Problems, Bugs and Fixes at Afternic - Report Problems Here

[carob]

I suggest a new thread titled Problems, Bugs and Fixes at Afternic - Report Problems Here. Then we can all list our issues so Afternic have to fix them. These Afternic probs have been repeatedly flagged up across numerous threads on here over a period of time, including the need for 2FA. Godaddy own Afternic and have the resources and motivation to fix it - this risky mess is unacceptable and reflects badly on their brand.

For info, Afternic keep reverting some of my domains to "In Review" status for no reason, and I only know that if I log in there to check on them. Until I then ask support to take them out of Review they are not listed for sale and will not sell at Afternic.

@Joe Styler When can we expect Godaddy to take action on Afternic, including implementing 2FA?

 

[canswift]

@xynames, I am having the same issue with Afternic. All my names at Afternic are enabled for Fast Transfer, and all are registered with GoDaddy. So Fast Transfer should be really straighforward for Afternic...

But with my last two Afternic sales, I have received an email from [email protected], asking me to manually transfer these names into the Afternic escrow account at GoDaddy! Why??

The last sale a week ago, this was a real problem for me as I was in Europe (without laptop) and unable to complete this transfer on my phone. I had to use my hotel's business centre computer which meant having to find my way around the Italian GoDaddy website and hope I was pressing the right buttons.

As many others, including @Arca have commented, emails to the TA division at Afternic are completely ignored, and I never did receive any replies on my (multiple) questions as to why the Fast Transfer option wasn't being used. Using this option would be way easier and quicker for Afternic, so I really cannot understand what the issue is.

 

[xynames]

It's hit and miss, this year with my Afternic sales some have fast transferred correctly but two have not.

It's also an ongoing struggle just to get a domain listed for Fast Transfer at DynaDot - sometimes right after I set the BIN on the Afternic side the ability to click to accept the Fast Transfer status appears automatically at DynaDot, and other times I must message Afternic support and wait for them to enable it manually.

It has gotten to where the instant I set a BIN on a domain at Afternic, I go ahead and send a message to Afternic support requesting the Fast Transfer status for that domain, just to be safe. A real waste of time.

 

[canswift]

@xynames , The Fast Transfer option always used to work OK, except for one sale last year when Afternic said the name was going to a registrar they didn't have an agreement with (or something like that). These last two recent sales have both been Fast Transfer enabled but that hasn't worked. It doesn't help that the TA division never answer emails...

 

[xynames]

I actually have received responses from the TA division and from Afternic Support, but mostly along the lines of they don't know why this happened, or that maybe the domain was not Fast Transfer enabled in the first place. This time I sent the screen shot up front to show them that no, I am not mistaken, this domain really is set for Fast Transfer right now as the sale is happening.

 

[tonyk2000]

But with my last two Afternic sales, I have received an email from [email protected], asking me to manually transfer these names into the Afternic escrow account at GoDaddy!

Some time ago, I managed to receive an explanation from Afternic support regarding similar issue (I was asked to unlock the domain and submit an authcode for fast-transfer enabled domain, which I think was at GoDaddy or maybe NameSilo or Dynadot). They explained that the gaining registrar who sold the domain simply does not support fast transfer (yet). They however did not explain what prevented afternic system from retreiving the code and changing domain status to unlocked themselves, without asking me to do so. They realy could do this themselves, as the domain was set with fast transfer enabled.

 

[canswift]

@tonyk2000 . Yes, I got a similar sort of explanation the first time I asked (last year). However, the last two sales where I was asked to do a manual transfer on a Fast Transfer enabled name, both ended up staying at GoDaddy. So for these sales, GoDaddy was (in effect) the gaining registrar. Something is wrong with the Fast Transfer set-up and Afternic doesn't seem interested in fixing it. This is bizarre, because when FT works it's great and saves Afternic a ton of hassle; so why wouldn't they want to fix it??

 

[anantj]

Afternic doesn't seem interested in fixing it.

Afternic isn't going to be fixing anything for this year. @Joe Styler said this in effect. They're only busy with expanding their DLS partnerships!

 

[Arca]

It's also an ongoing struggle just to get a domain listed for Fast Transfer at DynaDot - sometimes right after I set the BIN on the Afternic side the ability to click to accept the Fast Transfer status appears automatically at DynaDot, and other times I must message Afternic support and wait for them to enable it manually.

I believe DynaDot's Afternic integration is particularly bad in general, not just in terms of opt in. Their system is often not able to display Afternic listings when people search for them. From time to time I check whether my domains are properly syndicated throughout the Afternic network. And DynaDot is usually one of the worst performing registrars. If I search for 20-30 fast-transfer enabled Afternic listed domains, 15-20 of them would usually show up as taken/unavailable, while only 10-15 would show up as available premium domains.

 

[Arca]

I have previously praised and recommended Afternic's broker team in numerous posts across the forum. I always said there are two things that perform well at Afternic, their network and their brokers.

I would like to update my opinion on their brokers, as I cannot recommend their brokers anymore.

I used to commend Afternic brokers for their sincerity and hard work and willingness to work hard to close even smaller sales (mid-$XXX to low $XXXX). So as a result, out of 10 leads, they'd successfully close like 7 of them (very impressive!). Usually just in the $XXX-$XXXX range, but with such a high success rate it adds up fast.

Prior to using Afternic's brokers, I used the DomainNameSales brokers, who were absolutely awful. Communication with sellers were poor, and they just didn't listen. If I told them I accepted an offer of $1000, they would disregard my comment, and just push for $5000 until the buyer disappeared instead. Rather than taking a bunch of decent offers, they squandered every offer for the potential of making one big sale (which they never successfully managed to do).

Afternic's brokers actually listened, communicated well, and had a high closing rate, and I was very happy with their performance. I was even using Afternic landing pages for quite some time, sending buyers to such a malfunctioning and atrocious platform (not a good idea) just to let the Afternic brokers work their magic.

But in the last 3 months or so, something has changed. Whenever I tell them I accept an offer and to work on securing the payment, they instead try to get buyer up to some ridiculous amount and scare the buyer away. And communication has worsened notably, to the extent that I can hardly even get an update on a lead. Many brokers just refuse to provide any updates and simply don't respond at all to messages. It's just radio silence, similarly to the Transaction Assurance team. Out of the last 8-9 offers I accepted, the brokers squandered most of them. Only one broker listened and closed the sale as I instructed. As for the other brokers, their only task after I said I was ready sell was to secure payment, but instead they made the sale fall apart by chasing a higher sales price. In half of the cases, I couldn't even get a response though, so I'm not sure what they did to mess up the sale in those cases. When I did get a reply, the reason was them pushing for a higher price and the buyer disappearing. Regardless, for them to mess up most leads where a price I'm okay with is on the table is not something I have ever seen at Afternic, prior to the past few months.

 

[xynames]

This is second time this has happened: sold a name at Afternic, was set for Fast Transfer, but it did not fast transfer away and instead Afternic Transaction Assurance asked me to push it to them within DynaDot, which I did.

I emailed Afternic support, and also messaged their TA support, and showed them a screen shot of the domain within my DD portal to show that it is still set for Fast Transfer.

I emailed TA Support asking why this happened they wrote back that:

"We recently had an error causing domains to be opted as Fast Transfer. Please note this sale was supposed to be manual and we will start processing the domain manually."

which anyway the domain has now been pushed to them and the sale is concluding, but I wonder why this happened.

 

[Arca]

I've also emailed [email protected] with basic requests, and they struggle more than ever with basic tasks. For example, when I'm contacting them about removing already listed domains I've won in auctions, it goes like this:

Arca: Please remove these the outdated listings for these domains.
Nearly a week passes by.
Afternic: The domains have been removed.
Arca: Please check again, you did not remove all the domains. I'm still not able to list the domains.
Nearly a week passes by.
Afternic: We have removed the domains.
Arca: Sorry to ask again, but you have still not removed these domains!
Another week passes by.
Afternic: We have removed the domains.
And they do indeed manage to do it eventually. But why does it have to take so many weeks, and so many emails? It would be wonderful if they could respond within 24 hours and actually have fixed what I asked them to fix.

Wow this issue is just getting worse and worse.

Sent [email protected] a list of domains.

5 days later I got a reply saying the domains had been removed.

I tried to list them and none of the listings had been removed. 100% of them were still listed. The customer support staff didn't' remove a single domain. How can they have fail completely at something so simple as de-listing an outdated domain listing?

 

[BRANDERX]

Wow this issue is just getting worse and worse.

Sent [email protected] a list of domains.

5 days later I got a reply saying the domains had been removed.

I tried to list them and none of the listings had been removed. 100% of them were still listed. The customer support staff didn't' remove a single domain. How can they have fail completely at something so simple as de-listing an outdated domain listing?

very strange.

They replied to my email/request in less than 24hrs. Domain was removed & I was able to list it.

This may sound silly, but it may work: try sending 1 domain removal request at a time.. lol

 

[Arca]

To illustrate how important it is that they don't fail to remove outdated listings, I recently bought a domain from Afternic and the seller no longer owned the domain, so Afternic failed to complete the sale. They issued a refund after discovering that the seller no longer owned the domain.

This kind of thing is exactly why Afternic's customer support should not be failing to remove outdated listings or dragging their feet to do so. The less you pay attention to making sure that only legitimate listings are live, the more failed sales you're gonna get. Certainly not the first time I've bought a domain at Afternic and not gotten it!

Since removing outdated listings now seems to be a highly complex task (I'm not surprised, Afternic's system is falling apart on the seller side of things, so I doubt things are running more smoothly for the support staff) that requires a lengthy period of time to respond to and then to complete, often requiring the input of multiple people, I suggest Afternic to train several staff especially to deal with this task. There should be a separate email, "[email protected]", to deal with this, and we should be able to send them an email and with their de-listing expertise get OUR asset de-listed within 24 hours when it's listed by someone who doesn't own it. People who report outdated listings are doing a huge service to Afternic, as many domain owners clearly don't stay on top of de-listing their Afternic listings. It's their fault that they don't remove listings, yet we have to put in the effort to get their outdated listings removed for them. Afternic should be grateful that we're doing this, as they themselves have no system in place for detecting and removing outdated listings.

If removing outdated listings is too complex and challenging for [email protected], Afternic should respond accordingly, and establish an illegitimate listing task force to deal with it!

 

[Arca]

very strange.

They replied to my email/request in less than 24hrs. Domain was removed & I was able to list it.

This may sound silly, but it may work: try sending 1 domain removal request at a time.. lol

How about others? How long do you usually wait to get a reply from Afternic? Am I the only one having to wait at least 4-5 days the vast majority of the time? (I have gotten replies within 24 hours in the past, but I can probably count those times on one hand). How successful are you support requests usually?

 

[Josytal]

I haven't been able to login to Afternic in 5-7 days due to the "connection not encrypted/secured etc" thing, on all browsers.

Am I the only one?

Thanks

Same here. For over 3 weeks.

 

[BRANDERX]

Same here. For over 3 weeks.

https://www.afternic.com

try it..

 

[ResoluteDomains]

How about others? How long do you usually wait to get a reply from Afternic? Am I the only one having to wait at least 4-5 days the vast majority of the time? (I have gotten replies within 24 hours in the past, but I can probably count those times on one hand). How successful are you support requests usually?

NameSilo informed me that someone tried to list one of my domains with Afternic. I confirmed that the domain was listed for sale without my knowledge. I emailed Afternic and it took 4 1/2 days to get a reply that the domain was removed. But I have never received stellar support from Afternic, and why I currently do not use them at all.

 

[xynames]

Wow this issue is just getting worse and worse.

Sent [email protected] a list of domains.

5 days later I got a reply saying the domains had been removed.

It takes just seconds to login and delete them yourself.

 

[anantj]

How about others? How long do you usually wait to get a reply from Afternic? Am I the only one having to wait at least 4-5 days the vast majority of the time? (I have gotten replies within 24 hours in the past, but I can probably count those times on one hand). How successful are you support requests usually?

I never get responses from TA@afternic. Service@ replies but takes too long. I've pretty much given up e-mailing them

 

[anantj]

It takes just seconds to login and delete them yourself.

They're in someone else's account!

 

[xynames]

Well say so, in the first place then!

"Wow this issue is just getting worse and worse.

Sent [email protected] a list of domains.

5 days later I got a reply saying the domains had been removed."

?

He writes 78 words and doesn't even clarify what he means.

 

[anantj]

Well say so, in the first place then!

"Wow this issue is just getting worse and worse.

Sent [email protected] a list of domains.

5 days later I got a reply saying the domains had been removed."

?

He writes 78 words and doesn't even clarify what he means.

This is continuation of his earlier comments in this thread! Was clear to me as I've been following this thread for quite some time now

 

[xynames]

You're not the one who even made the comment. Looks like it isn't all that clear if you need to keep stepping in to discuss it.

 

[anantj]

You're not the one who even made the comment. Looks like it isn't all that clear if you need to keep stepping in to discuss it.

Sure. whatever you say! :P

 

[Arca]

Just a heads up to those forwarding to Afternic's BIN landing page, for some reason their BIN landing pages now resolve as blocked by "administrative rules" at times.

For example, visiting afternic.com/domain/cloudintelligence.com or www.afternic.com/domain/cloudintelligence.com yields this landing page in both Chrome and Safari for me:

This is obviously not what you want prospective buyers to see.

Strangely, if I visit those links in FireFox, it works just fine:

However, when I use FireFox on my phone, I get the "403 Forbidden" error message when I try to visit that landing page. I also get the error message when I try to visit the BIN landing page via the built in phone browser.

So out of Safari, Chrome, FireFox on desktop, and two mobile browsers, the Afternic landing page only resolves in one instance. Others might see different result.

Until or unless the landing page works 100% across all browsers/devices again, I think it's best to avoid forwarding to this landing page, as you have no guarantee it's going to work in the browsers of your prospective buyer's choice. The "right" buyer is rare, and when he/she materializes the landing page needs to work! If they are faced with a "403 Forbidden" page they will likely just move on to another name and what could have been a sale is lost.

All iterations of Afternic's non-bin landing page/price quote request form page (afternic.com/forsale/cloudintelligence.com) work as before (i.e. with and without www, and with both http and https), so I guess they may have deliberately disabled the BIN landing page (hence the "Request forbidden by administrative rules" message).