DomainLore Blog.uk domain aftermarket and .uk drop catching plus anything that goes…

So after the “Oyster incident” and a long forum thread on Acorn Domains, I have noticed today that my posts were ‘edited by admin’ and even ‘edited by vizzy’ (my nickname there), even though I have not touched most of them after writing.

Now if anyone would want to make any sense of this thread, you won’t be able to put matters in a proper context, as it was so heavily edited, that I am not sure why it was left there at all. It would have been much better for admin to remove the thread altogether, if he was that concerned.

He seems to have decided that his editing would not be considered as a threat to forum’s integrity and censorship. Unfortunately, in the end it looks even worse. What he also did to one of my messages was removing name ‘Caroline’ placing a note ‘Reason: remove personal names’. Wow, that’s some crazy stuff. Her name was mentioned in a normal, civil context as she commented on my blog here and this required hiding? Why?!

On other hand – Matt Seigneur has carefully edited all his posts in that thread to remove all direct accusations against me, made them sound more rhethoric and not as a statement of fact (that was after I warned him that my lawyers already studying his libelous claims). Don’t worry Matt, all what you said in a first place was captured before you were able to edit it. I have enough experience of that lot who does things on the back and then say “It wasn’t me!”.

Acorndomains admin was also likely badly threatened by Matt, that he has even pulled off a link to my blog where I host the whole story. Why are you people so fucking scared? CCTV, big brother, false democracy, clueless people who tell you what to do…? Well, if this is your choice – obey then.

Sadly, considering the above, Acorndomains is not a place I would want to spend my time at any longer.

Final update (4 march)This post is here to express my experience and let people know what happened with the domain name. I plan to remove this post after several weeks, as I don’t generally like to make litter (together with people who brought it) stick out of my hut. I have done this with previous offender exposing post and will do it with this one as well. However, if this person will continue to threaten my providers implying that what I say here is not true, then this post will stay here forever.

UPDATE: (3 march) So the blog is re-locatted now outside the UK. Everyone note what a retard this person is. (I hope he is not retarded person in a real sense of this word, otherwise I’d call him a moron). I hope this post will help you to make your mind if you decide to deal with him for any reason.

UPDATE: (3 march) He is now trying to take down this post treatening my hosting provider with legal action. Haha! I will be delighted to testify in court for everything written here, as no coward would make me be afraid to tell the truth.

As many of you know, I lease DomainCatch software to catch great ;) domain names on a 50/50% revenue share basis.

One of past DomainCatch users has caught ‘renovations.co.uk’ (current domain owner has nothing to do with it) and that was the amount / quality he was happy to sell his soul for.

I was always wondering whether there will be someone next and what kind of domain it will be.

Today we have a new winner! Welcome – Matt Seigneur from Essentiallybusiness.com.

The domain name, in my opinion, is pretty damn good – Oyster.co.uk.

So my software caught the domain name for him this night. I was still awake and sent Matt a quick e-mail reminding that as per our agreement (as I can’t bid on domaincatch auctions on DomainLore) he must name his reserve price and let me do the same before domain is posted for sale.

I had some pleasant events outside my desk today and was back later this afternoon. What I discovered was an auction submission of ‘oyster.co.uk’ with a starting price of £500, reserve of £750 and a buy it now of £5000.

- That’s a nice one, I thought. Didn’t I ask this guy to contact me to discuss our reserves? I felt that he could be the ‘running bastard’, somehow my intuiton rarely faults me. So I reminded him that he should not set an artificially high reserve price so I can’t afford it, because someone has already contacted him and offered more. I can’t know what e-mails he receives about the name.

So he never got back to me and posted domain for sale. Yeah, I was suspecting this and put a block that whoever puts ‘oyster.co.uk’ for sale, it first goes through moderation queue.

So I e-mailed Matt asking what’s going on. His reply as it is:

I didn’t think you’d buy it now for £5k. I’ve had a few emails like you
predicted asking for a BIN.

I have been out most of the morning and checking acorndomains and domainlore
on my iphone, hence contacting you through the site, and not email.

Hope this clarifies for you.

So when I was asking him to come back to me before posting domain for sale, “he was not expecting” that I would be interested to buy it for whatever he thought the domain value is.  And let me remind you here, that I can only place a reserve price as my personal bid, then domain goes to an auction anyway and my reserve could be outbid. I won’t be able to participate in the auction any further. So if there is 100s of bidders and it’s obvious domain will hit 5 figures, I can’t know this beforehand and couldn’t keep increasing my bids knowing that I am not overpaying.

So I told him that his 750 reserve is fine if he doesn’t care, but I’d prefer for the domain to wait 3 days before I can evaluate it’s traffic and define my reserve price.

In previous e-mail, I also told him (my fault!) that I believe this domain name will sell in 5 figures and amount he set as a ‘buy now’ was much lower than I wanted to set my reserve for and that the domain would have been snapped in seconds for 5k.

His reply:

Sorry denys this is not part of the agreement to test traffic via parking it
for 3 days. It will lose momentum and I want to list it today.

If you are so sure that it will sell for mid 5 figures, then surely that
alone is enough to convince you of your own reserve price ?

I was thinking what I should do. I told him that if he likes so, the auction will start. He will obviously sabotage our business relationship and I won’t lease my software to faciliate any of his catches.

He said it was fine.

He obviously was thinking that I will put my reserve and change (or even remove) his BIN price accordingly.

I had almost clicked ’submit’ to list auction, but then thought.. “- Wait a minute”.. He wants 5k as a BIN? Someone would have bought it for 5k already if auction went live in the morning. Wouldn’t that be fair to give 5k as my reserve price so I buy the domain instead? Well.. It might not be fair to him, as domain could fetch more and he should be entitled to more than 2,500 for his share. That’s my approach, but am I not dealing with a bastard? Should I perhaps cheat also (as he did without talking to me and trying to sell), and approve his auction, then ask my friend to register at DomainLore and immediately snatch the name for 5k?

Well, I am not that person (unfortunately).

So I e-mailed him back to see what he says, telling him that I decided to buy domain at 5k BIN.

Here is his reply and no further comments:

It is too late as I have decided to buy the name for £5k so will send you
£2500 within 7 days as per domainlore agreement.

—–Original Message—–
From: Denys Ostashko [mailto:d.ostashko@*******] On Behalf Of Denys
Ostashko
Sent: 28 February 2010 21:09
To: Matt Seigneur
Subject: Re: oyster.co.uk

Okay Matt, you didn’t think I will, but I am buying it at your BIN price.
Would you like for this to be reflected on the website?

Now you tell me, isn’t that pathetic?

How these type of people are still in business around us?

I’ve taken decision to delete the domain name wishing my software would never be used by Matt Seigneurs and their likes.