Sedo / mTLD stated that they could extend the auction that ceased based on their terms of service and conditions. However, 2 parts of their clauses show that they clearly breached their own terms.

Their Terms of Service / Conditions can be found here: http://sedo.com/about/policy.php?page=terms_us&tracked=&partnerid=&language=us

Taking a closer look at Sedo's right to cancel any auction:

5.1.2.5. Sedo’s Right to Cancel Auction

Sedo reserves the right at Sedo’s sole discretion to cancel an Auction Period at any time, if the offered Domain or Web Project infringes the intellectual property rights or other rights of a third party. If the Auction Period is cancelled, any contractual relationship between the Seller and the highest bidder and/or the person who made the last offer before the Auction Period that may have existed will cease.
 
There is no Intellectual Property violation on generic domain names such as "music" so Sedo can not cancel the winning bid. However, even though I was sent 2 emails proclaiming me the winner as well as given an official Music.mobi Sedo Invoice with instructions to pay the $66,000, my winning bid was canceled in their system and a new auction was initiated

Another important element of the Terms of Service that Sedo violated is clearly stated in their liability section:

5.1.2.7. Liability

Sedo in no way guarantees or further warrants that the web page on which bids can be placed (“Bidding Page”) during the Auction Period is permanently accessible. If a Bidding Page is not accessible, the Seller may not, in the future refer to a potentially higher bid during this time period as a mechanism for not following through with a sale. Furthermore, a potential bidder may not argue, for the same purposes, that he would have been the highest bidder for the Domain up for Auction if the webpage would have been available.

It is obvious that Sedo states that if any technical issues arise with the site during the auction, it holds no ground for disputing the successful bid i.e my end bid that proclaimed me as the winner of music.mobi. In other words, even if there is a technical problem, the winning bid holds.

I have been contacted by Sedo's lawyer Sheri Archidiacono who was very polite on the phone and obviously was seeking to resolve this mess, apologizing to me in numerous occasions. I actually felt a bit bad for her because she was stuck in a situation involving business ethics and her legal obligation as an attorney to do what is best for society. She obviously knows that there has been injustice but she knows the monetary stake here for Sedo and the MTLD. They are risking to lose not only the $611k that I bid to with the new entrant/bidder, but every other profit generated in their second illegal auction. I am sure she is not having a great night's sleep. I am not sure she can pull an O.J Simpson on this one as others have stated.

Justice will be served.

Hello everyone!

Busy day meeting up with lawyers about this whole Sedo mess.

First thing in the morning I called Sedo up in the East Coast and I explained the situation to the person in charge of escrow/transfers and asked to talk with Schumacher the company CEO. He said he can not do that directly and that I could speak to the supervisor. Well guess what? The supervisor NEVER answered the phone. I left a voicemail underlying all my points and that I will be investing $600k in legal fees and advertising in not only getting Music.mobi back via multiple lawsuits, I would go for punitive damages and also bring justice to all the bidders who who won their original auctions to wake up the next day to find out they actually lost.

I was OUTRAGED to find out that a SEDO representative sent me an email. Here it is, public for everyone to see:


----- Original Message -----
From: Jay Finnan <jay@sedo.com>
To: Costa
Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2007 1:37 PM
Subject: mp3s.mobi

Hello,

I was speaking to the owner of mp3s.mobi.  The auction that closed today has them interested in selling their domain now.  If you are interested in acquiring the name the owners would sell it today for $500,000 USD.

If you’re interested please let me know. 

Best regards,

Jay Finnan

Brokerage Team Leader
Portfolio Sales Manager
--
Sedo.com, LLC
tel +1 (617) 499-7237 • fax +1 (617) 499-7203
http://www.sedo.com • mailto:jay@sedo.com

My response was one of outrage and disgust since my proxy of $611k was output by some random bidder who was never even involved in the original auction. The intent was clear. SEDO wanted MANIPULATE the situation and my $611k proxy bid to make more money on my situation. I told them I would not buy the domain for even $300 and that they make me sick asking me to buy a CRAPPY domain for $500k which leads me to believe that they had insider information and that they manipulated the system to INCREASE the value of the .mobi auctions.

OK here is the conspiracy and actions that lead me to believe that this was a bigger scam than the .eu - As one would say they EnronSedoed or EnronMTLDed me.

1) They hold the auction and anticipate high demand. They decide not to increase their server size so that the loading times are slow. They even adjust their server settings at the 5 minute mark for lower processing times. They KNOW that there will be a lot of traffic in the last 10 minutes so they stipulate users would construe the traffic and server slowdown as "natural"

2) The time runs out. The winners are declared but they look at their TOS and decide they can abuse the original SEDO bidders so they can extract further monies. I know they would not redo the auction is my DSL connection was slow. They claim that the servers crashed (in actuality the servers did not crash - they just has the SLOWEST loading times. There is a difference between a computer crashing and a server being slow. The server was the SLOWEST. By the way, I videotaped the last 15 minutes of the auction which in essence proves that the servers did not crash, but they experienced slow loading times.

3) They move into strategy 2. They decide to create a hyped up environment to show to the world that the .mobi auction is going nuts and that the bidding is astronomical. There is SOO much demand that the servers crashed. Emails are sent by BOTH Sedo and the MTLD (Yes both - they leveraged their email lists to the maximum). New bidders read about it and get excited about the .mobi domain due to the artificial hype. Yes, this is where the music.mobi Bidder 13 and 14 who had no bids in the original Music.mobi auction come and start jacking up the prices, moving towards my $611k proxy. At this moment I am seeing my final win from $66k go to $616k. Other bidders experience the same thing. Others are sleeping or out celebrating the fact that the won. Later they will find out what has happened.

4) Sedo decides to add 2 hours to the bid so they can maximize the exposure of their email sending as well as invite new users. MTLD even starts posting on domain forums to alert everyone of the hype. I have this directly from one of the heads of .mobi MTLD Caroline Greer:

Dear Costa,

Thank you for your email and we are sorry for your disappointment.

Sedo extended the auction by three hours in accordance with its auction terms and conditions. Every effort was made to contact bidders in the auction and additional outreach efforts were made via blogs, web site posts etc.

Please contact Kate Donaghue from Sedo (copied on this email) if you need further clarity on Sedo's auction terms and conditions.
 

As regards the winning bidders, I have yet to see the list and we are unable to comment on bidder identities without the bidder’s explicit consent. However, I can assure you that dotMobi’s terms and conditions regarding site development apply in all cases.

Kind regards,

Caroline Greer
Director, Policy and Industry Relations

dotMobi
11 Exchange Place
IFSC, Dublin 1, Ireland
+ 353 87 1234244

Yes people, the MTLD did POST-AUCTION advertising. Yes, the head clearly stated in an email: "additional outreach efforts were made via blogs, web site posts" - WOW what a way to create some additional buzz and entice new bidders and jack up the price of .mobi

5) I did not receive a call back from the CEO Schumacher. However I did receive a call from the SEDO lawyer called Sharon. They obviously know what they did was fraud and would undermine their credibility. I can not believe that all the CAroline Greer's of MTLD and execs at Sedo are feeling good about themselves. This was a well thought out scheme. Even if the servers became slow due to excessive bandwidth (note the servers did not crash - their terminology was incorrect - a server expert told me that crashing and slowing down are 2 different things and would show 2 different results on your screen), it gives SEDO and MTLD no right to do all the things that transpired. And WHY did they add 3 hours? (Wait I thought it was 2 hours and then 30minutes extra - Caroline get your facts straight - SEDO did not follow your instructions very well about that additional 30 minutes huh?).

6) I have spoken to 10 attorneys today. yes very busy day. They are salivating over this case. And I mean salivating. Hey, they even said, if Sedo's attorney called you it means they have done something wrong and dont want anyone opening their mouth and saying something that will haunt them. I feel sorry for the one guy who thinks he won the top names. Dude, I assure you that in the class lawsuit I am filing (http://mobi.music.us), the MTLD's premium auction conditions will be included: equal distribution and RFPs. By definition you can not have all those domains. It is against MTLD policies. Wait EnronMTLD I mean.


By the way, I am pissed especially since I had a whole strategy on pushing the .mobi domain through a killer site which launches next year (3 years of development). Caroline Greer and the MTLD REJECTED my RFP claim since 2006 (yes I have been enquiring for that domain since 2006). By they way I do not own ANY .mobi domains. If I own one, I SHALL develop it. That is the goal. UNlike the fake high bidder who is too busy showing off his world record. I have one thing to say buddy. It is fake. My proxy of $611k must be retracted to reflect the REAL price of the domain. $66k. I will NOT assist some random domain-seller a-la-domain-king into showing off that he spent $616k. It is void buddy. I asked Sedo to retract the proxy bid of $611k. So dont send a wire transfer of $616k. Tell them I said I retracted my offer and that you should not be paying that. Even if you pay, they are still liable for damages. I hope they return your money when I get the domain back. Because i will. And so will all of you. Justice will be served.

P.S My attorney handling the case in the US is NY lawyer Paul Farkas Esq.

Hello everyone,

I have been a part of the SEDO .mobi auction auction and I am the one responsible for the bid $611,000 for music.mobi.

However I stopped bidding at the point where I realised that the NEW auction was a scam because the two bidders that were bidding me up were NEW bidders who were not even involved in the initial auction.

The initial auction closed with me winning the last bid at $66,000.

I received an invoice and 2 emails regarding the winning bid.

Let me ask everything this key question? If you are bidding on eBay and you have a 7 day auction and you take a chance and wait til the last second to bid what if your DSL line or connection or even your computer crashes? I think many of us had this experience in the past. I know I had this happen last week on eBay when my computer froze and in essence lost the bid. Did eBay care? NO! Does SEDO care if you WERE going to bid and failed to do so if your computer crashed or had a slow connection? NO! Well, wait a second in this case they do.

They proclaimed me winner send me 2 emails, sent me an invoice. I considered the bid finished and was ready to go and play guitar and record this new song I was working on in the studio. By chance, I get an email by whom? BOTH the .mobi MTLD who started INVITING people via a bulk message hyping them up that the servers have crashed and that there is huge demand for the .mobi auction. Then Sedo followed. So 2 bulk messages sent to the world inviting them to attend a NEW auction. Not only that, they extended the auction to 2.5 hrs NOT 5 minutes.

Anyhow, I seriously have been negotiating with .mobi since 2006 about music.mobi but they seem to want money and to rob everyone of money than have someone develop a super site like I am. So the whole RFP was bogus. I tried fir over a year and they just said "you will have to bid for it".

So, I am really upset, they caused me to miss my jam session and on top of that they allowed NEW bidders to the new auction. I say I have NO PROBLEM with old bidders that were active in the original auction bidding their maximum. Even though I was invoiced $66,000 I emailed SEDO and MTLD letting them know that I would pay them $81,000 because bidder 9 (I was the last bidder 12 to bid for the name in the original auction) rebid his maximum at $80k.

So there comes along NEW bidders 13 and 14 who did not even attend the initial, legal auction. They probably got the bulk email fro both SEDO and MTLD and invited themselves to the dance. HOW can an auction that has ended have NEW bidders? I have no problems bidding with the 12 bidders that have bid against me in the initial auction but NEW bidders who were enticed by HYPE emails? Have you ever heard of a closed auction then an hour later having a new bidder say I will outbid the winner even though i was not even in the auction? NO!

Anyhow, the bid to $616,000 is illegal. I sent the MTLD and SEDO an email and let them know that they should retract all my bids ($611,000) that were automatically placed by SEDO as a result of NEW bidders who were not even active in the original auction. In the new auction, the only legal bidder was bidder 9 who was also in the original auction. The bidder bid for $80k and i outbid him.

How can I be declared a winner then told that I am not the winner then they invite new bidders? Also how can they say that their terms of services states that they can redo the auction and there is no legal agreement? REALLY? I checked it and i saw no section that related to servers crashing and technology interruptions.Tough luck, you had 7 days to bid and you didnt. You cant be bidding after. You take a chance, then be brave enough to live by it and acknowledge that you had considerable time to bid. And the new bidders 13 and 14 and dont care who you are but you had no place bidding in an auction with the old active bidders.

Sedo I have bought numerous domains for tens of thousands of dollars and I refuse to park them and make money off parking (Domain King you can do that and **** the internet up for all of us). I will NEVER do business again with thieves especially the MTLD. They are making bank and playing everyone.

OK my story is not done yet. I stop bidding at $611k because in my mind I should not be bidding against NEW bidders (yes I did realise it at the end) who had no place in the auction since they did not attend the original one. So i stop and half an hour later I get a message from SEDO asking me if I was interested to buy mp3s.mobi for $500,000? So let me get this straight. because I bid up to $611,000 (yes I am retracting this bid and every other bid made against NEW, illegal bidders), does that mean you think I should buy another music domain? I told them I would not buy mp3s.mobi for $300 and basically told them that they will hear from my lawyers if this mess is not solved.

I suggest a class lawsuit and I seriously will BOYCOTT both SEDO and MTLD. I loved SEDO and have been a client for years but this money hungry, sleazy, unethical tactics are unacceptable. For all of you complaining that you did not get a bid in the last 5 minutes tough luck, you had 7 days (considerable time that is). I took a chance and won. I would have bid higher but I am not going to fill SEDO and MTLD's pockets with my hard earned money because they screwed up royally.

What can I say? I am ready to kick some serious butt here. And sue these guys for emotional distress. SEDO seriously, you lost one of your top clients and super domainers. Lost my respect and you have robbed me and others in all fairness. I seriously will NOT let this go. If justice is not served, I will sue, I will go to the press, I will tell my story, I will post all the emails I got, invoices and screenshots of my winning bid and I am sure it will reflect future SEDO=MOBI auctions. Did anyone say sex.mobi? Yes, the MTLD is greedy and so is SEDO. This is bad business. REALLY bad. Not sure I can trust them. i will not be surprised if Bidder 13 and 14 were internal just to bid up my proxy of $611,000.

The world record is not real people. It would have been if other original bidders bid me up to $615k. The new bidders in my mind either are internal fake bidders or new, illegal bidders who came in after being sent bulk emails by both SEDO/MTLD full of hype.

If they do not accept my winning auction and fair win versus the original bidders even in the new auction, then I WILL pursue this since I do have some spare change here now.

Costa

MusicMusic.com
Music.us
Music.pro
Music.im
Music.fm
MP3.fm

Blog: Entrepreneur.pro


PS After 3 years of development, I will be launching the biggest music site in the beginning of 2008, so if anyone knows any bands who would be interested, let them know to sign up their email at music.us. So much for the .mobi implementation on my site.

Welcome to Entrepreneur.pro. I have decided to create a personal blog and here it is. Care to join in the discussions?