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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.
I have a question for those who are against @Shane Bellone for not letting us know about about Flippa earlier.

If you have a junk domain worth not even $1 and a newbie domainer offers you $1000 to buy it. Would you educate him that he should not buy it as it is a junk?
 
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If you have a junk domain worth not even $1 and a newbie domainer offers you $1000 to buy it. Would you educate him that he should not buy it as it is a junk?

Yes, I'd tell him to offer me less money or else to avoid the domain entirely. That's assuming resale is his objective.
 
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Yes, I'd tell him to offer me less money or else to avoid the domain entirely. That's assuming resale is his objective.
You will say to offer less but not $1...

Believe it or not it's a business...

People want to profit as much as they can...

We make counter offers as hell... Why do we do it?
 
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Sorry in advance, Kevin. Should have had your people leave me alone.

However, I recently had my Super Seller status revoked “due to comments made towards other users.”

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

so the number of high-volume sellers that get discounts that you used to receive has dropped to zero.

And I haven't listed there in months. The platform has died.

I really couldn't care less.

Truthfully, I couldn't care less about the Super Seller badge. I do not plan on selling on the platform again.
 
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I have a question for those who are against @Shane Bellone for not letting us know about about Flippa earlier.

You chose to blindly accept a viewpoint, now you blame the person with the viewpoint you accepted. There were plenty of opposing posts proffering other viewpoints, but you put blinders on and couldn't see the forest through the trees.

There shouldn't be anyone here who is "against Shane Bellone for not letting us know about Flippa earlier."

Flippa has been out there all along, with some nudnik tool lurking in this forum to spin negative reality so the stupid fools would keep forking over cash, like you.

Shane Bellone has been transparent, with troubling viewpoints, experiences, and judgment about ethics from day one. He's consistent. He is what he is.

Don't blame Shane, blame yourself.
 
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Believe it or not it's a business...

People want to profit as much as he can...

People all have their own personal standards. What may seem exploitative and parasitic to one person will seem ok to another. But having some line we don't cross is important. Making money is one principle. Not taking advantage of the gullible is another principle. Let's not pretend that only profit matters. Business is business, sure. But there's much more to life than money.

I'm not discussing Shane Bellone when I say that. Simply saying that "Anything goes" won't fly.
 
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Simpsons clips really suffice for most communication! Who needs words?
 
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If you have a junk domain worth not even $1 and a newbie domainer offers you $1000 to buy it. Would you educate him that he should not buy it as it is a junk?

Why would I own and try to sell a domain I don't deem to be worth even a dollar? I have many domains I try to sell for chump change simply because I don't have time or can't figure out how to sell them for what I feel they're really worth. When you reg a name, you feel like it could have some worth, even if it would have a small group of potential suitors. If someone makes an offer for any of my domains that I will accept, even if it's way more than I would expect, sure I would take it.
 
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You chose to blindly accept a viewpoint, now you blame the person with the viewpoint you accepted. There were plenty of opposing posts proffering other viewpoints, but you put blinders on and couldn't see the forest through the trees.

There shouldn't be anyone here who is "against Shane Bellone for not letting us know about Flippa earlier."

Flippa has been out there all along, with some nudnik tool lurking in this forum to spin negative reality so the stupid fools would keep forking over cash, like you.

Shane Bellone has been transparent, with troubling viewpoints, experiences, and judgment about ethics from day one. He's consistent. He is what he is.

Don't blame Shane, blame yourself.
Probably you didn't understand my point there.

I am in support of Shane from very first. There are many other domainers having super seller status but they didn't revealed the facts they know. At least Shane took his time to share them with us.

And I am not a Flippa seller. I had just 1 auction there that too free basic listing and sold domain for low XX.
 
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People all have their own personal standards. What may seem exploitative and parasitic to one person will seem ok to another. But having some line we don't cross is important. Making money is one principle. Not taking advantage of the gullible is another principle. Let's not pretend that only profit matters. Business is business, sure. But there's much more to life than money.

I'm not discussing Shane Bellone when I say that. Simply saying that "Anything goes" won't fly.
I never said money is more important than life. But if we all start telling all our secret strategies and how we are making profits, we will become saints not domainers. Isn't it?
 
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[QUOTE="ImageAuthors, post: 5009982, member: 185881" Let's not pretend that only profit matters. Business is business, sure. But there's much more to life than money.

I'm not discussing Shane Bellone when I say that. Simply saying that "Anything goes" won't fly.[/QUOTE]

Who's pretending? We're selling Internet domains not negotiating billion dollar deals. Someone loses a couple hundred bucks and its not going to change the trajectory of their life.If you want to get right down to it, what are the ethics of selling a domain for a 1000% profit? How about the ethics of "cyber squatting". We aren't in the most respected industry. It's ripe with scams and thieves, more so than any other business I can think of. You want to have a line that doesn't get crossed? This isn't the industry for that IMO.
 
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"So, wait, profiting from their shady practices would be OK if you hadn't lose all the perks?
But now it's not?"

This thought was the second to pass through my head when I read the OP. (The first thought was, "Oh boy, I'd better get the popcorn ready.")

But this post is also very beneficial for a large number of domainers who have been losing money at Flippa and wondering why. Or for people who have been thinking "something smells rotten over there, but everyone else tells me it must be my armpits."

So I give Shane credit for coming out. He gains nothing from speaking out that I can see. In fact, I reckon it will come back to bite him a bit. That's why so few others come out like this.
 
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Why would I own and try to sell a domain I don't deem to be worth even a dollar? I have many domains I try to sell for chump change simply because I don't have time or can't figure out how to sell them for what I feel they're really worth. When you reg a name, you feel like it could have some worth, even if it would have a small group of potential suitors. If someone makes an offer for any of my domains that I will accept, even if it's way more than I would expect, sure I would take it.
I meant that if a newbie domainer (not end user) offers you $1000 for a domain worth $1 in reseller market, would you educate him that he should not buy it?
 
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@FlippaDomains As shane says The platform is died... I somewhat agree with him. Flippa is much down from past few months and the new look specially the Flippa's Homepage makes it even worse with no listing title visible + very less names listed.Weekly sales were atleast a million before and its now down to 200-400k.
Is it possible for you guys to change back to Old look ? As per my opinion 60-70% of the problem will solve by this.
Hope to see flippa back on track..
 
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Who's pretending? We're selling Internet domains not negotiating billion dollar deals. Someone loses a couple hundred bucks and its not going to change the trajectory of their life.If you want to get right down to it, what are the ethics of selling a domain for a 1000% profit? How about the ethics of "cyber squatting". We aren't in the most respected industry. It's ripe with scams and thieves, more so than any other business I can think of. You want to have a line that doesn't get crossed? This isn't the industry for that IMO.
Come on, get real. There are plenty of 5/6 and even some 7+ figure domain deals happening all the time. People/investors/risk-takers have lost millions along the way, often due to the unscrupulous players like "halvarez" and, yes, even some who frequent this forum.

I scanned your post initially, but I firmly believe your last 4 sentences do reveal the painful, ugly truth about this cowboy-infested "industry".
 
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Who's pretending?

Some people. Not me.

We're selling Internet domains not negotiating billion dollar deals.

Ethics don't depend on scale. If the auto mechanic deliberately overcharges me by $100, he's still dishonest. If I take $20 out of your wallet, I'm still a thief. Where I live, a state official embezzled $14k in campaign funds and spent the money at the casino. Given the size of the state budget, that's just a drop siphoned off from the ocean. Should we pat her on the back?

Someone loses a couple hundred bucks and its not going to change the trajectory of their life.

$200 in India means a lot. Many new domainers – the people who are just starting out and easiest to take advantage of – come from developing nations. Bilking them out of a few hundred here and there can add up to financial ruin for them.

If you want to get right down to it, what are the ethics of selling a domain for a 1000% profit?

Completely ethical. The same as selling any other collectible antique you might happen to own for whatever price a collector is willing to pay you. The markup is justifiable in terms of the labor spent on research, tools, and marketing – not to mention the risk of waste. A box of blackberries at the grocery store is insanely marked up. $5? My girlfriend grew up picking them for free in Washington where they grow wild. Same as domains.

How about the ethics of "cyber squatting".

Completely unethical.

We aren't in the most respected industry. It's ripe with scams and thieves, more so than any other business I can think of.

Is that a reason to excuse any misbehavior and cheat people? Or is it something real domain investors are sick of – something to be fought against by raising the ethical standards and transparency for the general public?

You want to have a line that doesn't get crossed?

Any human being without some such line is a threat to society. People can decide where their own lines for professional conduct are found, but they'd better decide.

This isn't the industry for that IMO.

Every area of life ought to be governed by ethics. Should we really allow certain kinds of financial transactions to be a morality-free zone?
 
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Wow! This is "epic" Shane.Thanks for the information and it would help others save their hard earned money.You sounded like Jason Bourne also from the Bourne identity trilogyB-).

Thanks for speaking out with courage.
 
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I'm too lazy to go point by point, but clearly you live in a fantasy world with sparkly unicorns, pink bunnies, candy apple trees and Abba playing in the background. That's probably a fun place to live, so good for you. Me, I live in the real world and its dark and dangerous and in this industry, ethics are often an afterthought in my opinion.
 
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I'm too lazy to go point by point, but clearly you live in a fantasy world with sparkly unicorns, pink bunnies, candy apple trees and Abba playing in the background. That's probably a fun place to live, so good for you. Me, I live in the real world and its dark and dangerous and in this industry, ethics are often an afterthought in my opinion.

Lets relax this isnt lord of the rings lol. "Dark and dangerous" . Somewhere in the middle of those descriptions sounds more accurate. Lets not take it to the extreme. Those in the military live that "dark and dangerous" lifestyle not domainers.
 
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I'm too lazy to go point by point, but clearly you live in a fantasy world with sparkly unicorns, pink bunnies, candy apple trees and Abba playing in the background. That's probably a fun place to live, so good for you. Me, I live in the real world and its dark and dangerous and in this industry, ethics are often an afterthought in my opinion.

I used to live underwater and sleep with my feet against nuclear missile tubes. Buddy, you don't know what realism is. Sparkly unicorns are for the people on land eating pizza and watching TV.
 
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WAIT!!
So you talk about ABBA and not Boney M?

 
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"Popular This Week" in less than a day...
 
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"There is only one thing worse than being talked about and that is NOT being talked about." -Oscar Wilde

Your response and commitment to right wrongs has left me hopeful for Flippa's future. While this thread has certainly raised some concerns of mine, it has also made me aware of Flippas Help me, by helping you free credit approach.

Therefore, I think it's fair to say, "If Flippa continues to innovate, rectify, and improve their platform; we as Domainers will all benefit as a whole" Thus, I would like to plug the landing page feature that enticed me to switch my portfolio to Flippa.

Being a new domainer, landing pages, escrow, and domain management were concerns I had until I discovered the well designed FREE and EASY to use Flippa landing page service.
Though, I would more ability to change the text, I am pleased with the simplicity of this feature.

However, since I have not had a chance to connect with a Flippa rep to see if there are more features, I have yet to decide whether Flippa or Efty.com (A NamePro'ers excellent domain management startup service) will be my permanent landing page platform .

Click the following link to read more about how easy the landing pages are to implement.

http://flippa.com/blog/introducing-domain-sales-pages

salespage.JPG
 
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