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My Afternic account has been suspended!!!

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Nikhil Jain

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I am seeking help from fellow investors on a serious issue I have come across.

About 3 weeks back I had 2 consecutive sales through Afternic network. Their email read that the domains sold via Afternic Fast Transfer DLS and it had mentioned that nothing is to be done from my end for the moment and the payment shall be processed in a few days.

After a wait of more than 7 days, I realised that the domains are still in my account and haven't got transferred to the buyer. When I wrote to [email protected], I got a reply that:

"The transfer failed as the domain is too young, Creation Date: 2018-10-10. We will be able to complete the transfer on 12/10/2018. We will reach out for the auth code at that time."

Upon receiving this email, I even wrote back that I am fine if Afternic needs me to make a push right away. But I did not hear back from them on this.

As per the above email, I have been waiting all these days in the hope that Afternic would automatically process the transfer by 10th December 2018 upon completion of 60 days.

Yesterday, on 20th November, I receive an email from Afternic which reads:

"Unfortunately the buyer was flagged for fraud and we are cancelling this sale. I apologize for the inconvenience. "

I received the same email of sale cancellation for each of the 2 domains that were pending transfers. For all this while, I was in touch with one of my buyers through email. My buyer mailed me that he too received an email from Afternic that reads:

"It has come to our attention that the seller of <Domain Name> will not be able to complete the transaction as agreed. At this time we have taken action against the seller and have issued a refund for the purchase of this domain."

I tried to login into my Afternic account and stumbled upon this message:

"Your account has been suspended. Please contact customer service."

Upon contacting customer service, they suggest me to write to [email protected] to inquire about the issue. Upon writing to them, I received their response that:

''Your account was flagged for suspicious activity and we were forced to close down your account."

In this whole picture, I really could not figure out what kind of suspicious activity has been detected on my account. I hold those 2 domains which sold and I am willingly ready to transfer it wherever required, as I am not even backing out of any sale agreement nor have I sold the 2 domains outside the Afternic network.

I have even messaged @Joe Styler about my account suspension. I am awaiting his reply and I believe he would help me out through reinstating my Afternic account.

Can anybody guide if I have missed out something that has somehow violated Afternic TOS in any way, as I believe I would not get into any such activity in any way. I hold more than 400 domains at Afternic and being a full-time domain investor this is my bread-and-better which I would never mess up with.

Any guidance or help would be much appreciated.
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
It's a serious issue.

Afternic representative needs to answer this.

Please update us with the further status.
 
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@japty Before your account was suspended, was their any sale which got cancelled due to
60-day transfer lock?
 
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Godaddy is good if your domain too young, they give you a option of email buyer and ask his how can i transfer domain into your account.
 
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@japty Before your account was suspended, was their any sale which got cancelled due to
60-day transfer lock?
I had 5 pending sales before account was suspended.

It is up to Afternic to tell us If the sales were cancelled due to 60-day lock
 
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I had 5 pending sales before account was suspended.

It is up to Afternic to tell us If the sales were cancelled due to 60-day lock
5 sales and account gets suspended?

Please update here if you get any reply from Afternic representative.
 
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This seems to be a problem suddenly for a few people.here is another:

. https://www.namepros.com/threads/pr...rt-problems-here.1006373/page-39#post-6986982

I cant imagine that the 60 day lock thing is causing all of this. I am sure many people reg a domain and put it up for sale right away. I would think this 60-day issue is common and not cause for suspension.

"Unfortunately the buyer was flagged for fraud and we are cancelling this sale. I apologize for the inconvenience. "
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"It has come to our attention that the seller of <Domain Name> will not be able to complete the transaction as agreed. At this time we have taken action against the seller and have issued a refund for the purchase of this domain."
Right now I got a feeling that they are using the "fraud buyer" excuse for any sale that does not go through. Its also possible they are flagging the seller as fraud when they should just be clarifying the 60-day issue. Also if the buyer is the fraud, why tell the buyer that the seller is the bad guy ?

This is terrible as sellers rely heavily on AN for sales.
 
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I believe they should told you the reason for the suspension.
 
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That is sad. you have our support bro if what you claim is true. Also congratulations. you registered few domains on 10/10 and you've already sold them.
 
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I believe they should told you the reason for the suspension.
They just mention that suspicious activity was detected and hence account had to be closed.

P.S : My account is not suspended but this needs to be clarified as it happened with @Nikhil Jain

That is sad. you have our support bro if what you claim is true. Also congratulations. you registered few domains on 10/10 and you've already sold them.
After domain sold, his account got closed. Payment was with Afternic which they have to refund now as seller's account is closed. Afternic sent the message to buyer which will affect seller's credibility. "At this time we have taken action against the seller and have issued a refund for the purchase of this domain"

We hope those buyers show trust and buy the domain from him otherwise it won't be considered as a sale.
 
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wait a minute.. @Joe Styler I thought afternic automatically picksup on domains which are too new for fast transfer and simply does not put themn onto the network and into fast transfer sales... precisley to avoid issues like these..?
 
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There is no chance that the domain(s) were eligible and had fast transfer enabled, but the owner transferred them to a new registrar? This means they might still be Afternic listed as fast transfer but are not. The couple of times I moved to a new registrar I took names off Afternic and only relisted at Afternic after 60 day period. I can see Afternic interpreting it as 'fraud' leaving a domain name listed as Fast Transfer when it is in fact not. Just a possibility I thought of.
 
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There is no chance that the domain(s) were eligible and had fast transfer enabled, but the owner transferred them to a new registrar? This means they might still be Afternic listed as fast transfer but are not. The couple of times I moved to a new registrar I took names off Afternic and only relisted at Afternic after 60 day period. I can see Afternic interpreting it as 'fraud' leaving a domain name listed as Fast Transfer when it is in fact not. Just a possibility I thought of.
If you reg at NetSol, they send you the FT approval email the next day. You accept it and they put you on the FT for Afternic. So its not a fraud. If they should not be doing this, then its NetSols fault for sending you the approval AND then putting you on the AN network for FT.

If AN has a problem with this, then they need to clarify what is wrong so people dont get suspended/shutdown for something that is not their fault.

If AN has changed policy and will start shutting down accounts that have 60-day locked domains, you're gonna see a hell of a lot of domainers lose their ability to sell on the AN platform.
 
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There is no chance that the domain(s) were eligible and had fast transfer enabled, but the owner transferred them to a new registrar? This means they might still be Afternic listed as fast transfer but are not. The couple of times I moved to a new registrar I took names off Afternic and only relisted at Afternic after 60 day period. I can see Afternic interpreting it as 'fraud' leaving a domain name listed as Fast Transfer when it is in fact not. Just a possibility I thought of.
I registered a domain at NetworkSolutions.com which was deleted previously.
I could opt-in to fast transfer at Afternic within 2 days or so.
 
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If you reg at NetSol, they send you the FT approval email the next day. You accept it and they put you on the FT for Afternic. So its not a fraud. If they should not be doing this, then its NetSols fault to sending you the approval AND then putting you on the AN network for FT.

If AN has a problem with this, then they need to clarify what is wrong so people dont get suspended/shutdown for something that is not their fault.
Is it only with Netsol? What about if we register at other registrar?
 
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Is it only with Netsol? What about if we register at other registrar?
So far I see NetSol and Sedo doing this. But for some reason Sedo seems to not send out all approval requests, its kinda random for some reason. But yes, they do it just like NetSol. However I think Sedo has its own fast transfer system, so they might have better handling of 60-day lock domains.
 
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There is no chance that the domain(s) were eligible and had fast transfer enabled, but the owner transferred them to a new registrar? This means they might still be Afternic listed as fast transfer but are not. The couple of times I moved to a new registrar I took names off Afternic and only relisted at Afternic after 60 day period. I can see Afternic interpreting it as 'fraud' leaving a domain name listed as Fast Transfer when it is in fact not. Just a possibility I thought of.
The 2 domains here in question were hand registrations at Network Solutions.com. I got an opt-in email from NetSol the second day after I added the domains to Afternic with a BIN. I Approved the opt-in requests.
 
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Thanks to those who clarified that NS apparently allow immediate opt in to Afternic Premium. That appears to be different from other registrars in the network. For example with NameSilo it is my experience that they only send confirmation if 60 days is met (by mistake I once listed mine at 59 days and I never got the confirmation, had to relist to get the connfirmation).

I was just asking if the domain name had been moved to a new registrar and was no longer Fast Transfer, but was left up as so, that could be regarded as misrepresenting the situation (which is loosely interpreted all that fraud means). For example if I transfer a domain name to Namecheap from NameSilo, that had been listed on Afternic fast transfer, and did not remove it from being listed that way, I would be misrepresenting the situation since it is no longer fast transfer. To get the best deals I think we sometimes move registrars without thinking of things like this.

It appears that was not the situation here, but rather Network Solutions allow immediate confirmation of fast transfer even though the domain name is locked. I agree that Network Solutions and Afternic need to get on the same page on this.

Bob
 
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So is it mandatory to keep the BIN price after 60 days from registration, for other registrar domains?
 
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Looking into what's going on, will update OP when I have more info.
 
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I am afraid this may be the reason for account suspension:
"For all this while, I was in touch with one of my buyers through email. My buyer mailed me that he too received an email from Afternic that reads............"
 
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