It may be worth noting that in most countries a contract essentially is established by the consensus of wills by the parties involved. An error in objecto ("I didn't mean the thing I accidentally said or listed") is a legitimate excuse and nullifies a contract. (The consensus didn't exist and thus the contract had never been established in the first place).
(This is also a reason why marketplaces, where things "just happen", are, let's say, complicated, as they do not adhere to this legal tradition.)
So many people think that the world runs algorithmically, like the code on their computer. Society is built upon interactions between real people. Everyone exercises a massive amount of judgement in whatever they do, for better or worse. And this is true for the legal system as well. Your "well technically I'm correct" arguments aren't going to work in front of a judge and jury the way they do on the internet.
It can be a defense in the US but not likely the case here, the remedy wouldn’t be specific performance (ie give me the domain) but damages for a fair market value of what I paid for, specific performance is very rare in the US. There would also be claims against the marketplace (despite their terms of service indemnifying them) other laws apply that can’t be waived under both federal and state law such as fair trade practices acts and deceptive trade practices). The whole point being anyone could increase prices that were advertised and say oh my ad was in error rendering every contract reversible and subject to post hoc price increases.
I mean, that's what judicial discretion is for. Good luck convincing a judge that the seller honestly intended to sell his domain for 1000x lower than market value.
No that isn’t what judicial discretion is. In contract law judges are not permitted to unilaterally interject their understanding of a contracting party’s intent and revise the terms of a contract, try looking up the “4 corners of a contract”.
I’ll give a specific example of a buddy of mine who in 2008 (during housing bubble) used to buy foreclosed homes at auction. There was a $2-3M home foreclosed Miami Beach home on auction, he put in a bid for about $200k, then the clerk of court website crashed, he didn’t think much of it, come to find out it crashed for everyone locking in his bid, the bank moved to set aside the sale on the basis of uncontrollable 3rd party error, my friend showed up single handedly with a few cases printed up in support of his position and the court denied the banks motion and my friend received title to the house. If the bank had any remedy it was for damages against the courts system that caused the damage not against the contractual winner of the auction.
It was an auction, meaning anyone could bid, and he put a genuine bid for $200k. Just because the system crashed doesn't mean anyone actually made a representation they didn't intend to.
A more realistic example would be the wrong house getting listed for auction due to clerical error (but one still owned by the bank). I'm fairly sure that would be set aside.
Edit: sorry you were talking about my example and not the domain.
Auctions are contracts, in this case the seller (bank) agrees to accept the highest offer at the end of the expiration of the auction. So the terms are of the auction are time limited, historically the foreclosure auctions were done in person (sometimes on the courthouse steps), I’ve been at in person foreclosure auctions and the bank had a representative that ended up buying most of them (at least at the ones I attended)
Maybe I'm stretching it a bit, but the element of reasonably assuming that it was intentional seems similar. I'm sure there are some differentiating intricacies in the law though.
Yes, the US does handle this a bit differently. However, this is handled stricter in countries with a stronger tradition in Roman law. (E.g., "by breaking this seal you consent to the EULA found inside the box" is invalid in Europe, since there isn't really any object, which a consensus could be formed on, at the given time.) – And, of course, you would have do provide proof for having been in error, or the error has to be obvious beyond reasonable doubt. (In this very case, raising the minimum price for similar offerings immediately after the error was detected, may hint at not having intentionally offered this at an unreasonably low price at fractions of the market value.)
Maybe...I tested your theory and asked them to reverse my recent sale of cryptocomicbook.com on the same basis and my request was declined.
In either case there is both contract law and state federal law (unfair trade practices) that would support my claim in the courts if I were so inclined.
Who is supposed to make that determination? It was below the marketplaces own valuation is that’s not enough and must use an ambiguous word like “grossly” essentially meaning in the sole discretion of the marketplace? In any case it’s neither in their terms or service nor supported by case law.
Who ever listed it agreed to the terms of service/contract multiple times and verified the price multiple times, it’s not incumbent on a buyer to point out to a seller their price is below market value (and that come directly from the case law for contracts). If there was an error (either by the lister or maybe a bug in the marketplace software) believe it or not the claim would be against them and not me, and presumably they would both also be covered by insurance specifically for those kinds of damages.
Im not saying I will take legal action, for example I offered them to just put my domains on their “premium listing page”. But I’m also not here to debate the legal merit of contract law.
You can't know that the person who listed it doesn't have a special MSA (service agreement) with their vendor that gives them premium support and or protections not offered to "normal" end-users, and you seem to believe there is some sort of clear black and white with how business may make decisions when there are incidents on their platforms.
As a person who misses a lot of flights, I can tell you that they can always reroute you, usually for free, and sometimes get you home faster, but if you're an asshole and constantly talk about how you've been wronged, you get to wait for the next flight.
Sorry you miss your flights a lot, but if I may, imagine you showed up on time and: A) the plane was gone and they explained you bought a ticket with an error in the flight time; or b) they informed you they cancelled your ticket and your couldn’t fly because the price of your ticket had an error.
Remember that recent viral video/news story of the Guy being dragged off a plane kicking and screaming because the airline had overbooked the flight. Airlines disclose they can overbook flights and remove passengers on such flights, usually people volunteer for freebies but no one did on this flight, they just happened to choose drag him off the plane forcefully kicking and screaming. Even when the airline had full contractual right to overbook and remove a passenger, they went about it all wrong, people still called him an asshole anyway but it was the airline that paid $140M for it.
> imagine you showed up on time and: A) the plane was gone and they explained you bought a ticket with an error in the flight time; or b) they informed you they cancelled your ticket and your couldn’t fly because the price of your ticket had an error.
With respect: those two points _do_ happen? So I must be misunderstanding your overarching point with them
You're beating a dead horse and seem to just be arguing past everyone, I'm not going to participate any more, sorry about your not being able to get ua.com for a really low price, that must have been a real downer.
I don’t think you tested this. And it’s not a theory. If you are a large customer of your domain registrar you will get special treatment. The same is true when you have large financial stake in many things.
I say this as someone who had their domain auctioned off when I was unemployed because I was too depressed to read my email and didn’t see the notice until I was out from my cave, losing a domain I owned since 1996.
I’m not in the side of the registrar, but no reasonable observer would think you should be able to buy ua.com for $78, so you haven’t done much in the way of “testing” by not being a high value customer, and by selling a domain that’s not valuable.
What I’m saying I tested is your theory that you can just ask the marketplace to reverse a transaction on the basis of your listing price being in error.
Of course I did that because I had just sold crypto comic book.com on their marketplace. And they refused to reverse my sale.
And you don’t think I did that ? Why would anyone make that up?
It’s really not on me to test the accuracy of a publicly traded company’s auction website or a seller who may or may not have priced their item in error. It would only be a moron who didn’t buy it under the circumstances, it’s not like I was responding to a Nigerian prince email, it’s a publicly traded company’s auction marketplace that claims to verify domain ownership before listing.
You selling your low value domain and asking for a refund is not the same as the owner of ua accidentally selling ua.com
UA is likely a LARGE customer of the domain service you use and pay multiple thousands of dollars more for managed services and support than you do. They will get special treatment because it's in THEIR contract, just not yours.
Try reaching out to them and ask what kind of contract you need to sign to get the ability to reverse accidental sales, they probably can quote you a price.
The law doesn’t care about the value of a contract, it’s enforceable or it’s not, and I don’t think you have the slightest clue how damaging it would be if I were to sue (again I never I would) and it to come out in discovery that the marketplace reversed the transaction I was the buyer and refused to reverse the transaction I was the seller because the seller the supported pays them more than I do and as a result reversed their transaction not mine. Or even a more generous interpretation of your comment that there is a non advertised fee you can pay to reverse transactions after the fact and the same is not disclosed to users and buyers of those particular domains.
I’m just telling a story of what happened, you seem to be arguing and it’s really bizarre. If you wanted to discuss the law in good faith fine, I’m happy to do that, but you are taking everything personal and lashing out with comments like my “low value domain” and just seem to want to justify what they did from error to paying for a special non advertised service that permits reversing sales...so I’ll step back.
This example doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the law. If you’re a big and important customer, you get more leeway to make mistakes and get them reversed. If you are small potatoes you don’t get to reverse mistakes. Go rack up a $1000 phone bill by mistake and see how difficult it is to fight. Then, go be a Fortune 500 company and see how easy it is to get a mistaken corp phone bill fixed. It’s not fair but it’s reality.
I realized, and I might be wrong, but this person almost certainly accidentally sold their domain at a low price and wants a refund. The example about them buying ua may or may not have happened but the point is they are mad that they didn’t get special treatment and I think that’s their general grievance. A grievance I can understand and agree with, but for which we should admit there’s not much we can do about it, and deflecting to a megacorporation won’t make it right.
