alert The fund can't be withdrawal from Epik.com via Masterbucks wallet

[enamebroker]

It happened on 23rd Aug 2022 and this matter lasted almost one month without any process. Masterbucks.com declined my fund withdrawal and disabled the button of fund withdrawal. And I contacted Epik.com and got no further action even if Rob Monster got involved in it for two weeks. All the time I was told in email by management review.

What is wrong with Epik.com? Do you think it is normal to disable fund withdrawal? How can I get back my fund from Epik.com? Thanks for your suggestion.

 

[Digital Nomad]

Epik Support just now:

I thought the maintenance was to fix everything so that payouts were immediate. It's been almost a month now after they re-launched. If they are working double time now, why so slow for the payouts. When they were working at "half" the speed the payouts were faster before the maintenance. Epik support just seems like robots repeating the same thing over and over in different ways of saying things, but never fixing the problem.

 

[Igor Gabrielan]

I would still understand if they wrote that they were trying to scratch out money for clients somewhere.

 

[Digital Nomad]

I would still understand if they wrote that they were trying to scratch out money for clients somewhere.

Or they can just say, hey we have "regulation" issues and be honest. I really wonder how many people have been paid in the last couple of weeks, I also noticed less people are writing reviews on trustpilot. Does that mean people are getting paid and they went on with their lives? @Igor Gabrielan let us know if they pay you in the future.

 

[Chris Hydrick]

If they are smart, then the lawyers have told him not to generate correspondence with other people.

But if he had generated correspondence with other people, then perhaps other people could have explained the extent (or insignificance) of Epiks likely involvement. Or maybe his lawyer already knew this, and was just a domain ownership identity hunt?

WarsawPoint.com wasn't developed at Epik.com. After the website had been operational, at some point it moved to epik as a registrar, and has consistently used cloudflare NS.

What is the lawsuit against epik attempting to prove? Is this just a common tactic to reveal the website owner? Is it common for a court to order a registrar to reveal anonymous whois client information upon lawsuit?

WarsawPoint.com has a about page, with editor information. Assuming the defedant needs more than just editors when launching a suit against WarsawPoint.com, so the courts know who to serve?

...

(a) If you have a pending Masterbucks withdrawal and have already passed the KYC Veriff Verification, rest assured that your pending withdrawal will be processed soon by our accounting team.

(b) However, we are still processing all the withdrawal requests made when Masterbucks went under maintenance. Our Accounting team is working double time to process all withdrawal requests. Your cashout will be processed soon. We appreciate your patience and kind understanding of this.

So what's the difference between:

A) Pending masterbucks withdraw already passed KYC = processed soon.

but

B) Still processing all the withdraw requests made when "Materbucks went under maintence."

...

Was there an overwhelming amount of withdraw requests after masterbucks went into maintence? Making it harder to track and/or financially fulfill all orders?

Or,

is it noteworthy that (b) doesn't mention KYC as did (a), and thus (maybe?) (b) could be read "we are still processing all the withdraw requests made when masterbucks had a different KYC standard"?

...

A look in how escrow/masterbucks transactions may have occured in 2021::

I sold a domain for $3120 to a buyer and decided to use Epik's Escrow Service to facilitate the transaction, considering the good image of @Rob Monster in the industry his goodwill among domainers. I usually use DAN for my escrow transactions and well aware of their crypto payout process so I was "What can go wrong" and this is where I got wrong.

- First of all, they do not have any "direct" payout method to send you the funds. They first deposit it in something called "masterbucks", which appears to be their own currency (is it even legit?) and you have to separately login and request a withdrawal request at masterbucks.com.

He did a crypto escrow redemption without being forced to complete an escrow KYC. The escrow manager for this transaction evidently concluded it was not needed. That was pretty gracious.

I don't know this seller personally. He actually has zero domains with Epik and he does not use his real name in his user profile.

I assume (AYC = assume your customer) this transction with @webm is/was completely kosher, just noting how certain escrow transactions were happening at epik (a) without KYC (b) without the transaction involving an epik related domain (c) forced to use masterbucks as the money transmitter?

 

[Igor Gabrielan]

I don't understand what is "withdrawal requests made when Masterbucks went under maintenance".
Unless then it was possible to make requests?
They refused manual paying requests, including mine.

 

[jberryhill]

Just to clear up a couple of questions above…

The lawsuit probably has nothing to do with Epik. Registrars get these kinds of suits all of the time. I’ve defended Tucows in two of them, and a couple of others from time to time.

Someone upset about a web page with a domain under privacy will sue the registrar and/or the privacy service - in this instance both. If the registrar and the privacy service aren’t actually running the site but just providing domain name services, then they will simply move to dismiss the case because they are immune under Section 130 of the Communications Decency Act as a neutral service provider, against precisely this sort of claim.

However, the suit provides a vehicle to use discovery to obtain the identity of the underlying customer, and then amend to add them as the defendant. Most of the time, the registrar simply contacts the complainant to simply offer to short circuit the process by seeking a voluntary dismissal in exchange for providing the materials that would otherwise be provided through formal discovery.

And, no, if you are contemplating a lawsuit or engaged in a lawsuit, then generating a lot of correspondence with other people about it is categorically not going to be helpful for you or for those other people.

And, also no, this suit has nothing to do with Epik’s financial problems, and is unlikely to have a material impact on Epik - again assuming that Epik had nothing to do with the website, etc..

 

[Chris Hydrick]

Potential escrow clients may not realize that they will be using Masterbucks' ancillary company with its high fees.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1584129959932481537

 

[jberryhill]

Is this just a common tactic to reveal the website owner?

In a word, yes. These things are routine, and there is a fairly routine playbook for them.

 

[GoKaizen]

What if the registrar isn't based in the US? @jberryhill

 

[Charlice]

I've not been paid. However, I'm still in correspondence with them. It certainly doesn't look like payment will be going out soon, at least for small players like me. My theory is that they may be soliciting more business to gather more money to pay those with larger withdrawal ($50k+) requests. But then, what did they do with their money in the first place?

Also, one thing I don't understand is, why is Rob totally incapable to do anything now? Is Brian now holding more shares than him?

 

[karmaco]

Some time after my last post here I realized that I still have a tasting account with E currently at 50 cents per delete. So I decided to abuse it until E decides to murder my account and rob my money (yes I know it's stupid but I like licking domains for 50 cents each ). For the few first days it was all well until yesterday a domain remained unregistered till today. I know someone said not to do it on weekends but it was a Friday and it doesn't seem to be a holiday based on other posts here. On top of that, it wasn't purchased using Master$ucks but their in-store credits, freshly pre-funded by crypto. That amount remains missing despite the domain being unregistered. It would seem that E funds their Verisign account only enough to last till Thursdays maybe? Will see if it remains unregistered by next week. At any rate, hope my wasted $50 will eventually go to one of you still-unpaid folks.

In case anyone is still thinking of using stuck funds to register coms, today is not the day to do it (again!)

Yes you should not buy or renew on weekends. They just aren’t keeping their verisign as prefunded as required to cover any renewals or purchases over the weekend.

 

[Igor Gabrielan]

I send emails to
[email protected]
[email protected]

When will you pay me?
Masterbucks website was relaunched on October 11th.
I generated withdrawal requests on October 14th.
15 Masterbucks working days have passed (October 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 31
November 1, 2, 3, 4), but my requests have not been fulfilled, the payments status is "Pending".
I am attaching a scan with my withdrawals.
15 working days have passed, and the money has not been paid.
You talk about the payout queue, but you don't tell me where I'm in the queue.
After the renovation of the Masterbucks website, instead of paying compensation for the freezing of funds, you imposed huge fees on the payment of these funds.
To get my $55,433.64 I now need to pay $1475.83.
And even for this money, you cannot calculate my place in the queue and report it to me.

 

[tonyk2000]

When will you pay

Let me try to guess their answer:

 

[Igor Gabrielan]

What mathematical skills are needed to calculate the place in the queue?
This is not Fermat's theorem and not even Newton's binomial.

 

[Igor Gabrielan]

I continue to write reviews on Trustpilot.
Same reviews
regarding Epik
regarding Masterbucks

 

[jberryhill]

What mathematical skills are needed to calculate the place in the queue?
This is not Fermat's theorem and not even Newton's binomial.

Have you take a stab at the Riemann Hypothesis?

 

[Igor Gabrielan]

I have been rereading this thread for several days and taking notes on what I find useful. Synopsis here.

 

[jideofor]

Or they can just say, hey we have "regulation" issues and be honest. I really wonder how many people have been paid in the last couple of weeks, I also noticed less people are writing reviews on trustpilot. Does that mean people are getting paid and they went on with their lives? @Igor Gabrielan let us know if they pay you in the future.

Or they can just say, hey we have "regulation" issues and be honest. I really wonder how many people have been paid in the last couple of weeks, I also noticed less people are writing reviews on trustpilot. Does that mean people are getting paid and they went on with their lives? @Igor Gabrielan let us know if they pay you in the future.

I have not been paid at the time of writing thing this. It has been more than 1 month now.

 

[jideofor]

I've not been paid. However, I'm still in correspondence with them. It certainly doesn't look like payment will be going out soon, at least for small players like me. My theory is that they may be soliciting more business to gather more money to pay those with larger withdrawal ($50k+) requests. But then, what did they do with their money in the first place?

Also, one thing I don't understand is, why is Rob totally incapable to do anything now? Is Brian now holding more shares than him?

Good question. It means that when buyers paid for those domain names, money was diverted to somewhere else while the buyer received the domain name, and the seller is held hostage.

I have also wondered why Rob has suddenly become a ghost in all of these.

 

[Charlice]

Good question. It means that when buyers paid for those domain names, money was diverted to somewhere else while the buyer received the domain name, and the seller is held hostage.

I have also wondered why Rob has suddenly become a ghost in all of these.

Yeah, that is what happened to me
The buyer was pampered and all his messages were being replied why I was left out cold.

 

[biggie]

To get my $55,433.64 I now need to pay $1475.83.

Hi

as long as you and others have been forced to wait...
you should receive at least half that amount in interest, instead of paying it.

imo...

 

[topdom]

I suspect they bought some speculative asset with our money, which went down, but they still hope/think it can explode anytime (just after election?), if they did such a thing it is purely unethical and they should pay for it.
And they can't register or renew any domain , and can't explain why it can't be done, and they don't fix it for days, and not refund for failed registration. All these make us think that they don't have cash. They should sell their houses and cars, and make this system work.

Thee is a problem. Go to chat. They will escalate. And it will be forgotten. We can never discuss things with people who are responsible for those mistakes.

 

[Igor Gabrielan]

Could we have expected this?
No one has yet given examples of stealing escrow money in the domain industry.

 

[biggie]

No one has yet given examples of stealing escrow money in the domain industry.

Hi

IF... and that's a big IF,
the money was in an escrow account or "held in escrow", then it wouldn't be "stolen". and you would have been paid within the time interval stated in agreement.

however....
since you haven't received your funds according to the TOS at the time of original transaction, then your money "assumably" was not in escrow.

therefore, or that's why, you never heard of any examples of escrow money being stolen in domain industry.

theoretically speaking...

imo....

 

[Gabriel360]

I suspect they bought some speculative asset with our money, which went down, but they still hope/think it can explode anytime (just after election?), if they did such a thing it is purely unethical and they should pay for it.
And they can't register or renew any domain , and can't explain why it can't be done, and they don't fix it for days, and not refund for failed registration. All these make us think that they don't have cash. They should sell their houses and cars, and make this system work.

Thee is a problem. Go to chat. They will escalate. And it will be forgotten. We can never discuss things with people who are responsible for those mistakes.

It's unlikely they bought a speculative asset. Even if they did, that can't be the whole issue since they refuse to pay people with recent transactions.

It's more likely they've overdrawn their bank accounts. Any new inflow just goes to reduce their pending debt.


I lost several domains because of their inability to register new names. Plus, they failed to say anything about it until I contacted them.

Epik is beyond redemption now.