Sedo wants me to unlock the domain and send them the auth code?

[poker_bears]

I just sold a domain via Sedo for high $$$. They want me to unlock the domain and send them the auth code. That doesn't sound very safe. Per their TOS, they're supposed to provide escrow.

A few months ago I sold a domain through them for high $$$$. I pushed the domain to their broker, they pushed it to the seller. I basically told them this is how it will work with this sale as well, or there is no sale.

Is this how they operate with small sales? I'm considering pulling all of my domains off Sedo.

Simply unlocking the domain and sending them the auth code seems really REALLY unsafe....

 

[discobull]

This is too easy a scam and if it has not been happened/reported, it will. Even if it has happened a few times, which escrow service is going to blog about this.

That makes sense. Now how do you explain the fact that no seller has been motivated to blog about how he's been screwed by this flawed system? How about the fact that nobody on namepros has ever posted about it? Seems odd to me...

Take the other side, whats preventing a rogue seller from giving the auth code to the buyer but having the domain transferred to someone else and claiming buyer transferred the domain away?

This can't happen. First of all there's a 60 day lock after a transfer so the domain can't be transferred away, it can only be pushed away. What would be the benefit of pushing it away when the seller could just claim that account #1 belonged to the buyer instead of pushing it to account #2? Secondly, Sedo gives the authorization code to the buyer without informing the seller of which registrar will be receiving the domain. This means that in order to pull off this scam, the seller would have to guess which registrar will be getting the domain and then place the transfer request before the buyer does. Of course, assuming the seller guessed correctly, the actual buyer's transfer request would then be rejected since there's already a transfer in progress in which case he'd likely inform Sedo about the problem.

Sorry, but if this scam was as easy to pull off as people seem to think, I suspect we'd be hearing about it a lot instead of never.

As for me, I am not rich enough to take this risk,

And you're not likely to get rich if you keep passing up on sales.

 

[DNVantage]

I am not saying this is a common problem. It is a low chance but high risk for a new domainer. How do you expect a new domainer to react to this if they happen to lose their proceeds due to this loop hole? Just say, 'aww bad luck'?

This issue is not about one escrow provider. All major escrow providers have established their reputation and are trust worthy but there is a limit to what they can do when a buyer claims to not have received the domain or seller themselves transfers the domain. Simple solution is to provide domain escrow always, for tlds where it is possible.

Now how do you explain the fact that no seller has been motivated to blog about how he's been screwed by this flawed system? How about the fact that nobody on namepros has ever posted about it?

Not all sellers are domainers.... not all domainers are on NP. Someone tried to scam me out of a domain years ago, at that time, I did not care enough to find a forum to report it. Just cause it has never been reported does not mean it has not happened.

This can't happen.

The keyword here is CLAIM. Buyer or seller can claim anything they like. Think the scenario over. You will figure out how a rouge seller can claim the buyer transferred the domain away ( to a registrar other than intended ) or how a buyer can claim they did not receive the domain because it was already transferred away.

if this scam was as easy to pull off as people seem to think, I suspect we'd be hearing about it a lot instead of never.

Please do not mix easy with frequency of occurrence.

Just like accepting payment for domain sales by paypal? Every buyer can request payment reversal for domain sales but do most do? Domain sellers still 'risk' accepting by paypal. High risk does not mean high occurance. Just cause it is not happening frequently or not reported enough, does not mean it is not easy.

Before downloading became common, I used to ship my software on CD. For urgent requests, I used to ship before receiving payment. Over few years I had exactly only one person who did not pay up after receiving the software. It was commonly known among my buyers, I ship before receiving the payment so It would be easy for a new buyer to request urgent delivery and never pay. Just cause something is easy does not meant it will happen frequently and does not mean it will get reported.

Maybe escrow providers should ask the seller to send the EPP to the buyer for high value sales, perhaps we will see if it happens 'easily/frequently' or not

And you're not likely to get rich if you keep passing up on sales.

I keep passing up on lottery tickets. Haven't bough one in over twenty years, I guess I will never get very very rich. I am not going to pickup bungee jumping either. ( Skydiving, I am fine with )

You are comfortable with certain risk, good for you, it does not make the raised point wrong or that it will not happen. Bottom line is, it will matter to the person it happens to, and it may matter a lot to domainers who cannot afford such a loss.

If escrow services charge fees for escrow, they should provide domain escrow, at least for tlds like .com or be explicit like escrow.com which clearly says they will charge extra for it always.

If this was not an important point for some of the sellers and my guess is preferred, it would not be raised at all. It has already been raised twice at NP in last few weeks.

 

[discobull]

Just like accepting payment for domain sales by paypal? Every buyer can request payment reversal for domain sales but do most do?

Obviously it doesn't happen with Paypal every time, but it happens enough that it gets reported, right? I mean, it's not that hard to find a report from someone saying that they were screwed on a paypal deal. OTOH, I'd still like someone to show me a case of someone getting burned on an escrow deal. You're right, just because there's no report of it, doesn't mean it doesn't happen. It's also true, that big foot might exist even though no evidence has ever been produced to support his existence. The question I have is why would anyone prefer to believe that something is real even though no evidence for it exists? Additionally, why would anyone make business decisions based on an unfounded belief?

You keep insisting that this sort of scam is easy. So where's the proof of that?

I keep passing up on lottery tickets. Haven't bough one in over twenty years, I guess I will never get very very rich.

I think the evidence suggests that you have your analogy backwards. When you buy a lottery ticket you're hoping to defy the odds. Since the odds of getting scammed on Sedo are minimal ( possibly 0 ), when you turn down a sale on their marketplace you're also playing against the odds just as you would with a lottery ticket except that in this case you're betting that you will win by staying out of the game.

 

[Domainace]

The keyword here is CLAIM. Buyer or seller can claim anything they like.

The keyword here is escrow, as in Sedo holds the funds in escrow. The buyer can claim anything, sure. But Sedo isn't just going to hand the money back if the seller is disputing it. We are not talking about Paypal here.

In any case, we are talking about a sale in the 100s of dollars. This is worrying about losing a bit to the occasional scammer while losing many times more in sales by being intractable.

 

[DNVantage]

@discobull You are focusing on one escrow provider and odds.

To me this is a low chance but high risk common problem with all escrow providers who do not escrow domains, and not one escrow provider.

I agree with you about the odds of getting scammed are minimal, but tell that to the seller who gets scammed. Perhaps it will be comforting to the seller in hindsight.

To me it is simple, if escrow providers are charging fee for escrow, the domain should also be escrowed always and not sometimes. It is not a big deal to ask for when you are paying for it.

 

[discobull]

@discobull
I agree with you about the odds of getting scammed are minimal, but tell that to the seller who gets scammed. Perhaps it will be comforting to the seller in hindsight.

You're making an emotional argument. I understand that it doesn't feel good to get scammed, but in this case a) there's so far no evidence that the scamming is even possible and b) even if it is possible it wouldn't necessarily mean that turning down deals to avoid the potential risk is a smart choice.

At this point, I've done a lot of deals through escrow and have been scammed exactly never. If my next deal went sour, I would for sure feel bad about it, but then I'd remember how much money I've made so far by taking this "risk" and quickly realize that I'm still way ahead of the game for having made that choice. To me, what's being proposed in this thread is the equivalent of Walmart declaring that they're no longer going to allow the public entry into their stores so that they can thereby avoid the threat of shoplifting. I think that if that ever happened that most people would quickly recognize it as a silly and irrational decision. The same applies here. If you think you can make more money by avoiding deals that involve this sort of escrow, then that's the right decision to make. By contrast, if that decision is costing you more money than it saves you, then I think that it properly qualifies as a rather poor business decision.

 

[DNVantage]

@Domainace If you see one of my previous post in this thread ... In some countries, if buyer files a claim of not receiving goods, the bank will revert the CC charge, unless the seller ( in this case, escrow provider) can prove goods (domain) has been given to the buyer, which is not always possible where seller is asked to give EPP to the buyer.

As for the amount of sale, for someone in an underdeveloped country 100s is a big amount. Maybe to a struggling seller in a developed country, 100s might make a difference.

So I guess it is ok ... if this happens to a seller, to whom it might matter ... because it does not matter to most domainers? So this is just about, 'numbers' of successful sales, rather than getting the domain escrow service you are paying for?

To me, this is not only about risk but also about getting the service I am being charged for. I guess this is too much too ask for?

 

[DNVantage]

@discobull You are looking at it from a viewpoint of a successful seller or someone who has financial ability to suffer through a rare risk, if it happens.

So is it ok for this to happen to a new seller or a struggling seller, unlucky to suffer this?

My viewpoint is simple, why is this service not provided always by all escrow providers who charge for it. ( for tlds where it is possible ).

If an established seller has no problem with risk ... why does an established seller even need escrow services, why not go all the way take 100% risk and transfer the domain to the buyer and take payment afterwards.

Are the fees based on level of acceptable risk?

If an established seller is willing to take this/other risk, maybe they should be given a discount on fees? or escrow providers should just be clear about always charging extra for domain escrow.

The whole point of escrow is to remove risk from the process. Why is this/some risk acceptable? Is it too much to ask for a standardized domain escrow process for common tlds like .com?

 

[discobull]

@discobull You are looking at it from a viewpoint of a successful seller or someone who has financial ability to suffer through a rare risk, if it happens.

So is it ok for this to happen to a new seller or a struggling seller, who happens to be unlucky to suffer this?

My viewpoint is simple, why is this service not provided always by all escrow providers who charge for it. ( for tlds where it is possible ).

If an established seller has no problem with risk ... why does an established seller even need escrow services, why not go all the way take 100% risk and transfer the domain to the buyer and take payment afterwards.

Are the fees based on level of acceptable risk?

If a established seller is willing to take this/other risk, maybe they should be give a discount on fees? or escrow providers should just be clear about charging extra for domain escrow always.

The whole point of escrow is to remove risk from the process. Why is this/some risk acceptable?

You're asking questions that assume that it's been proven that a real risk exists when in fact that has yet to be demonstrated. To expand on a previous analogy, some of your questions sound to me like asking why I'd be willing to go camping in a forest at the risk of being attacked by Big Foot. You first have to show me that big foot exists before your questions begin to make sense.

In any case, risks are always relative and the sensible course is the one that yields the greatest reward for the least risk. You clearly understand that since you're proposing a process that you consider less risky. What you're not mentioning is that even if you were to put the domains in escrow, you would still be taking a risk since it's always hypothetically possible that Sedo could turn around and screw you after taking possession of the domain. If we're to follow your logic, once we agree that a risk exists hypothetically it means that we now should take steps to eliminate that risk altogether. In this case, that would mean forgoing escrow altogether thereby leaving you with asking for upfront payment as your only option.

So why are you willing to use a full escrow service if the risk exists that Sedo or another escrow service could cheat you? My guess is that you'd answer that you're willing to take that risk because the evidence suggests that Sedo is a trustworthy company based on the fact that there is nobody complaining that they've been scammed by them. All I'm saying is that the same kind of judgments can be used to assess the amount of risk inherent in transacting escrow deals that involve delivering the domains directly to the buyer. If after thousands of transactions nobody has yet come forward to complain about a loss, then how real is the risk?

As far as the struggling seller question, the math is the same regardless of whether a seller is established or not so that issue is irrelevant.

Why wouldn't I assume 100% of the risk by dealing directly with the buyer? I'm not sure I even understand that question. There's a big difference between being willing to take a 50% chance ( made up number for illustration purposes ) of getting screwed by dealing with a buyer directly vs taking a .00001% chance of getting screwed by using escrow. That point seems self-evident to me.

To be clear, I'm not arguing in favor of the status quo. I'm just like everyone else on here in the sense that I'd prefer that escrow companies take possession of the domains in every transaction. Unfortunately they don't currently do that so we have to deal with what is actually available rather than what we'd ideally like. So yeah, I think we should continue to push for a change, but in the meantime I don't think it makes sense to overstate how much risk is actually involved because that just leads to making poor choices that end up hurting us more than they benefit us.

 

[DNVantage]

hypothetically possible that Sedo could turn around and screw you after taking possession of the domain.

To me, this is not about Sedo or any one escrow provider. Sedo and other major escrow providers have established their reputation.

To me, a standardized process takes precedence over everything else. A standardized process removes ambiguity and reduces risk. A standardized process makes things easier.

Personally, as much as I don't like it, If I absolutely wanted to complete the sale and if it is absolutely required, I would provide my EPP to an escrow provider I trust, for small value sales but it would be a rare occurrence.

I trust Sedo, because they have earned the reputation.

I would not give EPP to every escrow provider or to an unknown end user.

You first have to show me that big foot exists before your questions begin to make sense.

To provide Big foot as analogy is smart but I can't relate to it directly for this scenario. Maybe it is a matter of perception? I can't visualize big foot but I can visualize the risk here.

You're asking questions that assume that it's been proven that a real risk exists when in fact that has yet to be demonstrated.

If there is no risk, than escrow providers would ask every seller to provide EPP directly to buyer, for all .com sales of any value, high or low.

I am not looking at this problem from just my viewpoint or from your viewpoint or from a seasoned sellers viewpoint. I am looking at this from 'any/every' sellers viewpoint. Why should a new seller have doubts or why should a struggling seller have concerns if providing EPP might lead to problems. Why did @poker_bears have doubts and even the need to open this thread? because @poker_bears considers it a risk?

These doubts and risks could be removed easily with a simple standard that all .com ( or any tld that can be ) will always be escrowed.

risks are always relative and the sensible course is the one that yields the greatest reward for the least risk.

Why wouldn't I assume 100% of the risk by dealing directly with the buyer?

Exactly! You are comfortable with a certain level of risk. Someone will be more comfortable with higher risk than you and some will be less comfortable than you!

This is why having a standardized process where a domain is always escrowed matters. If a domain is always escrowed, it will take out ambiguity for everyone, irrespective of each sellers risk appetite.

To be clear, I'm not arguing in favor of the status quo. I'm just like everyone else on here in the sense that I'd prefer that escrow companies take possession of the domains in every transaction.

"every transaction." Nice to read that That is all I have been asking also.

 

[discobull]

To me, this is not about Sedo or any one escrow provider. Sedo and other major escrow providers have established their reputation.

To me, a standardized process takes precedence over everything else. A standardized process removes ambiguity and reduces risk. A standardized process makes things easier.

Personally, as much as I don't like it, If I absolutely wanted to complete the sale and if it is absolutely required, I would provide my EPP to an escrow provider I trust, for small value sales but it would be a rare occurrence.

I trust Sedo, because they have earned the reputation.

I would not give EPP to every escrow provider or to an unknown end user.



To provide Big foot as analogy is smart but I can't relate to it directly for this scenario. Maybe it is a matter of perception? I can't visualize big foot but I can visualize the risk here.



If there is no risk, than escrow providers would ask every seller to provide EPP directly to buyer, for all .com sales of any value, high or low.

I am not looking at this problem from just my viewpoint or from your viewpoint or from a seasoned sellers viewpoint. I am looking at this from 'any/every' sellers viewpoint. Why should a new seller have doubts or why should a struggling seller have concerns if providing EPP might lead to problems. Why did @poker_bears have doubts and even the need to open this thread? because @poker_bears considers it a risk?

These doubts and risks could be removed easily with a simple standard that all .com ( or any tld that can be ) will always be escrowed.





Exactly! You are comfortable with a certain level of risk. Someone will be more comfortable with higher risk than you and some will be less comfortable than you!

This is why having a standardized process where a domain is always escrowed matters. If a domain is always escrowed, it will take out ambiguity for everyone, irrespective of each sellers risk appetite.




"every transaction." Nice to read that That is all I have been asking also.

I'm not debating you about what escrow companies should or shouldn't be doing. We're in agreement that it would be nice if all escrow firms always put domains into escrow, but that's an academic point. The fact is that once we all agree that that's how we want escrow firms to conduct business we're still going to wake up the next morning in a world where they do business differently from what we'd like. The only meaningful question at this point is whether the risk involved in using these escrow services as they are offered presently is worth it. To me the answer is yes. It's yes today just as it was yes when I was a struggling seller starting out and I have yet to see any evidence that would tip the scales in the other direction.

 

[DNVantage]

You mean all the registrars, escrow providers and domaining companies don't care what domainers are requesting in these long long threads at NP ... No more replies from me, I am here to just read from now on. ... well, maybe sometimes, write a bit now and then, just a little ...


This list is bit old ... http://www.dnselect.com/domain-escrow-service/

 

[discobull]

You mean all the registrars, escrow providers and domaining companies don't care what domainers are requesting in these long long threads at NP ... No more replies from me, I am here to just read from now on. ... well, maybe sometimes, write a bit now and then, just a little ...

People have been requesting this for years. The results speak for themselves.

 

[poker_bears]

Just an update for anyone that cares. The domain was at Godaddy. Sedo got back to me and provided their business account to push the domain to. The domain has been pushed and I have no doubt that I'll receive a check in the mail soon.

I'm not sure why this option wasn't made available to me at the very first, but they worked with me, so I'll continue to do business with them in the future.

 

[DNVantage]

Sedo ::

 

[carob]

Just an update for anyone that cares. The domain was at Godaddy. Sedo got back to me and provided their business account to push the domain to. The domain has been pushed and I have no doubt that I'll receive a check in the mail soon.

I'm not sure why this option wasn't made available to me at the very first, but they worked with me, so I'll continue to do business with them in the future.

Hi glad to hear that turned out right in the end.

I think the Sedo transfer manager page may have automated that authcode request - seems by default after a sale you get that request - saves them time I guess - but if you just reply saying you need their push details they supply them.

I have the push details for them at several registrars, so I just message them their push details and ask them to confirm that they are current.

 

[carob]

This thread has got into an interesting general discussion about domain escrow and risk, and what domain sellers - who are paying customers - would like to have.

Now here is an interesting question: how do you prove that a buyer has received a domain?

Someone who has bought a domain with a credit card (or Paypal using credit card) has a considerable length of time to not pay, and then dispute, the bill on the grounds they did not receive the goods they paid for.

 

[carob]

Another question here for Sedo users - I don't know the answer since I only push - when you give Sedo an authcode, do they tell you who to expect a transfer request from?

Initially you can't see the buyer's name on the sales agreement. As I recall you can't see the buyer identity on the sales agreement until they have paid and maybe alse received the goods, and even if you could see it, it does not show an email address. And the person or email associated with the transfer process could legitimately be different.

 

[gustave]

I'm guessing that your gratuitous rudeness is due to the fact that no, you don't know of any instance that this scam was successful, but that you lack the character to acknowledge this fact. Noted.

So because it never happened it can't happen? Wtf, do you care only once it happened? What an idiot way of thinking. What about preventing? OP has valid points and I will be careful with Sedo.

 

[discobull]

So because it never happened it can't happen? Wtf, do you care only once it happened? What an idiot way of thinking. What about preventing? OP has valid points and I will be careful with Sedo.

Please quote the passage where I state that if it didn't happen it can't happen. Then, once you realize that you can't find such a passage, please consider taking a course in basic English comprehension possibly alongside a course to help you with your very poor interpersonal skills.