Does anyone have any experience with buying domains that BuyDomains.com is squatting on? Are they willing to negotiate on their (ridiculous) prices?

buydomains.com is always willing to negotiate their price at a higher rate if you show interest in a domain they're sitting on.

LOL a *higher* rate. Well that's no fun.

Apparently if you contact them with a question concerning some name that is selling for $688, then when you go back, suddenly it is $888! They are good at grabbing names, though... they grabbed SavingTaxes.com even though I had it backordered at four backorder services this week. :(

:flamethr: BuyDomains.com

Yeah nice domain..

Hmm... script + cron job to send bogus interest emails automatically...

Originally posted by DevilBear
Hmm... script + cron job to send bogus interest emails automatically...

Just because they are better at the game doesn't mean you should break the rules.

Be a good sport.

Yes what you do is request a price and then sit there for a month.

Every week or so they email you with a lower price ;)

BTW,

Thier prices arent ridicules.

What rules? And why isn't there a rule against squatting on speculation? Not to mention raising your prices when you think there's some interest? Why not advertise a fair price to begin with? Who's playing dirty here?

Anyway, it would be a problem of their own creation. There would be a simple way to solve the problem: stop changing prices upon receiving interest emails.

And DevilDude, I find their prices to be downright laughable. I'm surprised they make any money.

Originally posted by DevilBear
What rules? And why isn't there a rule against squatting on speculation? Not to mention raising your prices when you think there's some interest? Why not advertise a fair price to begin with? Who's playing dirty here?

Anyway, it would be a problem of their own creation. There would be a simple way to solve the problem: stop changing prices upon receiving interest emails.

And DevilDude, I find their prices to be downright laughable. I'm surprised they make any money.

I agree with you... they took my (TM)... (it is my fault, I didn't renewed it in time)

They asked me 688 for the domain, when I clicked on the link to pay them, the price was 1888!! They are big cheats!

DevilBear, they are probably the most successful domain selling entity online. With over 80,000 domains and I heard 20 sales a day or so... if they averaged 1500$, thats 10 million/year (what I recall someone calculating... didnt check the numbers myself).

They are very good at what they do. If someone emailed me and was interested I would quote a much higher price then I might sell on a forum such as this. Thats how it is played, you try and get as much as you can for a domain. Their prices obviously arent laughable, since they are selling and making a lot of money. They beat every one quite a lot, they also have a lot of big clients with deep pockets. So there is no problem waiting for someone to pay those 'downright laughable' prices.

Why would you buy a ferrari when you can buy toyota? They both drive you somewhere...

BuyDomains definitely has a superior system of grabbing expired names... they just pulled the rug out from under me again! But that's what competition is all about. I hate them - but I do respect their business strategy. They certainly must be making money to keep grabbing names the way they do.

<edited for spelling>

http://www.dnjournal.com - great article there, an interview with the ceo of buydomains.

"but I do respect their business strategy"

All said and done...

They offered me 688 for a domains and asked me to go to their site and buy it... I reached there and the price jumped to 1888!! What will you like to say about this?

Originally posted by bagfull
They offered me 688 for a domains and asked me to go to their site and buy it... I reached there and the price jumped to 1888!! What will you like to say about this? Hey bagful, I already commented in the thread where you originally posted, that what they did to you was underhanded. Especially since you have a TM on the name. You should definitely try to follow through with at least letters to ICANN and maybe even contacting that DNJournal reporter to take SuperMan down a notch. There he is in this article spouting all his charity work while stealing peoples trademarks. I think I was clear as could be here... I got the flamethrower on them above and in my last post I said I hate them... but I have to respect their ability to grab these domain names. I had Pool, NameWinner, SnapNames, GoDaddy AND DropWizard working on the last one and BuyDomains STILL got it. It's fricking scary...

I don't like the advantage that BuyDomains and UltimateSearch seem to have over us "regular" guys... but you have to respect that they have found or engineered a way to give them that advantage and it's making them lots of money.

But your case is a slam dunk... what they did to you was wrong and I'm kinda disappointed in you that you're letting them get away with it.

Do you think I have all the expenses to fight against them? The TM I have is in my country and not federal...

From where can I pay all the legal expenses??...

Originally posted by bagfull
Do you think I have all the expenses to fight against them? The TM I have is in my country and not federal...

From where can I pay all the legal expenses??... Now I AM disappointed. Bagfull, I thought you were *big time* rich. I mean just look at your WHT name... and everybody knows that anyone involved with web hosting is making so much money that they don't have time to count it all. :D

Seriously, I am sorry that happened to you, bagfull...

Originally posted by 4solutions


But your case is a slam dunk... what they did to you was wrong and I'm kinda disappointed in you that you're letting them get away with it.

do you mean in terms of trademark rights? as I remember the name wasn't even disclosed to the forum.

they are just good at what they are doing.

Originally posted by 4solutions
and it's making them lots of money.



There is no proof of this.

Many companies DO loss money.

BIG ones.

Now I am not saying BD is lossing money (they probably arent) but it is possible.

With funds, anyone can aquire almost anything and start dominating a very small industry like domain reselling.


BD are not gods..

They aren a big Co...

JMHO

I fail to see what's respectable about their business strategy.

DeviB,

If your not willing to pay a premium price for premium domains, then dont, but dont start whining about it.

I'm hardly whining. A number of people here have expressed what they call respect for a business that seems to be built on a practice I would call most unethical. I'm inviting them to explain their thinking.

Moreover, a domain is not "premium" simply because a large business decided to squat on it.

Why not take the initiative of starting an online petition to "outlaw" domain squatting or at least but very strict restrictions on it or how long it can be squatted one? ship that over to ICANN and see what they say with a million people on it!

I'd sign, I contacted buydomains once about a name and they wanted $4800! That's quite a markup!

Originally posted by bagfull
"but I do respect their business strategy"

All said and done...

They offered me 688 for a domains and asked me to go to their site and buy it... I reached there and the price jumped to 1888!! What will you like to say about this?

Did you ever ask BuyDomains about that?

Originally posted by DevilBear


Moreover, a domain is not "premium" simply because a large business decided to squat on it.

They're not a large biz.

ship that over to ICANN and see what they say with a million people on it!

ICANN?!?!

Do you know how long it takes for ICANN to review registrar applications?

12-14+++ months!

ICANN also sits here while VS is breaking ICANNs rules and creating more of a monopoly with WLS.

ICANN is very backlogged and not going to take action.


JMHO

I realize that ICANN cannot just respond to every little thing, but if enough people were to show a disatisfaction with the current squatting situation, it would be hard for them to not react.

I totally agree with verisign being out of line. Their new backorder system totally eliminates any competition in the backordering business. Though honestly until something is done about companies like buydomains I can't really say that I dislike the system. It actually gives us a chance to beat buydomains to some quality domain names.

They're not a large biz.

<sigh> Point still stands.

Originally posted by DevilBear
I'm hardly whining. A number of people here have expressed what they call respect for a business that seems to be built on a practice I would call most unethical. I'm inviting them to explain their thinking.Not that I feel compelled to explain myself to you, DevilBear, but it does seem apparent that you are misinterpreting my posts. I respect the technology and/or system that BuyDomains and Ultimate Search have come up with in order to capture these domains. I respect it because I have lost out to it so many times. Just as if you were in a car race and there was one competitor who was constantly winning race after race over you, you may not like it, you may even wonder if they are cheating somehow, but you have to respect it. They obviously have come up with some sort of advantage that you have not thought of yet. This is separate from the ethics problem. I am in competition with these guys to get the domains that I need for my and my client's websites. If I don't respect their shear power or voodoo or whatever it is they use to grab expiring names then I won't do everything in my power to formulate an effective strategy to compete with them.

Ethically, I believe that domain names should be similar to trademark usage in that if you are not using a specific trademark, and if a competitor can prove that you simply filed for it to prevent others from using it, then it will be taken away. But, the catch is, BuyDomains is already putting in a PPC search page that it will probably use as it's justification for use of the domain name until it is sold. It's really a complicated issue... what constitutes actual use of a domain name? Is it enough to just state that "this domain is for sale?" Or how about a general "About Us" page with "oh, by the way, this domain is for sale"? Where, do you stop? Is it enough that my daughter has pictures of her dog on her website, or should some large company be able to take it away for commercial use if they want that name. Is it the concept of "best use" of a domain name - if so, who decides? And so the concept of first-come first-served seems to prevail with domain names.

If you have any better ideas on how to make the decision as to who should get a domain name, then please share it with us. I would be very interested in your specific thoughts on the matter.