I received an email from NameJet announcing a special auction that is filled with exceptional, privately owned domain names. The NameJet website also has banners on-site announcing the auction. These domain names are owned by Thought Convergence, a company co-founded by Ammar Kubba and Kevin Vo.
Some of the domain names that are included in the auction are:
A couple of weeks ago, Namecheap announced its Namecheap Market, a platform for buying and selling domain names. There are buy it now listings as well as domain name auctions on the platform. I bid on a few auctions, and I won my first auction over the weekend. As a result of winning the auction, I learned a few things that I want to share as an auction buyer.
Most importantly, not all auctions are expiry auctions. I was under the impression that auctions on Namecheap were for expired domain names that are registered at Namecheap. This assumption was wrong. It appears that domain registrants can send their Namecheap-registered domain names to auction on the platform. This adds a couple of elements to consider, including the seller’s control of the domain names and the expiration date of the domain names won in auction.
After winning an auction, I had a bit of difficulty seeing where and how to pay for the auction. My unpaid auction page was blank and there was nothing in my shopping cart. I decided to visit the domain name directly to see if that led me to the payment page, and it had a purchase link I could use. This brought me to the checkout screen, and I was able to pay for the auction. The total price was $49.
Over the weekend while reviewing a Dropping.pro list of domain names coming up for auction that day, I saw a domain name that stood out to me. It’s the unique name of a popular beer in the .com extension. The domain name had been registered for many years before expiring and dropping. I am pretty certain the beer name is a trademark of the brewery.
I backordered the domain name and prevailed. I am now the registrant of this trademark domain name.
You’re probably asking yourself why I bought the domain name and what I am going to do with the domain name. I will share a story and explain.
Fiscal.com appeared to be destined for an expiry auction at GoDaddy earlier this week. The domain name auction was due to conclude on Monday afternoon, and bidding had surpassed the $30,000 mark. I was a participant in the auction (bidding over $30,000), and I was prepared to spend considerably more than the high bid. In fact, I had offered more for the domain name earlier this year.
The Fiscal.com auction disappeared from GoDaddy Auctions at some point between Sunday night and Monday. This was surprising because the domain name was registered at GoDaddy and there was less than 24 hours remaining in the auction. As far as I know, a 2017 change in how the expiry process works was supposed to ensure that GoDaddy-registered domain names that make it to 3 days or fewer in an auction with bids can no longer be renewed by the registrant since the redemption period had passed.
I was attempting to log in to my account at DropCatch.com this afternoon when I encountered some difficulty. A couple of times I saw a system maintenance landing page which prevented me from doing anything on the website. A few additional refreshes later, and I was able to access the login screen but unable to login. Instead, I saw the error message, “Sorry, we cannot log you in at this time.”
I reached out to DropCatch.com to ensure the company was aware of the problem – and also to double check that it wasn’t isolated to my account or a subset of accounts. I was told the company is aware of the issue and working on resolving it. I was also told the website should be back up and operational soon.
There are quite a few domain name auctions ending soon, and it would be a shame if the update isn’t made before the auctions end for the day. I hope the Drop Catch team is able to Push It soon.
