Anyone knows AcquireThisName.com?

[Dreamer]

Has anyone ever bought a domain through AcquireThisName.com?

I'm considering buying an already registered domain name. The current owner has a landing page up, with a "Domain For Sale" through AcquireThisName, like Make an offer on (this is not the actual domain I'm looking for).

I've submitted a (low) bid, and received the following response:

Hello,
We have received your email regarding the domain *******.com.
The owner of the domain has listed the sales price of $ x,xxx for this domain.
If your next offer is reasonable for this domain, an AcquireThisName.com (ATN) representative will contact the owner on your behalf. Upon hearing from the domain owner, we will notify you.
Please note: Owners of valuable domains will often receive several offers per week. You offer should be great enough to motivate the domain owner to reply.
Best regards,
Trevor
AcquireThisName.com

I then submitted a new offer, about half the asking price and received the following response about 48 hours later:

I am following up in regards to your offer on the domain *******.com.
The seller of this domain has extended the auction window for this domain till June 1, 2008.
If you would like to participate in bidding for this domain name, the minimum bid is $ xxx
To participate, please reply with your maximium offer and an AcquireThisName.com agent will work with the seller to negotiate the lowest price on your behalf. We will keep you updated on the status of the domain during the auction period.
Please have your offer in before May 31, 2008 midnight PST to participate in the auction.
If you wish to no longer receive notices for this domain, please reply with the subject line "unsubscribe."

Kind Regards,
Elida
AcquireThisName.com

I thought this was a really strange response.
- If I'm negotiating one-to-one with the owner, why is it suddenly an auction?
- Is there any other participants in the auction?
- "an AcquireThisName.com agent will work with the seller to negotiate the lowest price on your behalf"... Really?? The owner's agent will try to negotiate the lowest price for me? Hard to believe.

I've googled AcquireThisName and there's very few results. Anyone ever heard about this company before? Anyone participated in one of their auctions before?

Wondering if they're a working as a middleman between some bigger domain reseller like SEDO or TDNAM.


Any info would be appreciated.