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.

 

[bmugford]

like wow and wtf. just came on and found all this drama after one of my friends whom I recommended Epik to years ago had issues renewing his domain. More specifically, he renewed his domain but it still dropped off and missing. A name he had for over 20 years.

So not to read 294 pages into this... can someone sum up exactly what I missed in the last year or so it seems?

After seeing that ICAN noticed transferred out 50 of my most valuable names and domains we use for our developed sites. About 50 more names left that debating on.

The last few pages have been very active with the RICO lawsuit, TRO filing with exhibits, attempted asset transfer, ICANN breach, etc. It is worth reading those at least.

Quick overall summary -

1.) Rob Monster was suddenly replaced as Epik CEO on 9/2/2022. He has not been heard from publicly since.

2.) The new CEO Brian Royce is some domain noob. How he got this position is still not fully known.

3.) Epik is millions of dollars in debt to companies and customers.

4.) They have screwed customers over via their unlicensed "escrow" and other services.

5.) Masterbucks has no cash value, as it can't be withdrawn. Epik has been keeping the actual currency and sticking customers with this worthless fake currency.

6.) Epik, @Rob Monster, and Brian Royce are facing a RICO lawsuit alleging -

"This lawsuit is about a widespread and illegal fraudulent scheme—replete with misrepresentations, embezzlement, and misappropriation"

It alleges that Epik/Rob took a $327,000 "escrow" payment for the domain Nourish.com in May 2022. They never delivered the domain, or a refund.

https://onlinedomain.com/2023/04/05/domain-name-news/a-lawsuit-was-filed-against-epik/

Also, to make it clear in the RICO lawsuit Epik has already admitted in their response -

- Epik Escrow received a $327,000 escrow payment (May 2022) from the buyer.
- The domain transfer did not happen.
- The money was not refunded.
- They still owe the buyer a refund (a year later).

There are other victims of this "escrow" scam as well, like @Kathleen Kalaf -
https://domainnamewire.com/2022/12/05/an-epik-victim-tells-her-story/

7.) At this point Epik can't even carry out the basic functions of a registrar. There are many reports of Epik not being able to process registrations and renewals in a timely manner, if at all. There are reports of people paying for renewals, then the domains expiring.

8.) They have sold off many of their assets including large domain portfolios, the other forum, etc. Most of their employees have been terminated.

9.) Current CEO Brian Royce and current Chairman and majority shareholder Rob Monster are basically at war with each other. During this entire time Rob Monster has still been the Chairman and majority shareholder.

Brad

 

[maksimfa]

Read Brad's post @bmugford about 3 about yours. That will give you a very quick run-down. Monster left, new CEO came in, bills not getting paid, they're scamming customers of millions of $ in total (not paying out escrow funds), not renewing domains, wire fraud, the list goes on and on. Get your domains out ASAP. They'll likely be gone in 3 weeks.

The crazy part is I have been renewing domains up until like a month ago and never had any issues. Bought quite a few expired domain auctions as well without any issues. sheesh... If I was not messaged by my friend would not have seen all this.

 

[bmugford]

The crazy part is I have been renewing domains up until like a month ago and never had any issues. Bought quite a few expired domain auctions as well without any issues. sheesh... If I was not messaged by my friend would not have seen all this.

I gave a little more detailed summary above.

Brad

 

[maksimfa]

The last few pages have been very active with the RICO lawsuit, TRO filing, attempted asset transfer, ICANN breach, etc. It is worth reading those at least.

Quick overall summary -

1.) Rob Monster was suddenly replaced as Epik CEO on 9/2/2022. He has not been heard from publicly since.

2.) The new CEO Brian Royce is some domain noob. How he got this position is still not fully known.

3.) Epik is millions of dollars in debt to companies and customers.

4.) They have screwed customers over via their unlicensed "escrow" and other services.

5.) Masterbucks has no cash value, as it can't be withdrawn. Epik has been keeping the actual currency and sticking customers with this worthless fake currency.

6.) Epik, @Rob Monster, and Brian Royce are facing a RICO lawsuit alleging -

"This lawsuit is about a widespread and illegal fraudulent scheme—replete with misrepresentations, embezzlement, and misappropriation"

It alleges that Epik/Rob took a $327,000 "escrow" payment for the domain Nourish.com in May 2022. They never delivered the domain, or a refund.

https://onlinedomain.com/2023/04/05/domain-name-news/a-lawsuit-was-filed-against-epik/

Also, to make it clear in the RICO lawsuit Epik has already admitted in their response -

- Epik Escrow received a $327,000 escrow payment (May 2022) from the buyer.
- The domain transfer did not happen.
- The money was not refunded.
- They still owe the buyer a refund (a year later).

There are other victims of this "escrow" scam as well -

https://domainnamewire.com/2022/12/05/an-epik-victim-tells-her-story/

7.) At this point Epik can't even carry out the basic functions of a registrar. There are many reports of Epik not being able to process registrations and renewals in a timely manner, if at all. There are reports of people paying for renewals, then the domains expiring.

8.) They have sold off many of their assets including large domain portfolios, the other forum, etc. Most of their employees have been terminated.

9.) Current CEO Brian Royce and current Chairman and majority shareholder Rob Monster are basically at war with each other. During this entire time Rob Monster has still been the Chairman and majority shareholder.

Epik is basically not even able to carry out the basic functions of a registrar.

Brad

What are Rob and Brian Royce fighting each other over?

 

[NicTraders]

How he got this position is still not fully known.

Probably out of a cornflakes packet.

And thanks Brad, your summary was much more elegant than mine!

The crazy part is I have been renewing domains up until like a month ago and never had any issues.

Yeah, most things functioned for me too, while others had a lot of issues with renewals. I think it often just depended on whether you happened to do renewals when Epik had topped up their Verisign account. The way it was going I reckon they were just depositing funds on a daily basis when they had a few $ spare. But now pretty much everything has stopped working properly.

 

[bmugford]

What are Rob and Brian Royce fighting each other over?

It seems mainly to do with who is responsible for this shitshow.

Brian Royce said that Rob Monster commingled escrow funds when he was CEO, which lead to an inability to pay debts.

The transaction in the RICO lawsuit occurred months before Rob Monster was replaced as CEO.

However, other transactions like the @Kathleen Kalaf one occurred when Brian Royce was CEO.

Brian Royce has been the CEO for 9 months now, and the list of victims just continues to grow.

Epik's Twitter account has attacked Rob Monster multiple times, including threatening legal action.

Judging by the TRO exhibits, it appears that Rob Monster sees himself as a victim, and largely blames Royce and other parties for this outcome.

Brad

 

[maksimfa]

It seems mainly to do with who is responsible for this shitshow.

Brian Royce said that Rob Monster commingled escrow funds when he was CEO, which lead to an inability to pay debts.

The transaction in the RICO lawsuit occurred months before Rob Monster was replaced as CEO.

However, other transactions like the @Kathleen Kalaf one occurred when Brian Royce was CEO.

Brian Royce has been the CEO for 9 months now, and the list of victims just continues to grow.

Epik's Twitter account has attacked Rob Monster multiple times, including threatening legal action.

Show attachment 238990

Judging by the TRO exhibits, it appears that Rob Monster sees himself as a victim, and largely blames Royce and other parties for this outcome.

Brad

sheesh...

So why did Rob "retire"? Did he sell Epik or a good amount of it to Royce?

Appreciate the play by play.

Just amazed.

As a registrar, I loved what Rob was doing and he provided a solid platform, great ideas and I never really had issues, that I remember.

Once I got to know Rob and he knew I was involved in financial analysis and in the money raising side, I looked at a company he was involved with and tried raising money for. Definitely passed on it as it did not pass my specific criteria, however Epik seemed like well, an Epic business.

Perhaps they ran ahead or grew too big too fast without proper controls in place and it was too much temptation to see money there, in your grasp, despite it being yours. Being a steward of money is tough business.

Shame... I do hope what is left of this, does not get erased into history.

I wonder what assets they have left.

 

[jmcc]

It’s worth mentioning that ICANN is not just requiring that they get paid, but that Epik settle its accounts with other service providers necessary to its registrar services. If you look at the debt list from the litigation, they owe Identity Digital (one of the new tld registries) over $350k.

There was a major drop of Epik registered .REALTY domain names in December 2022. However, ID operates a lot of other new gTLDs.

That chowderhead Royce has been there since last September. He’s got 22 days to find some tall cash, and I doubt he could find his own ass with both hands.

Afilias (mainly .INFO) is also owned by Identity Digital so that takes it to about $463K.

PIR is .ORG. CentralNic handles the backend for some new gTLDs. ChannelIsles is the registry for .GG ccTLD. Global Registry Services took over the Famous Four Media new gTLDs. Godaddy is also the registry operator for .US and there's a $49K debt without any TLD reference so this may be the .US debt. Google could be for .APP or other Google domain names.

Tucows is an interesting entry because it provides Registrations As a Service. Tucows has accreditations in various ccTLDs and it allows resellers to resell domain names in these TLDs (and gTLDs) via reseller accounts.

The $16K debt to Zendesk might explain some of the problems Epik has been having with customer service and support or lack of same.

There's also a debt to Cira.ca which is the Canadian .CA registry. There's a curious redirect on All.ca which, after a few seconds, redirects to the federated identity PPC page. The Let's Encrypt SSL certificate is expired. The registrar for the domain name is Centralnic Canada and the nameservers are those of Epik. The .CA has a nexus requirement for registration. This seems to have been Epik's .CA operation (based on the HTML from the website) but it is not listed in the Cira.ca list of registrars.

Apart from the ICANN fees, the major problem is the Verisign (.COM/NET registry) debt. The majority of Epik's domain names are in .COM.

Regards...jmcc

 

[Igor Gabrielan]

Will this court consider a possible conspiracy of shareholders and creditors with the company's management in order to steal clients' funds? If such bad shareholders and creditors are held accountable, the chances of repaying customers will increase because the shareholders and creditors are still financially sound.

 

[jmcc]

I wonder what assets they have left.

The gTLD registrar business. It is still renewing domain names (or trying to). The new registrations and inbound transfers have collapsed but it still has over 500K gTLD registrations. Once a domain name is renewed for the first time, it typically keeps being renewed. That's a steady stream of repeating revenue.

Epik, due to its previous focus on domainers, has a large number of domainer registrations but it still has non-domainer registrations. Without the debt, the registrar side of Epik may still be a viable business but it would need a lot of work and a possible rebranding.

Other registrar operators might not want to take on the brand but may be interested in the registrations. What is interesting is how NameLiquidate, and discounting offers were such major parts of Epik. Monster is a much better marketer than Royce. The problem for Epik was that the line between founder (Monster) and business (Epik) became increasingly blurred.

Regards...jmcc

 

[bmugford]

Will this court consider a possible conspiracy of shareholders and creditors with the company's management in order to steal clients' funds? If such bad shareholders and creditors are held accountable, the chances of repaying customers will increase because the shareholders and creditors are still financially sound.

It will be interesting to see what else comes out.

Are these asset sales above board, or were there shady insider deals?

Rob Monster stated -

"My general sense is that there has been an egregious pattern of side deals and self-dealing during the last 10 months, and that the objective is to wipe it all clean."

The reason for the proposed asset transfer is supposedly to continue operations, but the more Epik continues to operate the more customers that are getting screwed over.

The transfer would basically keep Masterbucks and other debts in a worthless company, while transferring the assets of value to a new unknown buyer in Wyoming, where assets would largely be shielded.

Epik is basically saying we can't continue operations unless you allow us to transfer assets and leave customers holding the bag.

This entire situation is only possible because of corporate abuse. There is simply no justification for using "escrow" funds to pay other bills or give to executives, shareholders, or insiders.

Without corporate abuse, these funds would still be available.

Brad

 

[GNP]

Money talks, doesn't it? Now that ICANN is missing out on some money (instead of just its customers), we better get in and do something. Yes, I know there is a process to follow, but it seems the process is about protecting ICANN, much more than it is about protecting consumers.

While a generalized statement like that is typically true, in this case it is not.
As ICANN said in their Breach issued June 1st, quote: "Further, ICANN Contractual Compliance has confirmed that, to date, the specific issues for the affected domain names included in the complaints received by ICANN Contractual Compliance were subsequently addressed."

People filed complaints, ICANN investigated, and Epik (smartly) fixed the issues for those domains, so no basis (by itself) for ICANN to consider it a breach of the RAA.

Notice too that once ICANN was able to nail Epik for breach due to non-payment of dues, ICANN ALSO stipulated that Epik fix the issues causing the delays in registrations, renewals & transfers. So as soon as ICANN was able to nail Epik for something, they did so.

As much as I hate to admit it, in this particular case ICANN seems to have done all it could do, as fast as it could.
Remember escrow, masterbucks, ccTLDs, etc are OUTSIDE the scope of ICANN authority.

 

[jmcc]

I think it goes without saying that holding any domains at Epik is a risk at this point.

It will be a rough few weeks for registrants and Epik. If ICANN commences the termination process, the gTLD domain names will be moved to successor registrars. This makes it extremely important for Epik registrants to have current WHOIS data for all their domain names on Epik.

The last thing that ICANN wants is another RegisterFly mess.

Regards...jmcc

 

[DNabc]

In Europe you can't have visible WHOIS data, so I don't know what registrants can do. Privacy filter shouldn't matter on this situation anyway.
Once the company goes down there is no chance for people to recover the money, now it was low, after will be next to none. If you ever saw cases like these you know where any remaining funds / assets will end.
I've bought assets mismanaged from Receivership before.

 

[GNP]

In Europe you can't have visible WHOIS data, so I don't know what registrants can do.

I know the default is to HIDE data in the EU, per their laws, but I assumed Europe allows users the OPTION to opt-in to show WHOIS data. (After all, if it is "your" data as the EU claims, you as the user, should be able to choose what to do with it, ie hide it by default or show it if you want to.)

 

[jmcc]

In Europe you can't have WHOIS data, so I don't know what registrants can do.

Most of the ccTLD registries have a centralised WHOIS so the registries have the WHOIS data. With the gTLDs, the registrars have the WHOIS data but they have to keep track of it and file it with an ICANN approved registry data escrow agent.

Regards...jmcc

 

[bmugford]

Other registrar operators might not want to take on the brand but may be interested in the registrations.

Is a registrar required to take all registrations in a deal, or could there be a deal that excluded certain problem clients?

I can't imagine that many legitimate registrars are going to want to take a domain like KiwiFarms.net, and some other problematic clients. That is likely not worth the headache for a major player in the field.

Brad

 

[DNabc]

I know the default is to HIDE data in the EU, per their laws, but I assumed Europe allows users the OPTION to opt-in to show WHOIS data. (After all, if it is "your" data as the EU claims, you as the user, should be able to choose what to do with it, ie hide it by default or show it if you want to.)

I never wanted to hide my whois, it was done because of my address and without opt-out.

 

[jmcc]

Is a registrar required to take all registrations in a deal, or could there be a deal that excluded certain problem clients.

Not sure. It is typically a bulk transfer process.

I can't imagine that many legitimate registrars are going to want to take a domain like KiwiFarms.net, and some other problematic clients. That is likely not worth the headache for a major player in the field.

Any successor registrar would have to deal with those domain names on a case by case basis.

This is the ICANN document on accreditation termination:
https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/dartp-11jul13-en.pdf

Regards...jmcc

 

[Future Sensors]

If possible, disclose your registrant information in whois by removing anonymity. ICANN also mentions a number of other things that will give you a stronger position as a registrant in providing evidence.

https://www.icann.org/en/blogs/deta...recovering-hijacked-domain-names-14-4-2016-en

Documentation is Key

Some or all of the following "paper trail" can serve as proof that you have a prior claim to the rights to use a domain name over a party or organization identified as the registrant [in a hijacked domain name registration record]:

• A domain history, i.e., copies of registration records that show you or your organization as the registrant of record for the hijacked domain.
• Billing records or email receipts demonstrating that you or your organization has maintained account currency.
• System or web logs, or archives illustrating that the hijacked domain name has been associated with content published you have published on a web or other form of hosting site.
• A history of financial transactions that associate you or your organization with the hijacked domain name. Increasingly, credit cards or bank statements provide purchase details: merchandise– along with the merchant name, business address and contact phone numbers. The hijacked domain name may appear as the merchandise, and the registrar as the merchant name.
• Telephone directories (Yellow pages), marketing material, etc. that contain advertising that associate the hijacked domain name with your organization.
• Correspondence from registrars relating to the hijacked domain name; for example, the annual WHOIS reporting notice, renewal notices, notices of DNS change, telephone call records, etc., or generally any correspondence sent or placed to email or postal addresses or telephone numbers of you, your employees or your legal agents.
• Legal documents, for example, a contract for the sale of a business that contains a clause such as "as a condition of sale, seller agrees that the domain name <hijacked domain name> shall be transferred to buyer".
• Tax filings, business tax notices, etc. that associate you or your organization with the hijacked domain name.

 

[GNP]

Is a registrar required to take all registrations in a deal, or could there be a deal that excluded certain problem clients.

I can't imagine that many legitimate registrars are going to want to take a domain like KiwiFarms.net, and some other problematic clients.

Brad

I would imagine a registrar would have to take everything...HOWEVER the domains would also be subject to the RECEIVING registrar's Terms of Service. So if domains break that ToS, they could easily be removed by the new registrar. Just another reason to transfer domains NOW, while you can CHOOSE what registrar you want, instead of getting stuck with whatever registrar ICANN goes with.

I never wanted to hide my whois, it was done because of my address and without opt-out.

Wow, didn't know that, thanks for the info!!! I guess the law of unintended consequences comes into play.

 

[GNP]

Another major reason -- other than the obvious to try to avoid losing domains -- to transfer domains out of Epik ASAP is to avoid potential Redemption Fee charges. If your domain expires and reaches the redemption period by the time the ICANN-appointed registrar takes over, the domain owner WILL have to pay the Redemption Fee to get the domain back. Since there is no way to know ahead of time which registrar will get the domains -- if Epik losses their accreditation -- there is no way to know in advance what the Redemption fees will be either.

 

[DNabc]

That would be easy if transfers were free, however now that liquidity is an issue for many, it's not trivial to get dozens of thousands out of nowhere... especially for those that have a lot of money stuck at Epik.
Even if you could get a loan the interest rates will be absurd.

 

[GNP]

That would be easy if transfers were free, however now that liquidity is an issue for many, it's not trivial to get dozens of thousands out of nowhere... especially for those that have a lot of money stuck at Epik.
Even if you could get a loan the interest rates will be absurd.

I wish you were wrong, but you are 100% right. I would assume pretty much the only domainers still at Epik are the ones that are transferring out domains as fast as they can afford.

Some of the ccTLDs do actually offer free transfers (domain expiration isn't extended with transfer), so it is possible to do with domain names. Too bad it isn't offered for gTLDs, perhaps it will be someday, it certainly has benefits, especially in situations like this.

 

[jmcc]

Money talks, doesn't it? Now that ICANN is missing out on some money (instead of just its customers), we better get in and do something. Yes, I know there is a process to follow, but it seems the process is about protecting ICANN, much more than it is about protecting consumers.

ICANN only acts within the registry-registrar agreement (RRA). The problem for Epik is that it gives ICANN the nuclear option of terminating a registrar's accreditation and the breach notice has a clear indication that it will be escalated to a termination if Epik doesn't solve all the problems by June 22nd. There was a phone call from Epik and an e-mail from Epik on 01 June 2023 and ICANN did not consider them enough.

This is one of the important quotes from the notice:
"CHRONOLOGY

In the notice detailed in the chronology below, ICANN notified the Registrar of the violations
associated with the case, including the relevant ICANN agreement. The telephone call below
describes a further attempt from ICANN to communicate to the Registrar the details and
urgency of the case and to make an ICANN Contractual Compliance staff member available to
address any questions in order to assist Epik in becoming compliant. These attempts were
unsuccessful."

ICANN is doing what it must to help Epik resolve the problems but that's a short time between the breach notice and the commencement of termination (three weeks). Viewed in a different light, the breach notice is ICANN asking Epik why it should not terminate its accreditation. Unless the bills are paid and problems are resolved, ICANN will begin termination of Epik's accreditation after June 22nd. It also has to pay accreditation fees due on 14 June 2023.

If the registrar business could have been sold then it might have gained Epik some more time. However, the hearing for the TRO could affect that. Unless Epik resolves all the problems listed by ICANN, it is effectively a dead man walking.

Regards...jmcc