OnlineDomain.com Domain Name News & Opinions
Uniregistry expired domains have been auctioning at Dynadot for quite a few days now and buyers are already frustrated.
Although it (Uniregistry auctioning expired domains at Dynadot) was first announced yesterday by Page Howe, Mark Hershiser a well known domainer and blogger has already bought many Uniregistry expired domains at Dynadot only to find days later that although he had paid for all of them he couldn’t own any of them! All the domains were renewed after the auction ended and the domains were paid and all the funds paid could not be refunded. All funds were turned into Dynadot credit.
It also seems that Epik domains are auctioned at Dynadot too and these domains can get renewed too.
It seems that the GoDaddy mess with Enom and Tucows domains (and until last year all GoDaddy domains) has not been a lesson for Dynadot. How Namejet, Snapnames have been doing it right for years must really be a mystery. Not!
The domainer and blogger that emailed me yesterday with his complaints was Mark Hershiser. If you don’t know him it might be because he stopped blogging a few years back.
Here is his comment and take on things:
“I have followed dozens of names in the last month or so that are in Dynadot Expiring auctions and are registered at Uni and Epik, I have had the highest bid on some of them, but I have not seen one that was transferred to Dyna, it seems they all get renewed at Epik or Uni, the ones I won and paid for apparently got renewed so I got refunded which sucks at Dyna because that means they just credit your account, no cash back. Names like SpyPro com, TurbinePower com, LandListing com, Lendings com, Judio com, eBooster com, HerbalDrugs com, iCGF com, Ludvig com, Eastfield com, Postage org. I won a few like LandListing com and they sent me this email:
The expired domain auction for landlisting.com has been cancelled because the original registrant has renewed the domain. If you have already sent payment, we will automatically credit it to your Dynadot account as account credit. (What’s strange is as of today the domain still shows expired on 4-10-19?)
I also won TurbinePower com and this is the email I got on that one:
The expired domain auction for turbinepower.com has been cancelled because the original registrant has transferred the domain to another domain registrar. If you have already sent payment, we will automatically credit it to your Dynadot account as account credit. (What’s strange about this one is it didn’t change registrars, it was at Epik before and it is at Epik now, it is renewed though.)
Who knows what is going on, my paranoid mind thought maybe they are just doing this so they get high bids that they then only credit into your Dyna account knowing full well the names will get renewed, but again that is my paranoid version, either way I have stopped bidding on these Uni and Epik names and Dyna. Maybe people are winning them and they have to open an account at Epik or Uni to get the name, that it doesn’t get transferred to Dyna I am not sure, but I do know that the auctions I won I did not get the domains, just Dyna credit.
What sucks too is I told my friend that all these great names were expiring at Dyna and would probably end at some great deals but I didn’t have much capital to invest at the moment, so he gave me money and said invest in some names and we’ll split the sale profit when they sell, it costs me nothing just some time to bid on them and to list them, it’s a win win right, I don’t put out any capital and split the profit if I make good investments, unfortunately I didn’t get any and the ones I did win I didn’t really win in the end and I only got credit back in my account, so I just gave my friend his money back and said forget about it and used the Dyna credit for renewals lol…”
Not that it is important, but I reported on this already on May 27 at NamePros. But not a single comment to my post…:
https://www.namepros.com/threads/expired-uniregistry-names-go-to-auction-at-dynadot.1138688/
I did actually get the Uniregistry name that I bid on and won.
I guess everybody missed that. I don’t frequent NamePros.
As to your question as to why doesn’t Uniregistry has an auction system, it might be that they don’t want any hassle, or this is just temporary until their own system is ready.
Hi,
I also seen almost similar thread on NP.
I won couple names in last 3 weeks at Dynadot whose registrar are from Uni.
Both names got transferred out to GoDaddy. Surprisingly current owner at GoDaddy is same for both name. I am not concluding but I may do some investigation if Uni or Dynadot playing unethical games or what??
So many others may had same experience.
Dropcatch & Namejet expired name auction guaranteed to hit account if we win and pay in timely manner.
GoDaddy expired name whose registrar is GoDaddy also guaranteed to hit account if we win and pay in timely manner.
Do not know when these unethical companies stop unethical practices to save time for customers.
Thanks
“Do not know when these unethical companies stop unethical practices to save time for customers.”
When more people complain and do not simply quietly accept this abuse.
While I don’t have an issue with the original registrant being able to renew I don’t agree with the refund becoming dynadot credit.
Comments here:
– We send our expiry stream to Snapnames on Day 36 of expiry. Apparently those listings are being syndicated.
– We allow first-come-first-serve fixed price backorders. These are processed on the last day of grace period, before sending expiry names to Snapnames.
– The former registrant can still initiate a transfer as long as they have a valid auth code. We tend to be accommodating here in allowing registrants to retrieve auths for expired domains if we did not drop them.
In total we have probably reversed less than 10 Snapnames transactions in our entire cooperation with them. About half happened in the last month because a single registrant thought it would be clever to abuse the grace period and waited until day 43 to start transfers. As a remedy for this, when a domain goes to Snapnames, the auth code is now being updated so that this cannot happen as we agree it sucks if you win an auction and have a domain pulled.
The issue of expiry is always delicate, e.g. someone who fails to renew due to hospitalization or other unique circumstance. We evaluate these appeals on a case by case basis. However, once day 43 of expiry rolls around, it is pretty rare for us to unwind a redemption. The exception is if we warehoused the domain, e.g. in a case where we think a registrant is being neglectful in dropping a name.
Finally, people should be checking out Daily Diamonds:
https://marketplace.epik.com/daily-diamonds
This is the reverse auction of our internal expiry stream that ends at $19. I see great deals getting picked up there every day.
The fact that you don’t know if your registrar’s domains are being syndicated is quite frightening.
Glad we agree: “as we agree it sucks if you win an auction and have a domain pulled.”
I quit participating in any dynadot auctions a while back due to the same cast of characters always renewing after the auction. That being said, I was always able to request a refund back as opposed to an account credit. They said it just had to be requested. Send support an email and ask if they can still do it.
Specific to TurbinePower.com, that domain arrived at Epik for the first time on May 16, 2019. It arrived from Uniregistry where it was an expired domain.
You can see that the registrant is still showing Uniregistry’s expired DNS:
Domain Name: TURBINEPOWER.COM
Registry Domain ID: 18317_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.epik.com
Registrar URL: http://www.epik.com
Updated Date: 2019-05-16T07:49:09Z
Creation Date: 1996-04-09T04:00:00Z
Registry Expiry Date: 2020-04-10T04:00:00Z
Registrar: Epik Inc.
Registrar IANA ID: 617
Registrar Abuse Contact Email:
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone:
Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited
Name Server: NS1.EXPIRED.UNIREGISTRY-DNS.COM
Name Server: NS2.EXPIRED.UNIREGISTRY-DNS.COM
This registrant is consolidating his domains from Uniregistry to Epik, and has a tendency to make full use of grace periods at registrars, including Epik’s and presumably elsewhere.
Apparently this registrant is going to update his settings so that incoming domains get Epik DNS by default but has not cleaned up legacy acquisitions.
I apologize if I was incorrect on that name Rob, I looked at the whois on May 15th when I won it and paid and it said Epik, perhaps a time zone difference or the transfer was already in process is why, I just assumed it was already at Epik. Anyway it’s all good, I will survive, I would have renewed this name too. And I am not saying Dyna is doing anything jicky, I just think the worst sometimes lol, I like Dyna, I am not crazy about account credit as a refund but that is how they do it and I know that whenever I bid on one of their expiring names.
Page’s comment to my comment on his blog said it best:
I fall back on the Godfather line… “this is the business we have chosen”
You mean dealing with the mafia?
I don’t know about the mafia. I would say domaining reminds me more of this line from The Dude:
“This is a very complicated case, Maude. You know, a lotta ins, a lotta outs, a lotta what-have-yous” lol…
From what I have heard from Dynadot support in the past, this is how Dynadot expired domain auctions work:
– At the moment a domain has been expired for 30 days, it enters the auctions.
– The owner still gets his 10 extra days to renew it.
– If someone bids on the domain, and the owner did not renew it in the remaining 10 days, the bidder gets it.
– If someone bid, but the owner decided to renew it at the last moment, the bidder gets refunded (w/ credit).
The system seems fair to me, with the exception that Dynadot should allow the bidder to receive his money back to his original payment source if he wishes, and not be forced to retain it at credit.
So why not have the domain auction end at day 40 and avoid any confusion?
I imagine that it is because at that point the domain would enter the redemption period, and then the bidder would have to pay the redemption fee on top of his bid.
The redemption fee is a loosely used term by registrars. A domain may not be in actual redemption fee and you may have to pay a redemption fee to get your domain back.
Day 40 is just an example. Maybe it is day 35. Anyway the day the auction ends must coincide with the day that the owner does not get an option to renew.
It is done by Namejet and Snapnames for years upon years. This is not like trying to invent penicillin.
It has been done and can be done. It just takes a few more lines of code to accommodate domains from different registrars so the customers (us) don’t go around chasing our tails, our time and our funds around the internet.
What is clean in this domain market? Lately a lot of news written in blog posts that I have subscribed for years, I spend with Network Solutions, I know a lot about an auction market by chance to find in order to prove that Network Solutions have made ownership of my domain marketof.com I do not win the Split the power of the market is very invisible and this moves many millions USD.
Haooy Day. Jose.
Im not sure where this is coming from?
“Page Howe .. has already bought many Uniregistry expired domains at Dynadot only to find days later that although he had paid for all of them he couldn’t own any of them!”
Or did i put the coma in the wrong place?
I have not had this experience.
I did say in a comment to Mark
“Dynadot has clawed names back on me in the past”
But when i win the name it says, your payment has been processed, if the name
isnt renewed it will go to you.. I d say with Dynadot maybe 4 names in 8 years.
Its part of the business.
Page Howe
Yeah, it was not clear. Sorry about that.
The well known domainer and blogger was Mark Hershiser. I just revealed his name later in the article.
Your mention was about writing the post.
I think I made that clear now. Let me know.
BTW if we accept everything that happens and it is usually companies screwing domainers then nothing is going to change. I had 4 domains in 4 months refunded at GoDaddy and I am not a bulk buyer. Maybe half my domains are clawed back.
ok got it. thank for the edit.
cheers.
Page
This is not a retail sale, the reward, and risk go hand I hand. Uni owners are not retail holders, they are domain investors who may use grave periods as cash flow strategy.
If you want to take the chance to get a great domain fofnbottom dollar, this is how the game is played.
I don’t think anyone is doing anything unethical here, I’m sure dynadot will return funds if you ask.
Not a retail sale? What does this mean? I am a retail customer to Dynadot.
What is the difference who Uni owners are? Not that it matters but there are both domainers and end-users there. Doesn’t everyone has the same rights?
This is not a lottery. This is an auction. Go out of the domaining world and see how auctions are run. Try Christies, Sothebys and HA and then come back. I have bought from everyone! Never dealt with the bullshit that goes around here. And to have some people defend this craziness is mind numbing.
And who says it is bottom dollar? And how does that matters? I may want to overpay for a domain? Do I get to complain then? Ridiculous…
When you have full control of a domain then end the auction. Get paid. Simple?
Companies are doing it for years upon years! Just do it.
I thought I was the only one this happened to until I came across this post.
I also won a domain in auction which I paid mid $XXX for, only to receive a mail on the day the domain was to enter my account that it has been renewed by the original registrant. My funds was returned as account credit but I requested that it be refunded to the card from which I made payment. It was good to see that my request was granted and I was awaiting the payment to reflect.
Then I received a follow up mail from another rep that the domain was not renewed by the original registrant, will I like to proceed with the order? If so I should add a prepay of the sum to my account credit and reply the mail to authorize them to use it for he domain.
If this was just an isolated incident happening to just one person, then that is okay, but as some persons have expressed their experiences, it does not reflect well on Dynadot and this will lead to “Reputation Cost” for them; this may cost the their good reputation eventually (Just my opinion) and lead to low patronage.
Though I have successfully bought a few domains from auctions from them, I think issues like this should be prevented from happening. It will spread and eventually smear the company with a bad image. Dynadot can and should do better.
Can it be more sinister? Maybe Uni sees what the auctions end up at, so they can cherry pick the great names and claw them back for their own portfolio? :: cue Twilight Zone music ::
The domain mentioned above, LandListing.com, did expire and was picked up at Network Solutions yesterday. It was expired at Uni, showed up at the Dyna expired domains auction, I bid on it and won, then they sent me an email that it was renewed and refunded my money back as Dyna credit. But it was not renewed and it dropped. So I asked Dyna WTF and they said I would need to ask Uni lol. I said why do I need to talk to Uni about a Dyna expiring auction? Anyway who knows what is going on with them auctioning Uni names, this certainly makes no sense, and considering I paid for the name and only got back Dyna credit that is really a f*cked up thing…
The lucky Dyna expiring auction winner of Cerebrum.com for $20k plus is now the lucky winner of $20k plus in Dynadot credit instead of that domain, woo hoo…
The dynadot expired domain never landed at dynadot cerebrum.com, but somehow landed with Alan Dunn at Godaddy, go figure?
The subject domains expired in auctions that arrive from the registrars to Dynadot, some of them after having expired the domain offers you one to a few days to renew again if you are interested.
The terms of 40 or 30 days in some extensions that as a general rule should specify.
Leaving this last section, what is behind is a large business of domains between investors, domains and friendships between one and the other making the partitions by level of portfolios.
I have been dying for a few months, many domains, the first purchase, paying a reasonable price, in renovations, some extensions, renewals shoot more than double and you must let expire.
It is a marketing strategy without going through the usual websites expiring domains, follow a path that is Namesilo that increase your domain registrations a lot, not being registers surely must be agreed agreements.
Happy Day. Jose.
Chicken
Communications