Halverez Today … Auctions Tomorrow

Halverez has finally been outed – Oversee has stepped up to the plate and not only publicly acknowledged the fraud but taken steps to compensate auction participants and implement policies to prevent this in the future.

First, let me say this breach was a breach at the highest level – both personally and professionally for many. However it happens – in domains, real estate auctions, online auctions and more.

Remember, the heated argument about Adam Dicker from GoDaddy bidding on names or the questions behind NameJet’s continual stream on non-paying bidders.

We do not live in a perfect world my friends – Our politicians are corrupt, our Banks are bottom feeders, our President (for the Americans) struggles with big business day after day to get anything done.

We all could have had a paid a little less in auction or 2 (or 2000) but Oversee has committed to making this right. Granted, there are many emotional factors in bidding outside of just bids alone which could be factored in to the actual measure of this financial fraud however they sound like they are doing what they can to correct it.

No doubt, fraud like this is inexcusable however lets be real – in an online world no matter if the Holy Pope is running the site we are always exposed to the potential of fraud one way or another. All we can hope for is enough people behind the scenes to take any signs of fraud very serious and react swiftly and promptly. There remains questions of how swift SnapNames reacted to this and completely understandable but as VP of engineering – someone who was there from the beginning – there could be 100 ways to hide something should you have the technical know how to do it  — In fact, its very possible the powers to be even gave Nelson the responsibility of looking deep into his own fraud – ever consider that?

Fact is Oversee and SnapNames worked with class today exposing this and sure – some things could have been done different but there is (a) never any good way to expose fraud (b) always difficult to provide full transparency publically and (c) no way to make every victim happy.

Look – it happened. Its over. Life will move on.

GoDaddy auctions still survived after the Adam Dicker debacle

NameJet continues to thrive

Key customers of Snap will remain to be key customers.

This is news for sure and congrats to Mike for breaking such a worthy piece but in 30 days from now this will be gossip once again and people buying as usual.

There is more fraud every day on Craigslist or eBay or PayPal than in domain auctions. Most of us bid against people we all know day in and day out and as SnapNames noted in their email to customers:

“most of which occurred between 2005 and 2007″

I’m willing to bet 50% of people who are commenting where not even in the domain world at this point in time.

No doubt today is a sad day for many who know Nelson and those affected by his actions but can somebody please report the results of Moniker’s extended auction now???