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.

 

[canswift]

Haven't followed this thread that much but looks like the payment issues are gone.

Nope, the payment issues are still with us. I'm still waiting on payments that were due May 19th and May 23rd...

 

[nomen]

Nope, the payment issues are still with us. I'm still waiting on payments that were due May 19th and May 23rd...

Sorry to hear that. Sucks much. I guess I was lucky.

 

[Joe Styler]

There really shouldn't be any payment issues still lingering. If you are not seeing your money pease reach out to [email protected] so they can look into your sales and figure out what is happening.

 

[Joe Styler]

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.

If you have a large portfolio of domains we have people at Afternic who can be assigned to help you with the listings and make sure they work correctly. We are working on a few new things to help with some of these issues as well.

 

[anantj]

If you have a large portfolio of domains we have people at Afternic who can be assigned to help you with the listings and make sure they work correctly. We are working on a few new things to help with some of these issues as well.

How large is large in this scenario? I've faced similar issues as @SpareDomains too...

 

[canswift]

There really shouldn't be any payment issues still lingering.

Sorry Joe, but there are still payment issues. On May 30th I received confirmation from Afternic that our Paypal information was now re-set correctly in our account, and payment would shortly follow.

Today, I received an email from Afternic saying this: "Our system last attempted to payout on June 4th and failed. The system that pays out to international accounts and PayPal must have an exact match with your payee and PayPal info. If there is a character that is incorrect, it will fail".

So this means (as example) that if Paypal shows your address as "Street" and you have put "St." in your Afternic profile, it will fail. And so on , and so on... I have spent some time today combing through our Paypal profile and deleting much information we had as back-up (home address, home phone etc). Because there's no way to include this information in the Afternic account, so there never would be an e-x-a-c-t match.

I have used this Paypal account for YEARS, including some years with Afternic. I have never, ever, encountered this level of problem before. No wonder some people on this forum were repeatedly advised to re-set their Paypal information again and again. It's only when by luck or accident that they entered an exact character match that they got paid. At least this Afternic rep. let me know what the issue might be so I could hopefully address it.

Since the telephone formats on Afternic and Paypal are slightly different, I'm not holding my breath that I've managed an exact character match between profiles. What a recipe for future disaster in the Afternic payments system... If anyone changes address or phone numbers or even one character in their Paypal profile, do they get kicked to Afternic's kerb again??

 

[tonyk2000]

After recently starting using afternic, I'm waiting for my 1st paypal payment from Afternic at the end of this week, and it would be non-US paypal similar to what is mentioned above. I can explicitly confirm that there is NO WAY to enter address details in exact the same way in both places, such as for example province field is not in afternic setup, but exists in paypal setup. Moreover, paypal, and with some good reasons, allows to maintain >1 different addresses inside paypal account, like home-business-pobox etc. Which reasons are not applicable to afternic config, and should not be, and there nothing in afternic terms that might force me even to think about it...

The last but not the least, last time I checked masspayment option with paypal, they are asking to upload a csv with appropriate fields like amount - currency - email-description and appropriate separators. Nothing more. They do not ask to upload any address. Accordingly, it is unclear on what stage this address is verified, by whom, and, most importantly, why. The whole idea of paypal is pay-by-email-address, and this idea is well maintained in masspay option paypal offers and afternic is using. So, Joe, can you please advise what is that address thing about????

 

[tonyk2000]

Joe, this is from paypal help page about masspayments:

quote begin

1. Add money to your PayPal account
When you're ready to send a mass payment, transfer money from your bank account to cover your payment.
Or you can set up an automatic transfer to your PayPal account to save time.
2. Create a list of recipients Learn More
Include the following information in a text file like Notepad, or a tab-delimited file like Excel.
Email addresses for up to 5000 recipients.
Payment amounts and currency.
One currency type per file.
See a sample file
3. Upload the file
Log in to your PayPal account and upload the file.
4. Send your payment
After you review your payment information, just click Send. You receive an email when the payment is complete.
5. Your recipients get paid

quote end

Also, there is a help section about payment api, which indicates that one can use "Mobile phone number of recipient" instead of email in api calls.

As you see, there is nothing in paypal help that suggests that receipients physical address can or should be submitted, or verified, or retrieved from paypal system for any purpose.

 

[canswift]

@tonyk2000 - thanks for your posts on the Paypal issue.

I have heard nothing back today from Afternic, so I've no idea if my editing of our Paypal information worked or not. Like you I'm puzzled about Afternic's need for all address information to match exactly, to the character. I have frequently received Paypal payments from companies and individuals using nothing more than our valid Paypal email.

I hope that @Joe Styler could post some updates on this payment issue soon.

 

[alcy]

I do most sales on gd auctions which is great but made one recently on aftrnic and do not find it great at all. nor smooth.
I am not getting paid and when I asked why even though it says transfer completed.. it seems they will not pay seller until they actually get name to buyer.. should we sellers wait for that? I thought escrow was all about making sure aftrnic gets their doamin into their account which it did.. and then I get paid.. and then rest is between them and buyer.. shouldn't it be so @Joe Styler ......... here is their TA reply:

"
The estimated payout date is a fixed date from time the transaction starts. It is not dynamic based on the transaction events. We are currently working to get the domain name to the buyer. Once the buyer has the name, we will release payment."

they also say pay date not dynamic.. but I've seen it go up from june 3 to now june 6.

they leave me with no choice but to memorize and remember well the experiences with their payment processors and payout.. so when it comes to deciding which sale house to use in future.. or if i need broker, then these folks would not be my first choice.

 

[Joe Styler]

I do most sales on gd auctions which is great but made one recently on aftrnic and do not find it great at all. nor smooth.
I am not getting paid and when I asked why even though it says transfer completed.. it seems they will not pay seller until they actually get name to buyer.. should we sellers wait for that? I thought escrow was all about making sure aftrnic gets their doamin into their account which it did.. and then I get paid.. and then rest is between them and buyer.. shouldn't it be so @Joe Styler ......... here is their TA reply:

"
The estimated payout date is a fixed date from time the transaction starts. It is not dynamic based on the transaction events. We are currently working to get the domain name to the buyer. Once the buyer has the name, we will release payment."

they also say pay date not dynamic.. but I've seen it go up from june 3 to now june 6.

they leave me with no choice but to memorize and remember well the experiences with their payment processors and payout.. so when it comes to deciding which sale house to use in future.. or if i need broker, then these folks would not be my first choice.

We are working on both of those things, paying people faster based on when they move the domain to us, and fixing the date shown for payout. They are both high priority things we are working on.

 

[alcy]

We are working on both of those things, paying people faster based on when they move the domain to us, and fixing the date shown for payout. They are both high priority things we are working on.

ok thanks
I understand
but I see no reason why seller should wait for afternic to get hold of buyer and give domain to him. once aftrnic holds payment+domain in their hands, which it does now, I think payment should be released.
thanks

 

[canswift]

As of today, I have still not received payment for my two recent sales. After some intermittent communication with Afternic on this, I have received an update today (which I appreciated):

"There were some changes made on our end recently creating some delays for many payouts for our customers. We have corrected the problem and are now trying to clear up the delayed payments as quickly as possible."

I have been given new scheduled payout dates for next week, and will keep my fingers crossed on this..

 

[alcy]

We are working on both of those things, paying people faster based on when they move the domain to us, and fixing the date shown for payout. They are both high priority things we are working on.

well after TA telling me how the payout date there is not dynamic.. I saw it go up 2 times. june3 to june6.. and today from june6 to june12...

I must say this isn't good at all.. and it does make one wonder how many more times this supposedly non changing eatimate payout date, will change in future.

I made this sale by callign afternic agent to take care of lead for me, and call client. which was done properly and professionally.. however, until afternic gets their act together with post sale payout and processes, I will be giving my leads to other brokers now.. or just redirecting buyers to godaddy. which is fantastic for payouts and post sale support.

 

[canswift]

Well, finally, some Afternic good news! After multiple changes to the scheduled payout date (like @alcy), I was expecting a much delayed payout the middle of next week. However, a welcome email from Paypal just arrived and both payments have been sent as a lump sum.

This has been a stressful few weeks trying to figure out how to fix this, with somewhat differing information from Afternic on the issue but I'm happy that at least these current payments are sorted.

 

[alcy]

Well, finally, some Afternic good news! After multiple changes to the scheduled payout date (like @alcy), I was expecting a much delayed payout the middle of next week. However, a welcome email from Paypal just arrived and both payments have been sent as a lump sum.

This has been a stressful few weeks trying to figure out how to fix this, with somewhat differing information from Afternic on the issue but I'm happy that at least these current payments are sorted.

good news for you then!
may I ask what your payout date said?
im trying to understand if u got paid before it or after. ty.

 

[canswift]

@alcy : I got paid (finally) some time after the original payout dates. The dates were supposed to be May 19th and May 23rd. The dates were not adhered to by Afternic, who made several amendments to the account dashboard or by email. The last email was this morning, giving a date of next week. However, to my pleasant surprise both payments came through to Paypal this afternoon. Hope yours catches up with you soon.

 

[alcy]

holy crap... if you got paid 20 days after your listed payout dates.. then that's bad.. I sure I hope I don't wait 20 days from the listed june12 lol

that'd be last tinme me and afternic broker do biz together

 

[Joe Styler]

well after TA telling me how the payout date there is not dynamic.. I saw it go up 2 times. june3 to june6.. and today from june6 to june12...

I must say this isn't good at all.. and it does make one wonder how many more times this supposedly non changing eatimate payout date, will change in future.

I made this sale by callign afternic agent to take care of lead for me, and call client. which was done properly and professionally.. however, until afternic gets their act together with post sale payout and processes, I will be giving my leads to other brokers now.. or just redirecting buyers to godaddy. which is fantastic for payouts and post sale support.

It is dynamic which is the issue we are fixing. We are removing it altogether until we know the money is being paid at which time we will show it. Right now it is an estimate, it says estimate but human nature is to ignore that it's an estimate and assume that is the payment date. We get that and are fixing it in an upcoming release. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[alcy]

It is dynamic which is the issue we are fixing. We are removing it altogether until we know the money is being paid at which time we will show it. Right now it is an estimate, it says estimate but human nature is to ignore that it's an estimate and assume that is the payment date. We get that and are fixing it in an upcoming release. Sorry for the confusion.

ok I understand about human nature. I don't mind if it changes a bit.. but someone just said they got paid 20 days after their estimate date.. I think its a bit much no?

I also want to ask you for pro opinion whether I am wrong or afternic is wrong when they say I should wait for them to deliver to buyer before they release payments. ie: shoudln't payment be released once aftenic holds both domain and money in their account? and if so, then is this something you are also working to fix? thank you Joe! I was hopin for similar great service as iwth my gd auctions sales, but this is clearly something else and not in a better way.