SnapNames Discovers User Name ?Halvarez? Was Employee Bidding on Domain Names - Domai

[Acorn Newsbot]

SnapNames Discovers User Name ?Halvarez? Was Employee Bidding on Domain Names
Domain Name News
For years, the domain community has questioned specific bidding practices by at least one frequent bidder with the user name ?halvarez? . ...

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[retired_member12]

Good story. It'll be interesting to see what action is taken to confirm that this wasn't a shill. Snapnames need to issue an update to this once their further investigation is complete.

 

[Nigel]

Amazing story - If it was April 1st then I would think it was a joke. We used snapnames a lot some years ago and we also regularly came across a bidder by the name of 'halvarez' in the auctions we were involved in. It was uncanny how many auctions he was involved in and I remember reading the conspiracy theories on the forums, but always discredited the accusations as sour grapes. But we've just got an email from snapnames confirming this story (although they don't give the username or the name of the employee in the email).

 

[Nigel]

Just checked our snapnames account and can see the username reported by DomainNameNews in quite a lot of the auctions, but can't see that he caused us to bid significantly higher or that he won any auctions that we were involved in - so no claims for big bucks here

 

[rob]

In their statement it gives scale:

• The incremental revenue from the bidding represented approximately one percent of SnapNames’ auction revenue since 2005.

That is very large!

It has cost people money, it has cost people names as well.

According to DNN.com, it's confirmed to be Nelson Brady, whom alot of people knew. People have speculated & complained about this for many years now, just google the username in question.

Snap have removed all bidding history pre Nov 2007 etc.

Time for the usual calls for transparency, however until the powerbase of domainers themselves do something together its chucking pebbles in the ocean.

Sad day yet again for the more than tarnished rep of 'domainers'

 

[Nigel]

This article just published in dnjournal.com is worth a read:

Photos of Alleged SnapNames Shill Bidder Nelson Brady and Our Thoughts on a Scandal That is Rocking the Domain Industry

 

[jasman]

Just checked our snapnames account and can see the username reported by DomainNameNews in quite a lot of the auctions, but can't see that he caused us to bid significantly higher or that he won any auctions that we were involved in - so no claims for big bucks here

Hmm, looks like I can only see bidding history going back a couple of years. I bought quite a lot of names in snapnames auctions between 2005-2007. Is there a way to view bidding history going that far back, or do we have to rely on snapnames to tell us if Brady distorted our auctions?

 

[Edwin]

Hmm, looks like I can only see bidding history going back a couple of years. I bought quite a lot of names in snapnames auctions between 2005-2007. Is there a way to view bidding history going that far back, or do we have to rely on snapnames to tell us if Brady distorted our auctions?

The bidding history was deleted, though reading other sites and blogs it's unclear whether it was JUST deleted, or whether it was deleted a little while back. Fairly recently, anyway.

Anyone who participated in Snapnames auctions (and I was in a ton of them a few years back) is basically completely dependent on them coming clean about the bidding patterns within each auction. I won't hold my breath...

 

[jasman]

I suppose we could demand to see bidding history for each name we bid for. I think I'll give them a chance to come clean first. If they want to restore confidence though they should get everything out in the open and reinstate all bidding histories since Brady came on the scene.

 

[rob]

reinstate all bidding histories since Brady came on the scene.

that would be from the year dot, as I think he started it up and was major shareholder etc.

 

[Nigel]

We started using snapnames back in 2004 so we've also got no way of checking about 2/3 years of history. Some of the really big players in the industry must have millions of dollars (and quite a few domains) due to them and I should think there are a few top attorneys being hired right now to get hold of all the information they need.