Discuss your Epik Experience!

[Dandelion]

I think Epik is building the best ever Domain Lander in the history of domaining, and it really needs to be talked about extensively. That's why I am creating this discussion thread. A lot of thought process really goes into the project. And I can see (for the first time) a landing page that is built from the stand point of domainers rather than for just the marketplace itself.

Everything you have ever dreamt of getting or seeing in a professional landing page can be found in the new Epik marketplace landing page design.

Some of my Favorites Features:

1. The ability to optimize your "domain for sale" landing page to actually rank on Google, displaying your sales pitch/domain description. I just did that with few of my generic domain names such as ASAP.TV, targeting certain keywords, and they are showing pretty well on Google. That's a huge plus in my marketing effort.

2. Being able to change background image is another huge one for me. If you are good with pictures and images, you will surely find this very useful. I did that with Nagasaki.org and the result was truly amazing, showing the city of Nagasaki right at the background.

There are too many positive features and I don't want to mention all of them, all alone

So I am leaving you guys to share and discuss what you loves most or dislike about the new Epik marketplace and the landing pages.

The only negative for me is the checkout process. There are too many terms and conditions buttons to tick before checking out. It will be nice if they can streamline those into one beautiful big button

They also need to place the checkout button directly under the payment options. Right now it is awkwardly place somewhere below at the sidebar, which I don't find cool at all.

Sales experience is also welcomed in this discussion. I haven't had any sells so far at Epik because I started using the marketplace just recently, but the future is looking so bright.

 

[Jona4s]

So I guess we can't withdraw anymore from masterbucks.

Paypal used to be instant cashout. I guess other methods will be a real pain.

 

[golan]

There is zero, zero, justification for publishing spreadsheets of Paypal and GoDaddy employee email addresses and direct telephone numbers as an invitation to targeted harassment of them.

I always said that the main reputation damage to Epik they do themselves by "empowering" idiots of different kinds to speak from their name. It's sad...

 

[Intelliname]

There is zero, zero, justification for publishing spreadsheets

Sure there was John. You are just not aware of it yet, but you surprisingly have many opinions regardless.

For the record, this link was setup and shared with select members of PayPal and GoDaddy, and officials in antitrust divisions in both the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice. There is no direct link or interconnectivity with it on our site, nor was it ever published in our feeds for distribution. In fact, no one outside of these organizations was even aware it existed. In part, so we could expose relationships that are going to come to light anyway, once mandates and routes for NDA terminations are approved.

You and Andrew Allemann from DNW were literally the first to publish it online and make it public, post a GoDaddy executive sharing it with you. You can deny this all you like, but in total truth – we counted on it. Andrew instantly positioned Epik as complainers with a history of supporting racism, and you went as far as to literally infer repeatedly we were probably money laundering. In fact, you even went back and edited your original release of the information to help create the narrative.

I appreciate your actions more than you may know. There are many bright individuals in our industry and especially interacting with this forum. I would not continue to take their future discernment for granted. PayPal’s actions are so far beyond abhorrent, that our objective has been to avoid ever having to even publish them. Your attacks on Epik continue to be grossly misplaced.

 

[Intelliname]

This is wrong without proof of wrong doing, was there any reason cited by Paypal Rob?

I had addressed this on TheDomains this morning, but wanted to share it with NamePros user as well for more context. There is no correspondence from PayPal, and they have refused to offer any formal guidance, other than two comments provided “off the record” - one being that the SPLC was directly guiding the CEO in termination of services for various organizations for positioning and political reasons. PayPal’s CEO has confirmed this in public, and we have materials coming out shortly detailing SPLC’s targeting methods, and how it is leveraged in an attempt to destroy individuals and organizations outside of their plans.

PayPal did originally suspend services in May, prompting an exchange and phone call with PayPal’s CEO executive team three days later. This was centered over the possible controversy of one of their executives being moved from PayPal to a board member position at GoDaddy, which resulted in a number of negative actions that were seen as directly correlated and designed to harm Epik. The CEO’s team made corrective actions and restored services almost immediately, and we never released the correspondence knowing it could be devastating to both of them. We never expected they would actually terminate our services permanently, in part due to transparency of the malfeasance that was involved.

This is the last direct interaction we have had with PayPal, as they have since deleted all of the successfully completed questionnaires prior provided. Our understanding from their service team prior to June, was that they had possibly not factored our status as a domain registrar as the reason we would have so many small inbound international payments. They were unable to provide any further guidance though on the motivation of their executives – because it frankly made no sense to them.

The other comment received directly from a PayPal staffer earlier in the year was so horrific in its context, that I had hoped we would never have to share it. The summary was that PayPal was going to create difficulties for Epik, because they did not like Rob Monster privately helping hardship cases out with small personal loans to get them through periods of difficulty. The inference being that there may be higher level narratives to inflict harm on specific human beings. My prediction is that on future look back, we will all discover that the AWS “Buckets” used by GoDaddy and others are not just being used for data storage, but to literally decide who is welcome in the future Utopia they have deluded themselves to believing they are building together. They were built for weaponized targeting, not just data correlation.

We see so many lines being crossed and moved daily now, that most Americans are unfortunately becoming numb to the recognition of when they should be speaking out. Even doing so can result in coordinated attacks to dismantle entire livelihoods with precision execution. We have passed the point of entire sections of leadership refusing to even condemn police stations being burned to the ground - while officers are literally being assassinated in the streets - so I'm not sure I even recognize the country (or world) I live in anymore.

Prayers for the individuals in Nigeria and other locations that are literally seeing their friends and loved ones being killed in their local streets and neighborhoods. There are many living in fear, and more leaders needing to step up before this gets any further out of hand. We should be kissing the ground here daily in thankfulness and appreciation for the incredible gifts we have that most unfortunately take for granted. If we lose respect and perspective for what we have to be truly thankful for, then we will never even know when it is time to actually put up a fight. We are being lulled by misdirection.

 

[jberryhill]

You and Andrew Allemann from DNW were literally the first to publish it online and make it public, post a GoDaddy executive sharing it with you.

Stop lying.

Alleman posted it to Twitter at 3:58PM US Eastern Time:

I posted it here more than a half hour later, at 4:35 PM:

Your statement, about "a GoDaddy executive sharing it with you" is a LIE. I have no idea where Alleman got the link, but it was obviously posted on Twitter more than a half hour before I posted it here. There is no reason a GoDaddy executive would share anything with me. I don't work for GoDaddy and, in fact, lost a client because of GoDaddy's purchase of Uniregistry.com earlier this year.

The notion that you perform private file transfers in a subdirectory called "/blog" is facially ridiculous. The document is called "An Open Letter". I speak English, and know what an "open letter" is. How stupid do you think people are?

Finally, the notion that these spreadsheets were intended to be kept at a "private" URL in your "blog" subdirectory is belied by the fact that upon the link being published, you still have made no effort to remove the spreadsheets in question. Sending regulatory agencies lists of phone numbers and emails of employees at GoDaddy and Paypal serves no rational purpose whatsoever. That you expect anyone to believe that lame ass justification shows how hopelessly ignorant you are in dealing with regulatory agencies in the first place. Any inquiry from a regulatory agency to either of those organizations is going to be directed to the office of their respective general counsels, and nobody from the DOJ or the FTC is going to be ringing up or emailing random employees in those organizations. That would be entirely improper.

I realize you are playing to the presumed ignorance of your intended audience, but you are like a child hiding behind your own hands and thinking no one can see you. These rationalizations of yours are juvenile, and contradict the plain facts.

Now, tell me about my "interactions with GoDaddy" to which you alluded to suggest some sort of relationship.

 

[Intelliname]

As I said John - you and Andrew Allemann from DNW were literally the first to publish it online. Andrew is tweeting right now that he stands by his claims that he is not biased, and you have literally accused us of money laundering. I appreciate the character attacks you graciously slip in through all of your correspondence though! Money launderers, thieves, financial exploiters, liars, ignorant, stupid, despicable.. etc. Remember you are the one that started this conversation thread here, by co-publishing a link with Andrew, and then telling the public that the "clue" to focus on was money laundering.

Now you have a problem with my ethics? Last correspondence with you John thanks!

 

[Start]

From what I saw, all he did was literally quote a section of what you yourself wrote.

And realistically, it does seem like the type of thing PayPal would focus on. It's not that Epik actually is involved with those activities, but just that PayPal is overly cautious about it. (I also dislike PayPal BTW, because they have caused me problems too). And it is ridiculous of PayPal to not even try to work with Epik on the issue.


However, to bring up Hunter Biden in your post comes across as bizarre and delusional. The irony too is that for pretty much everything the Trumps accuse others of, they're guilty of it themselves.

Trump seems to owe half a billion dollars to the Russians. And whatever position Hunter Biden got with a Ukrainian firm almost certainly was due to who is father is, but the nepotism is even worse with the Trump White House. His son-in-law Kushner owes a ton of money to foreign powers and it (as well as Trump's debt) influences US foreign policy: https://archive.thinkprogress.org/the-kushners-mysterious-1-2-billion-bailout-92f6c12de50c/

Before the debates, Trump was also calling for a drug test... which is funny, because he probably does use some type of drugs to help in those situations. Trump and his minions tend to project onto others what they themselves already do... it comes to mind for them, because they're already doing it.

To bring up Hunter Biden and that other similar rubbish in your post suggests that you've gotten stuck in a right-wing echo chamber.


Anyway, in my opinion, the blog post comes across terribly because of that aspect -- you should leave out the right-wing conspiracy rubbish.

Michael Jordan once famously said something like "Republicans buy shoes too". Well, most of the world doesn't drink Trump's kool-aid, and they also buy domains names and related services.

 

[DaveX]

As I said John - you and Andrew Allemann from DNW were literally the first to publish it online. Andrew is tweeting right now that he stands by his claims that he is not biased, and you have literally accused us of money laundering. I appreciate the character attacks you graciously slip in through all of your correspondence though! Money launderers, thieves, financial exploiters, liars, ignorant, stupid, despicable.. etc. Remember you are the one that started this conversation thread here, by co-publishing a link with Andrew, and then telling the public that the "clue" to focus on was money laundering.

Now you have a problem with my ethics? Last correspondence with you John thanks!

I think this matter was made public by Epik. Noone else knew about this incident until Epik posted that page. From my reading, it looked like Epik was hoping for outside support in the matter from others.

Whatever the case, it is certainly unfortunate. I don't think anyone expected this type of incident.

 

[MapleDots]

I can see one thing come from this....

Epik is pretty innovative when it comes to launching new products.

I wonder if there is an Epik Pay in the works?

 

[jberryhill]

you have literally accused us of money laundering

I'm going to have to ask you to stop lying again.

Where did I do that?

Your screed is not at all clear on whatever Paypal's stated reasons may have been. About the only clue to whatever Paypal's concerns which led to this is in your letter, where it states:

That is you referring to what Paypal sent you.

Now, as I noted above, it is extremely common when one is engaged in domain transactions to receive inquiries from financial institutions about transactions. I get those sorts of inquiries myself when I am handling a particularly large domain transaction. As you are certainly aware, certain transactions over $10k will trigger a SAR, as will chained transactions under $10k:

https://www.occ.treas.gov/topics/su...eports/index-suspicious-activity-reports.html

I am certain that ordinary transactions with my clients have generated SARs, and it is well beyond certain that any domain name marketplace is going to periodically deal with inquiries relating to SARs and related regulatory requirements to address money laundering.

They are not "accusations", and receiving inquiries about your transactions is not some allegation that you are a "possible money laundering operation". These regulatory measures are routine.

However, if one responds to them like a five year old child, or like some bad performance artist trying to make a political point, then, yeah, I can see where a financial institution doing its routine regulatory diligence would decide that it no longer wanted to deal with you.

But, please quote where I have "literally accused (you) of money laundering".

 

[jberryhill]

As I said John - you and Andrew Allemann from DNW were literally the first to publish it online.

Stop lying. You said I got it from a GoDaddy executive. That was a lie. People can read, you know.

 

[MapleDots]

I don't doubt Rob is a nice guy, and has good intentions, but for his company to flourish he must separate his (and staffs) emotional self with the company.

Stay on the board, whatever it takes but have a well spoken, measured individual, become the public face and ban all employees from speaking out on behalf of the company.

 

[jberryhill]

by co-publishing a link with Andrew, and then telling the public that the "clue" to focus on was money laundering

That is one of the most insane things you've said yet.

Andrew posted a link on Twitter. All by himself. At 3:58 PM. The screenshot is above. Whatever is "co-publishing"? Explain what you mean by that. I'm working for Andrew now? I run his Twitter account?

After seeing the link, I came to Namepros and actually searched on "epik" and "paypal" to find out if there was a further discussion of whatever that bizarre screed was about. I came to this thread where someone mentions paypal is not working, and posted the link.

But, yeah, sure, I'm in some secret conspiracy with GoDaddy, Andrew, and who knows who else, to humiliate you by posting a link to your OWN website that is identified as an "Open Letter" and which I found because it was posted on Twitter. Do you have any idea how crazy you sound?

Additionally, your screed doesn't provide much of a clue as to what Paypal's stated reason was for cutting you off. Accordingly, I stated that a clue - to whatever the dispute might be about - is in the part of the letter where YOU mention their concerns about money laundering regulations. And, again, inquiries under those regulations are routine for any organization that deals with an appreciable number of financial transactions.

I sincerely doubt that Paypal shut you down as a result of something on Hunter Biden's alleged laptop, so your pages of irrelevant mouth-foaming don't provide much insight into whatever actually happened.

 

[DaveX]

I feel it would be more consistent for Epik to take a position that PP is entitled to do business with whom they choose.

Just as Epik makes its choices to do business with who they choose.

Freedom cuts both ways. Epik should not attack PP for doing business as they choose. PP will lose Epik business, Epik will lose PP services. Its business.

No need for drama, just move on. Perhaps Skrill or another provider will choose to do business with Epik.

 

[DaveX]

I would have preferred to hear something like Epik is pleased to announce....

PP did not and would not have objected. But then again, unfortunately Epik reacted in a way to most likely do more damage than damage control.

 

[DaveX]

PayPal is no longer working at Epik. Has been down for at least 12 hours and is no longer listed as an option in the payments area. Hopefully this isnt permanent.

Any news available when service will be restored?

Thanks for the update Omnia!

We have been working over the past 48 hours assembling materials for the antitrust divisions of the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission.

I don't understand. This comment would indicate that you were aware of this for some time prior to customers noticing. Valuable time lost imo.

 

[MapleDots]

I'm tied into the paypal ecosystem as well but Epik would be further ahead to check out alternatives.

https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/paypal-alternatives

There are a number on that list that I would consider so I don't think this will harm Epik forever. The payment industry is the one most rapidly affected by technology and the days of paypal dominance are over anyways.

The time spent a Epik blogging about this could have been better used to find a solution.

Maybe a post asking domainers what secondary payment system they would be willing to use.
That would have made for a better topic, he could still have said it was paypals idea to cut ties but we need to move forward.

 

[DaveX]

I find it ironic how the very people who preach love and understanding to rationalize acceptance of hatred, anti-semitism, and racism, turn into aggressive, stop at nothing, scorched earth victims when they feel they have been treated unfairly.

Just saying.

The statements publicly posted do not reflect what Rob has said. Quite the contrary.

I guess it's different when others ignore THEIR perspective. Where's the love and understanding now?

And I mean this with love.

 

[jberryhill]

https://mashable.com/article/epik-domain-names-paypal-proud-boys/

A source close to the situation put the issue more bluntly: money laundering.

The source said that the problem lies with Epik’s digital currency. The domain registrar runs its own “alternative currency” called Masterbucks, which can be used to purchase products sold by Epik or converted into U.S. dollars.

According to the source, Epik has not gone through the appropriate legal steps to run Masterbucks, and was encouraging tax evasion. An archived version of the Masterbucks page promotes its "tax advantages."

Tax advantages? Lol. That’s as good as when Rob was claiming to provide 1031 exchanges (a type of transaction which can only be done with real estate) for domain names.

So, what were these “tax advantages” in Masterbucks?

 

[Rob Monster]

OK, guys, let's talk about truth. Take a look at the article that just came out featured on the home page of Mashable:

https://mashable.com/article/epik-domain-names-paypal-proud-boys/

The salacious headline refers to a "Proud Boys" domain that arrived at Epik without our knowledge on October 21, 2020 and was used in an Iranian spoofing operation without using any Epik hosting. The registrant was completely blindsided by all of these developments.

So why did this registrant move the domain to Epik? Because his former registrar required him to leave effective immediately. So, the registrant dutifully complied thinking that Epik would provide safe harbor for his non-active domain.

The "Iranian Op" is described here.

See how this works?