Flippa and SUMSUB Company Verification Process

[Zarkoza]

So I have been a Flippa member since the beginning of my journey (bout a month or so now.) I made one listing about a week or so ago. And I was about to give them my passport for further verification until I got this gut feeling - at the VERY last-minute after reading their Consent to personal data processing terms - to back out and go read some of the reviews about the company. I am glad I read the reviews about Flippa. Not so good. In fact I am now heavily considering removing the $10 listing I made and deleting my whole account as apparently even if I were to make a sale, they'd hold my payment until I turned over my passport ID? I don't know if Flippa can be trusted...

Quite a few of the reviews I read kind of made me feel really unseasy about Flippa and their ID verification process with SUMSUB, but I did double check some of the claims. Specifically the claim about the SUMSUB company that claims to be headquartered in London but is apparently a Russian company. Flippa's head quarters are Melbourne, Australia, and San Francisco, United States. But, this company SUMSUB that they use for ID verification I'm unsure about. I don't know. I wouldn't trust this company with my ID. They do claim to be headquartered in london, but they have Russian Roots. Their founders are Russian: Peter, Andrey and Yakov Sever and Vladislav Zholudev. Nothing against Russians or anything, but I'd rather not be giving them my US ID. Lol Something about the Flippa's SUMSUB verification process seems a bit sketchy. I'm not sure.

Too many people in the reviews having issues with the ID verification process and flippa support just flat out banning them and not giving them another chance to prove their identity. I'd be extremely upset and worried if I turned over my ID and everything was 100% accurate but still got rejected. Like, if other domain websites were easily able to verify me, but then for some reason Flippa / SUMSUB couldn't, and then I get banned for it, well then, they'd have my ID and other personal info, and then what? I'm just not gonna risk that stress. I have other things to worry about, I don't need to be worrying about some sketch site being in possession of my idenitity and other personal info. lol

Here's one of the reviews I saw:

"Flippa is NOT a financial institution nor does it handle money like bitcoin exchanges. Inspite of that they're insanely requesting KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER selfies with govt id to be uploaded.

Flippa takes payment to list websites and domains on their site. They also take a success fee. But they are not PROCESSING these payments. Escrow dot com and paypal handle the payments and distributing success fees to Flippa. Escrow and Paypal already have their own vetting controls. They have a right to since they are financial orgs. Flippa is not. Flippa's one go at trying to handle payments failed last year. They used assembly payments platform but never bothered to get proper money transmitter licenses in the united states. Texas found this out and fined them a few years ago.

So flippa for a money transmitter license in Texas, but never bothered to get licenses in any other state apparently.

So here we have a company that does not currently handle ANY aspect of financial transaction processing but wants KYC info? Nope, not kosher. And now in addition to selfie requests, they want LIVENESS scans. Hilarious.

And Flippa already verifies that sellers own the domains and websites they sell. There are reports on namepros that flippa is taking listing fees and then suspending sellers who don't verify with selfies.

According USA govt agencies, this is improper. Even more concerning is the company flippa is using for KYC verification. Sum/sub, a russian company that pretends to be based in London. Their London address shows a maildrop service. With all the meddling in USA elections by Russia, it's very disturbing for a Russian company to have possession of so many American ids!

It's much more suspicious that nearly all employees are in Russia, but they're tricking people that they're a london company. Sorry Flippa, no SANE Americans want to send their ids AND selfies with ids to a company who appears to have a son of PUTlN IN CHARGE!

So to all potential and current flippa customers, do NOT upload any selfie ids for Flippa."


Anway, just be careful with Flippa and their SUMSUB verification partner. I'm considering deleting my listing and entire account. What's the point if I make a sale, but then have to take a picture and upload my passport in order to verify my identity to receive my funds? Paypal knows my identity and Flippa verified that I own the domain. This is kinda unecessary.

If anyone if currently on Flippa and made some sales, please let me know if they have ever had their funds withheld until they turned over their ID, as it would help me decide whether or not to stay with them.

 

[Zarkoza]

This review from 2018 was pretty concerning also:

Flippa.com is Potentially Running a Phishing and Shill Bidding Scheme

July 19th, 2018

An employee of Flippa.com named *, suspended my auction listing and then proceeded to ask me to upload a video to a third-party website showing myself logging into PayPal and navigating around my account so that he could "verify" some website income data. He also stated that he wanted me to upload a photo ID with a selfie to a different third-party website of his choosing. And finally, he asked me to fill out a Profit & Loss statement, despite all profit and loss data being present in the auction listing itself. All of this is required to sell a website on their platform worth between $200-$500. I'm guessing that by requesting that I upload all of this data to a third-party website that they are somehow skirting responsibility for the security of such data.

I find it highly suspicious that this absurd request for highly sensitive financial and personal data came after I had already paid for my listing and literally several minutes after I had received bids on it, one of which was from Australia, where Flippa.com is based. This becomes even more suspicious when you consider that Flippa.com employees have been accused numerous times in the past of running shill-bidding scams on their platform to artificially inflate the price of sales and the company's reported earnings.

The PayPal video request breaks PayPal's terms of use agreement, which states users are forbidden from sharing personal account details with anyone. That request combined with needing to see a photo ID with a selfie is extremely suspicious.

I can only conclude that Flippa.com is either run by complete and total idiots or outright criminals. I suspect it's the latter and they're running a phishing scheme. Either way, I'll never do business with them again.

Update: I just reported Flippa and their employee * to PayPal's legal team for attempted phishing, the State of California's Department of Justice, as well as the US Bureau of Consumer Protection. There is no way possible you can require a person to upload a video of themselves logging into a bank account and then publishing it on YouTube, in order to sell them a product or service. That is outright criminal.

Update 2: So let me get this straight, Flippa complained about this review because I published a first and last name of the employee that requested I upload a YouTube video of myself logging into my PayPal account and navigating around the account? So you guys feel that is ok, but publishing the name of the employee who requested it is not ok? How on earth are people this stupid still in business?

Update 3: You have wasted so much of my time and insulted me Flippa, so I'm going to spend the time necessary to publish this review on 30 different forums and business reputation platforms. It's time you are forced out of business. I see thousands of other users are sick of your arrogant and unethical business practices as well. Have a good day.

Update 4: It's time people start naming and shaming specific employees within this company in order to force accountability on to them as well. If you are following orders from the Flippa owners that are highly unethical or outright illegal, then we as customers should be able to publish the specific names of the people acting on the owner's behalf.

*Personal information redacted by admin

 

[NickB]

They have to cover themselves for basic Anit Money laundering laws

Under Section 1956, it is unlawful to “conduct[] or attempt[] to conduct” a financial transaction with proceeds known to be derived from illegal activity. The statute sets forth a variety of predicate illegal acts for purposes of the money laundering statute, including FCPA violations.

Under Section 1957, it is illegal to conduct a monetary transaction in an amount greater than $10,000 with property known to be derived from criminal activity. Violations of Section 1956 are punishable by imprisonment for not more than 20 years; Section 1957 carries a maximum penalty of imprisonment for 10 years.

Flippa don't have to handle the money themselves to be held potentially liable........they have to be aware of the below risk.......

(2) third-party payments, where money is given to or received from a different entity than the services were received from or provided to in order to transfer funds without utilizing traditional banking routes subject to tighter financial controls.

https://www.trulioo.com/blog/aml-risks-and-compliance-for-non-financial-institutions

 

[CaseWrap]

Also Flippa is not a third party, that would be the payment processor like Paypl or escrow or visa/mastercard.

"Through digital platforms , a buyer can make a payment for the purchase of a good or service bought from another party. The third-party provider receives the payment from the buyer, verifies that the funds are available, and debits the buyer’s account. The money is then forwarded to the seller’s account—typically on the same online portal. The seller’s account may be credited in minutes or days, but the funds may be withdrawn to a bank account or used to conduct other transactions once the deposit has been made in the account.


Paypal is one good example of an online payment portal that acts as a third party in a retail transaction. A seller offers a good or service, and a buyer uses a credit card entered through the PayPal payment service. The payment is run through PayPal and is thus a third-party transaction."


Notice the language is "Known to be derived from illegal activity."

Do you know how completely most transactions online and IRL would grind to halt if buyers and sellers were required to share their personal information including full photo selfie ids with a thrid party like Flippa?

The reason Flippa ever tried to be clever and request this information was back when they were partnered with promise pay/assembly payments.
Which was hilarious because Assembly payments got introuble with state of Texas for not having a proper money transfer license. They had to pay 17k fine.
In all other states they also neglected to be properly licensed.

Of course that had nothing to do with selfie ids.

Paypal and Escrow.com are subject to KYC/AML NOT some random domain/wesbite listing service.

And neither Paypal NOR Escrow.com require selfie ids!

It appears that Sum and Substance, sumsub, is located in cyprus and owned by raritex holding.
a company associated with many faux holding companies.

Zarkoza states Sumsub is russian, actually they appear to be located in same area as many UKRANIAN oligarchs.
In fact their front is near the infamous Burisma Holdings and other Panama Papers companies.
But it's true they were originally funded and operated by Putin allies. Really scary that they have SO many american, european, and expat ids and personal info.

Someone on reddit was discussing it with me and stated that Sumsub is able to go after "exposed people" by having their ids and selfies. This is a way to influence people and might even lead to blackmail possibly

Anyone would have to be lNSANE to share their selfie id and full id with sum.sub or any other offshore KYC company with such a clear putin connection.

There is not a single good reason for flippa, a glorified craigslist, to request selfie ids from any users!

 

[CaseWrap]

So I have been a Flippa member since the beginning of my journey (bout a month or so now.) I made one listing about a week or so ago. And I was about to give them my passport for further verification until I got this gut feeling - at the VERY last-minute after reading their Consent to personal data processing terms - to back out and go read some of the reviews about the company. I am glad I read the reviews about Flippa. Not so good. In fact I am now heavily considering removing the $10 listing I made and deleting my whole account as apparently even if I were to make a sale, they'd hold my payment until I turned over my passport ID? I don't know if Flippa can be trusted...

Quite a few of the reviews I read kind of made me feel really unseasy about Flippa and their ID verification process with SUMSUB, but I did double check some of the claims. Specifically the claim about the SUMSUB company that claims to be headquartered in London but is apparently a Russian company. Flippa's head quarters are Melbourne, Australia, and San Francisco, United States. But, this company SUMSUB that they use for ID verification I'm unsure about. I don't know. I wouldn't trust this company with my ID. They do claim to be headquartered in london, but they have Russian Roots. Their founders are Russian: Peter, Andrey and Yakov Sever and Vladislav Zholudev. Nothing against Russians or anything, but I'd rather not be giving them my US ID. Lol Something about the Flippa's SUMSUB verification process seems a bit sketchy. I'm not sure.

Too many people in the reviews having issues with the ID verification process and flippa support just flat out banning them and not giving them another chance to prove their identity. I'd be extremely upset and worried if I turned over my ID and everything was 100% accurate but still got rejected. Like, if other domain websites were easily able to verify me, but then for some reason Flippa / SUMSUB couldn't, and then I get banned for it, well then, they'd have my ID and other personal info, and then what? I'm just not gonna risk that stress. I have other things to worry about, I don't need to be worrying about some sketch site being in possession of my idenitity and other personal info. lol

Here's one of the reviews I saw:

"Flippa is NOT a financial institution nor does it handle money like bitcoin exchanges. Inspite of that they're insanely requesting KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER selfies with govt id to be uploaded.

Flippa takes payment to list websites and domains on their site. They also take a success fee. But they are not PROCESSING these payments. Escrow dot com and paypal handle the payments and distributing success fees to Flippa. Escrow and Paypal already have their own vetting controls. They have a right to since they are financial orgs. Flippa is not. Flippa's one go at trying to handle payments failed last year. They used assembly payments platform but never bothered to get proper money transmitter licenses in the united states. Texas found this out and fined them a few years ago.

So flippa for a money transmitter license in Texas, but never bothered to get licenses in any other state apparently.

So here we have a company that does not currently handle ANY aspect of financial transaction processing but wants KYC info? Nope, not kosher. And now in addition to selfie requests, they want LIVENESS scans. Hilarious.

And Flippa already verifies that sellers own the domains and websites they sell. There are reports on namepros that flippa is taking listing fees and then suspending sellers who don't verify with selfies.

According USA govt agencies, this is improper. Even more concerning is the company flippa is using for KYC verification. Sum/sub, a russian company that pretends to be based in London. Their London address shows a maildrop service. With all the meddling in USA elections by Russia, it's very disturbing for a Russian company to have possession of so many American ids!

It's much more suspicious that nearly all employees are in Russia, but they're tricking people that they're a london company. Sorry Flippa, no SANE Americans want to send their ids AND selfies with ids to a company who appears to have a son of PUTlN IN CHARGE!

So to all potential and current flippa customers, do NOT upload any selfie ids for Flippa."


Anway, just be careful with Flippa and their SUMSUB verification partner. I'm considering deleting my listing and entire account. What's the point if I make a sale, but then have to take a picture and upload my passport in order to verify my identity to receive my funds? Paypal knows my identity and Flippa verified that I own the domain. This is kinda unecessary.

If anyone if currently on Flippa and made some sales, please let me know if they have ever had their funds withheld until they turned over their ID, as it would help me decide whether or not to stay with them.

And here we are with Flippa STILL using russian / putin/ russian oligarch founded and funded and connected SUMSUB for their id verifications.
They are also blocking anyone on twitter who calls them out on it.
They also pretend that SUMSUB is based out of London. No, the official company registration in the UK clearly shows they're based out of Cyprus and RU.
Their connections ultimately go back to russian oligarchs posing as ukranian types.
One of them is known as scariest man in world.
I see too many people are still using Flippa and worry they're giving away their ids.