TDNAM - Seller backs out, buyer covers fees..

[SJM211]

Just a warning for you all.. I won a domain at TDNAM auction at the start of the month (g-y.com). Anyway as it was over $500 it was dealt with through Escrow.com, I paid escrow and contacted the seller to arrange the transfer. To cut a long story short after many attempts to contact the seller, both by email, through TDNAM and through escrow.com I didn't get a single reply. the domain sold pretty cheaply and the seller never set a reserve so I guess they just didn't want to sell.

After no contact for 4 weeks I had to cancel the escrow transaction and request a refund. I've just been refunded but it seems that I had to pay the escrow fees and between that and bank charges this experience has left me somewhere between $140-$160 out of pocket..

TDNAM have said that they will ban the user (they will loose their $4.99 membership - big deal) but are not willing to give me any refund on the money I've lost. Guess there's nothing I can do about it but I thought I'd share the experience with others - anyone else lost money like this? TDNAM really need to tighten things up..

 

[Name Trader]

This is not a TDNAM thing. It's Escrow.com ToS. I was shocked myself when the seller cancelled the sale after I'd paid Escrow.com. They refunded me minus the escrow fee. I was lucky enough to have transacted with an honest seller. He refunded me all fees, bank charges, and exchange losses.

 

[Spade]

Simon,

There is definetly a flaw in the system, especially when a seller has obligated himself to complete a transaction and doenst. Its rude and personally, I would make every effort to drive the seller a little nuts. I'd say an email a day outa do it.

Whois contact information no good?

Justin

 

[Optinom]

There is definetly a flaw in the system, especially when a seller has obligated himself to complete a transaction and doenst.

The flaw is not in the system. Escrow is meant for buyers & sellers who don't trust each other that they'll complete the transaction. Escrow itself is a security measure. The fee taken from buyer is for the security the company offered for the full transaction amount.

As a buyer you should always wait for the domain to be moved into the Escrow account before making the payment. In this case, the company doesn't offer security for your money until you send money. May be, this doesn't work with Escrow.com. So, use Moniker escrow. This way, both buyer & seller don't have anything to lose, whoever drops out of the transaction.

 

[Spade]

Smooth,

GoDaddy requires when a transaction is over $500 that escrow.com be used. They do not give you the option to use another service. (If I remember correctly). The flaw is that GoDaddy forces the buyer to use an outside service, but doenst have any way to force the seller to complete the transaction. Theoretically they have that persons contact information, as well as payment method. I feel that if this happens, GoDady should withdraw from the seller, the amount that it costs the buyer...

 

[Optinom]

Smooth,

GoDaddy requires when a transaction is over $500 that escrow.com be used. They do not give you the option to use another service. (If I remember correctly). The flaw is that GoDaddy forces the buyer to use an outside service, but doenst have any way to force the seller to complete the transaction. Theoretically they have that persons contact information, as well as payment method. I feel that if this happens, GoDady should withdraw from the seller, the amount that it costs the buyer...

Agreed. I din't know that GD forces escrow.com. Even Sedo, these days handles escrow with its escrow account for the domain. Wonder why escrow.com doesn't, especially when they have a tie-up with GD.

 

[cache]

Nice to know the risks with godaddy.

if someone come out a better service, i.e. making the sale binding, it will be
a good business.

 

[JoeCanadian]

The market is wide open for someone to come up with a better escrow service. Among features I'd like to see:

- accept PayPal from buyers who live outside the US - excluding of course certain higher risk countries.
- escrow service should actually take possession of the name
- service should be able to disburse funds via PayPal.

 

[Poohnix]

The market is wide open for someone to come up with a better escrow service. Among features I'd like to see:

- accept PayPal from buyers who live outside the US - excluding of course certain higher risk countries.
- escrow service should actually take possession of the name
- service should be able to disburse funds via PayPal.

It sounds like a good idea, but as one who has a lot of experience with PayPal, I would personally never create such a service. Since PayPal payments may be, and often are, arbitrary reversed months after the transaction has taken place, the whole point with the escrow is lost. PayPal funds can never be "secured" by the escrow service, since you can never know if the buyer may for one reason or another contest the charge long after the fact. And most of the time PayPal doesn't deal very reasonably with those cases.

 

[Jo]

For just this reason I rarely bid on domains listed by individuals at TDnam. I only bid on expired names now. I won a nice .us last year and the seller kept saying he sent me the transfer email but I never received it. I had to request a refund from TDnam. (He's a NPer too but I won't name names.) Bunch of hogwash.

Sorry to hear of your extra expense.

 

[Spade]

Jo,

I do the same thing. I only bid on expired domain names. Although, recently I acquired a non-expired domain name, but this was set as a BIN domain. I snagged it, the seller transfered it to me within 2 hours.... I was very impressed, but this was not a bidding situation, the seller opted to sell at that price and I opted to buy.

Justin

 

[MillersCrossing]

I am in a situation where the buyer, TROUT & ZIMMER has failed to put the money into the escrow account, even though they set up the escrow in the first place nd agreed to the wire transfer as a method of payment.

As the amount is for $7,000 - and in the space of three weeks they still have not submitted the funds, I will be taking them to Escrow.Com's arbitration, which is binding upon both parties upon agreeing to use Escrow.com.

Yes, I will have to pay towards half the cost of an arbitor - (i think upto 1.5k) but I can win that back in the award of judgement.

Has anyone else used their arbritation service??

 

[Spade]

Millers,

Actually no I have not. Even if you pay for for the arbitration, and you win. What is to force the buyer to pay? Where are they located and then wont you need to take them to say small claims court if they were in the US? Then, theoretically, again if they dont pay, you would have to place a lein?

Although there may be some changes in the process, whats to ensure you get the money and dont endlessly spend money and energy into trying to get the money?

Good luck, regardless.

Justin

 

[SJM211]

Thanks for the replies everyone.. I agree the system is flawed, for smaller transactions, dealt with trough TDNAM it seems fine as there's no real risk involved - if the seller backs out TDNAM give you a full refund and as you can pay through paypal/credit card there aren't any bank charges.

There should however be a better system in place to deal with the $500+ transactions I didn't want to use Escrow.com but didn't have a choice, I actually would have been much happier if TDNAM had taken care of it internally. Anyway, I think I've learnt my lesson and there's no way I'll be buying anything for over $500 on TDNAM unless it's an expired name.