Shill Bidding At NameCheap Auctions (1.Viewing)

silentg

silentg

DomainRetail.com
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Post from March 21, 2022
I was part of a domain auction and ended up losing the auction to another bidder. That winning bidder tried to sell the domain before paying for it and didn't pay for the auction at the end since they couldn't find any offer within 2 day time period.

I was offered the domain for purchase but the problem was that the winning bidder had 17 bids in total and they only voided the winning bid. They wanted me to pay $2915 without removing the other bids. I went back and forth with their customer service team and they wouldn't see the issue. Worst of all their customer service team wasnt even reading the support ticket properly before sending the reply.

See the screenshot: Winning bidders bids are highlighted:


ns-is-listed-for-sale-place-your-bids-now-name-png.png



It took a twitter post and couple of days for them to notice the issue:




when they asked me to pay for it, they said there wouldn't be any penalty:

1647876842921-png.png



and then when they cancelled the auction the next day, they sent me the opposite e-mail:

1647876896835-png.png




This is their policy not to cancel bids.


1647876738337-png.png




This post is to warn others when you're offered to buy a domain that winning bidder didn't pay. Check the bidding history before paying.
Click to expand...


May 2022
Another NameCheap customer brought up the issue in May 2022 and the CEO Richard promised to take action

1662926535946.png



This is still happening at NameCheap. 2nd Bidder has paid for the auctions.

1662923635286-png.png



1662923777421-png.png



1662923863856-png.png


Those who don't want to miss out on the domain are paying for it and encouraging shill bidding as well. Stop doing it.
 
If you have a fake or shill bidder taking part in any auction who then doesn't pay, all of his or her bids need to be removed from the auction in order to determine a) the subsequent winner and b) the adjusted price paid. Either that, or you run it again.

Just removing the final fraudulent bid, while maintaining that all the other fraudulent bids are still valid, is absolutely idiotic.
 
I know the topic is about Namecheap, but I’m curious to know what happens to fake bids in WHC and MyID. Do they repeat the auction or do they offer it to the second highest bidder? I guess there’s no way to know as you can’t see who you’re bidding against.
 
@silentg

How did you find out the person was attempting to front run the domain you were after (in the first example you explained)? Were they trying to sell it on namespros or something and you saw it?
 
Last edited:
Lurker said:
I know the topic is about Namecheap, but I’m curious to know what happens to fake bids in WHC and MyID. Do they repeat the auction or do they offer it to the second highest bidder?
Click to expand...

I know WHC has it in their TOS that any unpaid TBR auctions are then offered to the second-place bidder, but when I mentioned this awhile back, no one could remember a single instance of this happening. And no business has a 100% customer payment rate, or even anything close.

Another example is Dot-CA, which lists their single-bidder deadbeat domains on a For Sale page.
 
I have a membership but only bid once at Namecheap, early in their auctions.

I had thought that their auctions were only expired domain names (i.e. members can do BIN on the marketplace, but not offer auctions). Or has that now changed? If it is only expired auctions, how does it help anyone, except the registrar, to fake bid up prices? I must be missing something here.

Bob
 
It seems to be the new frontrunner strategy Bob, with bidders "winning" an auction, then trying to drum up a buyer, and not paying if they don't find one.
 
They only run expired domains for now.

Here's another auction that ended on September 11 and the winning bidder didn't pay. Now they're asking the 2nd bidder to pay in 2 days (optional) Same domain sold for $7,000 before and winning bidder didn't pay.

Domain 1:
1663093669971.png


Domain 2: same bidder
1663093982818.png
 
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