Need help with Afternic escrow

[rockert]

Hello,

I wanted to buy a website at flippa and decided to use Afternic as escrow.

The site deals with dropshiping and the seller did not want to disclose the suppliers until the money were in the escrow.

He did and he also gave me access to the site. And when I have checked the logs, the traffic took a major hit from when I initiated the escrow.

I don't want to pay such a large amount of money for a shit site, but afternic tells me I've entered a binding agreement and both parties need to agree in order to cancel the deal.

Ofcourse, the seller doesn't want to do that.
What are my options here?

Any help is appreciated!

 

[mosilager]

I'm not quite sure why you used Afternic for your escrow transactions when Flippa uses escrow.com

Still to answer your question, I think you're going to have a fight on your hands to get this transaction cancelled. You are in a binding contractual agreement which you have to abide too.

You should have done your due diligence on the site before you bought it, including asking the seller to provide traffic logs, and asking questions as to where his traffic comes from.

I'm sorry you're in this situation, hope you can get it resolved, would certainly like to hear from experienced folks what happens in cases like this.

good luck.

 

[rockert]

Is there a link to that binding agreement?
I didn't sign anything?!

 

[mosilager]

I don't think you need to sign anything, when I've used escrow.com, a binding agreement is agreed when you check the box that say's you've reviewed and agree by the contract!....

You might want to get on the phone with someone at Afternic and see what they can do to help you!.

 

[johname]

You need to review what the penalty is in breaking the contract vs amount of money you save by not buying a crappy website. Weigh the two sides and pick one. Goodluck

 

[CannyInvestor]

If you would have used Transpact.com as your escrow provider, you would have been safe.

Their 'Consumer Protection Clause' states:
'If one party to the transaction purposefully takes advantage of the other party's reasonable ignorance, then a referee arbitrating a payment dispute shall treat the advantage so gained as an unfair act.'

I don't think other escrow service use or allows use of a similar term.

Those who use Transpact.com for domain/website sale/purchase have always been very happy with its service.

[Declaration - I work for Transpact.com]

 

[Uniqueson]

How would this be construed as "purposefully" taking advantage of someone's "reasonable ignorance"? (Not even sure what that term is supposed to mean: if someone doesn't bother to conduct due diligence it is the seller's fault?)

As a seller I cannot imagine using a service that seemingly allows a buyer to walk away just because they feel like it, essentially.

 

[CannyInvestor]

Uniqueson - When there is a scam going on, the 'taking advantage of reasonable ignorance' clause can allow the arbitrator to use the clause to rescue the innocent party.

If there is no attempt to mislead going on, then the clause cannot be used by the buyer to walk away, and the buyer will remain fully liable. So you need not fear.

It is for the referee (agreed between the buyer and seller) to judge if 'taking advantage of reasonable ignorance' was involved or not if there is a dispute, and so the buyer and seller cannot manipulate the clause unfairly.