I was looking at some recent auctions that ended at NameJet.com. What the domains ended for, who was the bidder, what are they doing with the domain now etc.. You mean you don’t do that? 
So anyway, this just happened to catch my eye and made me think… That doesn’t look right!
Now, I understand how NameJet.com works with "Bidding" and "Pre-Bidding" etc. For those who maybe unsure, this is how it works from my understanding.
~Pre-Bidding takes place BEFORE the domain name goes into a "Private Auction". Most pre-bidding takes place on Pre-Release domain names. The minimum bid is $69. If NOBODY has a bid in, and you bid $1,000 then the price of the domain is $1,000. Your bid is not a "Proxy Bid" until the 3 day private auction starts. Others can still bid the minimum of $69 to "get into" the auction as long as it’s before the deadline that NameJet has in place. The private auction actually starts the following day from when the pre-bidding stop, but the starting price of the private auction will be what the high bidder has as a bid.
~Private Auction Bidding, takes place for 3 days until the auction is finished. The auction will "extend" if a last second (Minute) bid is placed so no snipping can happen. If the current high bid price is $100, and you bid $200, there is a chance that the first high bidder had in a "Proxy Bid" etc.
http://www.dotweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/BatteryCase.png
Now if you could please click that link above. It’s a scrolling Screenshot of a NameJet.com auction that had ended. Here are some things that are not matching up if you ask me.
- Winning bid was $201
- The winning bidder placed the "High Bid" on 10-26, which was the day the auction ended
- Second High Bidder’s bid was $88
- The second high bidder placed their bid on 10-11, which means it was a Pre-Bid
- All other bidders bids, were $69
- All other bidders bids were placed during "Pre-Bid"
Ok, if you are following me, the Key Point was the second high bidder at $88 placed their bid of $88 during Pre-Bid (10-11). During pre-bid, there is NO proxy bid, so that was limebomb’s highest bid placed. No other bids were placed when "Proxy Bidding" would happen…. So how does a bid that was placed DURING proxy bidding, go UP TO $201, when the second high bidder was only at $88?
It just looks fishy if you ask me…. and makes me wonder "what" drove the auction to end at $201 and not something like $98? Has this happened with other auctions? Am I missing something? It just looks fishy to me.
Leonard Britt
I once had a Namejet auctio where the original bidder’s ID was something like test123. I raised the bid to $79 and he/she never responded. One would think if they went to the effort to find the domain originally they would have countered. I also see dozens of sorry domains with backorders. Who really is buying these? So one has to wonder.
By the way I was looking for your post on Afternic sales out of their own inventory and couldn’t find it. But I saw an Afternic sale for $800 AlquilerdeVehiculos.net (car rental in Spanish) and thought how odd the buyer would pay hundreds of dollars more for a domain very similar to one of mine. Perhaps I don’t have the category selected but I suspect your thesis of Afternic directing buyers to their own inventory is the likely explanation.
Kyle Eslick
Chances are the $201.00 is the initial bid, but it shows last bid on 10-26 because the person with the high bid went in on the final day and placed a larger proxy bid in case someone else bid on the domain name.
**Jamie Says**
Thank you Kyle. I was thinking that as well, since it does show 33 Bids from 33 Bidders. That would mean the $201 “could” of been a Pre-Bid and no bids were placed during the private auction. If the bidder did place a new proxy bid on the 26th (bid 34), I think the “first” bid time stamp should still show up and not be replaced with the newest bid.
Rob Sequin
Yes. Interesting. The only thing I can think of is that the high bidder put in a pre-bid of $201 but then went in and raised his proxy bid but it did not matter yet the bid was time stamped?
Adam
There was another screwup on Oct 26th. .. may be related. http://www.domainnamenews.com/domain-auction/namejet-auction-blunders-cause-re-do/3030
**Jamie Says**
Thanks for the heads up Adam. I will check into a couple other dates and see if I see any of the same.
Damir
Nice post – Rob is on the money
trendicator
in my experience, sedo has not done that….yet…
does snapnames.com have the same practice?
FT
I assume you have clicked “Expand” to see the full auction history? Without clicking that you don’t really see all the bids if multiple bids are placed by the same bidder.
Brett Blair
Here is a domain I bought (bcb) for the Southern Baptist Convention. I own many church/clergy domains. I think Namejet is honest because I have been in over a hudred auctions and see patterns. You’ll notice the huge jumps that take place below. The jumps occur when one person places a bid much higher than the current price and the second party makes offers in small increments trying to find where the current wiing bid is at. Once the second party beats the higher price namejet does not historically stamp the second bidders second to last (losing) offer, rather namejet stamps there beginning price. I may not be saying this in the best way…the point is the new winners previous lower price (where they started) remains in the records not their multiple attempts to find the ceiling.
bcb $5,800 Feb. 9, 2010 12:28 PM PT
po3kjd5nf4b $5,700 Feb. 9, 2010 12:28 PM PT
8d3e6emd52 $4,088 Feb. 9, 2010 12:19 PM PT
BailoutMoney $3,888 Feb. 9, 2010 12:16 PM PT
ccarter3 $3,555 Feb. 9, 2010 12:14 PM PT
north $2,600 Feb. 9, 2010 12:08 PM PT
helpmeplease $1,210 Feb. 8, 2010 10:05 AM PT
apogee $1,010 Feb. 8, 2010 9:06 AM PT
dantana $444 Feb. 5, 2010 7:22 PM PT
tonecas $351 Feb. 5, 2010 5:08 PM PT
upcx $350 Feb. 5, 2010 8:42 AM PT
rogabiz $250 Feb. 1, 2010 10:16 AM PT
lebanon123 $200 Jan. 29, 2010 11:01 PM PT
southernboy $199 Jan. 31, 2010 9:34 AM PT
dshop $100 Jan. 24, 2010 5:42 AM PT
mrram $100 Jan. 25, 2010 1:05 PM PT
whoami $100 Feb. 5, 2010 1:58 AM PT
marta $71 Feb. 5, 2010 6:03 AM PT
winningbidder $70 Feb. 5, 2010 6:34 AM PT
usa $70 Feb. 5, 2010 12:22 PM PT
kazuhiko $69 Jan. 7, 2010 10:11 AM PT
Brett Blair
Sorry for the typos above (there/their etc) but I thought I would give you one more that I won where there were very few bidders and where I got into a huge war with two people that created a huge jump. hifi put in a ceiling that took me 25-30 bids to finally match and pass. malfin was trying at the same time to find the ceiling at the same time and quite somewhere along the way, because he quite his higher bids above $2100 were not recorded. Hope this helps.
bcb $6,600 May. 20, 2009 12:46 PM PT
hifi $6,500 May. 20, 2009 12:46 PM PT
malfin $2,100 May. 19, 2009 5:20 PM PT
bidcorp $2,000 May. 19, 2009 5:20 PM PT
capitolhill $1,200 May. 17, 2009 2:00 PM PT
lovedomains123 $700 May. 16, 2009 12:35 AM PT
dnflipper $140 May. 16, 2009 12:55 AM PT
fal $135 May. 15, 2009 11:14 AM PT
btrader $131 May. 13, 2009 5:26 PM PT
webadv $125 May. 4, 2009 6:01 PM PT
mazkel $111 Apr. 23, 2009 11:33 AM PT
gutierrez $99 May. 16, 2009 8:54 AM PT
chinasacwgq $80 May. 16, 2009 9:40 AM PT
linkspire $77 May. 15, 2009 9:22 PM PT