So I’m having an issue that I’d like to share and hear some thoughts.
I have the majority of my domains listed at fixed BIN on Afternic, Sedo, Uni, Dan, and my website. For Afternic, Sedo and Uni I add 10% markup to compensate for additional fees (I used to add 20-25% but I reduced recently to make the difference less confusing for potential buyers). All domains use custom landers, but I directly link BIN buttons to DAN’s checkout pages (bypassing DAN's landers).
I understand that in an unfortunate scenario I can sell the domain simultaneously on two different platforms and I will have to explain to one of them why I can’t deliver the domain. I used to think that I don’t have “hot” domains in my portfolio (that two different people would want to purchase at once). And it worked for over a year -- 24 sales with only 2 issues that I'm about to describe.
What I overlooked in my setup is that the same buyer can purchase the domain in two different places on the same day.
My first issue with Afternic (no consequences)
At the beginning of August I sold a domain via DAN and when I went to other marketplaces to remove sold domain - I found it with “Pending sale” status at Afternic. I couldn’t delete it. I immediately contacted Afternic and requested to delete the domain manually since I sold it outside of Afternic. I also mentioned that I haven’t received any “pending sale” emails from Afternic regarding this domain. Afternic support came back to me without any complaints and politely said:
“Thank you for contacting Afternic Support.
We do not have the capability to remove cart holds, as these are sourced from external partner sites that report the domain being placed in a shopping cart (it may not necessarily have been paid for). In most cases, holds will remove within 2-5 business days.
If you receive a "Sold" notice after this time, please contact our Transaction Assurance team either by email at [email protected], or call 866-351-9586 (U.S. toll free) or 781-839-7990 (international) - ext. #4 for "Escrow" or TA.
We hope that your future endeavors are successful. Please contact us again if we can be of further assistance.”
I pushed the domain to DAN's account at GoDaddy successfully. And after a week or so the domain status changed in my Afternic dashboard, so I deleted the domain from Afternic.
I assume it was the same buyer who probably put the domain into Cart elsewhere, but then found my domain at a slightly cheaper price and bought it from me. I guess, he just never bothered to remove the domain from the cart on another website.
My second issue with Afternic (account suspension)
Yesterday, I sold another domain via DAN - the buyer clicked BuyNow on my landing page and paid at DAN.
I usually delete the domain from other marketplaces and then initiate the transfer. This time, however, I was pretty sure the domain was at NameBright, but DAN clearly identified GoDaddy as current Registrar so I wanted to make sure it was indeed there. I went to my GoDaddy dashboard and I couldn't find the domain! Holy fuck, where is the domain?
Do I really own it? GoDaddy canceled quite a few of my purchases this summer, so maybe I added the domain without owning it?! I checked my emails and found the email I received in August that requested an authorization to list the domain in the Afternic network. I surely owned it!
I decided it was a GoDaddy UI bug, and I navigated via direct link https://dcc.godaddy.com/manage/domain.ext/settings -- it worked. I accessed the domain at GoDaddy, but couldn't push it. The settings page was somewhat weird -- I could only see the expiration date, my contact details, domain lock was read-only, and there were links to domain transfer. When I clicked on "Transfer to another Godaddy account" I received an error message "There was an error processing your request. Please try again. If the error continues contact support at 480-505-8877." And there was a link "Back to Pending Account Changes".
Pending changes? WTF? My first thought was that DAN Bot might have triggered an automatic transfer which probably failed since it wasn't showing anywhere. I checked the Transfers Out menu, but nothing was there too. So I thought the domain might have sold somewhere? Again. I went to Afternic, checked my dashboard homepage for new pending offers, sales, etc - I've got a couple of expired offers, but nothing new! I then found the domain in question and deleted it easily (unlike in my previous case).
I also deleted the domain from other marketplaces.
But I still had to transfer the domain to DAN, so I contacted GoDaddy tech support via support phone. It took literally one hour but without any success - GoDaddy Rep promised to call back after further investigation.
Three hours later, I called them again, and this time the lady on the phone was talking to an Afternic broker and forwarding his words to me. I was told that the domain was locked at Godaddy due to the fact that there were some current "negotiations at Afternic", but the domain hasn't been sold yet. She asked me if I know the name of the buyer -- I checked at DAN and told her. Following her discussion with Afternic Team, she said that since I sold the domain offline and then deleted it during their negotiations, they require some evidence everything was exactly as I'm claiming. She said they don't do business like this, and my Afternic account is now suspended until after they receive the requested info.
Shortly after I sent an email to Afternic Service with some statements of facts and screenshots that prove the sale at DAN. Sixteen hours lapsed, and I haven't received a response...
------------------
This post is not about how to remove the ban from my Afternic account. At this point, I still hope my account will be unlocked, but it's time to think about how to avoid reoccurrence while keeping my sales rate unchanged.
I know it was mentioned many times on NamePros that one should set BIN prices on one marketplace only. I hate doing this as this will limit the exposure considerably (no Sedo MLS, no Afternic Network), but it seems I have no other options.
The question is, will that help?
Since I want to have my domains priced at my website first (and at DAN consequently), I will have to remove prices from my domains at Afternic, Sedo, Uni. But what about Afternic's price requests and Sedo's binding offers? I might still find myself in a similar situation.
Or does that mean I now need to remove the price from my website every time I respond to price requests at Afternic (and offers at Sedo)?
I was also thinking of keeping the same price everywhere so that I don't motivate potential buyers to purchase from my website if they committed to purchase elsewhere. No 100% proof, and why would I maintain my website then?
What do you think?
I have the majority of my domains listed at fixed BIN on Afternic, Sedo, Uni, Dan, and my website. For Afternic, Sedo and Uni I add 10% markup to compensate for additional fees (I used to add 20-25% but I reduced recently to make the difference less confusing for potential buyers). All domains use custom landers, but I directly link BIN buttons to DAN’s checkout pages (bypassing DAN's landers).
I understand that in an unfortunate scenario I can sell the domain simultaneously on two different platforms and I will have to explain to one of them why I can’t deliver the domain. I used to think that I don’t have “hot” domains in my portfolio (that two different people would want to purchase at once). And it worked for over a year -- 24 sales with only 2 issues that I'm about to describe.
What I overlooked in my setup is that the same buyer can purchase the domain in two different places on the same day.
My first issue with Afternic (no consequences)
At the beginning of August I sold a domain via DAN and when I went to other marketplaces to remove sold domain - I found it with “Pending sale” status at Afternic. I couldn’t delete it. I immediately contacted Afternic and requested to delete the domain manually since I sold it outside of Afternic. I also mentioned that I haven’t received any “pending sale” emails from Afternic regarding this domain. Afternic support came back to me without any complaints and politely said:
“Thank you for contacting Afternic Support.
We do not have the capability to remove cart holds, as these are sourced from external partner sites that report the domain being placed in a shopping cart (it may not necessarily have been paid for). In most cases, holds will remove within 2-5 business days.
If you receive a "Sold" notice after this time, please contact our Transaction Assurance team either by email at [email protected], or call 866-351-9586 (U.S. toll free) or 781-839-7990 (international) - ext. #4 for "Escrow" or TA.
We hope that your future endeavors are successful. Please contact us again if we can be of further assistance.”
I pushed the domain to DAN's account at GoDaddy successfully. And after a week or so the domain status changed in my Afternic dashboard, so I deleted the domain from Afternic.
I assume it was the same buyer who probably put the domain into Cart elsewhere, but then found my domain at a slightly cheaper price and bought it from me. I guess, he just never bothered to remove the domain from the cart on another website.
My second issue with Afternic (account suspension)
Yesterday, I sold another domain via DAN - the buyer clicked BuyNow on my landing page and paid at DAN.
I usually delete the domain from other marketplaces and then initiate the transfer. This time, however, I was pretty sure the domain was at NameBright, but DAN clearly identified GoDaddy as current Registrar so I wanted to make sure it was indeed there. I went to my GoDaddy dashboard and I couldn't find the domain! Holy fuck, where is the domain?
Do I really own it? GoDaddy canceled quite a few of my purchases this summer, so maybe I added the domain without owning it?! I checked my emails and found the email I received in August that requested an authorization to list the domain in the Afternic network. I surely owned it! I decided it was a GoDaddy UI bug, and I navigated via direct link https://dcc.godaddy.com/manage/domain.ext/settings -- it worked. I accessed the domain at GoDaddy, but couldn't push it. The settings page was somewhat weird -- I could only see the expiration date, my contact details, domain lock was read-only, and there were links to domain transfer. When I clicked on "Transfer to another Godaddy account" I received an error message "There was an error processing your request. Please try again. If the error continues contact support at 480-505-8877." And there was a link "Back to Pending Account Changes".
Pending changes? WTF? My first thought was that DAN Bot might have triggered an automatic transfer which probably failed since it wasn't showing anywhere. I checked the Transfers Out menu, but nothing was there too. So I thought the domain might have sold somewhere? Again. I went to Afternic, checked my dashboard homepage for new pending offers, sales, etc - I've got a couple of expired offers, but nothing new! I then found the domain in question and deleted it easily (unlike in my previous case).
I also deleted the domain from other marketplaces.
But I still had to transfer the domain to DAN, so I contacted GoDaddy tech support via support phone. It took literally one hour but without any success - GoDaddy Rep promised to call back after further investigation.
Three hours later, I called them again, and this time the lady on the phone was talking to an Afternic broker and forwarding his words to me. I was told that the domain was locked at Godaddy due to the fact that there were some current "negotiations at Afternic", but the domain hasn't been sold yet. She asked me if I know the name of the buyer -- I checked at DAN and told her. Following her discussion with Afternic Team, she said that since I sold the domain offline and then deleted it during their negotiations, they require some evidence everything was exactly as I'm claiming. She said they don't do business like this, and my Afternic account is now suspended until after they receive the requested info.
Shortly after I sent an email to Afternic Service with some statements of facts and screenshots that prove the sale at DAN. Sixteen hours lapsed, and I haven't received a response...
------------------
This post is not about how to remove the ban from my Afternic account. At this point, I still hope my account will be unlocked, but it's time to think about how to avoid reoccurrence while keeping my sales rate unchanged.
I know it was mentioned many times on NamePros that one should set BIN prices on one marketplace only. I hate doing this as this will limit the exposure considerably (no Sedo MLS, no Afternic Network), but it seems I have no other options.
The question is, will that help?
Since I want to have my domains priced at my website first (and at DAN consequently), I will have to remove prices from my domains at Afternic, Sedo, Uni. But what about Afternic's price requests and Sedo's binding offers? I might still find myself in a similar situation.
Or does that mean I now need to remove the price from my website every time I respond to price requests at Afternic (and offers at Sedo)?
I was also thinking of keeping the same price everywhere so that I don't motivate potential buyers to purchase from my website if they committed to purchase elsewhere. No 100% proof, and why would I maintain my website then?
What do you think?
