Hello and Assalamo Alaikum,
Time flies so quickly and I just noticed that it’s over a month since I published the last post. Well, everything is great at my end. Had some nice acquisitions recently but not much sales.
Today I wanted to share something very important because many of us domainers uses Flippa. I am their member for over 3 years and for quite some time Flippa promoted their service through my blog by placing banner ad in past. I am giving you the background just to know everything in detail and you guys better decide if their decision was fair enough for me?
Last month my Flippa account got banned with reason “multiple account operation”. Since I have opened my account with them (over 3 years), I had only 1 account for personal use. Looking at my domain business, some of my family members wanted to involve in this industry and asked for my guidance. I started giving them all material/resources and whatever guidance I could give and one of which was Flippa. Couple of my close family members are at my home to get complete knowledge about this business so later they can do on their own. I am always happy to share whatever I can.
The day I received email from Flippa, I wasn’t sure about which multiple accounts they are talking about but their support team provided those 2 new accounts which were created several months back!
I tried to explain them but no one bothered to listen me and stopped responding to my emails.
I contacted Luke McCormack (Director, Business Development) who initially contacted me in the same month for promoting their affiliate program. I wrote him and explained him everything but he too didn’t responded which wasn’t really looking good because when writing for promoting their affiliate program, he was efficient enough in writing me but when I needed him, he didn’t bothered to reply back. That shows how cooperative their team is! At least Luke could have said it’s not his job to look into this issue. This shows how good you are!
Finally I contacted Kevin Fink and got automated response of being out of office. I was desperate to get my account unbanned because the status shown banned at Flippa along with my profile isn’t good no matter I use Flippa or not.
I than emailed Kevin through NamePros and he reached out to me as soon as he was available. He told me that “Marketplace Integrity team does not have confidence that those accounts are operated by separate people.” He was right because they didn’t knew me and my background. But Kevin knew me very well except meeting in person. Anyhow, he said that he could reinstate just one account only, but it would then be limited per IP address; if your family members wanted to utilize an account, they would have to have WhoIs info / IPs / etc different from yours.
Seriously? That was just nonsense to me. If my family member wanted to use an account from the same place, they should get different internet connection just for the purpose of using Flippa!!
I responded “But that’s crazy for us to have a different internet connection just to operate Flippa because your MI team keeps banning such type of accounts. Using one sole account is not possible because I want them to operate their own domains and buy/sell themselves so they learn all stuff without my guidance in future.
It’s better for all of us not to use Flippa again in future unless you guys unban all our accounts.
Once again thanks and hope we keep our good relationship intact.”
Kevin responded back:
“I hope you understand why the answer is no; unless your family members can provide separate identifications for each new account, our team will continue to uphold the ban. We take this very seriously, and as much respect I have for you, and hope to continue to work with you where possible, this is simply out of my personal control. It is a ToS / marketplace integrity issue, and we cannot cut anyone special treatment.
Let me know if you have ideas as to how your relatives can work with us to adhere to this.”
Instead of sending passport copies and documents which will prove their different identifications, I decided that all my family members wouldn’t use their service any more. Overall, it’s their loss because there are plenty of places to buy/sell domains.
Apart of that, Kevin is a good guy and he responded in time and appreciate him taking steps to get my account unbanned.
Care to share what you guys think in regard?
Hello Abdul, I don’t know where you reside, but over here in Nigeria, modem or what others call broadband, cost less than $30 and those family members of yours should already have a their own personal laptops. Therefore, there is no point trying to use your own PC if truly they are serious about learning, but I do understand. Also, creating an account at flippa is achievable with use of smartphones which is another alternative to using your own PC. Flippa has a program that alerts them when a single IP is used on 2 or more accounts. It’s against… Read more »
Thanks for your feedback Jide 🙂 Broadband cost me in the same range as well but they are residing here for the purpose of learning about domain names and cannot buy a new connection for a few months. $30 isn’t an issue but having no faith in me even after explaining the reason behind that brought me to stop using their service. To clear up things which I forgot to add in the original post, each of the member at my place is using their own laptops, tablets, mobile phones and has their separate accounts with every company I normally… Read more »
Hey Abdul I’m sure you’re telling the truth but I’m glad flippa did this. Shows they take suspicious activity seriously nowadays. I personally know some brokers who shill bid there and made me extra cautious in using their platform. So kudos to flippa for taking steps from preventing such activity. Now specifically about your situation, who are these “couple family members”? It sounds really shady. Not saying it isn’t true…but it sounds suspicious. Plus all you have to do is comply with their request. Send in the docs. Simple as that. Anyway, hope all works out for you. In the… Read more »
Hey Ray,
Thanks for sharing your point of view which is appreciated 🙂
Their team did what is necessary for their platform but when explained, it should be sorted out without getting into unnecessary trouble by providing stuff Kevin asked for. It’s all about trust Ray. Hope you understands my point.
One them is my nephew and other brother in law.
Flippa’s customer service has gone down a lot recently and I totally agree with your decision.
DO NOT send them copies of your Passport or other important personal data because they have a very poor Data SecurityStorage and a slack Security Team and they were hacked last year and its just a matter of time before they have a bigger data breach and you definitely dont want your passport details in the wrong hands.
Thanks Jordan for the heads up. I didn’t knew about that. Although I am not sending them any documents but that would definitely help in case I need to inform someone else. I totally agree about their customer service. Let me tell you one more thing which Flippa needs to fix it. Just when my account got banned and I received email from Flippa, I responded back and got a ticket ID and while going to that page, it asked me to login and after entering details, it showed the message my account is banned. At least, they should allow… Read more »
EBAY is the same way.
I know your pain.
🙁
Thanks for the heads up. Never used EBAY so didn’t knew it because we cannot open PayPal account in Pakistan.
The same happened to me with sedo. They banned me and I asked reason, sent several emails…, but no reply from them. Also they kept my parking revenue them!
Later I changed to another platform, Now I get 50x inquiries for my names than at sedo. Thanks to sedo for banning me.
Thanks for sharing your story Joy 🙂
Good to see you changed the parking platform from Sedo as they are really bad in it. Keeping parking revenue and banning one’s account is really bad and unethical. It seems we were on the same boat. One day I may say thanks to Flippa for banning me too for some good reason on the way? 😉
Which one is it that you get 50x inquries? Would you let us know?
dns.
I get lot of inquiries for my domains, mainly for .xyz.
Sounds like good platform to get 50 plus enquiries. Which platform did you go to? GoDaddy? Afternic? or others? DNS? I am looking for good platform to sell as many domains as I can.
I think you missed it… Joy already mentioned DNS in his reply 🙂
You have been banned at SEDO because you list the domain there but do not honor the sale. Changing your mind and your words for little extra money, ALWAYS. sad, you are not at all reliable.
If you are quoting me for that, than you are completely wrong! I have never been banned by Sedo ever. Not sure where you found that!
It is not for you, Abdul. It is for JOY ANTONY.
Thanks for the clarification mate 🙂
I have no idea about Joy.
To Mr. Nick, Who are you? Are you from sedo? Or do you have any bad experience with me before? Have you tried to buy any names from me? If yes, show me, I will answer. You have to prove your words. I sold hundreds of domains this month, direct to buyers, not thru any brokers, mostly to buyers from China, they are very friendly and best to do business. I sold domains for more than usd60k this month and offers for another 60k now. No one has any complaint against me. I am a gentleman and do not like… Read more »
JOY,
You have been permanently banned from SEDO,for your unreliable actions. What other proof you need!!
Kevin responded back: “I hope you understand why the answer is no; unless your family members can provide separate identifications for each new account, our team will continue to uphold the ban. We take this very seriously, and as much respect I have for you, and hope to continue to work with you where possible, this is simply out of my personal control. It is a ToS / marketplace integrity issue, and we cannot cut anyone special treatment. Let me know if you have ideas as to how your relatives can work with us to adhere to this.” This seems… Read more »
Nick, I appreciate your time and efforts writing in. I didn’t need any special treatment or asked for something impossible. The simple thing here was trust which we had built for each other for quite some time… Let’s suppose you know me very well and we are buying/selling domains from each other. Sometimes you are pushing the domain at first and I am transferring the funds later without any problem. This creates trust and one day you ask me to transfer the domain first before I send you funds. I am sure you won’t like this behavior. No one can… Read more »
I understand the trust issue and understand that you are not in the same boat as others who renege. By asking them to bend their TOS for you, is asking for special treatment and breaking the rules. You may not see it that way though. Quote Kevin : It is a ToS / marketplace integrity issue, and we cannot cut anyone special treatment. Let me know if you have ideas as to how your relatives can work with us to adhere to this.” They didn’t close the door on you and asked you for suggestions to work with you. I… Read more »
Hey Nick,
I understand your point but having their member for over 3 years and knowing each other (Kevin) and giving all the necessary reasons behind those accounts cannot help in reinstating the other 2 accounts doesn’t make sense to me.
Also those 2 accounts were created long time back. May be around 1 year back from an entire different place but when we all are together at once place using same internet connection gets us banned! Instead of banning an account, check the account’s track record.
People knew Adam Dicker very well also, what a mess that has become.
You can’t compare him with me. Every individual is different yeah 🙂
Again you are giving them reasons and not willing to work within their rules. Sites update TOS all the time and you are expected to adhere to them and not be a rebel without a cause.
Trust and rules are entirely different aspects.
I might trust with my car, but expect you to follow the rules.
As for giving them your id’s, it’s not a big issue.
DN.com expects one and so do major auction places eg Sedo etc. if you are bidding over a certain limit.
Quoting you : it’s their loss
See the bigger picture, you lose too.
In short for me, trust is the most important aspect while doing any business activity. As you are talking about Sedo, several years back when 3 of our family members lived together, all had Sedo account and using from the same place/internet connection and each still has running. This year I bought and sold several names through Sedo but never ran into this issue. As far as you are talking about losing in a bigger picture so that’s not the case IMO because I can contact *ANY* domain owner directly and buy the domain which happens in many cases. In… Read more »
Sorry to read about your problem. Maybe try prycr dot com. Hope it works out.
Thanks Dave for stopping by and sharing that service. I was unaware of it and will definitely look out 🙂
On the other side, the domain prycr.com is a bit difficult to remember and fails radio test. Do you think it’s first choice going in the long run?
I had a similar experience with Flippa.com, My daughter signed up for their service under three accounts,not knowing about the multiple accounts rule. The reason she signed under under three accounts was merely to reflect my different domain collections of baby domains, business domains, and gambling domains. All my accounts were suspended, and despite my explanatory efforts to reinstate a single account, I was thereafter treated as a felon, for wanting to support their service.
Thanks for sharing your experience with their poor support team. I fully agree with you on their support team being very bad and it seems only Kevin is out there to help all of us. At least they could have listened you and reinstated one single account.
Good luck Flippa and their special supportive support team 😀
Don’t deal
With John W at flippa worst, rudest, most unprofessional minimum wage customer rep in history.
Flippa has failed to maintain a good exchange, just get spam of the same dumb auctions that keep being relisted by idiot sellers with unreal expectations.
I can understand why they banned you, same family members will similar accounts can collude to bump auctions, and extend, and raise bids. I guess previously they had a lot of this go on.
Flippa escrow avoid like the plague.
Thanks Ron for sharing your story. It seems you had a similar bad experience in past. I agree with you on people relisting domains several times with unreal expectations and that used to annoy me and at last I stopped following/watching that listing.
I don’t quite understand. Your nephew and your brother in law come over to your house just to use Flippa? Or do they all live with you. I have to admit, I can’t think of any reason to have multiple accounts on one IP unless its a place of business. It probably does look very fishy. Unless they have data showing that those accounts bid on each others names OR put up comments in the listings then they should at least let you keep your main account open Did any of the accounts ever comment on each others listings? Or… Read more »
Thanks for coming by and commenting Shane 🙂 Before I lived in a different city where I was operating Flippa account and both my nephew and brother in law opened their accounts from that city but not from my place (home). Since I moved to capital city, both came here to learn everything about domains and not just Flippa. Both are living with me for the last 4 months. As their accounts were initially created long time back from different places but they never bothered to use it unless we started living together for this particular purpose at this new… Read more »
To be honest here and this is long overdue in some respects, Flippa (domain-side) gets dumped on this way and that, especially on forums like namepros. Which to be honest (IMO), Flippa is the most “accessible” market for the majority of its members, especially if they’re trying to make a quick buck. It’s the ebay of domains lol. Anyways… You have people complaining that the security is too lax, and then you have people (like this example) who are complaining it’s too strict. I don’t know you personally, but whenever you do post, your posts are always ones that I… Read more »
Thanks for your detailed response Travis and I appreciate your kind words.
I can understand that you have used this example for the sake of an argument which I have no problem. Flippa is a great platform no doubt about that.
Haha. That’s right about someone thinking I got special treatment if all those accounts were reinstated. Although my was reinstated just because of Kevin. Otherwise their support team is so supportive that they don’t even bother to respond, let alone reinstating my account!
Thanks…just wanted to make sure you didn’t think I was attacking you!! haha. And good to hear. Not the best solution. But at least you have your account.
All good bro. Thanks 🙂
One IP can be shared by many people using the same house. from what you wrote on this post, I think Flippa should have checked with the accounts to see if there were any malicious activities from those accounts. If there were no wrong doings from those accounts, their accounts shouldn’t have been banned imo.
Thanks Domain Observer for your observation 🙂 Yeah, it should be allowed unless there is some suspicious activity going on from that IP. When I haven’t done anything wrong like shill bidding, failure of payment or any other relevant reason, how can an account be banned. Simply for having multiple accounts from the same internet connection. Now that means a father who wants to teach his son about domains and ask him to create his own account so that he shall learn and operates on his own in future so his account will get banned and he must use his… Read more »
There are a lot of IP sharing devices on the market for people using the same office, house or building. And I don’t think that’s illegal.
Exactly!
Let’s start banning all those accounts 😉
LOL. Good luck for you and have a nice day.
Thanks Domain Observer and wish you all the best too 🙂
Hi, I understand your frustrations but I am pleased they take this stance. Regardless of how trustworthy you are they simply do not have the resources to track activity and history on multiple accounts under the same IP address. If it was me I would delete the other accounts, get your original account re-instated (you don’t have to ever use it again) and move on. Keep your reputation at the highest possible level, it’s one of the most important things in this business. Things change with time.
I appreciate your feedback. I moved on since they didn’t reinstated other 2 accounts which were not at all in my personal use. They will follow their TOS and I will follow my rules which is to move on and look for other new opportunities.
Thanks DC for commenting 🙂
First thing is the response of the customer service team.
Accounts are banned because they are suspicious….this should have cleared after your reasons
They should have made the accounts in a group to avoid bidding/commenting among themselves.
Finally I think Flippa should have made some way out of this issue
Right on spot Ritzdomains 🙂
Sorry to hear about this Abdul.
I remember some time back I had something similar happen to me with eBay. They suspended me (for no real reason) and also suspended my father and friend because they said we were linked together!
I do hope it works out for you though.
Good luck Abdul.
-Omar
That’s crazy yeah for banning your account with no real reason as you mentioned. In the end, it’s their loss as you can use some other platform for buying/selling.
Thanks for your concern and sharing your story 🙂
I’ve not been long in the industry and it’s good reading all of this.
Both you and Flippa have good points but I’d like to suggest for things like this, why not use I.P cloning devices like http://www.hide.me or others for creating unique connections?
I’m not affiliated, just suggesting.
Cheers!
Thanks Williams for your suggestion 🙂
Not sure if that is against the TOS of Flippa. Was not aware of that service and will look into it for some future purpose. Thanks again 🙂
Hi AbdulBasit – and Hi to Everyone 🙂 I’d love to bring you back into Flippa, but it has to be under one account. Your family members can (and are welcome!) to get involved in the marketplace, but if you’re helping them, the IP addresses cannot match or be linked – even via faint suspicion. For all the bunk we take on banning accounts (we have stepped up security measures and suspended or banned 2x as many as we have in past years), this is a necessity to uphold the integrity of our Marketplace. While I oversee the Domains division… Read more »
@kevin, i’m sorry but it seems you have limited knowledge in marketing (maybe not) , for this czse there is a solution, why you are not proposing to pay 2 ip connection bills ? this will make Abdulbasit think about your proposal, because your TOS are limited to the imagination of your lawyers that did not think about a situation where a person can live in one place and do domaining, it can be a couple of domainers where both him and her are doing great domaining, so what you are asking ? use different ip’s ? are you serious… Read more »
Hi Kevin 🙂 Thanks for coming and sharing your views on this issue and your kind words for me. As said earlier, we cannot operate under one account just to use Flippa because it was going to create problems for us in bidding, payments (currency conversion), communication with sellers, etc. However, it’s good you guys are taking security stuff very seriously. That’s why instead of getting banned on permanent basis, I stopped using Flippa and asked them never to register or even visit Flippa else I would get banned. And I don’t want banned label under my name anywhere when… Read more »
Hello Abdul It is always sad to hear an user that have to send email everywhere to have an answer from an event happened in a reputable service. Btw I would like to suggest you a little trick. You could use your flippa account with your IP address and when your nefews are at your home they can also surf flippa without to be logged in into their account. As I’m sure they each have their own smartphone, when they want to do “actions” with their own account, they can turn on the hot spot mode on their mobile phone… Read more »
Thanks for your feedback and suggestion Paolo 🙂
Some other people on this blog and sent me emails too about the similar trick but I passed on. Actually I need things to be smooth and transparent for all parties involved in any action. But I appreciate your time and efforts in giving me and others (in similar position) about this trick which someone might apply in order to operate multiple accounts.
Good choice, IMHO Flippa is just a waste of time …
It’s way better dealing directly to end-users.
Congrats for your last sales!
I mean “latest sales” … oops, typo! 🙂
Good to see your feedback Andrea. I too think it’s good to contact endusers directly instead of using that platform but I will not use Flippa to find my type of domains and contact endusers. I have simply stopped using once and for all.
Thanks and more sales to come. Hopeful to disclose by next month 🙂
Pls help me out, I have similar case , but more pathethic, I do not even have any account, after I register 4yrs ago on flippa, last month and this month was the only time I was active, yet I was charged with multiple accounts and shilling, after much mail, they resolved that I was not shilling but insist that I have multiple accounts, I have 3 people to pay and they looked up my account, I am 120% sure that no one uses my laptop except me, Kindly help me on how to go about this, as if that… Read more »
Sad to hear about your story but it’s due to their super efficient marketplace integrity team. Anyhow, I would suggest you to contact Kevin Fink who will definitely help you as he is one nice guy at Flippa and will do his best.
kevin.fink@flippa.com or if you have NamePros.com account, his user ID is FlippaDomains and direct link to his profile https://www.namepros.com/members/flippadomains.959487/
Good luck!
Sorry to hear, @Andrea.
@Ab, I believe I have access to your case and will take a look.
@AbdulBasit Makrani, will you be at Namescon?
Thank you, as I state in the mail, I will be more than willing to show you all private or public details, proofs and verification.
Thanks for asking Kevin but unfortunately won’t be able to attend this year but definitely let you know once I plan to attend one in near future.
Hi AbdulBasit. Similar problem here. I have been for a long time on Flippa but the only transaction I have made is buying a site a couple of months ago. The transaction hasn’t even been completed because the seller has yet to transfer me the site files. However two days ago I received the same email saying that my account was banned due to “multiple account operation”. I wrote Flippa support and Josh W. replied saying that my account will not be reinstated. That’s all I got. I only have one account and have never opened more accounts, and nobody… Read more »
Thanks for sharing your concern and I hope Kevin will personally take a look into this issue or you may contact him directly as well. That’s the problem with Flippa. When they ban a member, that person is not able to send message. We might be in a serious talk with someone or have committed to purchase domain/site and suddenly gets disappear from the picture but in that case, seller won’t know why we got banned and even after getting reinstated, he might think we did something wrong although it’s the problem of Flippa Marketplace Integrity team who is banning… Read more »
hi abdulbasit,
I just want to get some advice regarding flippa as i am a new user from pakistan.Last week i made a listing of website and i got one bidder but i when i tried to send payment request there was no payoneer accoutn option and i am using just payoneer account for all my online business.
Can you tell me if there is someother payment menthod in pakistan that can be used on flippa or any third party from where i can transfer money to my payoneer accounts?.
REally need your guidence.Thanks in advance
Hey Faraz,
Well, I don’t use them anymore and don’t recall as well and won’t be accessing my account too so I couldn’t be any helpful to you in this regard.
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