My Ongoing Horrible experience with DAN.com

[aryindey]

What happened...

On one of our local web development forums, a friend who is a web developer requested for some .co domains for a project he’s developing for one of his clients. I sent him some of my .co domains and he opted for BeCute.co informing me that his client loves the name.

Upon agreement on price, I asked him to pay me directly without any third party involvement just to avoid any commission fee but he said he want everything to be formal because receipts and invoices will be presented to his client and what have you. So, I imported the lead into DAN to serve as an escrow and he was sent those DAN transaction mails.

Upon him receiving the BUY NOW mail, he called me saying he doesn’t seem to understand the DAN transaction process so well. I told him that it should be as straightforward as possible and if possible for him, he can visit me in my office to put him through.

He came to my office and I put him through the transaction process and he successfully paid with no issues.

After his payment, I was sent an email as expected from @DAN.COM that the payment has been received and that I should provide the auth code which I did.

Few moments later after submitting the auth code, Dan sent me another email which reads:

The buyer would like to receive the domain at Epik. Could you please push the domain to our Epik account?
Please use the following details: Email address: [email protected]
Thank you!

I then transferred the domain name to DAN’s epik account which was done successfully as shown below:

After few hours that same day, I received an email from DAN’s transfer specialist that the domain name has been transferred to the buyer successfully and that my payout will be processed within one business day or so. I also confirmed from the buyer if he has received his domain and he confirmed receiving the domain.

As the scheduled payout time was approaching, I received a mail from DAN’s Simon that “This payout is currently on hold due to compliance reasons. Our team will get back to you at the beginning of next week.”

N.B: I have received this type of email around 2020 when I sold a certain domain name to a Nigerian. Dan asked me then to provide ID and I should Explain how I knew the buyer which I did and the transaction was later completed.

But in this case, it was totally different. On the Monday of the following week, Dec 27, 2021, 4:35 PM, I received a mail from DAN, which reads:

“ We unfortunately are forced to cancel the transaction for the domain becute.co. Please check your transaction window for more details about the reason”

One Minute later, I received another email stating their proposed reason for cancelling the transaction. The mail reads thus:

Jeffrey - Senior Transfer Specialist has sent you a new message regarding the domain name becute.co.

Dear,

Our fraud detection team, in cooperation with Adyen, has marked your transactions as fraudulent. After conducting additional research, we’ve assigned a high fraud score on your user profile and therefore have terminated your account, canceled and refunded all your current sales with us.

The above email of an alleged fraudulent activity stated that they have "refunded all current sales" which is an absolute lie.

Up till the moment of writing this, I have not been paid, nor has my domain been returned to me, neither has the buyer been refunded. No explanation whatsoever on why the transaction was categorized as "fraudulent".

I tried my best to contact DAN's support, but it seems those guys aren't getting the point. One was even saying they never took possession of the domain like wtf.






My questions are as follow,

• is it because the buyer and seller are from the same country (Nigeria) that made the transaction Fraudulent? (because this is not my first time of successfully selling domains to Nigerians on other platforms like Afternic)

• Why is DAN chat support keep saying since the transaction was cancelled, I never transferred the domain to their account? Which is absolute false. Dan took possession of the domain and transferred it to the buyer before they cancelled the transaction and never returned my domain.

• Since DAN cancelled the transaction after taking possession and transferring the domain name yo the buyer, When will my domain name be returned to me and the buyer refunded?

 

[branding]

That's fine and what I expected.

It's just in this particular situation, Dan said they'll make an exception and still pay out, but blocked the sellers account going forward. I'll give Dan the benefit of the doubt and infer there's something amiss about the OP/seller.

Could be. We'll probably never know. I do know they have pretty good fraud prevention in place though. That may cause some 'collateral damage' but is in the best interest of the company and its users in the long run.

 

[branding]

maybe! lol....I just don't understand scamming techniques enough to know how you can scam by selling to yourself.

This it how it looks like for Dan:
Seller sells the domain to a buyer and the buyer is using the same computer as the seller. Usually that would implicate the seller is using the buyers payment info and the buyer is not actually there... See what I'm getting at?

There's a very very small % of cases where this would be a legit scenario.

 

[johnn]

Something does not make sense here.
The two know each other and one even came to the other's office to talk.
All they need to do is internal wire transfer or cash and give the buyer a copy of the invoice.
Why they have to go to Dan or other venues for the receipt?
Unless they share the exact IP address?

 

[OIO]

maybe! lol....I just don't understand scamming techniques enough to know how you can scam by selling to yourself.

Hype! To help increase its market value.
A possible recurring scenario and DAN got tired.

Still maybe!

 

[meanieme]

You all raise very good, interesting, and plausible cases. Thank you.

 

[Lox]

Adyen - Identify and mitigate account holder risk

 

[Etim Abasiama]

Oh please, you guys are the ones who entered the 'being from Nigeria' issue into the discussion. That's just silly.

I'm not affiliated with Dan but yes, that's usually a big fat red flag for a lot of businesses no matter where you're from.

Combine that with log activity they surely have regarding this purchase, I'm not surprised this happened.

Does it suck for OP? Sure. But nothing out of the ordinary. All part of the game when you're a business.

Thanks, like I said, I only asked to know if it's a normal process, I'm new to all this.

Peace Bro

 

[Etim Abasiama]

You're missing the point. I never mentioned ips being Nigerian, nor did I state that's the reason.

If I would run Dan, and I would log both the seller and buyer using the same ip, no matter where they're from, I'd block the transaction. Basic stuff really.

Edit: I'm mentioning you guys using the same ip as the buyer went over to the sellers office to get the sale done. Why he couldn't just hand over cash, wire, crypto with an invoice is beyond me. He mentioned having an office, implicating with that it's a business, hence my presumption it wouldn't be do hard to close a sale in private.

In short, lots of red flags when it comes to risk assessment/management for an escrow service like Dan.

At this point I must say a huge thank you for the patience taken to explain this.

I now see it clearly from your explanation and I understand better. Thanks

 

[karmaco]

Will similar procedure be followed if the IPs were all from Florida?

I just want to knw that? Thanks

Florida is’t known for prolific scammers. DAN doesn’t make the flagging decisions payment processor does and it would be handled the same at GD. Seen it before.

You might not like it but you come from a country that ranks high for scammers. You sell a domain to a localer this will happen except maybe not at Epik.

 

[Kachi]

Florida is’t known for prolific scammers. DAN doesn’t make the flagging decisions payment processor does and it would be handled the same at GD. Seen it before.

You might not like it but you come from a country that ranks high for scammers. You sell a domain to a localer this will happen except maybe not at Epik.

And throughout the process till DAN received the domain from seller (Nigerian) and transferred same domain to buyer (Nigerian), the high-risk nature of Nigeria never came up. Only when it's time to pay seller was it convenient for the system to start throwing up all sorts of colored flags?

DAN can keep on being mute on further clarification on this and stay safe on the sidelines while y'all hold court for it, but that will only feed all manner of assumptions.

 

[FolioTeam]

This it how it looks like for Dan:
Seller sells the domain to a buyer and the buyer is using the same computer as the seller. Usually that would implicate the seller is using the buyers payment info and the buyer is not actually there... See what I'm getting at?

There's a very very small % of cases where this would be a legit scenario.

That's even worse if transaction was made on the same PC. Because, while the same IP might be explained by telcos issuing out dynamic IP addresses or even being in the same office (in this case), the MAC address would match between buyer and seller.

From Dan's end, it would look like seller got a hold on someone else's card to purchase his own aftermarket domains even though the case might be different from the sellers side. Sadly, no explanation will really convince a business otherwise.

PS: I don't think the IP being from Nigeria was the reason it was flagged as I have bought from a Nigerian on Dan before.

 

[FolioTeam]

DAN can keep on being mute on further clarification on this and stay safe on the sidelines while y'all hold court for it, but that will only feed all manner of assumptions.

Like has been said before, no online company will talk about security risks so as not to get exploited.

If they can help it, companies won't even tell you that they have been hacked. Seen it in different sectors and not just in domaining.

 

[D Haynes]

Would a VPN negate the same ip issue if conducting the sale and purchase from the same wifi connection? I literally have no idea about the workings of the internet so sorry if thats a dumb question, just seems that there must be a solution to face to face sales?

 

[DAN.COM]

Please do look into it, it's very sad for someone to go through such stress just bcos he's from Nigeria.

Can you tell me that if the transaction was done between 2 Americans you'll be saying all this?

I trust you guys to look into it.

Modified.

I think this has been answered by someone here. But you can still clear the air by providing more clarifications to this since it's incumbent on you and not those. Thanks

Nigeria is our third biggest seller country but unfortunately also our #1 fraud attempt source. In the past months, almost 90% of all fraudulent transaction attempts with stolen credit cards for example were from Nigeria.

The reason why we're sharing this is to be as transparent in our policy as we can. We never share details because fraudsters read forums like this and so we shouldn't make their lives easier.

We absolutely love being active in Nigeria as it's an African powerhouse with millions of entrepreneurial spirited talent having great successes in the domain world and beyond.

However, it's also the biggest source of fraudulent transactions at the moment. Our compliance team is very competent and doesn't take flagging a transaction as fraudulent lightly at all but they do play a mouse and cat game with identifying fraudulent transactions in time. If this is an edge case, we're sorry that the OP is negatively impacted but we have to stick to our process.

Dan is the only marketplace that provides extensive chargeback/fraud protection for sellers. This has resulted in no Dan seller ever having to take the hit when the buyer engages in fraudulent actions. And that at our low competitive commission. However, we can only keep this policy by having a strict and effective fraud prevention process and that process absolutely will never mark transactions from a specific country as fraudulent. We for example do not mark transactions between Nigerians as fraud. Our filtering process is much more advanced than that.

We hope this explains.

 

[Reyginus]

Nigeria is our third biggest seller country but unfortunately also our #1 fraud attempt source. In the past months, almost 90% of all fraudulent transaction attempts with stolen credit cards for example were from Nigeria.

The reason why we're sharing this is to be as transparent in our policy as we can. We never share details because fraudsters read forums like this and so we shouldn't make their lives easier.

We absolutely love being active in Nigeria as it's an African powerhouse with millions of entrepreneurial spirited talent having great successes in the domain world and beyond.

However, it's also the biggest source of fraudulent transactions at the moment. Our compliance team is very competent and doesn't take flagging a transaction as fraudulent lightly at all but they do play a mouse and cat game with identifying fraudulent transactions in time. If this is an edge case, we're sorry that the OP is negatively impacted but we have to stick to our process.

Dan is the only marketplace that provides extensive chargeback/fraud protection for sellers. This has resulted in no Dan seller ever having to take the hit when the buyer engages in fraudulent actions. And that at our low competitive commission. However, we can only keep this policy by having a strict and effective fraud prevention process and that process absolutely will never mark transactions from a specific country as fraudulent. We for example do not mark transactions between Nigerians as fraud. Our filtering process is much more advanced than that.

We hope this explains.

Good but how do you explain disabling Crypto option for Some Nigerian sellers? Is it a temporary or permanent measure? There are sellers who have been using Dan for years and they have to suffer the consequences of one person's action/mistake. How was this done?

 

[FolioTeam]

Good but how do you explain disabling Crypto option for Some Nigerian sellers? Is it a temporary or permanent measure? There are sellers who have been using Dan for years and they have to suffer the consequences of one person's action/mistake. How was this done?

It's not just Nigerians. See below

https://www.namepros.com/threads/dan-com-domain-marketplace-official-thread.1148567/post-8490284

 

[Reyginus]

It's not just Nigerians. See below

https://www.namepros.com/threads/dan-com-domain-marketplace-official-thread.1148567/post-8490284

Okay. I'm good with anything for security.

 

[aryindey]

Our team will follow up with you in a bit and will make an exception and pay you out for this transaction only.

Without diving into too much detail here, we're afraid we cannot reinstate your account with us.

Still patiently looking forward to this.
Regards.

 

[Etim Abasiama]

Nigeria is our third biggest seller country but unfortunately also our #1 fraud attempt source. In the past months, almost 90% of all fraudulent transaction attempts with stolen credit cards for example were from Nigeria.

The reason why we're sharing this is to be as transparent in our policy as we can. We never share details because fraudsters read forums like this and so we shouldn't make their lives easier.

We absolutely love being active in Nigeria as it's an African powerhouse with millions of entrepreneurial spirited talent having great successes in the domain world and beyond.

However, it's also the biggest source of fraudulent transactions at the moment. Our compliance team is very competent and doesn't take flagging a transaction as fraudulent lightly at all but they do play a mouse and cat game with identifying fraudulent transactions in time. If this is an edge case, we're sorry that the OP is negatively impacted but we have to stick to our process.

Dan is the only marketplace that provides extensive chargeback/fraud protection for sellers. This has resulted in no Dan seller ever having to take the hit when the buyer engages in fraudulent actions. And that at our low competitive commission. However, we can only keep this policy by having a strict and effective fraud prevention process and that process absolutely will never mark transactions from a specific country as fraudulent. We for example do not mark transactions between Nigerians as fraud. Our filtering process is much more advanced than that.

We hope this explains.

I really appreciate this, thanks for the clarification. I believe this clears the air

 

[Kachi]

Nigeria is our third biggest seller country but unfortunately also our #1 fraud attempt source. In the past months, almost 90% of all fraudulent transaction attempts with stolen credit cards for example were from Nigeria.

The reason why we're sharing this is to be as transparent in our policy as we can. We never share details because fraudsters read forums like this and so we shouldn't make their lives easier.

We absolutely love being active in Nigeria as it's an African powerhouse with millions of entrepreneurial spirited talent having great successes in the domain world and beyond.

However, it's also the biggest source of fraudulent transactions at the moment. Our compliance team is very competent and doesn't take flagging a transaction as fraudulent lightly at all but they do play a mouse and cat game with identifying fraudulent transactions in time. If this is an edge case, we're sorry that the OP is negatively impacted but we have to stick to our process.

Dan is the only marketplace that provides extensive chargeback/fraud protection for sellers. This has resulted in no Dan seller ever having to take the hit when the buyer engages in fraudulent actions. And that at our low competitive commission. However, we can only keep this policy by having a strict and effective fraud prevention process and that process absolutely will never mark transactions from a specific country as fraudulent. We for example do not mark transactions between Nigerians as fraud. Our filtering process is much more advanced than that.

We hope this explains.

The clarification is appreciated.

 

[meanieme]

Nigeria is our third biggest seller country but unfortunately also our #1 fraud attempt source. In the past months, almost 90% of all fraudulent transaction attempts with stolen credit cards for example were from Nigeria.

We absolutely love being active in Nigeria as it's an African powerhouse with millions of entrepreneurial spirited talent having great successes in the domain world and beyond.

I learned something new today, didn't know Nigeria had so many domainers!

 

[aryindey]

Our team will follow up with you in a bit and will make an exception and pay you out for this transaction only.

Without diving into too much detail here, we're afraid we cannot reinstate your account with us.

Payment received.

Since my 6 years old Undeveloped account can't be reinstated, I think it's best to say my farewell to DAN and its staffs.

Thanks for all the businesses we've done over the years and goodluck in your future endeavors. Bye.

Warm regards.

 

[lock]

You have triggered ip address being same as seller and buyer is all.

 

[gorky]

Bad company. Don't go with them unless you like your account closed at a almost finished transaction. Never make mistake like this and have account with them! They don't feel obligated to explain anything to their clients, worst experience.