As reported by Elliot Silver the dispute.com sale did not go through at $65,000 but rather $38,000.
The unfurling of the story and subsequent comments on DomainInvesting.com tell a lot. It also seems that GoDaddy needs to make some changes.
Joe Styler who works for GoDaddy left a comment:
The reason for default was not that there were not legitimate bids. We are pretty good at making sure that the bids are good on our auctions. The problem was the price and the speed needed to make payment on that amount. Since it is an expired domain we have very little time to collect payment and assign the domain after the auction ends. I don’t want to go into it all but the name is a great domain the people who bid wanted to buy it. Payment speed was the issue. There are restrictions on how much money can leave certain countries in certain timeframes, credit card payments that high are possible but limited. Many banks or customers cannot/will not process a payment that large. Even a US based winner with cash needs to get the cash to us somehow and with some of the timeframe being a weekend the banks were not able to get the money wired to us in the time we needed. I believe the buyer was someone who could use an AMEX with high limit to make payment in the right timeframe. I think everyone who bid on this name wanted it and could pay, just not fast enough.”
So 5 bidders said they could not pay in a certain time frame. When you read the comments AbdulBasit.com pointed out how this method could be used to game the system. Not the first time people mentioned that one person can run the name up and a friend be waiting in third or fourth position to buy the name at a lower price.
Elliot properly mentioned that some people after losing an auction spend their money elsewhere.
But here was a back and forth that I think should push GoDaddy to amend their bidding TOS.
AJ August 13, 2018 at 1:54 pmAs much as I’d want to pay the same day, there is absolutely no way for my payment to reach GD in even 5 days (I live on the opposite side of the world with a lot of regulations around making large payments outside the country. So your situation does not apply to everyone across the globe!
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JZ August 13, 2018 at 3:29 pm
Its not Godaddy’s fault that your country is so restrictive with money. I’m afraid people from certain countries just shouldn’t bid in these big money auctions.
I have to agree with JZ 100%, if you know you can’t get money there within a certain timeframe, then don’t bid, you by your own admission cannot complete the transaction.
GoDaddy needs to make it clear, by bidding in an auction you can pay within X amount of time. If you don’t you will be banned from GoDaddy auctions with no chance of this ban being overturned.
Another thing that I have spoken about many times is bidder id’s. Many are in support of this but GoDaddy is unwilling to do this. Bidding id’s would help with transparency and to see if people are playing games in auctions.
I know marketplaces say trust us and our systems. For years domainers have been saying we don’t trust your systems.
Either you believe in transparency or you don’t.
