unfair terms in RoR dropcatcher's T&C

[anthony]

Although not enforced I dont think. I seem to remember a thread recently where someone had asked if old account credits from years ago would still be valid. Got back into the account and still available. SImon helped I believe.

I'll also add that i book some on here, but knowing the no refund policy only bought about 10 credits knowing i can use them anyway after the ROR

That was me. I would say the credits were at least 8 years old, and hey-ho, one of them was used during RoR by Simon, and he caught a domain on it!

 

[DropCatcher-co-uk]

To answer all the points raised;

The 2 year expiration is only for the case where people haven't logged in for 2 years and are no longer contactable. It's a required term for accounting purposes. I've never removed anyone's credits and would have no issues restoring anyone who got back in touch even beyond the 2 years. In many cases people don't have credits as they are actively monitoring domains even though they are not scheduled to drop. We still check these domains periodically in case they are cancelled or dropped out side the normal schedule.

I'm not sure how I feel about transferring credits to other people but I don't see any issues with someone who wanted to sell their entire account.

I have logs ready to release if required by a court but I won't be breaching the confidence of my customers by posting them on here.

 

[Siusaidh]

No offence, but what's unfair about it? If I buy some ketchup, and the bottle has a sell-by date of July 2021, do I have grounds for complaint?

I'm a bit surprised this thread is still going on. You may not like Simon's business model (I do, I like it, and use it, and it works for me, because I use it proportionately), but the guy is up front about how the site operates, and then all the responsibility falls on the person who chooses to use it in accordance with those terms.

As I've said before, I like the model, because you can use the slots again and again until you get something. That's how it works for me.

Now when you pay £7500 for 250 domain catch slots, you are not exactly some innocent punter wanting to make - what? - 250 websites about their granny, their pet dog, and their football team. You're speculating, to make money yourself. It's business.

And as a business decision, I'd question the wisdom or the proportionality of using the Drop Catcher model on this scale.

Let's face it, when domains drop en-masse it attracts speculation, and people try all kinds of ways to make a killing. It's a case then of caveat emptor. Inevitably some people get their fingers burnt. It's the risk you take.

What's really important, in my view, is that process is open and protocols are true to what they advertise. Simon's are.

I was REALLY unpopular back in 2003 with a gentleman called Konrad Plankenstein from Austria who in the .info Trademark period obtained (temporarily) 4981 .info domains using fake trademark details. He must have invested a stack load of money. Fraudulent trademark questions were also raised against members of the Afilias board who were running the roll-out (notably their Hawaii-based director Govinda Leopold who submitted a fake trademark for Hawaii.info), but also including another 10,000 other suspected or fake trademarks, involving (in case you recognise any of them) Adam Jonathan (48), Adam Boyce, Al Amili (9), Alexander Mayerhofer (20), Allman and Co (9), Andreas Gruener, Andre McGann of Montego Bay (72), Anthony Scialla (22), Arnold Katz (11), Arthur Szabo (10), Barry Wallace (12), Bastian Siebenbuerger, Bert Brunia (94), Callum McKeefery, Carol Quinn (7), Cass Foster (164), Chan Champell (31), Chris Denman, Chris Myer, Chris Riley (5), Christine Steuer (40), CJ Lovik (360), Clive Treacher, Curd Bems (101), Daniel Knoshnood, Dan Kasal, David Singh (46), Dean Ayer (29), Donny Simonton (9), Don Stark (9), Ed Corcoran (7), Frank Scheifgen (5), Fred Miller with John Hand (Landbase) (176), George Schwartz (33), Gnahichevansky (9), Gregory Carbonaro (62), Ha Jea Sung (5), Henri Ouevray (44), Jack Beveridge, Jack Weaver (9), James Merrett (8), Jim Schinkel (5), J. Kaufmann (7), John Hubbard (18), Jhon W. B. Lee of Wooho Registrars (42), Layne Stephens (6), Leo Hillock (16), Leonid Volnitsky, Linda Kreter (5), Marc Gough (70), Michael Jordan (6), Michelle Quinn, Mike Hill (8), Mike Ward (15), Nam Jeong Woo (165), OMPC (235) Patrick Nobriga(114), Pete Lucas, Peter Hoffmann, Rainer Weiss (112), Ricard Verdaguer, Sebastian Dieterle, Siegfried Langenbach of Joker Registrars (333), Spy Productions (177), Stephen Rumney (53), Steven Nelson (132), Tariq Ghafoor (25), Toby Lawrence (60), W. Dyer (51), William Lorenz (91), William Robathan. In addition fraudulent trademarks were used by certain registrars themselves including YesNic (261), WorldNic (94), 1st Domain Net (24). Afilias (who ran .info)'s CEO Hal Lubsen's registrar company DomainBank submitted over 5000 fake trademarks, which raised them over $500,000 but which abused Afilias's own system and rules (not to mention the Internet public who were initially thereby deprived of access to the best names). Only one Afilias director - Robert Connelly - had the principle to resign from the board over this scandal, describing it as an "abomination".

So perhaps you can 'get' why I believe the internet and the DNS needs and deserves open and honest protocols and oversight and responsibility. I staggered upon these frauds and dug deeper, whistleblowing and complaining to ICANN who initially refused to do anything. I listed the names online and the BBC picked it up and a group of us networked around the world, until the fraud was so obvious that ICANN intervened, and Afilias were required to confiscate all the fraudulently obtained domains. Konrad Plankenstein in person must have lost around £50,000 from the speculation.

Now in the case above, Tim has acted honestly but speculatively. I'm really sorry he has lost out, but on principle I believe that the primary thing is transparency and clarity over processes, and it's abundantly clear that Simon's terms are open and clearly-defined.

In roll-outs, and mass domain releases, we all know that speculation is a temptation, but it is also a risk (as Konrad Plankenstein found out). Going beyond Tim's case, what I feel very strongly is that there should be accountability placed on Registries to ensure their own protocols and rules are followed. I am *very* unimpressed by Nominet's decision to offer 'free' .uk domain registration just before the names were due to drop (after 5 years) and the opportunity that gave Fasthosts and others to mass-register domains, which then became unavailable to the public. Who is Nominet accountable to? Does the UK namespace not, fairly, need to be accountable to the UK and its people? It concerns me.

But in all fairness, given that there's bound to be speculation at these times, if a company has operated in line with its clear rules and terms (as DropCatcher seems to me to have done) than to me, that is proper process and deserves defending. Yes Tim has speculated, but the obvious calculation to any domain speculator should have been... I am going to end up with catching slots running into the hundreds. Do I really want that? And I think that was a miscalculation. I think the scale of Tim's use of DropCatcher was probably disproportionate to his better interests, *unless* he was happy to be lumbered with all those catching slots afterwards.

Speculation comes with risks. What we should at least hope for is clear protocol and rules, which are adhered to, which is what Simon provided, and which Afilias Directors in 2003 did not. You gamble... you may lose.

 

[AssetDomains]

Now when you pay £7500 for 250 domain catch slots, you are not exactly some innocent punter wanting to make - what? - 250 websites about their granny, their pet dog, and their football team. You're speculating, to make money yourself. It's business.

And as a business decision, I'd question the wisdom or the proportionality of using the Drop Catcher model on this scale.


Speculation comes with risks. What we should at least hope for is clear protocol and rules, which are adhered to, which is what Simon provided, and which Afilias Directors in 2003 did not. You gamble... you may lose.

This is a very fair point it I did pick up a credit myself knowing it was no refund.
I just think perhaps the policy could have been changed when people want to chase 100s not just single domains but the terms were clear so will be interesting to see what happens.

 

[ian]

I just find the whole situation sad, based upon how every other public drop catch model works! tim171080 for whatever reason decided to ignore the clear terms, on the basis that at least some domains would be caught (no guarantee of success, but fairly reasonable to assume some would be successful given they booked 250 names!). Dropcatch are within their rights to offer these terms, but equally, I'm not sure what justification there would be for holding on to the funds outside of the terms because "significant costs to writing scripts and raising the funds (£90k) to participate at Tier 1" apply. If those funds can be used against future catches, and don't seem to expire, then they don't fund the time spent, nor the money credited to Nominet that will be returned next month. If that is the model they prefer, then fine, but I'd put a limit on how many 'credits' you can retain within the system and allow refunds on the rest. I'd be looking to refund but that's just me. Hope you can sort between you.

My situation waiting on a significant refund from 123-reg doesn't seem so bad no....I've asked 123-reg again this morning to be told "should be refunded soon"! Helpful!

 

[Murray]

No offence, but what's unfair about it?

At a certain point, you're profiting off peoples ignorance rather than a service because you know there's no chance of getting much of a % of the domains they booked, in this case 0%

@DropCatcher-co-uk would you be comfortable sharing the total numbers of domains booked vs the total number of domains caught for the .uk release? or just your catch success % rate

 

[tim171080]

I feel the need to clarify once more.

I do have 250 catch credits remaining on account from the RoR release. After checking my credit card statement and the account logs, it looks like I actually only booked 225 RoR domains. No idea why I have 250 credits now.

Just in case I got the extra credits as some kind of compensation: They are useless to me. I am a German domainer, and I am investing in .de only. The .uk RoR release was once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me. So extra credits won't help compensating. I might be consuming 1 .uk catch per year in future. And I am not getting 250 years old.

I am not in remorse. Just out of the 225 domains I got listed at DC, I got 65 at another drop catcher (WEBGURU), that is a 29% success rate. So the domains can't have all been that premium. Plus given the fact, that I started listing at DC on June 29, when all super premiums were long gone.

Just as my "opponent", I will not publish my own account statistics of DC's performance during RoR week for the obvious reasons, just this much:
-On July 1, DC did not even start catching before 14:07 (in minute 8)
-Catch Bonuses (extra cash bonus for being higher in the queue) were not honoured at all - just as an example: my highest catch bonus of GBP 1077 for a single domain was sent in minute 5, while others with no catch bonus were fired away in minute 1. So the agreed service is of unsatisfactory or poor quality, maybe it's even negligence.
.

 

[DropCatcher-co-uk]

At a certain point, you're profiting off peoples ignorance rather than a service because you know there's no chance of getting much of a % of the domains they booked, in this case 0%

@DropCatcher-co-uk would you be comfortable sharing the total numbers of domains booked vs the total number of domains caught for the .uk release? or just your catch success % rate

I'm not sure how relevant it is given the images posted in my original post (some aren't showing now but I'll update when I get home). Daily catch % was between 10% and 25%. Some customers got 0% others got 100%.

 

[Siusaidh]

I had 10 slots with Drop Catcher and Drop Catcher caught 5 domains for me. I have to be pretty happy with that.

But you do have to use your brain. I used Drop Catcher to catch domains I didn't think would be in too high demand, but which I wanted for personal use.

That may account for the level of success.

Also, each day, I used non-successful catching slots to go after the names released the next day. So after Monday, I used unsuccessful slots to pre-reg names for Tuesday. After Tuesday, the same for Wednesday.

So basically I got almost 50 catching slot attempts.

For more popular names I went with sources I knew from experience would have short lists.

Like I say, I just think that going for 250 names in advance might have been disproportionate for this model, unless you were fine (as I am) to use the residual catching slots later.

If you're investing £7500 to go after 250 domains, you are engaging in domain speculation (which is fair enough). But at that point, speaking as a small-scale registrant who just wants to make personal websites not-for-profit, I think you need (as a speculator) to make yourself informed and not ignorant.

It is basically gambling.

The fact Tim says zero domains were caught is hard to understand. But if the 250 domain names were the really popular generic and in demand names, then that does offer some rational explanation, because those names got snapped up each day within seconds as probably hundreds of people went after each name.

I really do feel sorry for Tim's situation, but I don't like Simon being slammed for running a business, with clear terms and conditions, which are published right out there in the open and not hidden. It's the people who break the rules that I object to. Primarily in this instance, I feel cross and disappointed that Nominet - entrusted with the UK's namespace - clearly said the unclaimed domains would be released to the public after 5 whole years, and then those principles are subverted, and the names are not released to the public, when they facilitate large registrars to mass-register names without them being claimed by the interested parties, by offering effectively free registration for a year. And then allowing that to go unchallenged.

 

[DropCatcher-co-uk]

I feel the need to clarify once more.

I do have 250 catch credits remaining on account from the RoR release. After checking my credit card statement and the account logs, it looks like I actually only booked 225 RoR domains. No idea why I have 250 credits now.

Just in case I got the extra credits as some kind of compensation: They are useless to me. I am a German domainer, and I am investing in .de only. The .uk RoR release was once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me. So extra credits won't help compensating. I might be consuming 1 .uk catch per year in future. And I am not getting 250 years old.

I am not in remorse. Just out of the 225 domains I got listed at DC, I got 65 at another drop catcher (WEBGURU), that is a 29% success rate. So the domains can't have all been that premium. Plus given the fact, that I started listing at DC on June 29, when all super premiums were long gone.

Just as my "opponent", I will not publish my own account statistics of DC's performance during RoR week for the obvious reasons, just this much:
-On July 1, DC did not even start catching before 14:07 (in minute 8)
-Catch Bonuses (extra cash bonus for being higher in the queue) were not honoured at all - just as an example: my highest catch bonus of GBP 1077 for a single domain was sent in minute 5, while others with no catch bonus were fired away in minute 1. So the agreed service is of unsatisfactory or poor quality, maybe it's even negligence.
.

This is just not true. The times you are reading there from your control panel are the times we queried to find out who had won the domain. Obviously we did this several minutes after the registration requests once the release had completed and in no particular order. The top 150 registration requests were made within milliseconds of the release. Tim you have now strayed into the realms of defamation as you are making demonstrably false statements.

 

[donton]

When I opened this thread I wanted to be on @tim171080 's side, but having seen @DropCatcher-co-uk 's response and seeing how absolutely crystal clear the terms are laid out, I really don't think it could have been made any clearer. I mean it's literally crystal clear and mentioned multiple times, complete with tick boxes?

I'd be feeling pig sick if I was 7.5k down for no domains, but realistically DC are completely upfront with their terms, so I can't really see what the problem is. Not ideal that no domains were caught, but that's drop catching for you (expensive and unpredictable - if you don't have your own setup anyway).

Talking about the Unfair Contract Terms Act smacks of stable doors and horses. Surely the time to raise any grievances or questions was when clicking the tick boxes to say you'd read and agreed to the terms...?

 

[tim171080]

It's not defamation if its true.
example from my statistics:

mexico.uk 03.07.2019 14:00:01

So you are saying you used resources in the first second after the release to check who had won the domain?

 

[deluxedomains]

As a neutral observer may it be time to take it to pm so you both dont say things you may both regret in the future...hope you two sort this out.

All the best

 

[Nigel]

if you buy a stack of non-refundable slots with one dropcatcher and then book the same names with another dropcatcher it's very likely you'll be left with a lot of non-refundable slots.

 

[Siusaidh]

Tim, I'm not trying to be rude, but what did you think you would do with maybe 200 catching slots left over after that week?

Why did you choose a model that you must have known would leave you in that situation? It's obvious most domains would not be caught by one single 'catcher' and that you'd have all these catching slots left over.

If you were willing to pay good prices for the names you really wanted, why didn't you just use one of the various drop catchers who only charged you if you were successful, and if necessary pay a good price at auction?

To be fair, you were speculating, and there is nothing wrong with that, but the whole thing about having 200+ catching slots left over was foreseeable and I don't think you can complain about that. I too, had 5 catching slots left over from that week, and I will gladly use them in the coming months if I see a domain I want.

But you chose to use a model which it was predictable in advance would leave you with hundreds of catching slots. I think the level of your speculation was disproportionate to the model you chose to use. The excess catching slots were always going to happen. That was definite from the start. You must have been willing to accept that outcome, in return for gambling on getting a few domains. But it certainly was a gamble when you were spending over £7000.

That's financial speculation I guess. It certainly involves risk. Being a general public domain user, I would rather the domain names were more easily accessible to all the general public. That's what they really exist for. Mass registration by speculators frustrates me. But it's a free world. You are free to take risks with your money. I will stick to making my personal websites.

 

[DropCatcher-co-uk]

It's not defamation if its true.
example from my statistics:

mexico.uk 03.07.2019 14:00:01

So you are saying you used resources in the first second after the release to check who had won the domain?

I'm not sure what you are referring to there. Why don't you send me an email with some details and I might see if I can send you a copy of the logs. I'm afraid it's not going to make a difference to our position though as I know all requests were fired within the first few milliseconds of minute 0 or minute 1. I'm sorry if you are unhappy with the position but it would certainly not be fair to all of our other customers to refund you for a service you used.

 

[mibut]

Just because there are a supposedly clear set of terms and conditions it does not mean that it is a fair contract.
When you negotiate and enter into the contract with your buyer, you should assess how likely it is that a court would think it reasonable for you to have included the exclusion or limitation clause in your contract.

 

[DropCatcher-co-uk]

Just because there are a supposedly clear set of terms and conditions it does not mean that it is a fair contract.
When you negotiate and enter into the contract with your buyer, you should assess how likely it is that a court would think it reasonable for you to have included the exclusion or limitation clause in your contract.

You've cut and paste one line from an article that talks about excluding liability when you breach a Sales contract. It's not relevant as I don't have any exclusion clauses and I haven't breached any of the terms.

https://nelsonsonline.secureclient.co.uk/nelsons/index.cfm?event=base:article&node=A76062D32725

 

[mibut]

You've cut and paste one line from an article that talks about excluding liability when you breach a Sales contract. It's not relevant as I don't have any exclusion clauses and I haven't breached any of the terms.

https://nelsonsonline.secureclient.co.uk/nelsons/index.cfm?event=base:article&node=A76062D32725

The exclusion clauses are no refund and no credits if not used in 2 years
Whether you carry out those or not, they form part of your contract

 

[timter51]

it's morally repugnant!

This is my takeaway from just reading through this thread... I am stunned this hasn't been resolved.