Hello and Assalamo Alaikum,
I am not sure if you guys are aware of new backordering service which was publicly beta launched some time back. I came to know about them when I placed the backorders with SnapNames, NameJet and other companies I found that it was caught by a company called DropCatch.com.
Later I found they are part of HugeDomains and they have caught over 1,000,000 for themselves and recently launched DropCatch for public. They offer backorders for .com and .net domains only. According to the conversation I had with them in past they currently have no plans to expand this to other TLDs.
So when I placed my first backorder it was clear that I was the winner because I received an email from them being the winner and can proceed to make payment of $59 and I tried to topup my account but later found that there were some more bidders and their support team apologized by saying we are still in beta and there was a bug which has been fixed. So ultimately the domain went through 5 days auction process. Yes, 5 days auction.
I gave my feedback to their team for changing from 5 days to 3 days and change the auction finish time 3 hours earlier which is quite near to what SnapNames, NameJet and other auction platform time ends. I was happy to see both these changes were made quite quickly and I appreciate that.
But the main problem is whatever the domain I have backordered goes into “Public Auction” since I started using them still exists and they don’t just care about it. Surely, it will hurt them in future and I hope they will listen to their clients or start losing them quickly.
This “Public Auction” is the worst thing I have seen at any backordering company. Let me give you an example for recently concluded auction at DropCatch. I backordered Bespoke.com along with other 44 bidders who had ordered this domain before it was caught by DropCatch. So once the auction started until it finished there were a total of 54 bidders. An increase of 10 bidders jumping into the action and I tell you all those additional bidders came really pumped up the bidding war. My highest bid was in five figures but if those people hadn’t come my chances to win that domain were far better.
Now I don’t have any complaints for those who jumped in at later stage or were not part of the initial backordering stage. All I have problem is with DropCatch system and their team who doesn’t really care about this. I have asked them numerous times to get rid of this or you will start losing interest from people involved in using your backordering service. Their answer as always was that I am the ONLY person who is asking for this change and no one else does!
Is that what you think DropCatch? Check out the comment section at DomainNameWire and you will come to know if I am the ONLY person dissatisfied and asking change for betterment.
This doesn’t make any sense to me that 2 people doing their research, putting all efforts and time finding the gem out of the rough and once the auction starts I simply jump in and start bidding including all other people who were not aware of that domain before the domain got started as public auction. That’s simply waste of time and utter nonsense for the person who did this research. Do you (DropCatch) think we domainers have plenty of time to waste?
Yes, I am still using them because there are not much people who knows about them compare to bidders at SnapNames and NameJet. So with less competition there is always a chance to get a domain at lesser price.
So any one had experienced DropCatch backordering service and what are your thoughts? Feel free to post a comment 🙂
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**UPDATE**
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Received a response from DropCatch.com official after I sent my and DNW article link mentioned below:
Hello AbdulBasit,
We are following the domain name article and have been discussing the issue you have raised for quite some time.
These things don’t change overnight and we will let you know (probably with a DropCatch blog post) what we decide to do when we have decided it. A lot goes into keeping something like this running. Your patience is appreciated.
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Thanks for sharing this,
Yes this is something unprofessional, Few people do there hard work and zero down to a particular name to catch it, and when it goes public auction, its like inviting Domainers “hi come here to this auction, we have a good name on auction”lol
One thing is clear is, at the end of the day money is made by this service, if they care for the end user who have put in all the efforts, then they would not keep public auction. But they want to make more money
Founder
NamingZone
http://www.NamingZone.com
Couldn’t agree more! Very well said. It must be a fair game for everyone. It shows they want to squeeze out as much money as possible. Such business model couldn’t run successfully in the long run.
@Zaki
Sometimes that’s why we should let the name drop completely but it’s a chance we will be taking and I figured out that in Domaining chance or luck has little effect.
AbdulBasit, IMHO they don’t care, their business model is based on the maximization of proceeds from the Auction, drop catching is just a tool to get big bucks squeezing as much (easy) money from customers as they can. So it’s their interest to make the auction public, in order to attract more people who maybe can pay more for the name at auction. Personally I don’t use neither them nor Snapnames or Namejet for those reasons. True drop catching is based on first come, first served, which is the best way to reward people who spend time doing their own… Read more »
Without mentioning all the distortions coming from shill bidding, fake bidders, etc, which are part of this dropcatching + auction system. As I said, true dropcatching is getting a name on drop on behalf of your client, and they are paid for this service. The fact is that they allow multiple bidders, so they get paid for the dropcatching service from all of them, plus they get the (fat) proceeds from the auction, from an asset that technically they should not be allowed to own. They operate this way because traditional dropcatching is not profitable enough for their (greedy) minds.… Read more »
Shill bidding like it happened at SnapNames in the past could be happening at other drop catching companies. I can’t be sure until I have some proof but there is always a possibility. I agree most of the part what you said but personally I don’t think the procedure of grabbing the domain and become the owner. Later auction it off and whoever pay the maximum price gets the domain. In other words, they are simply giving us the service and in return highest bidder/winner paying the fee. If such services get banned it won’t be stopped completely because there… Read more »
About shill bidding and fake bidders, it’s more than a possibility (IMHO the “Hank Alvarez” case was just the tip of the iceberg), it’s a reality, used to inflate prices. And I don’t believe to the idea that a person alone can do all that without other people of the same organization not being aware of what’s happening. Something similar cyclically happens in the financial industry, as you probably know or you heard of. You can’t easily get a proof of that, because they own the system and they can easily delete or manipulate all traces of wrongdoing. “but personally… Read more »
“proud”, not “pride”, sorry for the typo. 😀
To a certain degree it’s right that it’s the inside job but not all companies practice this method to hike up the prices. The legal structure of domain dropping is it gets publicly available and whoever has the ability to grab it quicker gets the domain. That’s the first part. Secondly, there are two scenarios. Either I will keep the domain for myself once snapping it through using drop catching software, backordering service or hand registering it. Or I will sell to enduser or auction it off among domainers. That’s what these companies do like NJ, SN. I don’t think… Read more »
Exactly. They are not treating their customers well and that isn’t going to pay off well in future for them…
Well, I use all these drop catching services because there is no other alternative for us. If the domain is within the budget I will happily buy or pass on.
There are some companies offering drop catching service on first come first served basis like DomainMonster.com and Name.com but both have poor reputation in catching names specially DomainMonster.com for .com/.net domains. Though Name.com has caught over a dozen domains for me in the past but of low quality.
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**UPDATE**
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Received a response from DropCatch.com official after I sent my and DNW article link mentioned below:
Hello AbdulBasit,
We are following the domain name article and have been discussing the issue you have raised for quite some time.
These things don’t change overnight and we will let you know (probably with a DropCatch blog post) what we decide to do when we have decided it. A lot goes into keeping something like this running. Your patience is appreciated.
At the end of the day, would you rather deal with public auctions or having to pay HugeDomains’ exorbitant prices? I’m willing to wager that there’s a lot of overlap between the domains that go to auction and the ones that would have gone to HD if it was still a closed system. I don’t know if you’ve ever run a large business, but the goal isn’t to avoid making money; when you have the ability and inclination to catch 1/3rd (or more) of the good domains on the drop and a big customer like HugeDomains willing to backorder the… Read more »
I was one of the initial bidder for Bespoke.com which finally went for $18k and my highest bid was in the five fig range. It was well worth it. But when I saw it’s going over my budget I just stopped. I don’t want to pay extra money to any one no matter what type of domain or service I am using it. Sometimes we get lucky and I have got some decent names at really good prices with DropCatch. That doesn’t mean I am in favor of them completely. Everyone’s goal is to make money but there should be… Read more »
@ AbdulBasit: I perfectly know what happens when a domain drops, but that’s not the point here. When you provide a dropcatching/backorder service, you are acting ON BEHALF OF your customer, your client pays you for that specific service (grabbing dropping domains for him), so their remuneration should come from this service, not from auctioning the domain they grabbed on behalf of someone else. I’m just saying that they are grabbing a name for you, on your behalf, not for them, so they should not be allowed to auction it. If they catch the domain for them, that’s not dropcatching,… Read more »
@Andrea They must have clearly mentioned in their TOS about the whole process after getting the domain caught by them. Nothing is hidden. So we all accept their TOS while creating an account or before bidding. If you check the FAQ section at https://www.snapnames.com/faqs.jsp#howwork it clearly states that the domain will go into auction if there are more than 1 bidder so there is no hiding. “If we are successful in acquiring the domain name after it is released and yours is the only order, it will be yours for the minimum bid price posted on our website. If we… Read more »
AbdulBasit, Thanks for writing in detail about DropCatch. Read about it earlier but not tried their service. I hope they will improve and make it transparent for their customers to stay in business.
Thanks for your comment bro 🙂
My purpose of writing about them was just to make people aware of their poor system but that doesn’t mean at all that I am trying domainers NOT to join them and creating room for myself so that I could have less competition.
Any one can join and no one is going to stop but the issue is clear and it seems they are NOT going to make it private very soon as per their message…
We can only hope for the best 😉
Technically GD auctions are public. Doesn’t seem like DropCatch is doing it right IMO though.
Exactly. Technically GD auctions are public too but those domains are open for everyone to be searched and start bidding. At DropCatch, a couple of person doing their research, finding the domain, placing backorder and later finds out that there are 10 other users jumping into the auction and that too at the end of auction which gives me no idea or timing to think in readjusting my budget for that particular domain. I was caught in similar situation for 1 domain and lost the other due to readjustment for the domain which got too many bidders in it. Eventually,… Read more »
[…] received an email from DropCatch.com for which I had a bad experience in past. They have also posted detail about the announcement on their blog as well which I have […]