Today I received confirmation that auDA are officially investigating my open public complaint in regards to the potential market manipulation and discrimination against me that occurred when I attempted to purchase the expired domain name Superannuation.com.au from one of auDA’s own Accredited Registrars, Drop.com.au, last Thursday.
I would like to thank all the domain investors and various business owners who reached out to me last week in support of my situation.
One such person also suggested to me that, if I were in fact “banned”, this meant that Drop were watching me and effectively using me to “jack the bidding price up” to artificially increase the bidding price and desirability of the domain name. Then they just deleted my final bid and banned my account and effectively manipulated the market and grossly overcharged the second bidder.
If I hadn’t made all those bids up to $325,000 for Superannuation.com.au, it could be possible that there had only been one other bidder, who may have been able to purchase the domain name for a much lesser $20,000?
As pointed out in my original article, How could I have been banned at Drop? Their Drop system allowed me to signup and make payment, and make multiple bids, jacking the price up, for around 13 hours. Plus, as I documented in the phone call I had with Drop, after the auction was finished, he admitted I wasn’t necessarily banned.
Below I have further screenshot proof and timeline of events that Drop allowed me to participate in their Drop Auctions, until, after the auction, where they banned me because I wouldn’t verbally agree on the phone to “keeping quiet” about their procedures and their monopoly.
5 June – 1:41 (AEST)
5 June – 3:03pm (AEST)
6 June – 7:23am (AEST)
6 June – 11:30am (AEST)
I officially WON the auction, publicly. The auction was closed. (It no longer said “Winning” with a countdown, it had finished and changed to “Won”.)
6 June – 12:57pm (AEST)
Although I had publicly won the domain name for $325,000 – it is unclear why they sent me this invoice for $225,000 a few hours after I was banned? I imagine this is the amount they possibly sent the second bidder to purchase the domain instead?
6 June – 1:30pm (AEST)
auDA Official WHOIS (below) shows my company “Assets Australia Pty Ltd” as the OWNER and WINNER of the domain name. Around 5 minutes later, without my permission, Drop removed my company as the owner and placed it in the second bidder’s company name instead.
If the second bidder paid $225,000 or $250,000 (see previous article for evidence), how exactly did Drop.com.au pluck this figure out of thin air?
Note: I don’t believe the “Second Bidder” has done anything wrong in this whole scenario, I don’t believe they are being told the whole story. I also believe they have grossly overpaid for the domain due to the fact I have been DELETED as the opposing bidder. If I was banned, shouldn’t ALL of my bids have been deleted? This could have caused the final price down to around $20,000 or $50,000? Who knows? There’s NO transparency and there NEVER HAS BEEN at Drop.com.au ever since they purchased their only competitor Netfleet and became the MONOPOLY Australian domain name drop auction service.
Story developing…
auDA have also acknowledged on their LinkedIn page –
Auda need to be investigated if they do not sort this out. This is absolutely disgusting and they must ensure there is another competitor in the market, or make urgent temporary changes in the meantime to stop this cowboy monopoly.
What everyone fails to understand (or does not believe) is that auDA is a law to themselves. They are untouchable. There is no ombudsman for this industry. Anytime they have been reported to the government, auDA says that they are protecting the (critical) Australian infrastructure and the complaint dies.
They are the “experts” that Australian lawmakers go to, they are the gatekeepers and they have all the keys. auDA has extremely deep pockets, so legal challenges make lawyers rich, while they play the long game. auDA changes the rules for their purposes. There have been situations where they go against their own published policies.
auDA takes care of their family (kiss the ring).
I think that it is disgusting what happens in the Australian domain industry. I applaud DBR for taking up the good fight. All I ever hope for is to be wrong about auDA, and that one day they will become honorable.
I hear you. The last few years have been exceptionally frustrating with them allowing the drop catching monopoly (allowing Netfleet to be bought by their only competitor and then doing nothing about it, and not approving a new Registrar Application since 2016).
They have stifled Registrar and drop catching competition and now we are all paying the price. Every business and company in Australia is paying this price. The value and trust of Australian domain names are being destroyed in REAL TIME.
At this point, although a few years too late, they have stated they are “investigating” so, now we wait…
auDA will do nothing. Drop.com.au will remain as the only drop catcher in the Australian market. They will continue to say that a domain like hxxxnx.com.au is worth 5,000 AUD which is clearly not.
Looks like you were right, Nobby.
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