Fast Transfer does not mean Fast Transfer at Afternic

[uglydork]

I sold a name on Afternic on 12/1 and I just received a notice today that payment is scheduled for 12/12. The buyer paid immediately when he purchased the name. I received confirmation of that.
I sent emails asking for a payment date and it takes days for them to answer and the dates are always different.
I spoke to a rep on the phone this morning who was just rude.

I finally received an explanation today:
"I apologize for your troubles and the frustration this has caused. Fast transfer sales are an option for customers to have a hand's off experience in the transfer process of the domain however these sales do not mean that you will receive a faster payment."

Why is it called Fast Transfer? Seems blatantly misleading.
Notice that the explanation says nothing about the process being fast, in fact, it says you will not see a faster payment. The name should be changed, its lying.

I can use Escrow.com and get a deal done in 2 days - why so long Afternic? Why would I wait 2 weeks for a hands off approach? I can transfer a name within seconds.

 

[twiki]

I was laid off 2 weeks ago unexpectedly right before the holidays and I have an outstanding tax bill from last year I wasn't expecting. I needed this sale to keep me going while I look for work. I resorted to selling my names last week at $99 a piece for money to keep me going while waiting on this "Fast Transfer" payment.
Normally its not an issue

That's why I said I do understand some domainers have cash constraints. In such situations it is frustrating but there's not much to do. I've been in such constraints for half of my life, until I learned to do business. So yes, I know.

This is why I said you should focus on the bright side and ignore the negatives. It works best.

Good luck and hopefully your cash issues will be solved soon - fingers crossed.

 

[twiki]

I could agree with most, less with the last part. Afternic network is great(hundreds of registrars selling for you) but afternic itself sucks. So, instead of leaving them, because it's hard to find another good network, you can try to push them to get better. It worthless for them If I don't list with them(loosing only one customer) but because of this thread another hundreds, thousands tens of thousands could start delisting, than we can change something.

I agree. But overall it's a mix of both. Plan for the best, be prepared for the worst.

Take action of course (got your point). But end of the day the most important person/entity you can rely on is still yourself.

I don't suggest inaction, I just suggest better management and workarounds - whenever possible. The most resistant businesses are the ones who are very careful in managing resources and plan around any possible future issue, ahead of time, months and sometimes even years.

 

[wwwweb]

This is what I've told them, showing the whois screenshot with the buyers details, The answer was that they still need to verify the payment for 7 days, so it doesn't have anything to do with the buyer receiving the domain.

So all your payouts are held for 7 days? I have never had that issue, I think others can probably confirm some pretty fast payouts out of afternic also. Sometimes a deal hits a transfer snag, like if the buyer wants it at netsol or something, but not really their fault.

 

[xynames]

There is no comparison between DAN / Epik (near zero activity marketplaces) and something like Afternic / DynaDot (tens of thousands of actual buyers scouring daily).

Two Year review Afternic DomainAgents Sedo DynaDot Flippa Uniregistry UNDeveloped (DAN) marketplace
https://www.namepros.com/threads/tw...registry-undeveloped-dan-marketplace.1141640/

So, whether DAN / Epik pay you quickly or not, the chance of making a sale in their marketplaces is close to zero.

 

[Joe Styler]

I was paid this morning- maybe they are starting to listen?

Just saw this. Maybe but I am one of the few people who is on Namepros and I was in late today for personal reasons so I think they just did it on their own.

 

[boker]

Who cares? The afternic DLS sells a ton of names, that’s all that matters to me! I won’t “not” list with their network because I have to wait a week to get the funds.

Maybe for you, in my case, I get tens more inquiries where my landing pages are, than with the 100 registrars from the afternic DLS. Also, if you are flipping domains, I can reinvest 4-5 times more that amount, which I get in 15 hours, until I get the 13-15 days payout from afternic.

 

[Joe Styler]

Maybe for you, in my case, I get tens more inquiries where my landing pages are, than with the 100 registrars from the afternic DLS. Also, if you are flipping domains, I can reinvest 4-5 times more that amount, which I get in 15 hours, until I get the 13-15 days payout from afternic.

Thats good then. If it is working for you better that way you should continue to do it. I am not saying what to do, I am only pointing out the differences in approach and features and answering some of the questions as to why we operate like we do. As I said there are pros and cons to each and everyone needs to use what works best for them. If you do that it helps everyone. The more people are successful in investing in domains the better it is for everyone involved.

 

[Silentptnr]

I have to chime in that maybe I'm lucky, but I get paid through Afternic very quickly. Almost like clockwork. The pattern I see is that perhaps they give the buyer an inspection period or something because I get paid in 72 hours pretty much every time.

Now, on non-fast transfer transactions it can take longer. I sold a name a couple of weeks ago through an Afternic broker and ultimately I ended up waiting for the buyer to create an account at Dynadot (the name could only be pushed). The cool thing I learned on that one was that Afternic has holding accounts with most registrars for pushes. It worked out great.

Anyway, I truly think payment is reliable. I would always give 3 days after transfer confirmation.

 

[uglydork]

I am satisfied with Joes answer - I just wish the speed of payment was faster but I better understand the logistics.
Im all good - thank you @Joe Styler

 

[boker]

No apples to apples would be GoDaddy alone vs Epik or Dan alone. On most auction sales we pay out very quickly.

GoDaddy is the parent company of many European brands so we have European brand recognition as well under various names.

On the Afternic standard Network we have 32 reseller partners. That is still apples to oranges. That is different from Epik or Dan. Anytime you add in more companies you have more people and systems and regulations etc to deal with. There is nothing wrong with that, again it is personal preference. With 32 partners you have broader brand recognition as well. End users are going to the companies they know to buy a domain and your domain is showing up there if it is a partner. If it is in the Fast transfer network you have over 100 partners so it is even broader.

Why comparing Godaddy( a registrar) to dan(not a registrar), this is apples to apples? You should compare afternic to dan, both are marketplaces and not registrars. And is you don't count the afternic dls, beacuse you are saying that you need to work it out with another 100 registrars, than you should compare an afternic standard listing to dan standard listing. The result is the same, afternic has 13-15 days average for a standard listing, for disbursement(domain not a godaddy) and an average reply time of 3-4 days; dan has an average of 17 hours for disbursement and around 2-3 response time. So, do you see any difference?

 

[boker]

If I'm not happy with a service, I don't use their service.

Cheers
Corey

Yes, eventually, the same as I've done with escrow, godaddy, flippa, namerific and a few others. But if you are happy with part of the service, you can try and help them change but if there is no hope, this is it., you will reach the 'eventually' time.

 

[bonin]

And now you can see why some of us support dan or epik, and you don't understand why. My average payment with dan is around 17 hours, until the payment hit my account, my average payment time with afternic is 13 days(until the payment hit my paypal, than loose some through currency convertion and another day to hit my account), I don't even talk about godaddy(and looks like dynadot as well). I know, they have lots of buyers, but believe it or not, in my case, using my landing page at dan, brings more customers through whois than the afternic premium network(including godaddy), talking about exactly the same domains listed on both sides. So, dan, epik, escrow can do instant payment check, afternic needs one week(sometimes two), godaddy needs weeks and so on. How is that possible?

Agree, dan is absolutely the best platform at the moment, user friendly for both, buyers and sellers, fast payments as well....

 

[boker]

Agree, dan is absolutely the best platform at the moment, user friendly for both, buyers and sellers, fast payments as well....

It is, epik looks good as well for the future. Danis good, but is not perfect, it could use some features, like advertising to bring more customers, it's own registrar, instant chat, a network of registrars, to sell your domains and a few others, but at this time is less imperfect than the others.

 

[bonin]

It is, epik looks good as well for the future. Danis good, but is not perfect, it could use some features, like advertising to bring more customers, it's own registrar, instant chat, a network of registrars, to sell your domains and a few others, but at this time is less imperfect than the others.

There is no bugs at dan and the customer support is perfect... same like siteground for hosting ( this is my 2 favourite companies at the moment ).

If no bugs I’m using them... few months ago I removed all my names from afternic... sedo is next

It’s 21st century need to be easy and simple and fast

 

[carob]

My average payment with dan is around 17 hours, until the payment hit my account, my average payment time with afternic is 13 days(until the payment hit my paypal, than loose some through currency convertion and another day to hit my account),

If you have a virtual bank account in USD they can send to that at no cost and you can convert the currency yourself at much better rates. That will save 2.5% or more on Paypal conversion.

Enabling fast transfer is risky - there is no way to get the domain back if something went wrong, for example someone hacking your Afternic account and lowering prices - there is no 2FA at Afternic despite years of requests for that.

And do we know how fast the client really does get the name?

No one has calculated how much interest you can earn if you hold onto all payments for an average of two weeks before passing them on to the seller.

 

[YairDD]

Fast Transfer means Fast Transfer not Fast Payment. Although it is typically faster payment with that then the slow transfer.

I can give you the complete history here for everyone since I was closely involved with the project about 5 years ago where we came up with that name. The problem we encountered was that there is no standard industry term for these types of sales. Many people (us included then) used the term premium to denote a fast transfer domain. But Premium means a lot of things depending on who you are and who is selling it. Many other companies adopted that term to be used for domains but that made it even more complex. So it could be a Premium Listing with GoDaddy, not related to anything Afternic, or a Premium domain from the registry reserve inventory, or a Premium name meaning a higher tier new GTLD or a myriad of other uses.

This was leading to a lot of confusion for customers and for our front line support and confused buyers. Hi I bought or I sold this Premium domain and I want to know the status, what should I expect. Well... not sure there's a dozen or so types of premium domains which one are you talking about?

To keep it brief I will now move on to the Fast Transfer vs. Slow Transfer terms use. A Slow Transfer denotes what people typically think of as a transfer, unlocking the domain, corresponding with the new owner, giving them the auth code, etc.

Using Fast Transfer as a term vs. Premium is more helpful because it's less easy to use in multiple ways, e.g. a registry reserve name or higher priced tier premium name is not going to transfer to you so Fast Transfer doesn't work for that. What Fast transfer means on the Afternic side is that you opt in with your registrar in advance so that when the domain sells it moves automatically without any further action on your end, (in most cases). It specifically means it is part of the Afternic Premium Network vs the Standard Network, https://www.afternic.com/sell-domains. The big benefit of having a name as Fast Transfer is that it is in the Afternic Premium Network which is an expanded network of over 100 reseller sites (registrars, etc) vs 32 sites on the Standard Network. More eyeballs = more sales. Also end user buyers have less to do on Fast Transfer, the name comes into their account with in most cases no additional work compared to a new registration which is what they are most familiar with, the name just shows up in their account. The less friction we have in the process the higher the sell through rate for your domains. These are the big advantages of Fast Transfer and why we chose to call it Fast Transfer vs. Premium or making up a new term. We never mention anything about payment.

We are looking at ways to speed up payment, but we need to balance that with the needs of partners, fraud concerns, and also with keeping less friction in the process. The more friction the less sales commence. So we could use a third party to help mitigate fraud or help with the processes of the partner site the domain is sold on, but that introduces more friction which causes more sales to stall or not take place. The end result is a mix, some sales are paid faster, some slower, and some never complete as people drop off at various points of friction, the more hoops to jump through the more chance someone will give up. We haven't gotten 100% there but we have consistently over the years reduced the friction and added more partners to help improve the sell through rate for our customer's domains.

We do pay faster on GoDaddy Auction sales, many times the day after the domain moves to the buyer. We could technically do this on Afternic, but I personally have pushed back on it until we continue to refine the auctions process and get a very good balance on customer experience, speed to payment, and fraud mitigation. We are getting there and we have been making progress towards paying faster on Afternic. There are also some accounting and regulatory things we need to work within the constraints of when making payment changes.

We do not want to hold the money any longer than we have to, but there are many things that come into play. Some partners take longer to clear the funds for fraud than others, sometimes the fast transfer breaks, and sometimes we are concerned with fraud. It is relatively easy to get a domain back when there is fraud, but it is not as easy to get your money back once it is paid out. So we pay you for a sale and three days later find out the guy who bought it hacked an account somewhere be it email or whatever logged into an third party account and bought your domain using a credit card on file and then the real card holder calls his bank and they reverse the charge. We are out that money. It is a big benefit to using a marketplace like us, in that we take on the risk for the sales, but it also comes at a cost in some added time for payment.

We also continue to work on speeding up payments across the board. For example when I started in auctions a decade ago it was a 20 day payout window on any sale. That continues to improve over time to in many cases the next day now. Afternic was the same, we have redone the back end way transactions work in an effort to pay faster, we also just hired another person in that department that deals specifically with payment transactions to help make sure we are able to handle any manual things faster as they come up.

Sorry for the long explanation but it seemed that many people were confused. Which is kind of why we decided to use new terms vs Premium to differentiate what exactly we mean when we say Fast Transfer.

Also please PM me the domain you sold. I am sorry to hear about your job so close to the holidays especially. If there is anything I can do to speed up your payment I will certainly try.

What about a payment that was made with bank transfer? because credit cards are limited to $2,500.