Auction Fraud at Dynadot? (9.Viewing)

Dynadot sends enough renewal notices.

Is it because owner didn’t bother to check his emails?

Quoted from Ricks X post

I had my 3rd conversation with
@dynatodd
last night. We talked through my situation, but I also went bigger. I told him the three fixes
@DynaDot
needs to make immediately if they want any chance of restoring trust in the domain industry.

First, I even offered a compromise position. The second bidder should have the right of first refusal. That’s the clean way to fix a tainted auction. But if they don’t want to do that, here is the middle ground that still works. When an auction is compromised by a fake bidder or anything shady, it should be rerun only for the people who were in the original auction. Opening it to the public again is the biggest screw job of all and everyone knows it.

Second, anonymous bidding has to go. Nobody wants to bid against ghosts. That’s where fraud hides. That’s where manipulation lives. If you want real money to show up, transparency has to come first.

Third, every auction over a certain level needs human review. Five thousand, ten thousand, whatever number they choose. Real money deserves real oversight. And if they want to get ahead of it, AI can flag suspicious patterns long before a human even looks.

That’s the blueprint. If they want to fix this, it starts right there. And if they choose not to, then everyone will finally understand exactly where the real problem is.

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it should be rerun only for the people who were in the original auction. Opening it to the public again is the biggest screw job of all and everyone knows it.

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I disagree, I think it should just rerun without limitations

I'm going to add my opinion on this whole event...

Similar to when godaddy removes a domain I have already won there is nothing I can do when there are circumstances out of control of the auction house. I don't like it but I have to accept it and move on.

In the end when dynadot stopped the auction and re-auctioned the domain it was the fairest thing to do. People argue and say they should have just removed the fake bids and let it go to the next highest bidder but that is also not fair because a lot of people dropped off when they saw the higher artificial bids. The fairest thing to do is to restart the auction fresh by notifying ALL participants and allowing the process to play out with legitimate bidders.

Would Rick be happy with that? No because that is what happened, in the end there was no fraud or nothing untoward that occurred, the auction was simply restarted fresh with notification to all participants.

Did dynadot make a mistake in their original communication with Rick?
I'm not sure they did because they offered him the option to take it at the inflated price or to start the auction over, Rick assumes there would have been no more bids after his last bid and that is an assumption at best. With the price lower more people might have continued bidding and one or two might have bid higher because of the dreaded auction fever one gets when being outbid.

If they simply cancelled the auction without asking Rick do you think that would have appeased him or would he have argued that his next highest bid should have been taken?

It was a no win situation for Dynadot and participating in heated discussions would not have changed the outcome. Sometimes allowing a few days to pass and cooler heads to prevail is a prudent move because anything said on the internet stays on the internet.

I can see Rick's point, it totally sucks but everyone involved had a chance to bid in a final legitimate auction, whoever wanted the domain bad enough got it and there was no

From Ricks X post

Second, anonymous bidding has to go. Nobody wants to bid against ghosts. That’s where fraud hides. That’s where manipulation lives. If you want real money to show up, transparency has to come first.

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I agree with this, I would prefer to see who I am bidding against

If they make a policy to rerun auction again with the same bidders, fraudulent bidders still could game it.

Two bidders could inflate bids on the first day of the auction to discourage others from joining. In this scenario, both bidders might be the same person, who then wins the domain.

I am open to changing our auctions. Over the years we have made numerous changes for our customers. Believe me I am hearing and listening to everyone's feedback. That is why I am on Twitter.

When we make changes to our systems, we have a process where we consider all the pros and cons. Product designers do research. UI designers make mockups. Engineers write code. And then we need to communicate the new rules to everyone. We can't really change our system in the middle of an auction for one person.

dynatodd said:

I am open to changing our auctions. Over the years we have made numerous changes for our customers. Believe me I am hearing and listening to everyone's feedback. That is why I am on Twitter.

When we make changes to our systems, we have a process where we consider all the pros and cons. Product designers do research. UI designers make mockups. Engineers write code. And then we need to communicate the new rules to everyone. We can't really change our system in the middle of an auction for one person.

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Here's my suggestions:
Show bidder id (different from login username)
Rerun the auction for everyone if you detect fraudulent bids.
Show age of bidder account and amount spent (like NameCheap)
Verified badge bidder id.

silentg said:

Here's my suggestions:
Show bidder id (different from login username)
Rerun the auction for everyone if you detect fraudulent bids.
Show age of bidder account and amount spent (like NameCheap)
Verified badge bidder id.

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Great ideas thank you

dynatodd said:

I am open to changing our auctions. Over the years we have made numerous changes for our customers. Believe me I am hearing and listening to everyone's feedback.

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As others have stated:

1) Offer it to the bidder at the (unfortunately) inflated end price, but stating that if this price is not accepted then Dynadot will:

2) Delete all the shill/fake bids and restart the auction for 24-hours beginning at the last valid bid.

It's really the only fair way to do it, as when places like GD delete all fake bids and offer the domain for an undervalued price, this just encourages scammers to use fake-bidding, multi-party strategies to really game the system (like getting premium domains for $50-$100).

This secondary auction also needs to be quick (i.e. 24 hours) so as not to waste any more time. It starts near the end anyway, with the last valid bid, so 1 day is more than enough.

On the flip side, asking a 'high bidder' like Rick to pay an scammer or deadbeat-inflated price is not fair either, unless he or she chooses to.

DomainRecap said:

As others have stated:

1) Offer it to the bidder at the (unfortunately) inflated end price, but stating that if this price is not accepted then Dynadot will:

2) Delete all the shill/fake bids and restart the auction for 24-hours beginning at the last valid bid.

It's really the only fair way to do it, as when places like GD delete all fake bids and offer the domain for an undervalued price, this just encourages scammers to use fake-bidding, multi-party strategies to really game the system (like getting premium domains for $50-$100).

This secondary auction also needs to be quick (i.e. 24 hours) so as not to waste any more time. It starts near the end anyway, with the last valid bid, so 1 day is more than enough.

On the flip side, asking a 'high bidder' like Rick to pay an scammer or deadbeat-inflated price is not fair either, unless he or she chooses to.

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Yes, that is our current process, except that the re-auction is 7 days instead of 1 day. We can look into shortening it.

dynatodd said:

Yes, that is our current process, except that the re-auction is 7 days instead of 1 day. We can look into shortening it.

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The problem with another 7-days for restarting an existing auction and an existing price, is a) it needlessly wastes bidders time and b) what if the fraud/deadbeat bidding happens again? Even more wasted time.

DomainRecap said:

The problem with another 7-days for restarting an existing auction and an existing price, is a) it needlessly wastes bidders time and b) what if the fraud/deadbeat bidding happens again? Even more wasted time.

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I see your point thank you

dynatodd said:

I see your point thank you

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But be sure to keep your business processes in mind, as although 7-days is way too long, it could be anywhere from 1 to 2-days, like 36 hours for example. But needlessly dragging it out fora week just causes more axe-grinding and no one needs that.

But like you've seen with big bidders like Rick, these guys are ready to go, and what would happen in 1 day is the same as what would happen over 7 days, but with far less friction and animosity.

Right on

Then registrars need to do a better job at verifying accounts.