musicdotmobi, member of domain board NamePros, writes:
Hello everyone,
I have been a part of this SEDO .mobi auction auction and I am the one responsible for the bid $611,000 for music.mobi.
However I stopped bidding at the point where I realised that the NEW auction was a scam because the two bidders that were bidding me up were NEW bidders who were not even involved in the initial auction.
The initial auction closed with me winning the last bid at $66,000.
I received an invoice and 2 emails regarding the winning bid.
Let me ask everything this key question? If you are bidding on eBay and you have a 7 day auction and you take a chance and wait til the last second to bid what if your DSL line or connection or even your computer crashes? I think many of us had this experience in the past. I know I had this happen last week on eBay when my computer froze and in essence lost the bid. Did eBay care? NO! Does SEDO care if you WERE going to bid and failed to do so if your computer crashed or had a slow connection? NO! Well, wait a second in this case they do.
They proclaimed me winner send me 2 emails, sent me an invoice. I considered the bid finished and was ready to go and play guitar and record this new song I was working on in the studio. By chance, I get an email by whom? BOTH the .mobi MTLD who started INVITING people via a bulk message hyping them up that the servers have crashed and that there is huge demand for the .mobi auction. Then Sedo followed. So 2 bulk messages sent to the world inviting them to attend a NEW auction. Not only that, they extended the auction to 2.5 hrs NOT 5 minutes.
Anyhow, I seriously have been negotiating with .mobi since 2006 about music.mobi but they seem to want money and to rob everyone of money than have someone develop a super site like I am. So the whole RFP was bogus. I tried fir over a year and they just said “you will have to bid for it”.
So, I am really upset, they caused me to miss my jam session and on top of that they allowed NEW bidders to the new auction. I say I have NO PROBLEM with old bidders that were active in the original auction bidding their maximum. Even though I was invoiced $66,000 I emailed SEDO and MTLD letting them know that I would pay them $81,000 because bidder 9 (I was the last bidder 12 to bid for the name in the original auction) rebid his maximum at $80k.
Much more on the link above to copy it all here. Fascinating read.
I find it really strange that auctions at sedo sometimes just extend themselves. I mean its almost like trying to catch the horizon…keep running keep running…Ah well I only invested in three dot mobis the minute i realized that there was no need for the extension…hopefully the guy who bought all six primos yesterday doesn’t eat it, but then again maybe he can afford it. It was interesting to watch the auction to say the least i thought games.mobi was going to be the highest selling. Maybe at this pace Rick Scwartz will be able to flip his famous flowers.mobi for a couple hundered k.
Just my thoughts.
Well one way or another I think they just cancelled the Christmas party at the Sedo office! This is going to cost Sedo $1,000,000’s, or if it goes to law then $10,000,000’s in legal fees, lost profits, etc..
The main problem is that who is going to pick up the tab on the Sedo end? The answer undoubtedly will be the domainer who has domains parked at Sedo. I feel that suddenly a lot of clicks will probably be discounted and not paid out on and/or payment per click through by a visitor will again reduce. Remember Sedo even now only pays for the first click through a visitor makes to a site and pockets the rest (the domainer does not even get the stats showing how many actual click throughs there have been.
This fiasco by Sedo could be their death nell.
SEDO : RIP
Who says WE don’t NEED .mobi? You premium .com domain holders? I wasn’t even born when .com’s were being registered, I couldn’t care a less about .com. Who are YOU to tell ME that I don’t NEED .mobi? As far as I am concerned I DON’T NEED .COM FOR WHAT I NEED TO DO (THANK YOU VERY MUCH). What if !!I!! WANT to use .mobi for MY new project that targets MOBILE INTERNET users? .MOBI sites are different to .COM, etc PC sites. The public know that .com, etc. sites are for their computer… How can you possibly be sure that .MOBI won’t catch on with people worldwide as being known for sites that ARE DESIGNED FOR MOBILE USERS??? It’s great to be able to visit .com sites on my iPhone but TBH I PERSONALLY HATE SCROLLING, ZOOMING IN AND OUT, ESPECIALLY WHEN I’M ON THE GO!!! ARE YOU SAYING THERE ARE NOT PEOPLE –LIKE ME— OUT THERE TOO? LMFAO.
Also, what if I’m NOT creating a site for PC USERS??? Why the hell would I need a .PC DOMAIN? .MOBI is UNIQUE! IT’S NEW, AND IT’S HERE TO STAY!!!
Good luck to the visionary who saw the great chance to pick up these fantastic domains. Peace!
SEDO did an awful job this auction too, it must be said. However, it was not mTLDs fault. There are PLENTY of people interested in music who could have put together an RFP. mTLD chose to auction the names and that is their decision. This takes NOTHING away from .mobi!
When will SEDO make a public announcement?
IF I SHOUT INSTEAD OF SPEAKING EVERYTHING WILL BE OK, MTLD WON’T HAVE LIED TO EVERYONE ABOUT THE RFP PROCESS AND THE BACKERS WONT HAVE STOPPED BACKING IT.
Of course it’s MTLD’s fault. The RFP policy promised a content rich extension. They lied to you. They are dumping to domainers on SEDO. It is an act of desperation. I was a .MOBI believer. Now I’m not, which is sad, because I do still think it *had* a chance, but short term greed has killed it.
I understand why you are disappointed with MTLD. ‘Greed’ may have infact ‘killed’ the whole concept of dot mobi. Time will tell. Right now, everything is a mess. 6 of the best names are held by one person, Alvaro. Before they were held by one company, MTLD. Let’s hope he resells them to end-users asap, or he has 6 months to develop. If he wants to see returns on his investments then he will have to do one of these. He cannot simply ‘park’ these names like back in the day with the best .coms and collect ad revenue! They must be developed or the owner will lose them.
As for the auction: Many original “winners” lost out on getting premium .mobis for cheap because others could not bid. Also, there are quite a few bidders from before the time-extension who thought they had won and simply left their computers’. Sedo are to blame for the way yesterdays auctions messed up. They will be sued. .mobi will still be in the lime light, unfortunately for the wrong reasons here
The largest companies already secured their .mobi names before landrush for trademark holders. Maybe they will be encouraged to develop them, what with all the hype that is being created?
I really don’t know what to think anymore. I am developing my .mobi names. I hope that everyone will wake up and realize that they must develop quality websites asap if they ‘truly’ want .mobi to succeed.
Buying domain names that have little to no traffic can only get you so far. Developing useful and creative websites is the best way to create your own future success, especially with .mobi. Good luck!
I don’t understand. He won the auction. He got the email, and the bill.
The server did not crash during the auction- if it did, then I could see an extension happening. But they essentially voided an auction that had a winner.
And, this is in their TOS. Nice eh? This is the company and ethics we have to deal with because, well, all we have left is Afternic and Tdnam- neither being a better choice.
He won. They pulled it. That sucks.
So many domainers with huge incoming portfolios- when is someone going to create an alternative to these poor examples of a sales platform?
We need a better way. This whole auction situation makes me sick and Sedo is sooooooooooooo showing it’s true color > GREEN
Here’s my take on the auction…
It’s simple! There were NO bids in the final minutes of the auction because no one could bid. It’s not fair that people who got out-bid 1 second before the crash (by $100 in my case) just lose a domain because of LUCK on behalf of the lucky bidder!
If e.g. end user 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9….. lose out on having a fair chance of winning an auction, just because lucky bidder no. 1 GOT LUCKY….there would be more law suits to deal with than you can imagine.
The only thing Sedo are responsible for is not waiting for enough time to pass before restarting the auction.
Automated emails will not be considered as sufficient evidence in a court of law to confirm a fair winning bid.
A few of us at NamePro’s and no doubt elsewhere are in doubt about this entire situation and smell something fishy going on. It does seem extremely odd to say the least that invoices can be sent out to the winners of domain names in this .mobi auction, then Sedo pulls the plug and says that their servers crashed, they then pull the plug on the original winners despite invoicing them and re-offer these very same names into auction again, whilst at the same time, in this extension period, they allow New bidders to bid on these same domains, that were not part of the original auction? Yeah right. And I was born yesterday. The fact is at the end of the day, the names were sold plain and simple. These names did not then belong to anyone but the winners of the original auction. Sedo had no right whatsoever to re-auction domains that they were not authorised to sell by the then, new owners without their express permission. To do so can only be constituted as theft. No argument about it. I for one will be pulling my present names with Sedo that are parked there and using other companies in the future. I want to have no part whatsoever in dealing with such an unethical company. Any other domainer should in my view do the same. Sedo quite simply cannot be trusted.
It’s simple! There were NO bids in the final minutes of the auction because no one could bid. That is enough proof for a court of law to say that Sedo had a problem with their servers.
It’s not fair that people who got out-bid 1 second before the crash (by $100 in my case) just lose a domain because of LUCK on behalf of the lucky bidder!
If e.g. end user 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9″¦.. lose out on having a fair chance of winning an auction, just because lucky bidder no. 1 GOT LUCKY”¦.there would be more law suits to deal with than you can imagine.
The only thing Sedo are responsible for is not waiting for enough time to pass before restarting the auction.
Automated emails will not be considered as sufficient evidence in a court of law to confirm a FAIR winning bid.
Get over it! There is no conspiracy.
People have the right to wait for the last few minutes to bid, just as people have a right to bid early. That is what you call, a FAIR auction.
If the servers ‘crashed’ then how did the correct data get to the automated email servers? Just the web servers crashed? And not the database and all other servers? I believe that the pages are database driven/created. If that is so, how did the data get to the billing server?
Anyway, none of us know all the facts. Let’s just see how it plays out.
While I’m sympathetic to his situation, I feel that if he felt the second auction was invalid, he should not have participated. By continuing to bid even after he realized that there were new bidders he is tacitly acknowledging the validity of the auction. He should have pulled out immediately and then he would have grounds to sue for recognition of the first auction.
As it is, it sounds like sour grapes because he spent so much more than he intended.
What Sedo has done has gone on for too long in various forms by a number of internet domain companies.. Artificially driving up prices and using unfair tactics is wrong and their greed will be the downfall of the company.
Personally I see no need for the .mobi tld and don’t expect much of an adoption by the mainstream…. I expect the webmasters to implement better formats for their .com tlds and people will still see .com as the ultimate connected tld.
Best of luck in getting this situation resolved, regardless… what Sedo has done in this “auction” is plainly not ethical.
Seems to me that while all sites need disclaimers to account for matters beyond their control (network outages, database breakdowns, innocent - yet clear errors), this is especially true for an auction forum where multiple people are making bids (commitments) of significant value. If I were the winning bidder, and invoiced as such, and if I indeed wanted to go through with the purchase, I would have sent the check. Then, if the domain sold for a higher amount, either the seller or Sedo could be liable to pay the original bidder the difference between his winning bid and the higher bid. A court would likely consider rescinding the sale so the winning bid reverts back to the initial winner. In any case, SEDO should cretainly not earn a commission for the difference in price for the two winning bids. But the bigger picture/question that needs to be asked is, When is a sale final? If it only becomes final when the check is cashed, then SEDO is in no position to require winning bidders to pay up if they later decide they dont want to. The payment completes the contract. And if that’s the case, those selling domains at auction can have aunt Nancy and Buddy Tom place shill bids to drive up the price, without concern for having to honor the bids. I imagine that this case will result in one party suing in a court of law, which will require (as should be the case) that very specific and consitant rules be formulated address all terms of these auctions. When the Dallas Cowboys mistakenly over bid by a few hundred grand, that aint right. If I offer a url at auction and mistakenly offer the singular, when I own the plural, that is a problem. When I win a bid at auction and am invoiced, then someone else buys it for tens of thousands more, thats a problem. Ultimately, it’s SEDO’s (or whatever the auction company may be) responsibilty. They are earning their commissions based on the integrity of those auctions. If they screw up, they should forfeit their commissions. It is their DUTY to mantain the integrity of those auctions.
Sedo-Policy | Your user agreement:
5.1.2.7. Liability
Sedo in no way guarantees or further warrants that the web page on which bids can be placed (”Bidding Page”?) during the Auction Period is permanently accessible. If a Bidding Page is not accessible, the Seller may not, in the future refer to a potentially higher bid during this time period as a mechanism for not following through with a sale. Furthermore, a potential bidder may not argue, for the same purposes, that he would have been the highest bidder the Domain up for Auction if the webpage would have been available.
http://sedo.com/about/policy.php?page=terms_of_use_us&tracked=1&partnerid=33746&language=us
But when you put a specific start and end time on the auctions, then inform someone they are the winner, then invoice them…..