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.

 

[thakurlokesh]

Brad, I was so tired of hearing from Brian Royce. He never kept a promise. I would get hopeful and then get let down, over and over for 8 weeks of him texting me. It was the same story over and over. I only sent the recent 4 texts but there were more, very similar. Waste of my time. I am happy he blocked me.

You will never get your money.

 

[Derek Peterson]

Even though Brian comes off like a doofus, you have to figure at this point he has to know what is really going on. No excuses.

The level of disaster this has become can't be explained by simply incompetence.

Brad

There was one, and only one, way to save Epik. Get the money back that Rob Monster disappeared and he has done nothing to make that one thing happen. Make Monster cough up that $10-15M that is MIA and all probelms go away. Instead just selling off assets, screwing over good people and covering for Monster.

 

[Future Sensors]

You will never get your money.

Try to be a little more compassionate. Thank you.

 

[bmugford]

Decided to check in on the DN world and WOW, what a read.

I have just one question, who exactly now owns Epik? Bottom line, who is risking criminal charges here end of day?

Thank you

Rob Monster is still reportedly the Chairman and 70%+ shareholder.
There was no update to the annual report that would indicate that has changed.

I am not sure about the other shareholders.

I am also not sure what is keeping Rob from replacing everyone. As majority shareholder, he should be able to do that. So he is either not doing that for some other reason(s), or it is a tacit endorsement of Brian Royce's leadership.

Since Rob left as CEO he has basically gone into public hiding.

Brad

 

[J.R.]

Brian Royce indicated that I misunderstood something and that he had not tried to make me an offer to take a $50K settlement of the $91K that Epik owes me for the sale of Candida.com on September 27th. So I am sharing the texts of our discussion. After he sent the text with the offer to settle for $50K or take a payment plan, I texted Rob. I was afraid to take a payment plan because I was afraid they would go bankrupt. So I felt pressured to settle. Rob told me that he was sure that Brian would present some options. And then I got the follow up text later on saying they would pay me $50K by end of Jan and $41K by the end of Feb. I have not received any money from Epik. Show attachment 231268Show attachment 231269Show attachment 231270Show attachment 231271

This text exchange between Brian Royce and Kathleen Kalaf should be reposted on every major domain blog, including @DomainNameWire

There is no domain news story more important than the real-time implosion of Epik registrar for January 2023. If there is a more relevant story to domain investors than the possible fraud being run at Epik, prove it.

Has Kathleen been invited on any of the popular domain vlogcasts to tell her side of the Epik story?

 

[bmugford]

There is no domain news story more important than the real-time implosion of Epik registrar for January 2023. If there is a more relevant story to domain investors than the possible fraud being run at Epik, prove it.

Has Kathleen been invited on any of the popular domain vlogcasts to tell her side of the Epik story?

I agree. I am amazed how many less important or irrelevant stories are covered.
In fairness, most bloggers are not interested in being investigative reporters.

It seems like many just stick in their lane, and collect sponsor revenue.

However, this story is way too important to dismiss.

I am very unimpressed overall by the level of coverage in relation to the seriousness of this situation.

Brad

 

[J.R.]

I agree. I am amazed how many less important or irrelevant stories are covered.
In fairness, most bloggers are not interested in being investigative reporters.

It seems like many just stick in their lane, and collect sponsor revenue.

However, this story is way too important to dismiss.

I am very unimpressed overall by the level of coverage in relation to the seriousness of this situation.

Brad

Most domain bloggers only see themselves as journalists, when it comes to fluff or trivial domain topics. A major blogger told everyone on Twitter, he isn't a journalist last December. There is always the issue of corporate sponsorship of such blogs.

The Epik disaster is a hot potato most bloggers won't touch, hence the need for hiring outside tech reporters to investigate these issues.

I've learned over time to trust little within the domain industry that I can't personally confirm, there are simply too many conflicts of interest behind the scenes.

The domain industry is adjacent to general business and tech industries, and it'd behoove victims of Epik to reach out to reporters at TechCrunch, Digital Trends, Wired, Forbes, etc to bring attention to Epik's actions over the last year or so.

Even if the victims need to pay a tech investigative reporter to do the grunt work, that's a small fee to unravel this Epik disaster. Especially in the case of the Patterns.com owner and Kalaf's $91K payout, couldn't be me sitting by waiting to made whole by untrustworthy prinicipals.

 

[Future Sensors]

reach out to reporters at TechCrunch, Digital Trends, Wired, Forbes, etc

Great list. I'd like to add Daily Dot -- it had superb coverage of the Epik data breach.

And this Nov 1, 2022 article too, on the Masterbucks debacle we're actually discussing here:

https://www.dailydot.com/debug/epik-masterbucks/

 

[bmugford]

Most domain bloggers only see themselves as journalists, when it comes to fluff or trivial domain topics. A major blogger told everyone on Twitter, he isn't a journalist last December. There is always the issue of corporate sponsorship of such blogs.

The Epik disaster is a hot potato most bloggers won't touch, hence the need for hiring outside tech reporters to investigate these issues.

I've learned over time to trust little within the domain industry that I can't personally confirm, there are simply too many conflicts of interest behind the scenes.

The domain industry is adjacent to general business and tech industries, and it'd behoove victims of Epik to reach out to reporters at TechCrunch, Digital Trends, Wired, Forbes, etc to bring attention to Epik's actions over the last year or so.

Even if the victims need to pay a tech investigative reporter to do the grunt work, that's a small fee to unravel this Epik disaster. Especially in the case of the Patterns.com owner and Kalaf's $91K payout, couldn't be me sitting by waiting to made whole by untrustworthy prinicipals.

If someone was really interested they could just read this thread and see how much actual information has been discovered. Most of this has been discovered by people with nothing to gain.

My interest is seeing that other people don't become victims, and seeing actual victims made whole again.

I am also interested in seeing accountability for the actions that lead to this debacle, as well as continue to make it worse under Brian Royce.

I am actually someone who fights for registrants and registrant rights.

I gave @DomainNameWire a good starting list of questions for Brian Royce to address, with actual specifics.
I hope they do that.

Brian should not just be able to flippantly dismiss what is going on.

In fairness, Andrew is one of the only people who has reported on this at all, including Kathleen Kalaf's story. His interview is where we first got the "commingling" of funds confirmation.

Brad

 

[Derek Peterson]

Most domain bloggers only see themselves as journalists, when it comes to fluff or trivial domain topics. A major blogger told everyone on Twitter, he isn't a journalist last December. There is always the issue of corporate sponsorship of such blogs.

The Epik disaster is a hot potato most bloggers won't touch, hence the need for hiring outside tech reporters to investigate these issues.

I've learned over time to trust little within the domain industry that I can't personally confirm, there are simply too many conflicts of interest behind the scenes.

The domain industry is adjacent to general business and tech industries, and it'd behoove victims of Epik to reach out to reporters at TechCrunch, Digital Trends, Wired, Forbes, etc to bring attention to Epik's actions over the last year or so.

Even if the victims need to pay a tech investigative reporter to do the grunt work, that's a small fee to unravel this Epik disaster. Especially in the case of the Patterns.com owner and Kalaf's $91K payout, couldn't be me sitting by waiting to made whole by untrustworthy prinicipals.

All the grunt work is done. Domainnamewire are just a joke. Read the thread and other articles written. I wrote a 26 page article on Epik and Rob Monster and another half dozen on this fiasco. They take bits and pieces with no credit of course and spin it into not such a big deal. Like a bunch of crypto grifters afraid to report on real crimes b/c people will yell fud at them and unfollow.

 

[branding]

I thought I should post this here as there probably aren't that many people who noticed the thread:

This is the classic definition of domain theft, as the current registrant of the domain name (Epik Inc) did not acquire the domain name buy purchasing the domain name from the original registrant.

The stolen domain name Patterns was recovered via UDRP and it should have been transferred to the original registrant, the true owner of the domain name.

The right thing to do here is for Epik Inc to immediately transfer ownership of Patterns to the original registrant, the one who won the UDRP.

I just recently (yesterday) learned that even though there is an agreement in place to split the proceeds of the sale of the domain name, Epik has decided that the domain name is theirs (apparently) and the original registrant has no rights to the domain name. To put it mildly, I am furious that Epik is doing this. There are SO many things wrong with this.

 

[bmugford]

I thought I should post this here as there probably aren't that many people who noticed the thread:

This was also from BEFORE Patterns.com was transferred from Epik to Key Systems with 4000+ other domains as part of a reported portfolio sale.

Brad

 

[J.R.]

Great list. I'd like to add Daily Dot -- it had superb coverage of the Epik data breach.

And this Nov 1, 2022 article too, on the Masterbucks debacle we're actually discussing here:

https://www.dailydot.com/debug/epik-masterbucks/

You mentioned the Daily Dot, and the investigative reporter was Steven Monacelli.
https://twitter.com/stevanzetti

He calls himself, a first rate journalism bro. Victims should be flooding his inbox.

To those owed so much money from Epik, you have an investigative journalist with some history of writing about Epik issues. Why not pay him the market rate to investigate and expose Epik's failures to the general business tech audience?

The fee is nominal in comparison to what has been taken from you, not including the emotional stress being inflicted on their customers.

 

[Derek Peterson]

You mentioned the Daily Dot, and the investigative reporter was Steven Monacelli.
https://twitter.com/stevanzetti

He calls himself, a first rate journalism bro. Victims should be flooding his inbox.

To those owed so much money from Epik, you have an investigative journalist with some history of writing about Epik issues. Why not pay him the market rate to investigate and expose Epik's failures to the general business tech audience?

The fee is nominal in comparison to what has been taken from you, not including the emotional stress being inflicted on their customers.

Steve is a garbage human being that would be happy for every conservative to lose all their money at the hands of grifter garbage like monster, that's why he never reported on things that actually matter, only "hate speech" smears against good people, which is literally marketing for Monster. They want people like Monster with power, destroying the right.

 

[Michele Dinoia]

something start moving: https://domaingang.com/domain-news/candida-com-seller-talked-to-the-fbi-about-epik/

 

[Future Sensors]

something start moving: https://domaingang.com/domain-news/candida-com-seller-talked-to-the-fbi-about-epik/

Great. Thank you @Acroplex.

 

[bmugford]

something start moving: https://domaingang.com/domain-news/candida-com-seller-talked-to-the-fbi-about-epik/

Domain Gang might be the only other blog that I have seen give any real coverage to this story. They had some other posts as well, so shout out to them. Thanks @Acroplex.

They also link back to the NamePros thread, which I think is the most useful resource at this point.

Brad

 

[Future Sensors]

They also link back to the NamePros thread, which I think is the most useful resource at this point.

Now this is what I call "SEO". NamePros played this important role during the aftermath of the Epik data breach as well. There was a constant exchange with Twitter and other sites, and concerned customers automatically joined the discussion, which is exactly what you see happening now.

 

[bmugford]

Now this is what I call "SEO". NamePros played this important role during the aftermath of the Epik data breach as well. There was a constant exchange with Twitter and other sites, and concerned customers automatically joined the discussion, which is exactly what you see happening now.

I also think it is worthy of a tweet.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1620513402509754375

 

[Future Sensors]

All right. They had already removed Mr Rob Monster as a partner from their website during the Epik data breach discussion, but now WeCanDevelopIt.com has formally moved to Tennessee, USA. Awesome?

https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_tn/001365665

 

[branding]

All right. They had already removed Mr Rob Monster as a partner from their website during the Epik data breach discussion, but now WeCanDevelopIt.com has formally moved to Tennessee, USA. Awesome?

https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_tn/001365665

Show attachment 231284

Could be a "coincidence". They were Russia based. Not the easiest place to work from given circumstances. Nice catch.

 

[Igor Gabrielan]

I jokingly asked Tony if he would hide the bosses in Africa, Tony said no, Interpol would catch them there.

 

[branding]

Surprisingly their domain is with E...

 

[Derek Peterson]

Candida.com has been transferred. I spoke with the owners. Nice people. Totally unaware of all. Had a 90 day lock.

 

[branding]

Now conveniently located at the US business partner address, pilgrim consulting:

12000 Ancient Crest Cir Unit 12107, Franklin, TN 37067, United States