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So you THOUGHT Flippa was shady?

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Sorry in advance, Kevin. Should have had your people leave me alone.

Flippa has been the subject of much controversy over the last 6 months. Speculative talk has ranged from shill bidding to bloated sales reports. Most of the accusations are pure garbage but the company is sketchy as hell.

While you might be thinking that I’m bitter because I haven’t any luck there, you should know that I moved $75,000 of domains in 6 months. At one point, I was the first to go to bat for them all because I try to show some loyalty when someone is taking care of me.

However, I recently had my Super Seller status revoked “due to comments made towards other users.” In fact, this is due to my response to the auction where an individual claimed to have an offer on a 3 day old domain of 10,000 bitcoins — that’s $2,500,000. Apparently, calling out a scammer is grounds for retaliation from the business.

I suppose this is because Flippa values net revenue more than customer satisfaction.

Now that you know my motivation I will move on and share a little bit of insider information.

If you’re paying full price for listing fees and upgrades you have been scammed.

They have gone on the defensive in the past by saying that they “subsidize” upgrades for their top sellers. Subsidize is a cute word for giveaway.

I received somewhere between $3,000 to $5,000 in “subsidies” — as a private seller — over 6 months. At one point, I received $2,000 in credits at one time.

Now I won’t lie, sometimes I had to pay for listings. When I did, I still got hooked up. For every upgrade or listing I purchased I received 2 free.

So when I paid, which was rare, I paid 1/3 of what you’ve been paying. I’m sure you now see why some people make a killing off their platform while others have lost hundreds of dollars per listing.

Oh you thought Editor’s choice was for good domains? Nah. It has been a filter for friends of Flippa.

When I sold on Flippa’s platform, I was given Editor’s Choice for nearly all of my domains. Why? Because I asked.

I know some of you noticed that only 3-5 people showed up when visiting that page. Some might not care but others might understand the value of this.

Domains at Flippa sell for much more when given the Editor’s Choice designation.

Oh so you suspect shilling? I’ve known many users who have shilled their way to a profit. It doesn’t benefit Flippa to eliminate shilling. High sales mean higher success fees.

Simple as that.

Straight up scamming? Yep.

I’ve reported verifiable scams to customer support and I didn’t hear back until after the auction closed. They stated that it was now the buyer’s responsibility to report the sale if something fishy occurred.

Hmmmm.

Would the buyer receive a refund? No. Would the seller be suspended? Yes. Would Flippa still profit? Damn right.

At the end of the day, you can choose to use their platform of boycott them.

I will choose the latter.

P.S.

Have you been curious about what Flippa has been doing?

They are working on adding small business to their platform.

Yeah. Dump money into selling physical business without verifying any of their claims.

That should work. Everyone is honest. Right?
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
For the 812th time, we don't employ our employees to bid on auctions. But there's nothing I can say or promise you that would ever make you stop telling everyone that it's happening.

Even if they arent being employed/paid to bid up auctions, I think the point he is getting at is at the bare minimum other bidders should know that a bid was entered by an employee in that auction. Example, they could be required to use their employee logins if/when bidding and any time they make a bid an (*) or something shows next to it so the next bidder in line is well aware that the previous bidder may or may not have access to the sellers reserve price. If this is already in place or something like this is being worked on then please ignore my post I just know if I were to bid I would like to know who I am up against.
 
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Even if they arent being employed/paid to bid up auctions, I think the point he is getting at is at the bare minimum other bidders should know that a bid was entered by an employee in that auction. Example, they could be required to use their employee logins if/when bidding and any time they make a bid an (*) or something shows next to it so the next bidder in line is well aware that the previous bidder may or may not have access to the sellers reserve price. If this is already in place or something like this is being worked on then please ignore my post I just know if I were to bid I would like to know who I am up against.

Yes, it's going to be addressed with
a) Bidder Aliases, and
b) Employee Badges

However, we're speaking solely of employees who bid on their personal time, via personal accounts. Admins are unable to participate whatsoever.

This whole blown-out-of-proportion argument circles back around to a former manager of Flippa saying that employees were encouraged to take part in the marketplace. New employees need to learn how to navigate the marketplace to better help our customers, so we never had a rule against participation.

But better language and processes can and should be in place. Case in point, employee badges shown upon their personal accounts engaging in any activity; or even more sweeping, an entire ban on any employee bidding whatsoever.

When I reached out to HeyNow, it wasn't to tell him this is what we're doing -- he harps that I talk about all sorts of shit that never gets done. What I wrote to him is that I refuse to speak any more about any feature improvements until they're about to deploy. This being one of them.

But it is going to happen.
 
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For the 812th time, we don't employ our employees to bid on auctions. But there's nothing I can say or promise you that would ever make you stop telling everyone that it's happening.

As you once told me, be very careful how you quote me and characterize my comments. I NEVER stated that "it's happening." I've only stated that Flippa's policy allows it, whether it's happening or not.

No one ever said you employ your employees to bid on auctions. But the FACT remains that Flippa's policy allows its employees to bid at Flippa auctions.

I'm so sick of you and those of your ilk parsing words to spin a particular negative into a positive. At this point, that much is transparent and doesn't reflect well on how you view the attention span of your customer base.
 
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This whole blown-out-of-proportion argument circles back around to a former manager of Flippa saying that employees were encouraged to take part in the marketplace.

"Former manager?" Try Flippa's former CEO, David Slutzkin. The last time I checked, Slutzkin was Flippa's CEO when he gave this interview:

http://tldinvestors.com/2012/11/quick-chat-with-david-slutzkin-ceo-flippa.html

Question and answer #6:
6) Does Flippa allow employees to bid on auctions ?

“We do allow our staff to bid on auctions as long as the bidders are
clear about this with sellers, however we’re usually so busy working
with Flippa, that our staff of 12 doesn’t have the time to be buying
more sites.


I never heard of your "former manager" encouraging employees to bid. But thanks for that info. You make my point.
 
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Sorry in advance, Kevin. Should have had your people leave me alone.

Flippa has been the subject of much controversy over the last 6 months. Speculative talk has ranged from shill bidding to bloated sales reports. Most of the accusations are pure garbage but the company is sketchy as hell.

While you might be thinking that I’m bitter because I haven’t any luck there, you should know that I moved $75,000 of domains in 6 months. At one point, I was the first to go to bat for them all because I try to show some loyalty when someone is taking care of me.

However, I recently had my Super Seller status revoked “due to comments made towards other users.” In fact, this is due to my response to the auction where an individual claimed to have an offer on a 3 day old domain of 10,000 bitcoins — that’s $2,500,000. Apparently, calling out a scammer is grounds for retaliation from the business.

I suppose this is because Flippa values net revenue more than customer satisfaction.

Now that you know my motivation I will move on and share a little bit of insider information.

If you’re paying full price for listing fees and upgrades you have been scammed.

They have gone on the defensive in the past by saying that they “subsidize” upgrades for their top sellers. Subsidize is a cute word for giveaway.

I received somewhere between $3,000 to $5,000 in “subsidies” — as a private seller — over 6 months. At one point, I received $2,000 in credits at one time.

Now I won’t lie, sometimes I had to pay for listings. When I did, I still got hooked up. For every upgrade or listing I purchased I received 2 free.

So when I paid, which was rare, I paid 1/3 of what you’ve been paying. I’m sure you now see why some people make a killing off their platform while others have lost hundreds of dollars per listing.

Oh you thought Editor’s choice was for good domains? Nah. It has been a filter for friends of Flippa.

When I sold on Flippa’s platform, I was given Editor’s Choice for nearly all of my domains. Why? Because I asked.

I know some of you noticed that only 3-5 people showed up when visiting that page. Some might not care but others might understand the value of this.

Domains at Flippa sell for much more when given the Editor’s Choice designation.

Oh so you suspect shilling? I’ve known many users who have shilled their way to a profit. It doesn’t benefit Flippa to eliminate shilling. High sales mean higher success fees.

Simple as that.

Straight up scamming? Yep.

I’ve reported verifiable scams to customer support and I didn’t hear back until after the auction closed. They stated that it was now the buyer’s responsibility to report the sale if something fishy occurred.

Hmmmm.

Would the buyer receive a refund? No. Would the seller be suspended? Yes. Would Flippa still profit? Damn right.

At the end of the day, you can choose to use their platform of boycott them.

I will choose the latter.

P.S.

Have you been curious about what Flippa has been doing?

They are working on adding small business to their platform.

Yeah. Dump money into selling physical business without verifying any of their claims.

That should work. Everyone is honest. Right?

Good to be aware of this, thanks.
 
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Each and every time I try to make a legit transaction on Flippa there is a hold up and weird threatening emails from them. So awesome!
 
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For example, it has been over 2 days and they are still "verifying" our payment. From our own credit card. No other online transaction of any kind takes 2 days to not complete verifying a simple legal transaction from well qualified individuals. So much room here for legit competition. A smart company that can interact properly with customers and use tech to keep out the fraud instead of using a system to hassle legit customers would be a huge fast growing enterprise.
 
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FYI - it is my understanding, if employees are bidding the company could face serious legal issues in the United States and Canada. The range of fraud could cause 10x monetary damage to all customers in all transactions where it occurred and a complete stop of operations. Not to mention fines and sanctions. I won't bore you with the simple calculations, but it wouldn't take long to run into the 10's of millions from just a few instances of illegal non-disclosed employee bidding . This doesn't sound good.
 
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Yes, it's going to be addressed with
a) Bidder Aliases, and
b) Employee Badges

But better language and processes can and should be in place. Case in point, employee badges shown upon their personal accounts engaging in any activity; or even more sweeping, an entire ban on any employee bidding whatsoever.

When I reached out to HeyNow, it wasn't to tell him this is what we're doing -- he harps that I talk about all sorts of sh*t that never gets done. What I wrote to him is that I refuse to speak any more about any feature improvements until they're about to deploy. This being one of them.

But it is going to happen.


The quote above is from a post back in February. My my, how time flies. Read the quote thoroughly. After 6 1/2 months, I've not seen nor heard anything pursuant to "FlippaDomains" last attempt at Whack-A-Mole.

Quite telling, isn't it. Frankly, it all sounded like BS to me then, and still does.
 
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They treated me like crap every time I contacted CS. I don't think they'll be around much longer
 
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FYI - it is my understanding, if employees are bidding the company could face serious legal issues in the United States and Canada. The range of fraud could cause 10x monetary damage to all customers in all transactions where it occurred and a complete stop of operations. Not to mention fines and sanctions. I won't bore you with the simple calculations, but it wouldn't take long to run into the 10's of millions from just a few instances of illegal non-disclosed employee bidding . This doesn't sound good.

And where does "my understanding" come from? Flippa is not an auction house. They are just a platform and they are operating out of Collingwood, AUS and not Canada or the US..

Check out their massive digs and you can see how huge they are.
 
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I remember before doing a "buy it now" on a website on Flippa that just came up for sale and it went through all the motions I paid via paypal etc.. next thing the seller tells me someone else did a buy it now at the exact same time as me and that theyre paypal payment hit his account first.
Flippa denied any issue with their auction script and pawned me off with a credit.
Was something definitely fishy about it...
 
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Everything in this post isn't true


And where does "my understanding" come from? Flippa is not an auction house. They are just a platform and they are operating out of Collingwood, AUS and not Canada or the US..

Check out their massive digs and you can see how huge they are.
 
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I understand, that employees are also investors; however, when they are on the clock they shouldn't be bidding etc. this because you might be neglecting your responsibilities as a paid to work; and not to play. Just a thought.
 
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I understand, that employees are also investors; however, when they are on the clock they shouldn't be bidding etc. this because you might be neglecting your responsibilities as a paid to work; and not to play. Just a thought.

It also hurts the integrity of the website anytime they bid up listings and don't win. Flippa has an incentive for this activity since they take a percentage of the final price. Huge conflict of interest.
 
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Bidders aliases are in the works as part of a larger security overhaul we'll be putting into place, and an 'Employee' badge hopefully sooner. I'll look into clarifying from a ToS POV how we provide this information more upfront.

The above quote is from November 2015. I've not seen anything that would lead me to believe anything has been accomplished in that regard. Have you? To me, it sounded like BS then. If nothing's been done after 9 months, then it appears I was probably right.
 
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