A second open letter to Jonathan Gleeson – General Manager, Netfleet
Jonathan,
This is going to be my final article on this matter (unless of course something else major rears its head).
First and foremost, I thank you for responding to my post yesterday – and all the flow on comments. You’ve shown that you have the character to meet the challenges you face head on.
I just hope that you stand up and be counted – regardless of any other pressures brought to bear on you by others (and they must be immense).
You said this in one of your replies:
“I assure you this is a single incident and will not be repeated again in the future”.
That’s terrific – and I genuinely believe you. Whilst this did happen on your watch, I don’t hold you responsible. You are fresh in the position, and there are things that have happened in the past that you are only becoming aware of now.
Your assurances that the future is going to be better are also welcome. But imho, you are never going to be able to convince your core stakeholders (domainers that regularly spend big bucks on your platform) that there is integrity in your system unless you return to a transparent bidding process. Simple as that.
But Netfleet Has A Bigger Problem
Whilst you assure us that what happened on Friday won’t happen again, what I and many other domainers / domain investors are concerned about is what potentially happened in the past.
- You see, many of us don’t believe this was an isolated incident.
We think this type of telemarketing has been going on for ages. Of course, that is just our considered opinion, and we might be wrong. However there have been so many suspicious “incidents” occur since the introduction of Netfleet’s “blind bidding platform” a couple of years ago.
- Because you are new in the chair, you can’t possibly attest one way or the other to this.
In simple terms, the “Blind Bidding Platform” was introduced in order to make Netfleet more money. Nothing wrong with that – provided it was (and is) done properly and ethically.
These are the principles behind blind auctions:
- When bidders on a particular domain in a particular niche see their bid get beaten, the next time a domain like that comes up, the tendency is to reluctantly bid higher (and more than they may want to). They simply don’t want to lose the domain. The “house” wins.
- Similarly, if a “market is created” on another platform for various domains i.e. early bidding on Drop – then this brings focus on these domains, and bidders generally cover themselves on Netfleet. When there are some crazily high bids on Drop, this creates panic in bidders so they consequently make much higher bids on Netfleet (more than they wanted to). If Netfleet end up “catching” these, then the “house” wins again.
There have been some “strange” bids on Drop.com.au in the past – followed by some huge disparities on bids on Netfleet. A lot of us have been very suspicious over this – but once again, have never been able to prove anything.
So This Is Where I’m At
- I have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars at Netfleet over the years.
- Since the blind bidding has been introduced, I have lost many domains by minimal amounts (generally to endusers). I don’t have a problem with this provided that they haven’t had a telemarketer in their ear first (like last Friday). If I had of acquired some of these domains, it’s fair to say that (given my business model) I could have / would have made some reasonable profits on their re-sale.
- I’ve also “won” many domains. But based on what I said earlier, I believe I have also overpaid for many domains based on “fear of loss”.
Given what happened on Friday, I believe I may have a potential claim against Netfleet which could possibly run into many ten thousands of dollars. Others may feel the same.
I won’t debate that on here with Netfleet as it is a private matter between us.
But one thing I will say on here.
I will never bid with Netfleet again until such time as you return to a transparent bidding system.
Good luck to you Jonathan – you have a big challenge ahead.
Sincere best wishes,
Ned
Unfortunately as long as someone still bids, Netfleet will make more money in a sealed bid format than reverting to an open format.
Agreed Andrew.
I also just saw your comment on DNT about RSS feeds. Others have raised that issue here too.
You are so right about this being a “train wreck”. I should have raised that in my article today – some of my bids that I didn’t win were potentially because other parties had access to this feed and could potentially gazump me.
A little recap of Netfleet’s shady past:
April 2013 – Eels.com.au scandal
https://www.dntrade.com.au/threads/eels-com-au.7531/
March 2013 – Backorder scandal
https://www.dntrade.com.au/threads/back-ordered-name.7417/
July 2013 – Domain Exploit
https://www.dntrade.com.au/threads/ziphosting-netregistry-domain-exploit-your-domain-could-be-stolen.8042/
Dec 2013 – Strange bids on drop
https://www.dntrade.com.au/threads/very-strange.8659/
July 2014 – Call for declaration of self interest
https://www.dntrade.com.au/threads/posters-recommending-services-they-own-or-partly-own-with-no-disclosure-of-interest.7218
https://www.dntrade.com.au/threads/traveled-com-au.7198/#post-52605
Oct 2010 – Publishing Australia selling domains on Netfleet Auctions where they can potentially see the bids
https://www.dntrade.com.au/threads/netfleet-pty-ltd-domains-on-netfleet-aftermarket-auctions.1894/
And there is more. What do people think about this in light of recent revelations?
Netfleet very quiet today. Who are the directors? Does AUDA know about this crap?
@ Jono – I think they’ve gone to ground. 😉
According to company search, the Directors are:
Name: PETER FINDLAY (Melb IT)
Appointment date: 31/03/2014
Name: BRUCE TONKIN (Melb IT)
Appointment date: 31/03/2014
Name: MARK LYE
Appointment date: 01/05/2015
Name: MICHELLE LYE
Appointment date: 01/05/2015
Update
An article was published by iTWire earlier today, but it was pulled down for some reason. Thanks to a loyal reader I have a copy, however given Luke’s comments below, we have decided not to reprint it in the interim.
A contact at iTWire has indicated that the Editor has taken down the article until NetFleet and auDA have responded. This comment was also made “The article is off-line but not forgotten” – so we can expect to see the article back online at some point; probably with a response from Netfleet (which I think is fair enough).
Some coverage on the vanishing article here:
http://tldinvestors.com/2015/09/it-wire-takes-down-dirty-domaining-story.html
well put ned, there just isn’t any trust, johnathan is “coming from a long way back in a very short race” now, there are ways around it, i happen to know of a domain name that is still registered but will not be renewed because of business closure, so i have contacted them and made them an offer, basically , legally, buying the domain before it goes to drop.
a least then i know i’m not getting ripped off
tim
Oh do tell us what the domain is. Let us bid against you with the owner! After all, it’s all about the last 10 seconds of adrenalin pump right? Who cares about the domain itself. That’s where Netfleet lost their way – no adrenaline pump there anymore. 🙂
I gotta say that most domainers I talk to love the adrenaline pump of a competing auction. And at least it is transparent with a bidding history – Bidder 1; Bidder 2 etc. If NF went back to that, it would solve a lot of issues imo.
I have to assume poor Jonathan would have been yelled at by the directors and told under no circumstances to communicate on this site again. But that’s just wild speculation. 🙂
Read a great article at The Age today about the Chairman of 7-Eleven. Perhaps it has some parallels for Netfleet.
Netfleet responds with a prepared statement on their own blog.
http://www.domainer.com.au/netfleet-responds/
I have published the post that I pulled down on the 29th September – complete with cached image of “spiked” iTWire story.
Given that Netfleet acknowledged formally that there was an issue, I’m surprised that iTWire didn’t run with their story.
http://www.domainer.com.au/domain-trading-ouch/