Posts Tagged ‘never use Flippa.com’

Reason why I will NEVER use Flippa in future

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?

Reason-why-I-will-never-use-Flippa-in-future

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?