WHC | Re-auction (13.Viewing)

theinvestor said:

The fact anyone is allowed to have a payment plan is nonsense. We all should have the same competitive advantage. If someone bids 9K but plans on paying over 2 years. Maybe someone else would have paid 15k if they could have done the same. If a domain is not paid for in my opinion in a reasonable time frame (less than a month) it needs to be re-auctioned right away. CIRA washes their hand of this entire process and then these registrars think they can do whatever they want.

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None of this is happening. No payment plans. No shenanigans. There was 0$ made on any of these domains. The delay was what it took us to put in place a system that we believed was fair and could work well long term. Feedback appreciated, conspiracy theories not so much.

@efalcon That’s fine but the question remains why are we starting this auction at a price none of the bidders are clearly willing to pay? The initial bidder didn’t pay. The second bidder clearly does not want the domain either at the price of their last bid. So what reasoning would the auction price need to begin at that price?

What’s to stop you from starting all TBR auctions at 9K? I just don’t see the difference. Maybe you do and can clarify that.

While everyone's chasing the top tier domains a lot of the bargains are falling through the cracks. Wise players know how to pick up great domains under five hundred bucks. I don't think I've ever paid more for one.

The re-auction reserve price today represents the runner-up bid when the domain was first auctioned. This was the pricing option we landed on for this system, after some deliberation. The assumption being that if this was a price a bidder was willing to pay before it would also be a price a bidder would be willing to pay today.

Of course no system is perfect. One would argue that if there weren’t a high bidder driving up auction prices, the runner-up wouldn’t be paying as much. But conversely if the auction price weren’t as high perhaps other bidders would bid up the domain even higher. These are very much edge cases and our #1 priority is to avoid re-auctions in the first place. Having said that, we hear you and appreciate the feedback and are definitely open to exploring a low bid starting point for re-auctions as well to let the market decide.

To your other point, nothing technically stops us from setting a starting bid price that’s 1000x higher. We don’t (and never will) because we actually care about building a system that’s fair, accessible and trustworthy. Our team and I work hard to gain trust and don’t ever take it for granted. So when our ethics are put into question, it stings.

theinvestor said:

@efalcon That’s fine but the question remains why are we starting this auction at a price none of the bidders are clearly willing to pay? The initial bidder didn’t pay. The second bidder clearly does not want the domain either at the price of their last bid. So what reasoning would the auction price need to begin at that price?

What’s to stop you from starting all TBR auctions at 9K? I just don’t see the difference. Maybe you do and can clarify that.

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rlm said:

It takes 2 people to drive up the price, and when one of them was fraudulent, the second bidder's price is no longer relevant. It's best to restart the auction at minimum bid prices and let the chips fall where they may.

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That's the only fair way to do it, and this "reauction at 1-bid lower than the fraudulent top bid" format totally negates its usefulness for me and any other reasonable person. And as has been posted on here several times, many of these nosebleed TBR prices are due to fat-walleted whales pumping up the auction hoping to leave a newbie sucker holding the bag... the entire auction above $5-$6K might have been a game.

You all have fun bidding on these but...



This also begs the question of what happens when no one bids more than $9000? Does WHC keep auctioning it off til a drunken sailor stumbles by? Do they hold it for another year?

Not a big fan at all of reauctioning something that was never paid for, at just a hair below the fraudulent price it never sold for.

efalcon said:

The re-auction reserve price today represents the runner-up bid when the domain was first auctioned. This was the pricing option we landed on for this system, after some deliberation.

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You might want to deliberate some more, as I would bet the end result of domain auctions like this (with starting prices at $5K or higher) is no bidders. Part of the TBR allure is the dopamine you get from competing in a long-running auction and the excitement of watching as the price goes up and up.

You start at $9000 and there goes the dopamine, as it's essentially a Buy-it-Now, which is obviously your goal. But where's the fun in that? Someone might buy one here and there from the new WHC Deadbeat Marketplace, but knowing human nature, there will be more misses than hits.

I know you obviously don't want to start at $18, but setting it at $9000 is way on the other end of the scale and has a bad look. Finding a middle ground should key, as that will increase interest, create the potential for a bidding war and likely yield a price that no one would pay in the harsh light of day. Plus, no one will accuse WHC of running a TBR Marketplace with Buy-it-Now prices masquerading as 'opening bids'.

One scenario would be eliminating all fraudulent bids by the deadbeat who didn't pay, and then find the point where two other/non-fraudulent bidders were active. Then start it that price. It might be $4K, $5K, $6K for Deal.ca, who knows, but just putting a BIN price on a domain and then calling it an auction doesn't make it so.

I like that… Final auction price divided by 2 as a starting point / reserve. How does that sound to the others?

And to answer the other question, if there are no bids then the domain goes back to our pool for another bidding session, probably at a lower price. This was our first shot at it, so happy to pivot to something more “reasonable”. Appreciate everyone’s input, and apologies if this was a clumsy first attempt. We’ll get this right. Have a great weekend!

efalcon said:

I like that… Final auction price divided by 2 as a starting point / reserve. How does that sound to the others?

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Sounds like a deal

Here's the Dynadot vs Rick tweet:

efalcon said:

I like that… Final auction price divided by 2 as a starting point / reserve. How does that sound to the others?

And to answer the other question, if there are no bids then the domain goes back to our pool for another bidding session, probably at a lower price. This was our first shot at it, so happy to pivot to something more “reasonable”. Appreciate everyone’s input, and apologies if this was a clumsy first attempt. We’ll get this right. Have a great weekend!

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Seriously, why not just start at $30 again? We all know its never going to sell that cheap or anywhere near it. So instead of leaving any potential to look like the bad guy, the brilliant marketing move would have been to say "We trust in the marketplace and customer base we've built. We don't need to manipulate this. Our customers will determine its value. Auction starts at $30." That's how you drive interest in the auction. That's how you earn trust and respect. That's basic marketing and brand building.

And if you want some advice on making sure it never happens again? Publish and actually enforce a rule that payment has to be made in 2 weeks or it will be re-auctioned immediately. Strike while the iron is hot. Otherwise you open yourselves up to this type of criticism - and people who will take advantage of your lack of structure. Like the guy who "won" deal last time.

efalcon said:

The re-auction reserve price today represents the runner-up bid when the domain was first auctioned. This was the pricing option we landed on for this system, after some deliberation. The assumption being that if this was a price a bidder was willing to pay before it would also be a price a bidder would be willing to pay today.

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I tried to give you an easy out - saying that I give WHC the benefit of the doubt and that this was just a naive decision not understanding the potential backlash. Instead you say you deliberated over this and still came to this conclusion? I dropped you a lifeline and instead you swam away from it...

efalcon said:

None of this is happening. No payment plans. No shenanigans. There was 0$ made on any of these domains. The delay was what it took us to put in place a system that we believed was fair and could work well long term. Feedback appreciated, conspiracy theories not so much.

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Well - I have text messages from the guy who said he was the high bidder on deal.ca, he told me he had alrady paid around $1600 towards it as of May 6, 2025 (the date of his text message).

And he tried to give me access to his WHC account, asking me to keep making payments on it for him so he wouldn't lose the domains. He gave me his password, but I told him that wouldn't work due to two-factor authentication on the account and apparently he got distracted and just assumed I was making payments, which I wasn't - and I wasn't about to keep following up because I didn't want to have anything to do with it. I was pissed at him for even bidding on deal.ca when he already owned me money. Then, as of December 24, 2025, he texted me again asking if I had renewed deal.ca and I just re-iterated that I never truly had access to his WHC account (even though he gave me his password) and that I had never made additional payments. In reference to his WHC account, he said "I gues I lost untold good domains. It had a bunch of them in there."

And for reference, we had previously done the same with his registrar accounts at Grape - he gave me access to his account in order to pay his renewals - because I told him I wouldn't give him any money directly any more. So he had already set this precedent, and he didn't lie about those accounts, the domains he said were in the account actually were, and for a while, I was making renewal payments until eventually I told him I'm not doing it any more. My point being, I had no reason to not believe him since he thought I was going to keep making payments for him.

So no offense, but I have to question your statement that there was $0 made on deal.ca and that there were no payment plans. This guy assumed I had access to his account and would see the domain listed there, as well as any payment history, etc. So I have to believe what he said was mostly true - that you did agree to accept payments towards deal.ca, and that you had accepted at least some payments from him.

I understand you probably thought you were being nice and helping this guy out while preserving the auction price. I'm sure he had a good sob story about not making full payment right away too. I'm just saying that I think we were both taken advantage of.

efalcon said:

I like that… Final auction price divided by 2 as a starting point / reserve. How does that sound to the others?

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That's a lot better idea and as I realize WHC is never going to start at $18 for high-profile domains like this, it's certainly more middle-ground that the first idea.

Aquarius said:

While everyone's chasing the top tier domains a lot of the bargains are falling through the cracks. Wise players know how to pick up great domains under five hundred bucks. I don't think I've ever paid more for one.

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so true! I grabbed one for $64 last week and sold it within 5 days for $10K (inbound)

theinvestor said:

I don’t mean to attack WHC but this truly is baffling that they think this is okay. Similar to them transferring a domain I won in auction and paid for to another registrant without my consent. They clearly have very poor judgement.

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Agreed, I praise when its deserved, but I'll also call it out if its deserved. Doesn't matter if its WHC, Baremetal, CIRA, whoever. WHC is generally trusted and works well with the domainer industry, and I thank them for that. But this was a misstep.

I just think it doesn’t make sense to start at anything other than the minimum bid. Whatever that is $18 or $30. It doesn’t really matter. The fact is it shouldn’t start higher. Also, keep this in mind in the future when you start a domain at $9,000. You’re pretty much telling people it sold for $9,000 in the previous sale. So most people are going to be very weary of bidding more. Since not only did the first bidder not pay but the second bidder clearly didn’t want the domain either.

If you hide the fact it sold for $9,000 you’re more likely to actually get more than $9,000 to anyone who decides to join in on auction. I actually think there’s more financial benefit to start the auction from scratch. But you guys will learn the hard way.