Pay.tel and Andy: Shill bidding?

Pay.tel is currently owned by Andy Chantrill of the United Kingdom, who also owns Andy.tel. I reached out to Andy with a few questions to get some history on the Pay.tel domain and the current auction and here is that Q&A:

Q. Did you purchase the domain name Pay.tel during the landrush?
A. No, it was a failed Sunrise application that I caught during the General Availability phase.

Q. If so, do you mind sharing your purchase price?
A. $11.20

Q. How many .tel domain names do you own?
A. Over 50

Q. Have you sold any other .tel domain names?
A. Nope, I’ve bought a few though. I’ve received a lot of inquiries and some reasonable offers, but I’ve always rejected them. I have enough .tel domains to keep me busy for a long time, so I’m happy to let one or two go now. By the way I’m also auctioning Hosting.tel at Flippa.com: http://flippa.com/auctions/103324/Hosting-tel

Q. Did you receive the $5,000 USD bid directly on Sedo, via email or another form?
A. Sedo, but I ran a poll to solicit interest first: http://www.telnic.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1399

Thank you to Andy for answering these questions and I’m sure you may have been surprised to find out that Pay.tel was purchased as an available domain name for $11.20 as I was. Public availability became available for .tel domain names on March 24, 2009. Pay.tel was registered March 25, 2009.