information Afternic Update

[Joe Styler]

There are several threads ongoing about Afternic so it was easier to start a new one here with the big picture of what is going on. A few weeks ago we had a major release which did away with the escrow process on Afternic and started a new service called Transaction Assurance. There are several main reasons why we did it, two of the big ones being:
1. Compliance - We are not an escrow company and using this new flow allows us to be compliant to all laws in the areas we operate which is very important for everyone.
2. Ease of use - Much of what we have done over the past 2 years around the Aftermarket is being done to reduce overall friction for the buyer and seller to allow domains to move to buyers easier and make managing your domains for sale easier.

There are other reasons for doing this which tie into a bigger picture of other projects we have in line for the coming year or so which also allow for better sales for our sellers such as faster payment times and more International payment options as well as better/easier domain management and some bigger improvements that have been asked for by customers for a while.

The project was not rushed or left untested. In fact we put in over 8 man years of labor on it and did extensive testing. Part of the project involved us integrating with two 3rd party providers to help with International payments and communications. These are big name companies with a track record of success and utilizing their tools behind the scenes will help everyone in the long run to be able to sell more domains easier.

Obviously things have not gone as well as we would have liked, but we are actively working on resolving the issues around communication and payments. We have had meetings at the highest levels to take care of this as a very high priority. As of today we believe most email communication issue are resolved.

We are not only meeting about things we are actively deploying new code and changes and other teams are working to manually jump in and help out so we can get answers for our customers and make sure they are being paid. I personally saw many people working late nights and over the weekends doing what they could to keep improving the processes because our customers are very important to us. We have a good team who have all pulled together to try and help it is not just me on the forum answering questions I couldn't do it without the help of our Aftermarket teams.

I think we are very close to having a smoothly operating process again with a better ultimate process for the future which will allow you to grow with us and continue to sell domains at a better rate of return. Thank you for your patience and for being a customer.

If you are waiting for payment the #1 thing I have seen resolve this the fastest is to login to your Afternic account and go to your payment settings. Make sure that you have a payment set up as a default option and that is correct. We migrated all the old payment information into the new system. If you are in doubt or cannot find a way to select a default payment option it is faster to create a new payment method (even using the same info you already have) and select that new payment method as your default. Doing this will tell the system to try and pay you for any outstanding balance you are owed.

 

[NameAgency]

Not to mention when they send the "please set a price for the domain" email when the domain is listed as "make offer". If I wanted to set a price, I would not select "make offer".

 

[carob]

This reminds me so much of Moniker - a successful but bug-filled company that had no interest in fixing stuff or even identifying problems, sold on to a bigger player who proceeded to make things worse. What's next?

I still question why they did not just integrate Afternic into Godaddy and then shut Afternic down.

 

[Hypersot]

Thank you for the time you took to give us an update on the situation.

Since the update I had only one sale made and I experienced the changes first hand.

Unfortunately, I have encountered such ridiculous obstacles in finalising that sale which only left me wondering why change anything at all.
The old system, while not being one of the best around, still worked without too much effort. The new one definitely does not look like it has been tested as much as you say, not that I don't believe you of course.

A few minutes ago, I received the payment from the aforementioned sale and I noticed that the amount is $1 short from what was shown on my account's interface. Even those small details make one wonder what's going on since I've never had similar discrepancies in the past.

Not a positive experience so far

 

[CJ6]

OMG, I just got paid

 

[Beezy]

Hire a good project manager plz.

 

[Shimmy]

Hey Joe, what is the deal with "Domains Pending Review" in afternic for years and years. They just will never get reviewed?

 

[canswift]

Having reported earlier in this thread (as did many others) about endless sagas & delays getting paid by Afternic, it's good to be to report a sale and payment that went through without a hitch. I got the email from Afternic on September 26th reporting a Fast Transfer sale of one of my names, and I got payment to my Paypal account today (Oct 4th). Yeah!!

 

[CJ6]

This reminds me so much of Moniker - a successful but bug-filled company that had no interest in fixing stuff or even identifying problems, sold on to a bigger player who proceeded to make things worse. What's next?

I still question why they did not just integrate Afternic into Godaddy and then shut Afternic down.

Oh god, no. I hate GoDaddy's interface.

 

[SpareDomains]

The top three things that annoy me with Afternic...

1) Add hundreds of domains to your account most go through and get listed. The handful that go to pending verification will literally stay that way for many months unless you email giving the impression that not enough employees are at Afternic to do their job in a timely matter. You wan't 20% do your job.

2) Why does every request I receive on make offer domains state the buyer is interested but not ready to make an offer yet. The form at Afternic requests an offer, the form at GoDaddy requests an offer so there should be an initial offer you received. Gives the impression your hiding that offer requesting the domainer price and then pocketing the difference if the domainers price is lower than the initial offer you received. Pass the initial offer along. Can see if someone called in you might not have an offer but 100% come to me like this and 100% of the interested parties didn't call in. Negotiations begin with an offer so let's have it. If there is no offer then let me know when there is one.

3) I get a GoDaddy transfer request at 11 P.M. at night giving the impression that someone is trying to jack my domain. Only reason I know it's pending sale is because I logged into Afternic and saw that. Shouldn't have to log in to see domains sold as domainers use more than 1 venue to sell domains. Makes sense to send an email from Afternic first stating "Congratulations your domain has sold be on the lookout for the transfer request" so I don't freak thinking I'm getting domain jacked. So zero communication that it sold, zero communication on any price requests as well, is it a go, did they pass, did they submit a counter, feel that if they were 90% there on my price and I was willing to come down the sale would never happen as their is literally zero communication and by the time I would receive any communication the buyer would have moved on.

Majority of my sales over the last 14 years have been direct by myself and honestly debated removing my domains from Afternic as I wrap deals complete in days. Don't get that time frame with any other market especially Afternic as total communication is lacking.

 

[Joe Styler]

This irks me a lot too! I have no idea what is the meaning of Make Offer if we HAVE to add a price... So far, I've never been displayed a buyer offer on Afternic. @Joe Styler Can you shed some light on how Make Offer works on Afternic?

There are a lot of leads that come in that are not coming from Afternic or GoDaddy. We have a very big network which is the beauty of listing with Afternic, you list once and are distributed in well over 100 places people are looking to buy domains. So there are quite a few places where no offer is made but interest in buying the domain is shown from a buyer. At that point we need a price to negotiate a sale.
So for example if you are parking with us or using our for sale banner at another parking company, people express interest in buying the domain without a price being offered. For example check callingcoyote.com. Then click as if you are interested in buying it and you will see the form come up with the lead information we use to contact you to make a deal happen. As far as the network go to domaintools.com for example and look up callingcoyote.com in the whois. Right there front and center on the results page it will say that the domain is for sale. Click the link to buy it and there is a lead form. This is one example of a network site showing the sale banner that collects leads. If you have a Buy Now Price we can more easily display that and use different channels to sell the name with less friction which results in more sales if you do not want to use a Buy Now Price we take that lead and try and negotiate a deal for you. But if you only have a min offer filled in and no price you would take for your domain we cannot make a sale happen without asking you for a price.
We get an offer various ways and when we have one we need to know what you want for the domain in order to negotiate the deal for you.
We wont just take an offer from the buyer for a couple reasons as well. A great deal of people listing domains with us just put in $100 min offer on the domain listings. Which isn't very accurate as almost no one will sell the domain for $100. So we get an interested party in the door and tell them, yes the name is for sale and the seller wants an offer above $100 for the domain, OK how about $150 for newenglandsoccer.com? Great we will make the offer. Then you get back to the interested party and say ok they want $3,500 for that name. At that point the buyer gets mad and its a harder sale because they already had the $100 price in their head no matter how many times you tell them it is a min offer once someone hears a price it's human nature to think it is close to the final price. We would rather get your price and try and negotiate something for you to sell in your range. We have a great team of brokers and a tremendous amount of research on closing deals, we use all the skills and data at our disposal to try and close deals for you in a way that will result in the most sales.
This is why you get offers like this and why we ask you for the price.

 

[SpareDomains]

Afternic would be great due to GoDaddy reach. But what good is reach when the whole system is flawed and transactions take weeks to complete. Can wrap my own deals complete from start to finish in 2-3 days.

1) Add domains that fall into pending verification status and they can rot in that status for many many months. Email us and we'll get them listed? How about your pending review actually goes to a human to actually review them within a week or two.

2) Add domains already listed by someone else and ya can't even add them for manual review. Email us and we'll get them listed? Let the domains be added and reviewed by a human for new ownership changes.

Have a current sale that's been sitting for a week+. Let me guess email us and we'll get it going? I'll just wait till the buyer gets mad at you and requests a refund due to incompetence.

Afternic - Home of 20% commission with no human interaction unless you email us

Think I'm willing to just delete 400+ domains from my account and throw away my current sale as I won't be emailing you to get things done. You wan't 20% find some humans to actually work there. GoDaddy reach may be stronger than Sedo but Sedo support actually have humans that review/respond in a timely fashion.

 

[campout]

I still question why they did not just integrate Afternic into Godaddy and then shut Afternic down.

I think Afternic needs to keep operating as a separate brand since it has so many partners who directly compete with GoDaddy.

 

[Name Trader]

Not to mention when they send the "please set a price for the domain" email when the domain is listed as "make offer". If I wanted to set a price, I would not select "make offer".

Exactly! Not only that. Those inquiries are 99% of the time just tire-kickers from your listings also being listed on GoDaddy..

 

[frank-germany]

the one thing I like about Sedo is that they don't mess about with payments

to me once you got the money and the domain into your own hands
I can see no reason for any delay of payments

there is no need to check what ever
You have the funds and the domain

---> now hurry to release it


even sedo can do that
actually they do send money same day

so why do you need excuses and explainations
do it manually if your system is f**cked

actually THAT needs to be your first priority

2017-04-28 17:13 GMT+02:00 Transaction Assurance Transfers <[email protected]>:
Hello,

Thank you choosing Afternic!

Your funds have been disbursed. We are experiencing some delays within our payment system. Please allow 2-3 days for the payment to post to your account. Thank you for your patience!

Thank You,

Wankelley Medina
Aftermarket Transaction Assurance
GoDaddy | Afternic

still no payments

 

[bmugford]

I sold 2 domains recently @ Afternic recently. One of these domains was listed and priced, the other was an unlisted domain that an Afternic broker contacted me about and an agreement was reached.

In the past with Afternic's system you could choose disbursement on a per transaction basis. This was convenient to me as I would use different disbursement methods depending on the transaction for accounting reasons.

The new system seems to be a poorly implemented version of GoDaddy's payee system.
With GoDaddy you can have many different payee accounts you can use.

With Afternic it appears you can only have (1) of each type. I added both an ACH and Paypal payee account, but apparently it still can only disburse to the default payment method.

I was trying to have one disbursed to each payee, but was informed that was not possible. Then somehow ACH became the default when I would have preferred Paypal. When I asked them to change it to Paypal it was told it was not possible as payout has already been scheduled.

My account showed ACH as the disbursement method, but then I was actually paid via Paypal.

In summary I ended up getting paid, but it was an extremely confusing process that required multiple customer service contacts.

Brad

 

[Joe Styler]

On Afternic I sold a .PLUS domain for high $$$ in april. The estimated payout date is April 22nd, but still nothing has been paid out; it's May 4th already!
I sent several emails and messages to Afternic support in the past weeks. If you are lucky you receive an answer back after 4 or 5 days, but sometimes you simply don't get any response back.
I hope I do get paid by Afternic soon, this is taking way too long!

I hope someone from Afternic reads this, and takes this feedback seriously:
Start working on your communication and payment processes. Right now, this is at a poor level compared to competitor sites. And while domain sellers experience this poor level of service, it may be wise to compensate them somehow, to make sure they don't run away to your competitors who deliver quality service.

I think we have a better system in place now for both. If anyone is still waiting for payment pm me the domains and we will take a look at them.

 

[simmplex]

@Joe Styler

You are really professional and kind on keeping on responding on Afternic feedbacks.
Please make sure to bring in a supporting tickets numbering and tracking system,
your support of service at afternic.com just do not reply some emails.
Thank you very much!

 

[creataweb]

Sent an email then got paid, doubt it was related though

 

[wwwweb]

Sent an email then got paid, doubt it was related though

No, afternic does not handle payments in house anymore. Third party payment processor is handling it now, once they release the money to them, they essentially have no way of tracking it until they report back.

Congrats on getting paid, seems like such a feat just getting paid, let alone selling the domain.

Off topic:

GoDaddy (GDDY) reported earnings after the close, the stock is up 3.5% in after hours to a new high of $40.75.

 

[pokainc]

Something is out of wack there, your payment profile must not have migrated properly, now you are probably lost in the shuffle. Yours should be a priority payment as we are coming onto your one month anniversary here.

Trust me have contacted them several times. Have management people looking into it too, have escalated the matter, followed up and still.... I guess eventual next step is a lawyer letter

 

[Haris]

I can't add PayPal as a 'Payment Method' neither in GoDaddy Payee accounts nor AfterNic "Domain Sale Payments from Afternic". I had a PayPal account on file before the update and received money through PayPal from sales at AfterNic. I am a Non-US customer. Please assist @Joe Styler

 

[Joe Styler]

I sold 2 domains recently @ Afternic recently. One of these domains was listed and priced, the other was an unlisted domain that an Afternic broker contacted me about and an agreement was reached.

In the past with Afternic's system you could choose disbursement on a per transaction basis. This was convenient to me as I would use different disbursement methods depending on the transaction for accounting reasons.

The new system seems to be a poorly implemented version of GoDaddy's payee system.
With GoDaddy you can have many different payee accounts you can use.

With Afternic it appears you can only have (1) of each type. I added both an ACH and Paypal payee account, but apparently it still can only disburse to the default payment method.

I was trying to have one disbursed to each payee, but was informed that was not possible. Then somehow ACH became the default when I would have preferred Paypal. When I asked them to change it to Paypal it was told it was not possible as payout has already been scheduled.

My account showed ACH as the disbursement method, but then I was actually paid via Paypal.

In summary I ended up getting paid, but it was an extremely confusing process that required multiple customer service contacts.

Brad

It was your contacting me that made us manually update the payment to PayPal instead of ACH, which is why it is reflected incorrectly in the account information, because we had to manually adjust it in the back end.

We also brought up the need for multiple payment choices as need for the developers to work on fixing.

 

[wwwweb]

My May 1st payout came in today, domain purchased by the son of a billionaire for a new venture.

 

[pokainc]

Got my money just now!!!!!!