The market of expired and deleted domain names has some bad reputation. As if it wasn’t enough today a new scandal was born with service provider SnapNames.com.
In the last years several users of this services expressed concern about different users displaying weird behaviour in the bidding process. Among these rare users was halvarez. Users critizised how users like halvarez pushed the bidding process but never to win in order to manipulate the final price of the domain. Several explanations and speculations were published in forums.
Today the official announcement from SnapNames: user halvares is Nelson Brady, el VP Engineer.
SnapNames published the following statement:
To avoid any question about whether the company benefited from this conduct, SnapNames will offer a rebate to impacted customers, including 5.22% interest (the highest applicable federal rate during the affected time period), of the difference between the prices they paid in winning auctions, and the prices they would have paid had the employee not bid in the auctions. Impacted customers will be notified by SnapNames or its representative with instructions for the offer of a rebate.
SnapNames also has taken further action to ensure its policies regarding auctions are followed, and the company remains committed to taking whatever action is necessary to protect the integrity of its auction platform.
SnapNames deeply regrets this situation and is committed to addressing its customers’ needs quickly and fairly.
Como si el mundo de los dominios no tuviera ya algo de mala fama hoy «saltó la ficha» con el servicio SnapNames.com. Esta empresa se dedica a la subasta de dominios expirados o borrados. Un mercado muy criticado por el nivel de especulación.
Desde hace algunos años los usuarios del servicio han notado ciertos usuarios, de los que destacó un tal halvarez, con cierto modus operandi un tanto sospechoso. Entre varios casos y denuncias en foros sobre halvarez se menciona que siempre apostaba pero nunca quedaba ganador, es decir, apostaba para inflar el precio final del dominio subastado.
Después de varios años de especulación la empresa SnapNames.com confirmó que halvares es ni mas ni menos Nelson Brady, el Vice Presidente del sector de Ingeniería de la empresa.
SnapNames publicó las medidas que tomará:
To avoid any question about whether the company benefited from this conduct, SnapNames will offer a rebate to impacted customers, including 5.22% interest (the highest applicable federal rate during the affected time period), of the difference between the prices they paid in winning auctions, and the prices they would have paid had the employee not bid in the auctions. Impacted customers will be notified by SnapNames or its representative with instructions for the offer of a rebate.
SnapNames also has taken further action to ensure its policies regarding auctions are followed, and the company remains committed to taking whatever action is necessary to protect the integrity of its auction platform.
SnapNames deeply regrets this situation and is committed to addressing its customers’ needs quickly and fairly.