Is Flippa a scam? (They sure do support frauds)

[pteracuda]

So I had a few $1000 I wanted to spend on some apps and try to learn a few things while making investments into online properties.

I go to Flippa, I think okay I know how to weed through scammers but at first I got one seller telling me he has $800 profit a month and when I buy it that's no longer the case.

Had another seller tell me something that was a lie. Discovered a few site errors. Was trying to do my part to report things.

Made a few purchases before making a bigger purchase $599.

Did all my due diligence and apparently the seller tells me now in broken English he's refusing to do what his ad states which is, he included in features "Admob Ads are integrated to earn money" but continues to refuse to do this work, while stating he is a coder in the listing but admitting he's not in messages.

It goes on with him arguing that I should pay him more money, he promises to refund and never did but after the hellish nightmare, sent me lesser money in a payment that made me instead look like the seller and put me at risk as now my money is on hold trying to transfer back to my bank because it's not normal interaction for my account obviously to be tossing money around like a hot potato.

So long story short, seller goes on and on, even after telling me again and again they'll refund me, even after Flippa steps in and tells them twice to refund me, hours later they continue to try to get me to let them have money somehow for refusing to do work and transferring absolutely nothing.

Flippa sided with them, and let them relist their item and banned my account, after the whole time the seller was being argumentative, yet they tell me they expect me to be civil. The guys allowed to terrorize me on Flippa but yet I'm the bad guy for opening dispute when he refused a integration he offered.

"Admob Ads are integrated to earn money" turned into the seller getting their buy now price accepted, and yet still saying it was not enough money, without a single mention of it being an extra charge.

"Admob Ads are integrated to earn money" to me means integration so I'm earning, so I don't understand why the seller refused to do a $5 job just to get in a $599 payment, but I'm not a "coder" either so to me it was outrageous that I was being asked to go outside the box for something that's telling me it's "integrated to earn money."

To me if seller is refusing integration, I'm not earning money I'm just being extorted, and seller even lied to Paypal saying I'm trying to get free work from him after I sent $600 and got my time wasted. I even lost money because I didn't get it all back, and it's still on hold.... and my Flippa account got banned.

Anyone else had someone just scam them and it just makes the majority of the other sellers start looking shady too (especially when support sides with them)? This thread is for bad experiences. I'm new and already had a many, so let's hear yours?

(When I searched the company actually I found some info that just made me think there has obviously got to be others, some BBB info, some lawyer website... surely there's other bad stories, as well as I had a few good too, but Flippa ruined that part.)

 

[pteracuda]

Now I've gotten an identity verification email that I didn't do so it even looks like Flippa is trying to do something with my account and identity somehow.... very strange to be having to document something like this after they just protected someone who lied over and over again.

 

[pteracuda]

After reading back through everything it turns out this seller seemed to be trying to sell the app to someone else anyway, despite the fact that I had won the auction at the buy-now price.

Flippa actually helped them despite they had admitted to taking offers while it was already sold. This is absolutely trash on their part. No wonder lawyers are talking about suing them for others.

Turns out the seller has multiple accounts they work with. I've found 5 email addresses and a number of different businesses that seem to be fake or maybe they got caught scamming others and abandoned the names.

Either way, I've had to reach out to the company executives of Flippa to ask why they support someone caught in multiple lies.

Still waiting to see why. Finally got my money back, missing some money though.

Absolutely this Flippa is the trailer trash of the web.

 

[pteracuda]

So I found the company this seller works for and the owner of the company tells me that he has no personal connection with the seller, but "Hello Brother, We’re connected with the developer and we also bid on the same game."

All the info I gave them was the sellers name that works for their company, and here they show knowledge upfront of what's going on without me telling them too much.

After questioning them a bit more they replied as if the seller no longer works there for the company, and claims that the seller "Deeksha Singh" is NOT a seller at Flippa..... All after admitting they were bidding on the same app.

They claim that they are 2 different people who worked for the company and who they bought apps from.... very coincidental that they had knowledge of all this or very suspicious?

I'd say they were part of the scam the whole time, because this seems very odd Deeksha Singh is selling an app, and the same company she use to work for (according to owner) is the same company trying to buy the app now, as Deeksha Singh and the company are in the same business field, yet they state this Deeksha Singh is another Deeksha and not the same, which I do not at all believe.

Same city, same name.... coincidence, I think not.

 

[kite26]

Don't waste your valuable time. You can find and use so many other marketplaces:
Dan
Afternic
Domain Agents
Daaz
GoDaddy
Sedo
Squadhelp
Brandbucket
Brandpa
....

I find no real reason to spend even a second more on them.

My 2 cents

 

[pteracuda]

Thanks @kite26

Can you offer any insight to which of these marketplaces also sell Google Play apps?

I looked at Flippa, which you know the story there. I looked at Fliptopia but all of the listings I looked at seemed to be old, because they no longer existed on Google Play and some had broken images too on Fliptopia. I tried searching for a few more but nothing to my liking.

 

[kite26]

Thanks @kite26

Can you offer any insight to which of these marketplaces also sell Google Play apps?

I looked at Flippa, which you know the story there. I looked at Fliptopia but all of the listings I looked at seemed to be old, because they no longer existed on Google Play and some had broken images too on Fliptopia. I tried searching for a few more but nothing to my liking.

I don't really know about selling Google play apps. Good luck

 

[tldboss]

What's the app?

You said it's still for sale, tell us the name, so NP members can avoid dealing with the seller.

 

[pteracuda]

They've already resold and transferred to someone else. It was re-sold 21 hours before I even got part of my money back to my bank, just to give you an idea how shady this interaction was. They already had other buyers setup for it while they were trying to squeeze more money out of me for something said to be included as a feature..... even the company the girl worked for was bidding on the same app so this is all very fishy though.

Here is the seller's other apps though if you want to watch out for them
https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Adviteey+digital+Media

I'm just personally not buying anything from India anymore. Stay away from Indian sellers, that's my suggestion... that seem to be buying and selling Flippa accounts between each other, and Flippa protects them.... seems like Flippa are the scammers really. So stay away from Flippa too.

The app was in the new buyers account about the same time I got my refund back, so to me this was all premeditated and setup against me just because someone wanted more money after they realized that they had more buyers.

 

[pteracuda]

Now the scammer has reached out through their friends account pretending like they work for Flippa.


@Flippa @FlippaDomains @flippa_marketplace

 

[pteracuda]

(also emailed to Flippa CEO)

So I think they meant that they worked as representative now using Deeksha's account... so either way, someone here is admitting that they were using someone else's account... or saying they worked for Flippa... I blocked them so I didn't get too deep in convo but they did send me more money.

I was $1.47 short still, and this person asked me online if I got full refund which I said no.... then they replied to me this, and sent me more money but I did not ask for more money and did not see it until after I sent the last email.

So I'm $0.26 short which I wasn't worried about the dollar, it's just the fact that I got shorted over someone repeatedly lying about the facts. Then I have someone not associated with the Flippa account admitting they did use the Flippa account admitting it's someone else's.

I thought at first they were saying representative at Flippa like they were a Flippa rep, but after re-reading and getting another $1 in money after I told them I didn't get a full refund, I realized it's just broken english and they probably mean they were the one who tried to scam me.

I don't even know if this Deeksha person is real seeing how I'm literally finding out through my investigation of this that someone else in fact was using that account by the name of "Shiv Sharma Hasteer" who is at the same address in India as this supposed "Deeksha".

 

[King]

Flippa is a rip-off

 

[pteracuda]

I literally have someone admitting to using someone else's account here, but Flippa banned me ....... after someone else was repeatedly lying to me, so I'm just documenting what I can here for others to see. Hopefully no one buys from Flippa because you are right, it's a ripoff. About 1/2 the time I was dealing with people lying to me and trying to scam me, and Flippa supports that negligent malpractice.

 

[King]

As long as they get paid their overpriced fees, they don't care

 

[pteracuda]

for sure, they got someone literally admitting to me that they are using someone else's account...

Deeksha Singh was suppose to be the girl that was selling the app... now someone named Shiv Sharma Hasteer is admitting it was them and they are in full control of the accounts.....

Some guy running some girls account, and of course Flippa didn't care about any of this, I'm the one who had to further investigate and reach out to their company.

 

[pteracuda]

I just wanted to reiterate something because I saw I didn't really say this.

I paid at night and didn't get an immediate response so I went on to bed. Woke up to this refusal (without a word of it in the listing) and basically the seller says he doesn't put in ad codes for me, tells me he can get it done for $30 for me, and then tells me I can go to Fiverr to get it done if I don't want to pay that.

That's what I woke up to after spending $599 on Flippa from a vetted seller no less, after in the ad it stated "Admob Ads are integrated to earn money" as an app feature, but the seller claims that their omission of pretty much never actually saying they would put in the ad-codes, or charge any more money for that matter, that's what they claim is why they are right. Because they didn't say so in one spot, while failing to mention anything about it in 4 other places.

 

[pteracuda]

Still no reply back from Flippa.

It does seem that Flippa itself is involved in this scam, as I had told them when I was on their network that it seemed people were sharing accounts or buying and selling their Flippa accounts. Not long after that I did this transaction and they had me banned, because someone tried to scam me and I pointed it out.

 

[pteracuda]

Still no reply back from Flippa. Have since found out that the person selling the app who worked for the company trying to buy the app also has another connection to the person that was running the account, pretending to be Deeksha.

So with a guy pretending to be a girl, and the 3 people are all in the same community (2 at the same address) involved in one single auction, this seems like a conspiracy that Flippa has tried to coverup. The owner of the company who claims they tried to buy the app too knows both of these people supposedly.

So you have bids being driven up by the company of a person selling an app, when the whole time it's a guy running the account and not a girl... complete fraud there.

And yet my account was banned because I didn't want to pay more money for something that never claimed more money or work was needed!

@Flippa has turned out to be nothing but trash. No common sense, no common decency, no reply.... instead they sided with a guy pretending to be a girl, who never even mentioned that there was outside representation involved in the sale.... instead they lied and claimed they were a coder and lied even more, but Flippa supported them in their extortion effort and in their lies.

Do not shop on Flippa unless you want to be scammed while their admin team shows no credibility after siding with someone who couldn't provide what they sold stated in the contract.

They support frauds who word their listings like something is included and then back them when they try to extort more money from you.

 

[xynames]

In general no one will sell you a golden goose, if something really is making money they will always ask for a multiplier such that it will take you time to get your investment back. It sounds like you thought you'd pay and get back your money within a few months that is unrealistic even on a legitimate purchase of a business.

 

[alcy]

yeah if too good to be true.. is always the golden rule.

even on decent parking domains on np or elsewhere.. u rarely pay less than 12 moths revenues to acquire... usually more...

flippa is not a scam.. but its probably just real easy to scam people selling certain product types... like those.

cant scam on a domain sale... if your paying 20k to buy 3l.com or such.. well.. then u get that domain exactly.

 

[Samer]

Flippa is the worst company i’ve had the displeasure of dealing with.

 

[alcy]

i agree that of all markets, flippa is worse to me too.
i listed there since i domain in 2015.. like on all markets.
and my total sales are only 2,3k
i'll take it.
better than nothing... even over 5 years...
and thats makeoffer only
no bidding
still it goes to show how little activity there is there compared to other markets,

maybe if u have top quality liquid names.. throw it out there for bidding.. get some nice exposure from editor choice conections etc... then u make profit.. do not be fooled by memvers whose profiles say they sold 100k domains,, it can mean they paid those names 95k. for roi of 5k

 

[Samer]

i agree that of all markets, flippa is worse to me too.
i listed there since i domain in 2015.. like on all markets.
and my total sales are only 2,3k
i'll take it.
better than nothing... even over 5 years...
and thats makeoffer only
no bidding
still it goes to show how little activity there is there compared to other markets,

Their “identity verification” is the worst.

Flippa is Completely mercy of Escrow.com also an equally-bad service in their field IMO

Just bad, all around, with no end in sight.
The deterioration of Flippa.com never cease to amaze me, yet people still use them. Go figure

 

[pteracuda]

In general no one will sell you a golden goose, if something really is making money they will always ask for a multiplier such that it will take you time to get your investment back. It sounds like you thought you'd pay and get back your money within a few months that is unrealistic even on a legitimate purchase of a business.

Actually the estimated earnings were only $2 a month, I wasn't paying for the earnings though.

 

[pteracuda]

So this was the response from @Flippa CEO Blake Hutchison... Apparently they feel threatened by me providing them further evidence. Obviously this was meant for someone else, so to have a company talk trash about you after they just let someone try to get more money out of you with no word of such in a contract, absolutely trash.