11 Responses to “Domain Picks Dropping on Sep 26th 2013”

  1. Ron says:

    Epik backorder is $199 I am not sure how exclusive it is though… Some other companies have kept good names for themselves in the past

  2. TJ says:

    How can they charge (up front) $199 for a backorder. UP FRONT! That place is ridiculous and it’s no wonder you never hear anyone ever talk about them.

  3. You shouldn’t be jealous Mark, come on ;).
    I’m happy for the guy who got CNM.com cause I think the “first come, first serve” rule should be the real spirit of dropcatching, where being smarter and faster counts, that’s meritocracy.
    That’s why I don’t like the main dropcatchers, they have just become Auctions, where always the deep pockets win …
    About Epik fees, I would suggest you to have a look to this too, I just came across it:
    http://epik.com/blog/epik-completes-acquisition-of-intrustdomains-to-add-registar-management-platform.html
    Have a good time! :)

    • manos says:

      Fully agree with Andrea and i am really happy that someone else has same opinion.
      Who works hard with custom scripts/programs or following closely lists of names in order to early backorder some, should win, that is why first come first serve backordering registrars seem much more fair to me.

    • Mark says:

      I was teasing Andrea, I am not a jealous person, I like to see everybody have success…

  4. Jose Luis says:

    Hi,

    I’m the lucky one who got the domain…, for a few hours.
    I placed a backorder on Epik for this domain, trusting on “first come, first serve” rule. A few hours after of the domain dropping I receive one email from Epik support:

    On 2013-09-25 15:50:08 we processed your request to update the following domains: CNM.COM success

    Shortly after, I receive another email:

    Backorder Daily Report (09/25/2013)
    Here are the results for your backorder.
    Domain: cnm.com
    Status: caught
    Refunded 0
    Charged $199

    I couldn’t believe it, so that I checked the WHOIS information and everything was correct. Domain was registered in my name.
    Two hours later I went back to check the WHOIS and to my surprise it had changed. Domain was registered to other person name.
    I contact immediately Epik support and this is what they answered me:

    This registrar is controlled by GoName / DNI.
    Domain Name: CNM.COM
    Registrar: NAMETORRENT.CA INC.
    Whois Server: whois.epik.com
    Referral URL: http://registrar.epik.com
    They had a retail buyer for the domain and kept the domain. Epik manages customers on this registrar but at no time did Epik own this domain, unfortunately.
    I do see that you placed a BACKORDER for this domain yesterday. If the domain was delivered to Epik, then the domain would have gone to the first backorder. This was definitely not you – there were 8 people ahead of you with the first backorder all the way back on August 21.
    Domains are delivered to Epik at 6:30 pm PT. The process of assigning the winner is entirely automated. If we get the domain, the backorder with the highest priority gets the domain.
    Regards,
    Rob

    This has never happened to me until today and I feel scammed.
    How to act against this?

    Jose Luis
    [email protected]

    • manos says:

      >I do see that you placed a BACKORDER for this >domain yesterday. If the domain was delivered to >Epik, then the domain would have gone to the first >backorder. This was definitely not you – there were >8 people ahead of you with the first backorder all >the way back on August 21.

      How it is first come first serve if they allowed 8 persons to backorder same name?

  5. Hi Jose Luis,
    If you didn’t get this domain, you have to be fully refunded.
    I checked the WHOIS twice yesterday (Sept 26) and I always saw “Denis Markov” as Registrant name, so I can’t judge on that part, unless you provide a genuine screenshot of the WHOIS with your name as Registrant.
    If this is the case, I mean if what you are saying is true (something I cannot check if you don’t provide clear documentary evidence of that), I’m also wondering why they said “caught” if they never owned it, as they said in their answer.
    I’m also wondering why Epik is using another registrar (Nametorrent), since Epik has become a registrar itself with the acquisition of Intrust domains, as they say in their blog. Using another registrar, which you don’t control, can easily cause this kind of issues, opening also the door to possible “manipulations” of the backorder/dropcatching process or at least making it unclear and opaque.
    It never has to happen, like they said, that “They had a retail buyer for the domain and kept the domain”, cause this means Epik is not in full control of the dropcatching process, making Epik unreliable for people interested in backordering.
    If they charged you, I’d suggest you to ask them a full refund (http://www.epik.com/refund.php).

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