
The integrity of our platform is critical to us and we want to make sure we maintain the trust of our customers and the community at large.
Should the shill bidders and any related entities they control, or are related to, be prohibited from ever using the platform again given what has been learned?
Shouldn’t every past bidder who has been a victim of this practice be made whole or at least notified and given the option to be made whole as the result of the uncovered activities?
Until such time, how can the public and domain era at large believe the words that Namejet uses in its press release, like zero-tolerance and maintaining integrity of the platform? Their platform was compromised in manner that they should have been able to detect and prevent. Now we should trust that they have better technical knowledge about protecting the public?
I am not quite sure this is far enough for me.
No. There needs to be a more detailed update from NameJet.
After this was uncovered by users, I think it is reach for NameJet to just expect us to believe they can police themselves. This is especially true when it turns out some of this shady activity was being reported for a long time.
There are still many unanswered questions.
What exactly was uncovered with shill bidding investigation?
Is the investigation still ongoing?
What accounts were suspended?
How much did the shill bidding potentially cost buyers?
How much extra revenue did the shill bidding make NameJet?
Which auctions were effected?
The NamePros thread has some very specific allegations which require far more specific answers.
For example MovieZone.com. WHOIS was in the name of Andy Booth at the time the auction ended. Andy said he did not own it.
It appears it was listed by Oliver Hoger. The problem there is Andy and Oliver were #1 and #2 bidders in the auction.
There is no combination of who owned the domain and who listed the domain that does not equal some type of shill bidding as far as I can see.
What actually happened here needs to be addressed. This is not going to just get swept under the rug.
Brad
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I am convinced at this stage that there has been a highly organised criminal shill bidding ring active on NJ for many years. A despicable ring that has included a leading domain broker.
I am sure all major players had (and still have) many many aliases.
I am also sure NJ are all too aware of all of this.
Not only did this gang defraud genuine bidders out of millions but also artificially and deliberately drove up the price of certain types of donain…thereby creating fake bubbles for certain types of name so that they could massively profit from that area also.
Wake up folks we have been played on an industrial scale.
“nothing replaces the power of community oversight.”
how bought scruples, ideals, values, operations desinged to ensure fairness
hey “partners” thats a cop-out. Tell Netsol,Old Rightside now donuts, Web , Tucows, Don Corleone, the myterious five famililies who control the worlds money supply or whoever really does own NJ to please define who your customer is, the vendor or the buyer..
Page Howe
page
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There was and still is one set of TOS and rules for bloggers, big transactors and guys in the ‘cool club’..
The TOS are only for the poor slob domainers who buy names… not for people listing big boys listing on Namejet.
Riddle me this Namejet and Mr GM.. Why did you continue to allow and condone those shilling bidders when you clearly new and had existing knowledge of their collusion and shill bids?
Answer the question of why you allowed and were happy for it to happen before. Your response and updated TOS are meaningless given your past willingness to turn a blind eye to your big spenders cheating the system.
Why did you do nothing Mr GM? Care to explain…
The need to state the number of auctions affected as well as what accounts were banned. At least that.
Vote with your money and stay away from NJ.
why has this announcement made with a press release and not with an email to all users?
why I am always being slammed with marketing emails from the fabulous private domain lists being on auction at NameJet and when it comes to a serious issue like this I get no email whatsoever?
this doesn’t bode well for the move just from the start.
Brad and Guy couldn’t of stated it better.
Also, 2 big accounts “First and “two-two” which are from China, do they know about this, because they are 2 of the biggest buyers at Namejet, and legit. I am sure they maybe owed millions of dollars themselves. And if they pull out of Namejet which they should, don’t be surprised if the market over there crashes!
Not really …. but what I think would level the playing field isn’t ever going to happen like:
Not bidding bots allowed …. must be live bidders to level field with those who can’t or don’t use bots. Like those contests in stores … you must be present to win.
Mostly tho Namejet MUST make sure the shill bidding is, the multiple user names be ended, 3rd party monitoring of the process. There is a lot of money at stake for everyone … honesty and transparency may hurt some but for the most part it will create a bigger draw to the auctions as even the “little guys” will feel they have a chance to win an auction without some bot beating them out.
Also, OT but was brought up recently and I didn’t realize it before. But some many of these listing.auction sites are tacking on additional amounts over and above what the lister sets or approves. Then takes this additional amount without splitting with the domain owner as well as a pretty high commission for doing very little to earn it. What happened to the days when brokers were willing to work hard ( there are still plenty who do ) instead of just doing a bulk email? Anyhow …. my 3¢ … that and $4.97 will get you a Vente Mocha at Starbucks
Apologize for off topic but wanted to say I think domain media and bloggers, collectively, need to step up their game if they want to compete with Namepros. TheDomains and few others provide good value. Conflict of interest between bloggers and their sponsors will continue to push readers like me to Namepros.
Why in the entire shill bidding thread on Namejet did I not recall seeing any domain bloggers comment? They must read Namepros especially that thread in particular. Is it because a potential conflict of interest with sponsors?
It all comes down to integrity. If you want to be a trusted news source than dont gloss over the negative and only promote the positive. If you want sponsorships thats fine but dont get mad or touchy about being called out.
This post is about the domain industry as a whole and not individuals.
RP,
Just not true. I was all over the thread and the person that brought up HDKN. You don’t like me so you won’t acknowledge it but your statement above is unfortunately very biased. Just like our blogs
AND my biggest sponsor is Namejet. Which makes your statement even more incorrect
I just posted below. Sorry Shane. You are correct. See correction below.
Thank you. Appreciate the apology and I’ve got added respect for you because of it.
I was just about to say, Shane was in there and I was in there, and the majority of other domain bloggers, no they don’t participate on Namepros, not because of conflicts of interest, NameJet advertises on very few blogs, it’s just because they are not forum people. For example Mike Berkens has said several times he is not a forum guy. Morgan, Andrew, Elliot are rarely on Namepros, they might post something in domain news but they just don’t spend much time posting in threads.
They all read this thread though. Thats my point.
Also Raymond I dont know your Namepros ID so sorry there as well.
Just trying to provoke some accountability.
And I have nothing against you Shane, dont dislike you. Havent even met you in person so cant judge you as a person. Need to look you directly in the eye to be able to make some sort of judgement.
This shill bidding has been going on for sooooo long. Shane has brought it up. But it is frustrating that it took this type of firestorm on Namepros to actually get things moving.
Actually I do recall DomainShane posting in the shill bidding thread. Dont recall any others.
My id on Namepros is equity78, I modded there for close to 12 years and stepped down as a mod about 5 months ago.
Everyone knows you Raymond, you helped build that place, thx for all you do in the biz.
NameJet should follow eBay’s lead and report this to the FBI or the Attorney General.
What then can happen is described like this on the NY A-G site:
“In the criminal case, Jerrold Schuster… pleaded guilty… to Combination in Restraint of Trade, a violation of the New York antitrust law, a felony punishable by a maximum of four years in prison. Schuster ‘s former employees, Darek Szydlowski and Francis Komsisky, Jr., pleaded guilty to Attempted Combination in Restraint of Trade…
“According to the criminal charges, Schuster, Szydlowski and Komsisky cast bids in over 1,100 of each others’ eBay auctions for the sole purpose of driving up the price of the merchandise…”
https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/shill-bidding-exposed-online-auctions
If Namejet kills off all the fake bidder id’s the aftermarket will tank for every easily manipulated category. Even if they don’t get rid of all the fake bidder id’s this story has become so big that domainers are going to start dumping names since they don’t know what the true value is of what they hold when it comes to these categories.
This is bigger then most can even imagine.
Im not dumping any of my domains because of an aftermarket scandal. Certain domains might be affected but I see this having zero effect on premium domain sales to end users.
I would agree RP, people will not be dumping, they might start selling other places. But I would say most people that hold short domains hold them in very high esteem.
4L domains were once not to long ago worth 10 bucks. Manipulated auctions caused overinflated prices which in turn artificially raised values. There will be a huge 4L price adjustment which will make the market panic and everyone will sell, sell, sell since we won’t know what these damn things are really worth.
I disagree
You may be right
I own 100 of them and would never think about selling because of this. NameJet isn’t going anywhere either.
I know I sound like a broken record, but a third party Investigation needs to be done.
Most bloggers except for, domaininvesting.com, TheDomains.com, OnlineDomain.com, and DNW will delete your comments to protect there sponsors. There part of the problem and also protecting there friends who they know are doing the industry wrong.
It’s saturday and most have plenty of time to talk today but I find it funny that as the biggest story in domaining is hitting it’s peak Namepros goes down for maintenance at peak EST. I’ve been on Namepros every single day for years and have never ever seen the site down for maintenance.
“Namepros goes down for maintenance at peak EST”
todd, my guess is all the traffic about NameJet filled up NamePros logs/servers and their hard drives had to be manually increased.
From NameProsStatus.com:
“Logs for our new backup system took up more storage than expected, and the database system shut down to prevent data loss. We’re adding more storage space, at which point the site will be back online. We should be back up in about 15 minutes.”
The only way I will believe NJ if they hire a 3rd party audit to find out what is really going on behind the scenes. Will any of you guys ever do business with NJ again, either as a buyer or seller?
Unless and until this investigation is redone, top to bottom, by a reputable outside auditing firm, my answer is a firm “no”.
Banning accounts does nothing.
Updating TOS does nothing.
Adding an abuse email does nothing.
Full transparency is only going to get the ball rolling.
Have not actively participated at NJ for a long time because of the shenanigans. IMO the platform became a bigger mess with the proliferation of private sellers and “reserve” auctions… Halverez over and over…
So many great comments here and I agree with most.
My answer is a resounding No – Absolutely not enough.
We still don’t know all of the truths of everything brought up from members at NamePros and who knows if we ever will find out all of the facts here. After many of the facts come out, who knows how much each niche of domain names have been affected by 2, 3, 4 people etc. Many niches could have been drastically inflated values because of these few peoples claimed actions. That remains to be seen but I guarantee some niches will have a significant drop in value once these few people/fake accounts aren’t allowed to bid again. This will take a while to play out and can possibly deflate values on specific domain niches to a point where they may never come back.
I have spent tens of thousands of dollars there and all I can keep thinking, hmmm, I wonder if I have been screwed somehow by NameJet? I wonder if I was ever beat out in any of my lost auctions by shill bidders raising the prices? I wonder if I ever won anything that was an actual shill bidder driving me up, and if so how much has it cost me from the point of shill bidding started.
Then I have a completely separate issue with an auction I was a part of with NJ. I won a domain prob a half year ago, paid, waited for the domain to enter my account, never did so I contacted them. Hey, where is my domain that I won and paid for? They said, Whoops sorry, it was a domain that is part of an account here that was accidentally listed. Sorry, you cant have it. It was put under privacy and here is your money back. That domain was only a couple hundred dollars but I still won it fair and square. WTF, How is this poossible?
I have always wondered if that was me that listed a domain, and buyer won it, and then I said whoops my bad. It wasnt enough money so I am just gonna say it was an accident. Cant have it, see ya. If that was me, I would bet i would have been banned forever over there.
So, what would make me happy from NameJet or shall I say for them to gain my trust back again is seeing a full bidder screenshot of each and every auction I was ever a part of, along with a full investigation of who or whose bot was bidding against me, whois changes, etc. Basically a full investigation into everything I was putting my money into over there just to find out if I have been screwed financially or not from any of these shenanigans. Then at that point, I will listen to how they may want to police themselves now.
Til then I vote no – not enough at all.
Is Schill bidding not a criminal offense in the US ?
This is a joke, an attempt to cover up a FRAUD, a CRIME, not a real change.
That’s absolutely not enough.
An INDEPENDENT THIRD PARTY INVESTIGATION is needed, I’d suggest to INFORM the FBI and ask them to investigate the same way they did on EBAY some years ago.
ONLY THAT WAY we’ll know HOW MANY AUCTIONS have been impacted by shill bidding and rigged, WHO are the guys involved in this ring, WHAT are the refunds due, if there has been COLLUSION among NJ and some “players”, etc.
Self-police, self-regulation in this type of rings don’t work, as it didn’t in the past for NJ, since involved parties tend to cover each other “wrongdoings”.
Plus, NJ GM should resign, there is a huge accountability issue here.
Shill bidding is a form of WIRE FRAUD, it has to be reported to the FBI, and people found guilty and their accomplices, besides being banned for life from NJ, should be JAILED and HEAVILY FINED.
Individual lawsuits or a CLASS ACTION is also NEEDED.
Just a reminder about SHILL BIDDING: “Shill bidding has resulted in criminal prosecutions in New York State under the Donnelly Act. The Donnelly Act, found in New York’s General Business law Code section 340-347, is an antitrust law that prohibits bid rigging and price fixing. The Donnelly Act has been used by prosecutors against people accused of shill bidding in online auctions. Being charged under this Act can result in a maximum four year prison sentence, and a fine of $100,000 for individuals and $1 million for businesses.
Shill bidding may also be considered a form of wire fraud, which is a federal offense under 18 U.S. Code Section 1343. Maximum penalties for the crime of wire fraud can include two decades imprisonment.” (Source: Law Offices of Bukh & Associates, New York).
Wow…thanks for the post. I wonder, how deep does this go — how much money and how many people impacted.
How can we get the Fed’s involved? Just call them and start sending links to all these blog articles?
You simply need to report this case to an FBI office, calling them or visiting them and providing all the info from the Namepros blog and the others who wrote about it.
Just think that the FBI investigation on shill bidding at EBAY was started after they read an article on the NY Times.
There is also a section at Dept of Justice, The Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section: https://www.justice.gov/criminal-ccips
This is a very interesting and recent study on SHILL BIDDING in ONLINE AUCTIONS: “Real-time detection of shill bidding in online auctions: A literature review”: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317526432_Real-time_detection_of_shill_bidding_in_online_auctions_A_literature_review
Also this one: “Analysis on Bidding Behaviours for Detecting Shill Bidders in Online Auctions”: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311667870_Analysis_on_Bidding_Behaviours_for_Detecting_Shill_Bidders_in_Online_Auctions
You can also FILE a COMPLAINT at the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center: https://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx
P.S.
Plus I agree with Michael Sumner from Namebio.com when he says that NJ should not allow proxy bidding, like that which occurs with Chinese users “First” and “TwoTwo”, because it’s another “tool” which can be used for shill bidding and it’s very difficult to spot since users behind the bids are grouped in a pool and basically anonymous.
This is Michael’s Namepros post I’m referring to:
“First and TwoTwo are Chinese auction houses. Bidders participate in auctions on different sites, and then those sites bid on NameJet. Sometimes the bidding on these other sites even eclipse the bidding on NJ, with the Chinese marketplace pocketing the difference. Personally I think NJ should do away with this as well. There’s no way they can police shill bidding if done through a large proxy like this, they don’t know who the users are behind the bids. Or at least not let them participate in public auctions. Someone who wants to shill their own names could just sign up on these Chinese marketplaces and bid away with no way for NJ to make the connection. Plus imagine your public auction closes for $10k on the Chinese marketplace, but only hits $5k on NJ, you only get $5k for your sale and the Chinese marketplace gets the rest of your profits.”
I say if anybody support namejet, does business with namejet, takes them as an advertiser, or is involved with any of those in this inside , they need to be banned from doing business from. The inside club/old boys network in this industry needs to be destroyed and called out . Namepros community I am sure is going to keep watching this closely and monitoring this, and eventually get to the bottom of this. Until then everybody needs to boycot Namejet starting today!
A big issue I find at Namejet is the placing of names in the auction. Definitely noticeable that some domains get more exposure then others.