So you THOUGHT Flippa was shady?

[S-B]

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?

 

[brandnow]

Frankly, I'm sick and tired of companies, including banks, who ask for a scanned copy of I.D, social security card, credit cards, etc. sent through e-mail. It's an unbelievably insecure practice and should be stopped. Period.

 

[equity78]

I would say Flippa should just do away with employees being able to bid, I mean are these Flippa employees buying domains and flipping them making a solid income ? I only ask that for a reason why employees would care if it gets changed. If there is little employee bidding well that little bidding is generating a lot of negative publicity so it is not worth it.

As far as auctioning on Flippa and listed on BrandBucket, like so many things in this business nobody cares until they care.

Fact those names are listed on BrandBucket, BrandBucket goes out of its way to tell buyers they will get the domain they bought.
Transfer Guaranteed
Our escrow service walks you through the domain transfer, which is typically complete within 2-5 business days. If for any reason the name transfer fails, we will fully refund your purchase.

So while an auction is running on Flippa and a domain name is listed on BrandBucket, what happens if someone hits buy it now on BrandBucket ? BrandBucket is going to look for that name to be transferred to their buyer.

So what does Flippa do ?

A lot of things in this industry work on the "That scenario will never happen" principle. But when it does the Poop hits the fan.

Because the Flippa bidder may want that name the most and BrandBucket wants their commission, they also look like fools if they can't deliver with that guarantee promise. Other sellers have to say, "Why am I giving exclusivity ? Auctions are the way around this, just maintain a reserve price and you get the best of both worlds.

BrandBucket will say you can't have Sporto.com (hypothetical) listed on Sedo and BrandBucket, but you can run an auction on Flippa ? Who does that make sense to ? The logic fails.

Kevin you said we can't get to 20 million domains asking for exclusivity, but when people are live auctioning something that is different than having names listed on Sedo, Afternic or Flippa Catalog. Live auctions cannot have another escape hatch for the name to be sold under.

 

[Messiah]

Thanks @Shane Bellone for sharing...

 

[ImageAuthors]

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.

 

[S-B]

Shane,

First off I think one word comes to mind when you say this ... "ETHICS". Of which I can safely presume you may lack. I for one would rather be the worst businessman in the world than scam others and then complain once the train has stopped. It's safe to say I will avoid you and your sales as well as flippa as a marketplace.

Just my 2 cents.

I would disagree with you, Blake. Ethics have nothing to do with maintaining and leveraging business relationships. Just as a reminder, business ethics concern social and moral responsibilities. Neither concern "subsidies." Just ask the United States government about corporate farming.

According to your philosophy, all businesses are unethical because they "take advantage" of others to turn a profit.

Do we need heat in our homes during the winter? Hell yes. Do heating companies charge for something that is a basic necessity? You bet they do.

I suppose you are a bleeding heart though.

Maybe you should start buying names and donating them to companies rather than extorting them for as much money as you can get. After all, that would be the "ethical" thing to do.

At the end of the day, you can avoid me if you'd like. I doubt it'll impact my bottom line.

 

[TestCase]

I think this sumes up the whole "F" situation PERRRRRFECTLY!

 

[Paully]

Opinion in this thread is divided. People see Shane as either a whistle blowing hero or a spiteful over-reactor. My view for the little that it is worth is that he is on this occasion probably closer to the latter.

To proudly claim that he is a "make money any legal way I can" kind of guy, and then criticize an organization that appears to have the same mindset is more than a little hypocritical in my opinion. Especially as (as others have pointed out), that he was fine with it all when he was benefiting from it.

I didn't read all the original thread about that 3 day old domain but what I did see was hardly worthy of getting Shane banned. He made good points and Flippa should be policing the unsubstantiable crap some people write.

What probably happened is that somebody at Flippa saw that thread, looked up Shane's account to see if they were making money from him, and when they realized that they no longer were, decided to use the comment to withdraw his super seller status. Most probably not as a punishment but as a way to open dialogue with him about becoming active again.

Unfortunately, Shane didn't pick up on this and instead went on all out public attack and the result is this thread where neither party's reputation will come out of it unscathed.

Has any real damage been done to Flippa? Probably not, most people already knew that it wasn't a level playing field, but they do now have an opportunity to change the way they operate. I would start by abolishing free upgrades, and then I would reduce the price of paid ones which will mean that ANY seller has the chance to promote a good domain, putting an end to the unfair advantage that they have been handing out to this select group of people that previously included Shane and bringing more liquidity to their market.

 

[iowadawg]

This thread is a great roller coaster!
Goes up slow, comes down fast.
Then speeds around corners.
Hope the ride does not end before me.

 

[daj]

FlippaDomains,

Can't flippa set up some sort of escrow "holding account" that all bidders have to directly deposit into in order for their bid to show up?

This would prevent all sorts of fraud as only those who have the money on hand can bid. It would also allow for a quicker payment to the seller.

After the auction is over...
Those bidders who didn't win...refund them.
If the bidder did win...pay the seller after they turn over the domain to the buyer.

 

[DomainGist]

Shane speaks his mind a lot, which I really respect.

So to summarise a high profile domainer starts a thread on Namepros effectively calling you a scammer, and you "really respect" him, for 'speaking his mind'.

Then you label other people who speak their mind about your business as "haters", and say that they are talking "bullshit", and won't change their opinion about you no matter what they say. I haven't seen Shane retract his comments either, has he changed his mind? Perhaps he ought to tell us so, if he has.

Then we have iowadawg stating that we shouldn't be critical of either Shane or flippa domains, because Shane's a great guy, and Flippa are a great business, although it is quite OK for Shane to be heavily critical of flippa, because he's a great guy, and flippa to be critical of namepros users, because they are a great business.

Utterly bizarre spectacle for the neutral. Perhaps iowadawg should reconsider his stance, and acknowledge that both parties deserve everything they get for airing their dirty laundry in public. They invite public criticism the moment they decide to have their little lovers tiff on a public forum, nobody other than those parties have created this situation.

 

[RU]

 

[discobull]

I'm a marketer, bro. Nothing more and nothing less.

The same could be said about that individual whose flippa listing you made a giant stink about -- he's just a marketer. But, according to you, his lie about the 10,000 bitcoin offer merits our condemnation while your deceptions should be recognized as the tactics of a smart business man. Do you see anything inconsistent about that?

 

[discobull]

My allegations are facts. That's not up for debate.

Yeah, but it becomes up for debate when the facts come from someone whose facts change. You brought that on yourself.

My job isn't to protect you.

But it's your job to lie to me?

For the record, I've never listed a domain for auction on Flippa, nor would I. I've been pretty vocal in the past about my reasons for that, so I'm the last person that needs your protection. What I find troubling about you, is that despite your claims about how smart you are about forging and leveraging relationships, you seem perfectly ready to betray everyone and anyone's trust for a quick buck. You're the worst kind of businessman. Moreover, you advertise that fact in a public forum while using your real name. How smart is that? Good luck finding anyone willing to do business with you in the future.

 

[Jen-Sin]

It isn't just Flippa asking for such ID verification. PayPal recently asked me for an image of my photo ID and an utility bill matching my address. To be a verified AliPay user, one has to provide them an image of your passport. My brokerage had requested for the image of my credit card and ID before allowing more funding to be allowed. Other companies like DN.com are also requesting for similar verification.

Let's not forget the reason and intent why there is such a process in place. Given a choice, no business will like to do this as it takes up resources.

However, in light of concerns about identity thief etc, maybe companies need to find another solution to verify an online user.

How do the banks do it? How do government organizations do it? How do eBay, GoDaddy, Sedo, Afternic, NameJet do it? Anyone has better processes to share to replace current practise? Biometric solutions?

I feel that Flippa shouldn't suspend/ban a user while doing ID verification. The "banned/suspended" label hung on the user isn't appropriate either. If an ID verification is required, either do it at sign-up or give a reasonable deadline to submit before limiting functions. To suspend the user's ongoing listings and/or to prevent a user from making bids or offers while pending verification can be very disruptive and frustrating to a user with good faith.

 

[ResoluteDomains]

I have no idea how secure any of that is, but, everybody thinks their system is secure until it gets hacked, plus there must be human verification at some point as well.

Flippa told me that it was the policy of the company behind their escrow system and not their policy directly, but in K.Youness's case it doesn't even involve escrow.

Did you guys ask what they do with those images after you send them? Do they keep them on file?

They seem to be collecting those images in all types of seemingly insignificant instances, hopefully, more companies don't start giving those types of images ultimate credibility.

Facebook is starting to ask people for official ID. I sent them my middle finger. They closed my account. I dont need them to know where I live.

I wonder what these places would do if you asked them to send you back the same thing - the CEO standing there with his ID clear for you to see.

I PROMISE to keep it under lock and key!!

"everybody thinks their system is secure until it gets hacked" cant be stressed enough. Too much PII neglect and abuse going on out there.

 

[Jen-Sin]

@FlippaDomains, why is Flippa asking to verify my identity again when I had previously provided my identification?

According to AUSTRAC, "Know Your Customer" (KYC) identification process is required by financial entities for new customers when opening an account to prevent or detect money laundering activities. It can also reduce other types of risks to a business.

Under the ongoing customer due diligence (OCDD), entities need to determine when and in what circumstances additional KYC information should be collected, updated or verified.

After 10+ transactions in Flippa, my transactions are now considered unusual or suspicious or high-risk that I need to provide identify verification again to ensure my account remains under my control?

Earlier identify verification, phone verification and credit card verification and other forms of checking like IP monitoring are not enough to confirm my identity?

The process should not be the reason to hold back rightful payment from auctions and sales. If a risk has been identified, shouldn't OCDD be conducted before any sale and not during the release of funds?

Now it has became a situation where I have to be compliant to this request in order to receive my funds.

I understand that integrity of a marketplace is important. But sometimes I feel Market Integrity of Flippa views and treats all users as potential fruadsters first and valued customers second.

Even big marketplaces like GoDaddy and Sedo don't demand the kind of verification Flippa requires.

 

[ImageAuthors]

Simpsons clips really suffice for most communication! Who needs words?

 

[NameOmnia]

First off I think one word comes to mind when you say this ... "ETHICS". Of which I can safely presume you may lack. I for one would rather be the worst businessman in the world than scam others and then complain once the train has stopped. It's safe to say I will avoid you and your sales as well as flippa as a marketplace.

3. Lets be honest, any of us with more than a few brain cells already knew that flippa premium listings were a rip off and that people like Shane and Ali have been allowed to profit greatly to spread the gospel and recruit more people to the bottom of the Ponzi scheme. Unfortunately no moral highground to be taken here by the OP, he's been complicit in this, he's played his own part in the very system that he so heavily condemns.

I couldn't agree more.

Being a whistleblower means you have discovered something bad you weren't aware of or are pushed by your ethic to reveal what doesn't let you sleep at night..
This is clearly not the case as the OP really does not care one bit about the range of shady practices, the people who have been scammed, the shill bidding ( even if he hasn't benefited from it ), the immorality and lack of ethic of Flippa marketplace etc; the only reason why he came out ( in his own words ) was because " they spat in his face " and " Flippa people didn't leave him alone"
He would have kept covering them if they just left him alone and didn't remove his Super Seller status. Remarkable.

Having said that it's always good to be confirmed what those of us with functioning neurons and/or not involved in the scam/shady practices have known for a long time. That Flippa is a questionable marketplace ( for many, many reasons ) has been pointed out right here on NP by many who punctually have been attacked and silenced by both Flippa and their followers treating them like they were crazy visionaries or so.

Flippa is not a marketplace; it is a gang that protects and favors its members whilst profiting and scamming the outsiders ( other users ). Never have we heard about such shady practices on other marketplaces like Afternic, Sedo and GD ( except for the bidding episode years ago ).

Interestingly enough all these notable and ethical professionals are part of the PRO group...
The more I read threads on the forum the more, thank goodness, I am able to skim through the " it's me or you " kind of domainers and find the real professionals I am happy to deal with. Very useful and eye opening.

Note : before you all jump up because of my signature just know that those listings were made with the 60$ gift and have been there for months.

 

[Compassion]

 

[forge]

 

[FlippaDomains]

:: Continued ::

Upgrades

I would start by abolishing free upgrades, and then I would reduce the price of paid ones which will mean that ANY seller has the chance to promote a good domain, putting an end to the unfair advantage that they have been handing out to this select group of people that previously included Shane and bringing more liquidity to their market.

It's not about reducing the price, which will clog / oversaturate things further.

Some history:

In 2014, we had hundreds of auctions -- there were maybe 50-100 Premium listings at any one time, well seen.

Now with thousands of auctions and hundreds of Premium listings, it is harder to stand out -- but make no mistake: you still do: if you have a good or great domain, upgrades still work.

However, if you have a poor domain, no upgrade in the world (paid, subsidized, free) is going to help you. That's why sellers are now urged to message us first to discuss. When applicable, we recommend sellers bypass a paid auction / upgrade altogether and deposit the domain straight into their Flippa Portfolio for free.​

Also, let's clear one thing up:

There are no in-house Super Sellers who we "give special treatment to" any longer.

Furthermore, it's been specified in here that many of our sellers have been given listing credits and upgrade subsidies. Why? Because they asked or at least opened conversation with us so we could see how we could help them achieve what we're all here to do: sell domains.

Maybe from where I was sitting I was testing out a different price-point? A different model? Maybe I understand and agree with you that they're too expensive?!

We're about to have a frank conversation about upgrades (link to follow).


Editor's Choice Picks

Yes - upon inception of this program, I cast a wide net and threw a lot at the board to see what stuck. I - and I alone - set improper standards, plain and simple.

Forget about what was; moving forward, we're running a tight ship. No special / Super Sellers, in-house brokers and no more wide-net.

That said, we will maintain stringent curation:

Do you want your domains to be denoted as Editor's Choice?

Do you have domains like these?


Shane

Shane worked with me almost daily and was a terrific salesman, selling a large volume of domains.

What Shane left out at first is that he was also hired by us to broker on behalf of other sellers. He used a separate, Flippa Brokerage account for this.

I enjoyed working with him, but in May, we pivoted and acquired Domain Holdings and deactivated our in-house brokerage service.

I regret how we handled that transition. I invited Shane to continue his excellent work as a Super Seller under his personal account. Things got incredibly busy on my end and we lost touch.

Shane speaks his mind a lot, which I really respect. He's also a veteran and I for one thank him for his sacrifice and his service.


A Look Ahead

 

[HeyNow]

Why on earth would you blame flippa because you didn't due your own research?

Some might blame Flippa because some might feel that Flippa knows fraud is occurring in Flippa auctions, and appears to do nothing about it. Misrepresenting a product for sale is fraud. The owner of a domain who misrepresents or lies about statistics to sell a domain is committing fraud. If you buy a house in the USA at auction, you, as a Buyer, have a right to expect that the house the broker is representing "For Sale" is truly for sale with the owner's knowledge, and that once you've turned over your money you will actually own the home. You won't have it jerked from your possession because the system allowed the broker to commit fraud at your expense. If the home is advertised having 2000 square feet, and later after you've purchased it you discover it only has 1000 square feet, you'll win in court and perhaps there will be criminal prosecution(s) for fraud, if the court believes fraud has been perpetrated numerous times by the same broker, escrow company, auction platform, bank, etc. Generally, due to past real estate fraud, safeguards now exist to protect buyers and sellers in real estate transactions. Buyers and sellers have the right to a reasonable expectation of disclosure and transparency in such deals.

Once a business entity has reason to believe that their business is being used to facilitate criminal activity, most jurisdictions believe that such an entity becomes somewhat culpable at some point in time. Perhaps not in Haiti. Perhaps not in Tuvalu. Perhaps not in India. But for sure yes in the USA. For example, if you use the house you rent in Compton or Beverly Hills as a crack-house, the owner of the house can lose ownership of the house if the district attorney can prove the owner knew what was going on, whether or not the owner actually took part in selling crack at that house. Comments from various auction platform representatives proffering that fraud happens everywhere so you should expect it here too, and nothing can be done about it, only confirm they know what's probably going on under their purview.

Currently, no law enforcement entity has been informed as to the degree of fraud in the domain aftermarket, plus it's not a priority for them. The Snapnames auction fraud scandal and the lack of criminal prosecution thereafter tells us that. Lack of criminal prosecution there probably emboldened the group of fraudsters currently running rampant throughout the industry. Basically, the word is out that you'll not pay a price or penalty if you screw domain gamblers out of their money or enable someone else to do the screwing.

Eventually, when the owner of an auction platform knowingly enabling fraud is given the perp-walk, the rest will probably start cleaning up their collective acts. I can assure you that time is coming.

If you drive the getaway car in a robbery, or provide the safe-house for the robbers, you'll go to jail along with the robber who held the gun to the cashier's head.

 

[FlippaDomains]

If you want to sell on Flippa think twice because they "may" care if they treat you right or not.

Anyone ever go to a club and you have to wait in line and then pay the $20 cover charge to get in. Then you see the bouncer let his buddies cut the line and go right in without paying and you say to yourself "that's some bullsh*t". Now what if that cover charge is $350, but don't worry, now that they've been called out on it they "may" change it.

I guess the one main thing I didn't get across very well is...I agree, it's too expensive, and also became less effective as volume grows, and also won't work if we make it so everyone gets one.

En route to a proper fix of the system, I hope people understand that this is the main reason I took it upon myself to provide sellers help with credits. Credits were given out to pretty much anyone we worked with (those who reached out and started a conversation with us, basically), not just three people, as so many have insinuated.

Because I manage the marketplace, I've taken responsibility of how we essentially curated our more-successful sellers' inventory;

...But:

When you give all your "subsidies" to a new domainer with average sale history, put his listings at the top of others for free, give him ultra premium upgrades for free for domains like cupcakefrosting.com

We didn't. Ali paid his way for awhile before we hired him. No one gets free credits, outright, especially from "hello."

...make him a senior broker giving him more leads, contacts, insider information, when you promote his story and share with all your subscribers, etc, etc

We hired him as our flagship / Senior Broker to launch our in-house brokerage team. Among the contacts and leads you speak of were the thousands of sellers who had inventory to sell but wanted someone else to do the selling. I referred many dozens of these leads to Shane, as well.

How you call this? Why don't you do this for other guys that are starting domaining now and had no success with your platform - loosing a lot of money , after you hooked them up with Ali story? And don't tell me that they haven't asked. If you provide free ultra premium upgrades for anyone with similar domain to cupcakfrosting.com, you won't have a business at all.

We do. I keep repeating myself. We help anyone who is new, asks for credits, who wants to start selling on our platform but needs assistance, whether financial, simple advice or otherwise.

Anyone who's had a bad experience, we aim to make it right - but we're not clairvoyants. We won't know unless someone reaches out.

And in the instance that a new seller doesn't know that their Dogshit.xyz domain is not going to sell for more then the cost of an upgrade, we now urge them to speak to us first. This is something I've also taken upon myself to institute, as again - our domains team is still a handful of people and we cannot preemptively speak to everyone.

Should we? Should we hold every domain auction until we decide, via impartial jury, that it's right for auction or upgrade? What do you think?

Sidenote: CupCakeFrosting.com was not awarded a free upgrade.

First - who says that paying for promoting your platform and your already senior broker is a bribe? It is paid promotion. And I don't believe that somebody who has watched the interview will argue that this is a promotional video of Flippa and Ali. As i stated - it is interview full of lies and manipulation. This is a fact.

How, again, is it paid? Sorry, I'm not following you and these so-called "facts" of yours - Employees of all sorts of companies speak with @DomainSherpa ~ How is this different?

Sure - but these "private sales" can be $500K, $4 Mil. or whatever. And nobody will ever know. We discuss facts.

Lies and misinformation? How you came with this conclusion? Show me where I am lying. I am making statements based on facts and asking questions.

Questions are fine; you deserve answers - of which I've already provided, and as such will be my last jaunt here at this time.

But speaking of facts, here's a reiteration of one: you don't work for us.

I guarantee my professional existence on our sales being legitimate and fully accounted for; that is by far the most ironclad thing I can offer anyone, albeit while being bound by our Terms of Service / client confidentiality agreements where I am disallowed to expose certain sales and their price points.

By the way, when you say "nobody will ever know" and private sales are not facts, then you're basically admitting that more than half of the entire domain industry is suspect. Just saying...

Flippa is shady as hell ! Bought a $2k website long ago which was supposed to have a lot of traffic but.. it was all FAKE stats!

I did my research and most of the stats including traffic stats were legit but the revenue stats were fake.

IMO the risk could never be eliminated entirely but they could do more to stop this scamming activity but that would make things more complicated and decrease the number of transactions happening.

In my opinion there is an unusually high percentage of scams on flippa and i didn't get the impression that Flippa would try too hard to stop this or warn their clients about this problem.

Except that's exactly what we're doing - those listings with unverified stats are marked as such. Those that are verified are prioritized in both view and notation of verification.

I looked back at some of the flippa auctions that i had been watching a few years back and i am surprised how many accounts have been suspended.

Because we've ramped-up our efforts to curb this kind of activity...

Need help? Want advice? Smell something dodgy? Need a Websites expert to help you do your due diligence?

[email protected] + [email protected]

 

[discobull]

I omitted information. He lied.

Allow me to educate you.

Lies of omission:

Also known as a continuing misrepresentation, a lie by omission occurs when an important fact is left out in order to foster a misconception.

So yeah, you also lied.

Here's another definition that comes to mind.

Shill:

noun
1.
a person who poses as a customer in order to decoy others into participating, as at a gambling house, auction, confidence game, etc.
2.
a person who publicizes or praises something or someone for reasons of self-interest, personal profit, or friendship or loyalty.

 

[carob]

When attacking the source of an argument you are engaging in a fallacious argument, which is called ad hominem.

Maybe we should clarify what "ad hominem " means for those who are not native speakers of English, or in this case Latin. That Latin phrase means "to the man" so your at talking about the person, not what they are saying - in practice it usually means saying something rude about someone to get them to shut up.

What Kemjika11 said was

So Shane should come out stating negative stuff about flippa and we shouldn't also question him or his motives?

That sounds a fair question to me, not an ad hominem attack.

Gotta wonder what rules people play by. Ever see someone take a dive in the penallty area?