Read on if you’re interested in finding out how I managed to only pay reg fee for a domain for which the owner wanted 4 figs and was not willing to budge.
I don’t want to reveal the name right now because doing that would kind of make the previous owner “look bad”, let’s call it whatever.bla and leave it at that 😉
So there I was, trying to come up with a name for one of my projects. I ended up going through some Sedo listings and found a tempting domain. I logged in and submitted a three figure offer. A couple of hours later, the owner gets back to me with a 4 figure asking price. I counter with a higher 3 figure offer. The owner gets back to me with a slightly lower asking price, still 4 figures, and I counter with the same 3 figure offer (along with Sedo’s “this is my final offer” standard comment). The owner doesn’t budge and counters with the same asking price along with a comment where he refers to some relevant past sales.
Since I wasn’t willing to pay that much for the domain, I started working on some stuff on my other computer and while I was taking a short break, I remembered the Sedo episode and decided to perform a whois search.
Surprise: The Person I Negotiated with Forgot to Renew!
I’m sure you can imagine how shocked I was. The owner handled everything perfectly, or so I thought: he got back to me with an asking price, then lowered it a bit but not too much (otherwise, he would have seemed desperate) and even provided past sales data to justify his attitude. Nothing wrong with this approach, he seemed like a domainer who knew what he was doing.
He did everything by the book… aside from the fact that he forgot to renew his domain and I managed to snag it for reg fee!
What He Should Have Done
There would have basically been two possibilities:
1) Renew it asap and then continue negotiating
Or, if he wouldn’t have been willing to risk “venturing into the unknown” (he would have only risked being stuck with the domain, obviously not a huge financial risk):
2) Accept my initial 3 figure offer and then quickly register the domain name: Sedo offers are always associated with a legally binding agreement and as a result, not paying him would have brought about the suspension of my Sedo account (I frequently buy as well as sell via Sedo and the owner had access to info related to my activity as a buyer, he saw that I’m a very active buyer and it wasn’t hard to tell that I wouldn’t have been willing to put my account at risk for a measly 3 figure amount)
So, What Have We Learned Today?
Two important lessons:
1) Always keep track of everything (if you’re going to drop a domain, it should be an informed decision and definitely not something which happened because you forgot that the domain existed)
2) If someone contacts you via Sedo because he’s interested in buying a domain name you no longer own and which is currently available, register it before he realizes that you accidentally forgot to renew and snatches it for reg fee 😉
November 2nd, 2009 at 5:53 pm
Why Sedo keeps expired inventory (available domains) in the first place in its database? Sedo Fail.
November 2nd, 2009 at 6:03 pm
It’s a love-hate relationship, it all depends on what side of the fence you’re on: in this case, I managed to snag a nice domain at reg fee thanks to their screw-up but as a seller yeah, the fact that their database is filled with domains which are either currently available or no longer owned by the people who listed them (as a result, “legit” domains receive less exposure) kind of sucks.
November 2nd, 2009 at 7:30 pm
Maybe he thought it was on autorenew or it was registered with a company he doesn’t have many domains with, either way he learned a valuable lesson as well.
November 3rd, 2009 at 6:12 am
Why do I never stumble upon deals like that haha…nice one, good thing you noticed that it’s available fast
November 3rd, 2009 at 6:55 am
“Why Sedo keeps expired inventory (available domains) in the first place in its database? Sedo Fail.”
I don’t know, but it’s standard and incredibly obnoxious. I’d say a full 10% of all drops I hand-reg have old, rotting SEDO sale ads.
I usually make an exorbitant offer on the name (that I now own) just to twist the sellers balls and hopefully, make them jump off a bridge because they just let a name expire that ‘someone’ now wants to pay $20,000 for LOL.
November 3rd, 2009 at 7:42 am
@Gormley: that’s a bit too much IMO. Some people are really desperate for cash and you never know what could happen if you play around like that. Even if a situation pisses me off, why would I spend time doing something destructive? We’re all here to make some serious coin, let’s keep our eyes on the prize 😉
November 3rd, 2009 at 4:01 pm
“Why Sedo keeps expired inventory (available domains) in the first place in its database? Sedo Fail.”
I recently reported my experience with Sedo here http://bit.ly/3zZ7rR
and while this time it worked in favor of the buyer, on the long term, everyone loses, except Sedo themselves.
August 12th, 2011 at 9:28 am
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