Problems, Bugs and Fixes at Afternic - Report Problems Here

[carob]

I suggest a new thread titled Problems, Bugs and Fixes at Afternic - Report Problems Here. Then we can all list our issues so Afternic have to fix them. These Afternic probs have been repeatedly flagged up across numerous threads on here over a period of time, including the need for 2FA. Godaddy own Afternic and have the resources and motivation to fix it - this risky mess is unacceptable and reflects badly on their brand.

For info, Afternic keep reverting some of my domains to "In Review" status for no reason, and I only know that if I log in there to check on them. Until I then ask support to take them out of Review they are not listed for sale and will not sell at Afternic.

@Joe Styler When can we expect Godaddy to take action on Afternic, including implementing 2FA?

 

[Arca]

It's such a constant struggle with Afternic. I really want to love you, but you're such a pain to deal with.

Step 1 - Add listings. See that a large percentage of the domains I'm adding are "already listed".
Step 2 - Email support and ask for the "already listed" to be removed and for "in review" from my previous attempt to be resolved.
Step 3 - Receive an email back from Afternic saying that the "already listed" domains have been removed and that the domains are ready to add. Also that a couple domains couldn't be removed because they don't have my whois information.
Step 4 - Check the domains they said don't have my whois information, they do!
Step 5 - Go to re-add the "already listed" listings that were removed, they weren't all removed!
Step 6 - Go to check if the "in review" domains were resolved, they weren't!
Step 7 - Email Afternic support again, yay!
Step 8 - Repeat the steps.

Do I sound frustrated?

This is nothing new. Afternic has been promising to resolve this for YEARS. It's just empty words now. I'll believe it when I see it (and absolutely shocked and relieved). You are supposed to be the industry leader.

Your competitors have listing systems that work.

I’ve experienced the same thing many times. They reply that domains have been removed, when they often have not, and that listings that don’t work have been fixed, even though they are still not working. But in the past, if you kept following up, they would get back to you, and eventually things would get resolved, so it was never a big issue. But these days customer support do not respond at sometimes... which is really frustrating.

Afternic is unfortunately troubled by a lot of bugs and problems, which makes it really crucial to counterbalance that with quick, responsive and helpful customer support.

 

[CJ6]

They definitely have their problems, but I think I have sold the most domains with them. I have sold several domains for $XXX on Afternic that I couldn't sell for $10 here.

 

[Arca]

Sometimes I am notified by Afternic that a name has sold, and then never hear back from Afternic again regarding that sale. It would be good if Afternic can start notifying sellers when they have determined that a sale has fallen through.

When a price is agreed upon through offer/make offer, the name is not automatically moved into escrow. Sometimes I accept an offer, and then nothing happens - it's like I never accepted the offer. If the prospective buyer makes an offer, Afternic should consider that a binding agreement to purchase the domain at that price if the seller accepts it. When a month goes by after I have accepted an offer, and nothing has happened to move forward with the transaction, I reach out to customer support to ask what is going on, and they tell me that the buyer didn’t buy the name. No updates are provided in any form to indicate that Afternic have determined that the person who made the accepted offer is not going to buy for it (another issues is that these non-paying buyers are not even banned from the platform).

Please start sending out emails to update sellers when sales fall through. Why is this important? When I am sent an email confirmation of a sale, or when I agree to an offer, I am obviously going to pull than name from other places it is listed for sale, and not sell it to someone else. I simply can’t sell it anymore, as it has sold through Afternic, and as I need to uphold my part of that sales agreement, i have to reserve the name for the Afternic buyer. It is frustrating that when sales fall through, Afternic never provide any notification about it (at least I have never received one). I have taken names off the market for 1+ month multiple times, before reaching out to Afternic to see if there are any updates or if there is an issue, just to be told that the seller didn't pay and they have ceased communicating with him/her weeks ago. Afternic should know that as sellers, we cannot go ahead and sell a name to someone else, after Afternic have notified us that the name has sold, or after we have reached an agreement with a buyer through Afternic through “make offer” negotiations. Sellers need to receive an update when Afternic considers a sale as having fallen through, so that we know with certainty that we can go ahead and offer the domain for sale again.

Please start notifying sellers when sales have fallen through in these situations:

a) non-paying buyer through standard/premium network (partner registrar), where the sale eventually fall through for various reasons
b) non-paying buyer who used BIN option at Afternic, but then doesn't pay
c) non-paying buyer who makes and offer that seller accepts, but then doesn’t pay for

I have had sales fall through in all these three scenarios, and I have never been notified about it, even when 4+ weeks have passed since the initial email. When I then reach out to Afternic, they always say that the sale has fallen through (with registrar partners) or that the buyer didn’t pay and they are not attempting to secure payment anymore. Effectively, the sale has been cancelled prior to me contacting them, but why are sellers not actively notified about this? The only way to obtain this info appears to be to reach out to customer support, and as I have highlighted in previous posts in this thread, customer support frequently do not reply to inquiries nowadays.

Several weeks ago I was notified about an Afternic sale, so I took the name off the market to reserve it for the Afternic buyer. Never got any updates. Eventually I reached out, and they said there was no sale. No explanation of what happened. I put it up for sale again, but pointed it to the landing page of another marketplace, and two days later it sold to someone else through that marketplace. If I had not taken the initiative to contact Afternic, I would have still been waiting for the Afternic buyer to pay, and the name would not have been redirecting to a for sale page, so I would likely have lost out on that sale.

When it has been decided by Afternic that a sale has fallen through it is essential that we are notified about it right away, so that we don't need to waste an unnecessary amount of time on holding the name for a buyer that is not actually going to buy the name, which in turn, might cause us to lose out on selling the name to other interested parties that might have showed up during the time we are holding the domain for the non-paying Afternic buyer.

Hope you can look into this - @Joe Styler

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

At least once per month recheck all domains in your database...
Tons of them are actually available for registration...

Why should we have to check?

We shouldn't!

It should just work.

Who has the time for this?

Why are we paying such a high commission?

Maybe they should use some of this money to fix the problems and upgrade the interface!

My post was addressed to Afternic...

Regarding me...
I don't use them at all... I only remove my domains from their obsolete listings...

 

[Joe Styler]

It's such a constant struggle with Afternic. I really want to love you, but you're such a pain to deal with.

Step 1 - Add listings. See that a large percentage of the domains I'm adding are "already listed".
Step 2 - Email support and ask for the "already listed" to be removed and for "in review" from my previous attempt to be resolved.
Step 3 - Receive an email back from Afternic saying that the "already listed" domains have been removed and that the domains are ready to add. Also that a couple domains couldn't be removed because they don't have my whois information.
Step 4 - Check the domains they said don't have my whois information, they do!
Step 5 - Go to re-add the "already listed" listings that were removed, they weren't all removed!
Step 6 - Go to check if the "in review" domains were resolved, they weren't!
Step 7 - Email Afternic support again, yay!
Step 8 - Repeat the steps.

Do I sound frustrated?

This is nothing new. Afternic has been promising to resolve this for YEARS. It's just empty words now. I'll believe it when I see it (and absolutely shocked and relieved). You are supposed to be the industry leader.

Your competitors have listing systems that work.

We hired a couple people to help with this so you do not have to do any of the steps above. Just email them the domains and the prices if you are putting BIN pricing on which we suggest and they will do all the steps for you. Anyone can PM me for the email to do this.

 

[creataweb]

How can I get a reply from someone for pending review domains? They will answer other inquiries but ignore the emails I send about all these domains I have in pending review.

'Domains Pending Review 103'

 

[creataweb]

Also how does Afternic determine when a buyer actually receives the domain? If they never change the Whois what happens?

 

[Cdomains]

Also how does Afternic determine when a buyer actually receives the domain? If they never change the Whois what happens?

Great question!

 

[creataweb]

Great question!

Thanks, the reason I asked is because it's happening to me right now. Someone bought a name and they've had it since last week and no Whois changes so I'm not getting paid at the moment.

 

[Arca]

Also how does Afternic determine when a buyer actually receives the domain? If they never change the Whois what happens?

Did you transfer the domain directly to the buyer? I'm always asked to push or transfer the domain to Afternic first, rather than to the buyer, and then they push/transfer the domain to the buyer, so I've never encountered this issue with them.

 

[Arca]

@Joe Styler - It would be great if we could decide which Afternic broker contacts us whenever we get an offer.

One exceptional broker (Mr. R. G.) sells nearly every single domain he brokers for me, so I let him negotiate on my behalf every time I get an offer (if it is he who contacts me after I get the offer).

I would like this broker to deal with all my incoming offers, but many times it is other brokers who reach out to me after I get an offer. Personally I have not seen good results when I let some of the other brokers work the lead, so I usually decline, and just accept the offer outright or make a counter-offer through the Afternic system.

Would be great if we could indicate our preference for working with certain brokers under "account settings."

 

[creataweb]

Did you transfer the domain directly to the buyer? I'm always asked to push or transfer the domain to Afternic first, rather than to the buyer, and then they push/transfer the domain to the buyer, so I've never encountered this issue with them.

I gave the auth code to Afternic... but the buyer has not changed the whois or nameservers. I emailed them and got zero answer to this transaction status.

I tried to push to Afternic Escrow but they did not answer me about that and just requested the auth code.

 

[simmplex]

@Joe Styler


Would you be so kind to discuss with your dev team to see,
Is it possible to provide us with two name servers?

Such as
au01.godaddy.com
au02.godaddy.com

When a domain using these name servers,
visitors will be forwarded to the listing page if it is listed already at Godaddy auctions,

I know,
CashParking can do this job indirectly,
but I have set all my domain to
ns01.cashparking.com
ns02.cashparking.com

for several days,
and only got 3 or 5 messages from India each day, not from US or EU.

Generally I get about 10 inquiries of my domains each day when parked at Uniregistry, mostly from US,
So there may be some bugs there at cashparking,
Such as the contact form validation picture may be not friendly to US visitors,
and furthermore Godaddy Auction Domain listing page does not show adaptively on IPhone.

I know, a url forwarding to these is Ok but not feasible if you have thousands of domains.

http://www.godaddy.com/api/dpp/search/single?domainToCheck=domain.com
https://auctions.godaddy.com/trpItemListing.aspx?domain=domain.com

Thank you for your time and always being really nice here.

 

[Joe Styler]

@Joe Styler


Would you be so kind to discuss with your dev team to see,
Is it possible to provide us with two name servers?

Such as
au01.godaddy.com
au02.godaddy.com

When a domain using these name servers,
visitors will be forwarded to the listing page if it is listed already at Godaddy auctions,

I know,
CashParking can do this job indirectly,
but I have set all my domain to
ns01.cashparking.com
ns02.cashparking.com

for several days,
and only got 3 or 5 messages from India each day, not from US or EU.

Generally I get about 10 inquiries of my domains each day when parked at Uniregistry, mostly from US,
So there may be some bugs there at cashparking,
Such as the contact form validation picture may be not friendly to US visitors,
and furthermore Godaddy Auction Domain listing page does not show adaptively on IPhone.

I know, a url forwarding to these is Ok but not feasible if you have thousands of domains.

http://www.godaddy.com/api/dpp/search/single?domainToCheck=domain.com
https://auctions.godaddy.com/trpItemListing.aspx?domain=domain.com

Thank you for your time and always being really nice here.

We have a fix coming out for the mobile experience which is very nice. I think everyone will like it. As far as the nameservers we prefer you list your names for sale with Afternic and park with them. That will point to a for sale page and that will go to a sales team that tries to close that deal for you. You can also park with other major parking companies like parking crew and simply check a box and they will put a for sale link on your parked pages that direct people to the afternic sales listing.
I can help you with the details and put you in touch with someone who can help you get your names listed without any issues on Afternic. He can do all the work for you. Anyone who is trying to list names on Afternic and is having issue can contact me and I will put you in touch with the right person to help make your experience easier.

 

[thedotsol]

Today I've received an email from Afternic with request for me to update my payee info since they couldn't process a payment for my last sold domain. I was puzzled with this, since never had such request before and for all my past sales, whenever sales occurs, their Escrow ask me to choose disbursement method and right after that domain has been marked as sold. No additional work needed.

Now the problem is I'm not able to update my payee currently, since when I try to reach my account settings I receive an error page. I've informed them about my issue, waiting for a solution.

Few other changes I noticed as well:

All YTD sales are gone from my default dashboard view.
Now I see only two sold domains, one which transfer has just completed and one in processing.

Domains which were sold but not paid yet: before they were marked with “in Escrow” label, now they are marked with “In TA”. What does this mean? Is there an update and it’s change log where we can gather some more info?

Let's see if these are bugs or they updated their procedures.

 

[Joe Styler]

We are in the process of rolling out a new transaction assurance (TA) in place of escrow. Part of what you are seeing is a result of the new roll out. The sales will populate again once the release it fully completed which will be today. Also we will be sending out emails to let people know. You should be getting one so shortly. This has several benefits to you as a seller. The gist of it is that we are now taking every name into an Afternic holding account and then moving it to the buyer. Once we get control of the domain we can pay you instead of waiting for the buyer to accept the domain or complete the transfer into their account.
Also under the old system you would need to tell the escrow team how you wanted to get paid for each transaction and they couldn't pay you until you contacted them with the information each time. With the new system you set up a default payee and that allows us to pay you faster. Also we have a dashboard now you can go to to see what is happening with the transaction instead of emailing back and forth to support or escrow.
We think this is pretty exciting and should be a big improvement to the way you interact with sales going forward.
There are other things that were released as part of this which address some of the other concerns people have had such as better communication process around sales.

Here is the email you will be receiving.

Subject: Introducing the NEW Afternic Transaction Assurance platform
Body:
With a refined navigation interface and more insight into your domain transfers, our NEW Transaction Assurance Service offers an enhanced experience to your buying and selling needs with Afternic.
New Features:
· Close transactions faster with the ability to have a default payment method on file
· Find what you need faster with our redesigned, user-friendly dashboard
· Differentiate between manual vs. fast transfer transactions at a glance
· Get paid in multi- currency for international payments
Disclaimer: Sales tax will be applicable for domain sales in WA, SD and New Zealand.

 

[thedotsol]

Thanks for follow up Joe, really appreciated. I'm happy to hear you are working on these improvements.

Frankly, Afternic with its old setup was delivering to me big time and now it should be even better, which is great news! Hope these bugs addressed in this thread will be solved as well.

 

[Premiums]

Afternic's support is great, love this company.

 

[carob]

Checked, once again I have names put back into Review at Afternic for no reason, and with no notification.

This is still happening.

Which is why I never use AfterNic DNS and only list a limited number of domains there.

Why does the interface limit you to 10 items per page, then 50 if you select show 50, which it promptly forgets as you navigate around? Just let users set it to 200 or 500 or whatever and retain the settings.

That terrible interface is another reason I list only some names there - very time consuming and frustrating to manage stuff there. Also clicking Save or Submit often fails, meaning you have to double check that changes were retained.

 

[Arca]

@Joe Styler - Can you please look into these issues?:

The new system does not have a chat log anymore, so there is no record of your communication with the “TA Agent”.

The new system does not show the sold date of the domain, so you there is no record in my account of when a domain sold anymore. Can you please re-add this? Any domain seller who keeps a record of sales would like this info, and every marketplace except Afternic provide this info. Even for domains currently in escrow it is not possible to find out which day the domain sold on (at least I have been unable to find the area where this info is shown).

The new system only gives me the option of providing an authorization code for a recent sale. However, the domain is transfer locked for another 7 weeks. The manual nature of the old system was more efficient when it came to dealing such cases, as the transfer agent would consider the transfer method on an individual basis, rather than the new system which only provides a one-size fits all, even though there are so many variables that make most domain transfers different.

In the old system, the escrow agent would always initiate a pull for every domain registered at Network Solutions, not ask for an authorization code. Now I only get the option of providing the authorization code for a Network Solutions domain. So I’ll have to waite 3-4 days for that to arrive, then give that to Afternic, and then it will take another 4-5 days to transfer the domain, then 6 weeks or so for the transfer to complete (since it is transfer locked). The old system where they always did a quick pull was better, as the domain would have been moved into Afternic's ownership in 2-3 days, but now it's going to take nearly 2 months.

Maybe you can update the system to take into consideration things such as transfer locks, or the need to pull, rather than push, domains at Network Solutions.

I’m getting emails telling me that “if you no longer own this domain and didn’t update your Afternic portfolio, please contact us immediately to cancel the sale” AFTER I have already pushed these domains to Afternic. The emails I’ve been getting so far are completely out of sync with the actual stages of the sales process.

Dozens of registrars I have domains with are not listed in the "Tell us where your domain is registered" list - I tried to type in the registrar manually, but only get the message "The domain transfer has been initiated and may take up to 4-5 days to be completed. If you have not transferred the domain or an error occurred, go back to previous step." As I haven't provided any info to Afternic such as authorization code, and Afternic has not provided me with any info, such as their account name at that registrar, the transfer has certainly not been initiated in any way, and also this particular domain is already in Afternic's account, since I transferred it prior to the new system being implemented... So there is clearly an error with how the system handles "other" registrar not in the list.

And since the registrar the domain was at (pheenix) is not in the list, there is no way for me to indicate that I have transferred the domain to Afternic already. The button to indicate you have transferred a domain is only available if the registrar it is at is listed by Afternic... Previously it was there for any and all domains, regardless of registrar. And when you do indicate that a domain has been transferred in the new system, it also just gives the message "The domain transfer has been initiated and may take up to 4-5 days to be completed. If you have not transferred the domain or an error occurred, go back to previous step." But when I click this button, it means that the domain transfer has already completed - so why doesn't the system just acknowledge that instead, like the old system did?

I could go on and on about problems with the new system, but since none of my many previous feedback posts in this thread have been acknowledged by @Joe Styler, I won't spend more time on outlining them.

I find the new system far worse than the old system. Transfers were the only thing that seemed to work well at Afternic, and the new system seems like a big step backwards.

 

[Joe Styler]

Thanks for the feedback. I have acknowledged you in the past by saying that I have let the developers know and that the product manager who heads up Afternic is looped in on this page as is the one who released the new TA process. Everyone's feedback is being looked at. Part of it was fixed as a result of this release.

 

[campout]

I just logged in to Afternic and saw I had 39 messages in my notification area regarding names I had put into Afternic a few weeks ago. I am getting that message where it asks you to move your domain to a participating fast transfer registrar, however these names are already at GoDaddy.

That is the kind of stuff I hope can be fixed. What other false signals are associated with these names in the Afternic system?

 

[campout]

It looks like a ton of messages must've pooled up in the system, and they all got spat out on April 7.

 

[thedotsol]

Yes, I saw that too. It was a mess, since I had these messages on names that were already approved for Fast Transfer (registered at NameSilo). Now they are asking me to move them to a different registrar...

I deleted them an relisted again, all was fine, names are at Fast Transfer again.

These bugs are really annoying and I was hoping they will address them first.

 

[creataweb]

I still have names in review from last year that for some reason are not being approved. Names that are not considered adult. I emailed at least 3 times before I got an answer and they still show in review even though I was told it would be done by 3 hours after my email was received. This was a couple of weeks ago now.

Also I have a name I sold last month, never got paid. Even got the email saying I was getting paid within 2 business days. I sent all sorts of proof including having the buyer email to confirm receipt of the domain. I am not getting responses all the time about it either.