Hello and Assalamo Alaikum,
It’s been a great year overall and was hoping to end with something more good. However, I was hit with a bad news and that came from Pheenix.com which was a good platform some years back but for quite some time they are losing their reputation exponentially.
A week back I received an email from Pheenix that an auction has started for domain MEP.co and since I showed interest some time back (most probably the time of backordering when it was dropped in 2016) so I can participate in that auction which lasted for 3 days.
After winning the domain couple of days back I tried to transfer out and received authorization code. While transferring, the FOA (form of authorization) email was sent to some other email ID which looked suspicious. I went ahead and checked WHOIS and found the contact details are completely different than what I have set default at Pheenix.
So I decided to contact and explained the complete situation to Pheenix, they responded with “This domain is no longer managed by us.” That was strange response since I participated in auction, won and my card was charged. And they told the domain is no longer managed by us!
I replied with:
“But there was auction for this domain and I received email from you of winning the domain. Also your system deducted money from my credit card.
What’s wrong with you guys? If a domain is not owned by you then how can you auction and deduct money from my card and fails to deliver the domain???”
As expected it was another nonsensical response from their side:
“Nothing is wrong with us.
The domain was mislisted. We have now reversed the charge so you should be good to go.
Please keep in mind that non com/net domain extensions may sometimes be mislisted in the Expired Domains marketplace and to double check whois to confirm that it is still with us.”
That’s utter nonsense from Pheenix by showing such irresponsible and unprofessional behavior. It’s run by a bunch of fraudsters. Now that’s not any domain buyer’s duty to check WHOIS before buying domain from auction platform like Pheenix because I’m not buying a domain from any individual where I need to check if the domain is stolen or not owned by the person I’m dealing with.
If that’s the case, we all need to keep checking WHOIS for all domains we regularly buy at GoDaddy Auctions, NameJet, DropCatch, etc.
Pheenix is no longer a trustworthy platform and I don’t plan to use them in future like I stopped using Flippa which is another dreadful platform… at least for me…
Well, there is nothing wrong or to blame the current owner of the domain. It’s the Pheenix who is responsible for causing this trouble and the least they could do was to admit their mistake but they have no regret of doing fraudulent activity.