Freemarket is spamming Flippa's failures

[Joseph Green]

Freemarket.com is sending spam to members of Flippa.com who have failed to sell their domains on Flippa.

Subject: No luck selling example.com? Sell on Freemarket with 1 click!
Body: Hello,

My name is Stefan Hogan and I run Freemarket.com, an online marketplace helping millions of entrepreneurs buy and sell websites online. I saw that your listing did not sell on Flippa. I would love to help you make money by selling it on Freemarket.

We beat Flippa by offering:

• Zero Listing Fee
• Low 5% Commission Rates
• Secure Handover With No Extra Fees

Example.com is ready to go! Simply click the button below, and we'll import your listing details from Flippa and make it available for buyers.

[Sell Your Listing With 1 Click]


Regards,

Stefan Hogan
Product Manager, Freemarket.com
Email: [email protected]

Why do some companies think it's okay to send unsolicited email to the registrant on WHOIS records? It's completely unacceptable and an abuse of the system.

Please put a stop to this practice immediately. Freemarket has violated CAN-SPAM laws and the WHOIS terms of use:

By submitting a Whois query, you agree to abide
by the following terms of use: You agree that you may use this Data only
for lawful purposes and that under no circumstances will you use this Data
to: (1) allow, enable, or otherwise support the transmission of mass
unsolicited, commercial advertising or solicitations via e-mail, telephone,
or facsimile

Freemarket.com is owned by Freelancer.com so I expect more from a reputable company.

I receive enough spam as it is from dishonorable companies abusing the WHOIS database. The last thing we need is big companies adding to the problem.

Warning about Freemarket: View Thread.


@Stefan Hogan
@FlippaDomains

 

[Nattydomain]

Really this is all so simple. click the check box in your email and hit delete. BOOM problem done. To me I dont care as again I just delete and it is gone. What is so hard? You act like it is something that is permanent or going to cause you some sort of trojan. It wont do either if you just delete!

 

[DigitalDeepak.com]

I agree with Joseph. This is just spam and a cheap way to do marketing.

 

[domainerfella]

As far as ethics goes, I think they should stop mentioning "Flippa" in their e-mails.

 

[Joseph Green]

To elaborate, they violated the CAN-SPAM Act in two ways:

1. They did not identify the message as an ad.
2. Their unsubscribe link did not work.

As Eric pointed out, the bigger issue here is ethics and the consequences of condoning unsolicited email. The problem will only get worse if we consider it an acceptable business practice.

In my opinion, this is not the same as what some domainers do.

 

[Joseph Green]

Thank you for promoting freemarket. I never knew. Gotta have a look

I've never used them, but there are plenty of posts in other threads from people who have.

The purpose of this thread is not to dissuade others from using their services. The goal is to hopefully convince them to stop their abusive and unethical behavior.

 

[Joseph Green]

@defaultuser

I've never listed a domain on Flippa.

This email was not targeted at all; it's just plain spam to domain registrants.

 

[DU]

@defaultuser

I've never listed a domain on Flippa.

This email was not targeted at all; it's just plain spam to domain registrants.

Your first post said:

"Freemarket.com is sending spam to members of Flippa.com who have failed to sell their domains on Flippa."

Hit delete. Add to your spam folder. You won't be bothered again. People here use domaintools, whoisology, all kinds of "tools" that violate whois etc. I saw complaints today that co.uk doesn't list email and .io doesn't make it easy to find registrants.....you probably don't actually want the Terms enforced.

 

[DomainGist]

I've been sending unsolicitored emails every day, I call it "domaining", I'm not going to be one of those domainers who sits around twiddling his thumbs refreshing the sedo offers page to sell 0.6% of his portfolio per year..... I'm in the business of selling.

I'm in the process of closing three small UK domain sales. All achieved through picking up the phone or sending out emails. All unsolicitored. So I can't criticise for emails received, and I'm surprised David Walker has named/criticised a domainer who has sent emails to him trying to sell a domain. I thought all domainers did this?

 

[DomainGist]

As an aside..... I'd completely forgotten that freemarket existed. If its free to list then I may give it a whirl, OP is doing their marketing for them, lol.

 

[bashishtha]

I just got the same mail for one of my domains but the domain was never listed on Flippa. That makes clear that they are not just spamming the flippa users, they are looking for good domains that are parked for sale on any marketplace and they are mailing to grab attention to try their marketplace.

 

[tomcarl]

I hope they "spam" me next, it would save me some time publishing my listings there. I'm going to reply for them whoisology me and email me for everything I own with one-click pre-filled listings.

I always thought domainers wanted to list their domains on every marketplace available, especially with no fees.

That's kinda like if I'm trying to sell my house and a real estate agency with a following calls me and asks me if I'd like to have my home listed with them for free, no gimmicks, no hassles, no exclusivity, and they'd take a lower commission than any other agents I'm working with and then I yell at them and say I'm on the DNC list then file a complaint against them.

 

[Vinod R]

After further research, I recommend that you avoid Freemarket:

https://www.namepros.com/threads/domain-sale-freemarket-com-help.843379/

That is enough of a reason not to sell there. Since the OP has gone public they issued the money back, there would be many other cases where the seller would have been helpless and lost the money and domain.

 

[kawalsukhi]

Anyways any kind of spam is wrong practice whether done by small domainer or a BIG firm, Nobody likes it!

 

[Kate]

Today they sent us the same spam, for a domain name that we never listed for sale (we use it).

They are not just targeting the domain names put up for sale.
They are spamming indiscriminately.

Shame on you Freemarket.com.

 

[Kate]

By the way, the headers indicate that they used a third party service for mail:
http://www.mailgun.com/report-spam

This is the URL where you can report the spam.

 

[Joseph Green]

Thank you everyone for continuing to share. It helps us all have a more complete picture of what is happening here. I hope Freemarket learns that spamming thousands of people is an unacceptable business practice, and they should stop.

 

[Joseph Green]

@tomcarl

You may not endorse it, but you sure are preaching it.

I have thousands of domains, and Freemarket is the first notable company to send me unsolicited email. If Flippa, Sedo, Aftermarket, Bido, Afternic, DNX, GoDaddy, or any other well-known domain company spammed me to use their services, I would report them as well.

But guess what? In all my years in this industry, they never have. Not once.

 

[NameOmnia]

It's an interesting thread.

My view is, though, that it shouldn't be up to domainers to protect themselves but it should be to market places / sellers / brokers to act " correctly ".

In the real world I want to be free to choose what bakery I enter , what bread I buy and , if I am happy or not with their muffins it should ONLY be my business, not anyone else's. So I expect not to have bakeries knocking at my door saying " I saw that you didn't like the muffins you bought at bakery ABC why not give us a try? ".

No one would tolerate this behaviour in real life but it seems that when it's about internet, domains, seo etc people are really quick at labeling things as " well..it's normal..everyone does that..." That's the main reason why this industry is indeed the ruleless messy jungle we deal with every single day.

If it's " normal " just because ( unfortunately ) many people do that it doesn't mean it's correct and it certainly doesn't mean it should be condoned or endorsed. Just think about the bakery.

 

[N-A]

What would be interesting to know is, did they send the email to the email on record of example.com or to the email on record for the domain name in the public profile of Flippa?

In the case of the latter, it may be a problem with Flippa displaying social media information as well as your company URL which has information on its own.

Additionally, if Freemarket is scraping the auction data, Flippa may want to look into making it non-machine readable, somewhat like what Efty does on their landing pages with their nospam.min.js script that has an addition of algorithm that changes each time. However, This poses an SEO problem for Flippa though as Google may not be able to read this either, so they would be worthless pages to index.

 

[jamesosix]

But the page has a link to flippa. You could contact me there if you was so interested in buying a name from me, even the co.uk ones. All it would take is a simply message to initiate the process. If somebody contacted me wanting to buy a name im selling I wouldnt consider it spam as I am actively looking to sell....

Likewise, if I was to send a lot of emails all saying the same thing, just changing the name of the receiver, selling my domains, that (IMO) is spamming.

Likewise, if somebody messaged me on here interested in buying, I wouldnt report that...If somebody contacted me, interested in selling me a domain, then I would agree, that could be considered by some as spam.

Thanks for the info about the contact form. Ill get it fixed now.

 

[N-A]

Thanks for the info about the contact form. Ill get it fixed now.

No problem, but re-read my second sentence. I want to sell my drone names to you and now have your email address.

Would you consider that spam, B2B or tailoring and okay in your opinion?

My point being if I send somebody an email about a domain, its specific to that person.

 

[Asfas1000]

I wouldn't mind domainers pitching me better domains than I own, but it's usually a doubly hyphenated .net version of my .com...

 

[RU]

Who are these guys? Please, stop send me spam.

sorry for offtop

 

[domainerfella]

@Joseph Green Thank you for promoting freemarket. I never knew. Gotta have a look

 

[timestamp]

I've never listed a domain on Flippa.

This thread wouldn't make it to the Page 2 if you wrote it in first post.