WHC | Re-auction (38.Viewing)

I posed this question to a CIRA rep years ago and they said its not their business to investigate shill bidding. So if an auction house knows your bidding pattern, they can basically push you to your limits with a shill bidder. This person at CIRA said, well, technically they're not breaking any rules as far as their concerned UNLESS they end up winning and keeping the domain. They didn't think shill bidding was right, but that it was something they couldn't police. They're attitude is that the market will decide. So if you agreed to pay $5K in an auction, the fact that you got shilled up to $5K doesn't matter. You agreed to pay it. That's how some places see it. And of course it does piss off people, as you saw with Rick losing his shit a few weeks ago. So if you suspect shill bidding, you have to basically choose not to do business with that company, even though they're very successful in TBR. Its a brutal choice. But that's one of the reasons that we had a TBR player exit the game last year (catchdrop). We all suspected it, and most of us chose to not do business there. They may not have even been guilty, so it is the market perception that is the issue. So if WHC is smart, they'll just restart the auction from scratch and mitigate any suspicions regarding the auction format.

I know one of the domains that WHC will probably auction off was won by that Yusuf guy who was scamming people here, who then tried to convince WHC to do a payment plan, and then failed to make the payments. So they probably got some money out of him, but certainly not all of it. So I won't be surprised when I see that domain in re-auction.

Its a little shocking to me that this would happen very often though. So I'm curious to hear from WHC, what kind of volume of domains are there to re-auction, will this be a yearly one-time auction to clean up the inventory they're not supposed to be keeping? Or will it be a weekly thing?

rlm said:

And I find that if I'm actually interested in a domain, just placing a bid on it early means its going to show up at the top section with only domains you've bid on. That kinda helps solve the sorting problem for the most part.

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That's my whole point, as in order to any re-auction system to work, these domains need to be automatically placed in your "active" list, as they not part of the TBR anymore. It's a Catch-22, unless WHC adds functionality to manually add/delete active auctions.

WHC is trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, so they either need to make adjustments to the auction system or run these re-auctions on a different day.

MapleDots said:

Reality is it should be offered to me at my original 2k because any bid made by the new bidder is technically null and void and I could have won the domain at 2k had the bogus bidder not participated.

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The reality is that a system like this just invites mass fraud.

This happened at GD when they adopted a similar format of deleting defaulted bids. Multiple shill bidders started immediately bidding any quality domain into the stratosphere so that no rational bidder would take part in it. Then 3 of the 4 (or 4 of 5, etc.) of the shill would default, leaving the first bidder as the "winner".

There have been documented cases of this happening, and premium domains sold for tiny amounts (like $12), so the only rational way of reselling a defaulted domain is to auction it off a second time, often with restrictions.

Anyone else bidding and wondering who you are bidding against? Are these real bidders. I’d like to know what is happening to people placing bids and not paying.

Stewie said:

Anyone else bidding and wondering who you are bidding against? Are these real bidders. I’d like to know what is happening to people placing bids and not paying.

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Nothing really. They get banned from the platform and lose whatever deposit they made if there was one.

So, any idea when we might see these re-auctions on WHC?



@MarineN

Technically the domains should drop because there was no valid auction so re-auction or drop are the only options. The registrar shouldn't be hanging on to the domains unless we want another myid on our hands.

DomainRecap said:

So, any idea when we might see these re-auctions on WHC?

@MarineN

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Soon! We're still working on it, and we'll announce it when it's available

They're probably going to be too hot for me anyway.

2 months later ….

Any updates?

Read march 6th update again. Then in 2 months, read it again

Re-Auction Domains Are Now Live — Here's How It Works​

Hey everyone,
A few months back, we mentioned we were working on something new for unclaimed auction domains, and it's finally live!

How it works: In this initial phase, we're listing unclaimed auction domains that have been sitting in our inventory from previous years, giving them a second chance. These domains are now available under a new dedicated category: Re-Auction.

A few key details:

• Re-Auction domains are accessible via the Re-Auction tab in your Client Area (Domain Auctions section), and soon using the Re-Auction filter on our auction page at whc.ca — they will be marked with a special icon for easy identification
• New domains are added weekly, when inventory is available. We're starting slow with 5 domains in this first batch, and will ramp up from there
• The starting bid is typically set at the second-highest bid from the original TBR auction, though in some cases we may set a different starting price
• Auctions close at 1PM ET every Wednesday, with the same 3-minute extension rule as our regular live auctions
• The original winner can participate in the Re-Auction like any other eligible bidder — for now at least. WHC reserves the right to restrict auction access in cases of abuse or recurring issues, and we may adjust this policy as the feature evolves
• The automated reclaim flow for future unpaid auctions is on our roadmap and will be part of a later update. We'll keep you posted as that progresses

First batch — 5 domains now live:


Go check it out: Head over to your Client Area's Domain Auctions section and look for the Re-Auction tab or filter.

As always, if you notice anything off, run into a bug, or have questions, drop them in this thread or reach out to me directly. Your feedback is always appreciated!

Just out of curiosity what makes the starting bid 9K ?

Live shot

MapleDots said:

Just out of curiosity what makes the starting bid 9K ?

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The starting bid is based on the second-highest bid from the original auction. In this case, that bid was $9,600. We decided to set the starting price slightly lower at $9,000 to make it a bit more accessible while still reflecting the domain's value from the previous auction.
That said, this is our first batch and we're still refining the process

If DEAL.ca is worth $9000 - it should have no problem reaching that level even if you start at $18

The problem with starting at $9000 is that you will in fact limit the bidders to a very small number of people (or person)

The original Deal.ca auction was on Oct 16th 2024, so over 1 1/2 years ago. The winner bid $9700 - I assume they never paid for it, so I'm not sure why they would be allowed to participate?

Also, I've been involved in many auctions where everyone dropped out, except two people, and they keep going back and forth... perhaps this happened with Deal.ca - say, at the $3000 level. If the defaulted winner had stopped bidding, the second highest bidder might have won this for $3000?

Just curious!!!

LCM said:

If DEAL.ca is worth $9000 - it should have no problem reaching that level even if you start at $18

The problem with starting at $9000 is that you will in fact limit the bidders to a very small number of people (or person)

The original Deal.ca auction was on Oct 16th 2024, so over 1 1/2 years ago. The winner bid $9700 - I assume they never paid for it, so I'm not sure why they would be allowed to participate?

Also, I've been involved in many auctions where everyone dropped out, except two people, and they keep going back and forth... perhaps this happened with Deal.ca - say, at the $3000 level. If the defaulted winner had stopped bidding, the second highest bidder might have won this for $3000?

Just curious!!!

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These are all fair points, thanks for the detailed feedback!


You're right that starting at $18 would likely drive the price up naturally if the demand is there, and that a $9,000 floor limits the pool of bidders. That's a trade-off we're reconsidering, and we'll be revisiting how we set starting prices going forward.


On the original winner's eligibility, for now, our policy allows them to participate like any other bidder, but WHC reserves the right to restrict access in cases of abuse or recurring issues. This is something we may revisit as the feature evolves.

And this is the exact reason CIRA needs control for TBR. Making your own rules that are an advantage to the registrar only.

So when the domain doesn’t sell now we can start it back at $18 or do you get to hold the domain for another 2 years? This is no different than simply hoarding domains and waiting for their future value to increase in price.

@MarineN
As LCM said “If the defaulted winner had stopped bidding, the second highest bidder might have won this for $3000?”
Default bidder should absolutely not be allowed to participate. If they flopped again then you are doing the whole process again. And you already know flopping is a possibility.
$9000 start makes no sense to me but it is your domain so your rules.

@jaydub