I can’t speak for other communities when it comes to breaching binding sales agreements, however I can touch base with how NamePros operates and deals with such issues. This may assist with others performing similar tasks or maybe even someone can contact me with more ideas on how to combat it if you feel we are missing something in our process.
1.) All Auction Bids are binding agreements.
2.) All offers are binding agreements. Optionally a buyer may add an expiration date as to when their offer expires.
3.) All fixed price “SOLD” posts are binding agreements.
4.) All domains listed for sale by a seller in an auction are a binding agreement to sell if a bid occurs within their guidelines. (Multi-forum post auctions are NOT allowed).
5.) We have a warning and infraction system in place. Each profile is allowed up to 20 infraction points before their account auto closes. Each infraction type is worth a different amount of points and habitual infractions accumulate more points than the previous. Infractions have different life spans before they expire and the points no longer count as active.
6.) When a seller or Buyer reports a deal that went south we first try to mediate between both parties to assist in the motivating the parties to complete the transaction.
7.) In the event one party refuses to abide by the binding agreement, they may receive a Bad Business infraction (15 Points) + negative itrader from the other party involved in the deal. Such an infraction has a 12 month life span on the first offense. Any further infractions within that time that meet or exceed 5 points will push the account over the limit and cause the account to auto close.
8.) In extreme cases there is an option to close an account on the spot for investigation.
9.) Naturally in a Make Offer or Fixed price environment there are muti-listings at other marketplaces. Sellers are not bound to sell for a price lower than they expect and are welcomed to keep looking for better offers. With fixed Price, there are times a domain may sell somewhere else and the seller hasn’t had time to update their listing yet, resulting in a buyer feeling they were mistreated. We understand how the process works and explain it to the buyer if they report the incident. Unless the seller engaged the buyer and made direct commitments to sell to them prior to selling elsewhere and the buyer was within the time constraints, then it’s not the sellers fault.
I’m not sure what others are doing to help combat non-payers and non-sellers, however the above is our attempt at a preventative measure. Naturally we evaluate each situation independently from one another. If anyone has more ideas on a fair way to combat abuse from both buyers and seller, feel free to contact me at any time.
Eric Lyon
