A class action lawsuit has been filed against the domain name auction site SnapNames.com, a subsidiary of Oversee.net, alleging that a former vice president at SnapNames secretly bid on tens of thousands of domain name auctions over the past four years, leading to falsely inflated prices.
SnapNames allegedly claims to be among the largest resale marketplaces for domain names, and the auctions can, in some cases, go into the tens of thousands of dollars. Carlos Cueto who owns some 3,000 domain names and whose brother filed the lawsuit, reportedly suspected that sham bidding was taking place.
According to a report in pcworld.com, (Nov 9, 2009), SnapNames notified customers of the situation last week after discovering that an employee had set up an account under a false name and bid on SnapName auctions. This had been going on since 2005.
