Person not paying for domain I sold him. Help! What do I do?

[dotNetKing]

This is the first time in about 50 deals that I have had a problem collecting money for a domain.

The domain name: isus.net, now with directnic.com
cost: US$200

The guy wanted to pay half before transfer and half after.

He paid US$100 to my PayPal account which had just become frozen.

We agreed that I would refund him the US$100 and he would pay me by check/que.

I, perhaps too trustingly, transfered the name to him.

It is now over a month and still no sign of the transatlantic cheque.

The guy replied to one or two of my e-mails saying "hadn't the cheque arrived yet?", but I have heard nothing more from him since 3rd February, despite a reply to him the same day and a reminder on 5th February.

I tried phoning the number on the WHOIS information but it was not answering.

Anybody have any suggestions on what I should do next?

I'm thinking of contacting his registrar, although I don't expect they will want to have anything to do with that.

Could contact paypal, but don't think it is their problem either.

Could send a few more e-mails.

Could threaten to publicise the case on the internet. (Or may be better still just publicise it).

I did see one of his web pages before the trouble started where he actually said he used to do identity fraud, while at school, but stopped when he got found out. The web page talked about web cams he was going to set in his house, but I can't find the page now of course.

Any suggestions gratefully received,

Thanks.

dotNetVictim

[Rocket2Uranus]

Ouch. I think you are screwed.

It's cases like this that escrow is for.

Sorry!

[nameslave]

Originally posted by dotNetKing
He paid US$100 to my PayPal account which had just become frozen.

Do you mean it's YOUR account that was frozen? Do you know why?

[Banned: bidawinner]

Hack the domain.. bring the domin.. he has not intentions of paying... dont ever let him set a site up at that address..bring it down everytime he tries

Or simply make his life miserable by calling everyday..
http://www.register.com/whois-result...7a3cab49351cc8

Harass the H out of the ahole..

at least until he pays..or you feel better !

Was the buyer from this board?

If so this is a nother reason why we need a "Banned" members thread...

[dotNetKing]

Originally posted by FrontRow
Ouch. I think you are screwed.

It's cases like this that escrow is for.

Sorry!

Thanks for your sympathy. :(

Actually, If I had used escrow on the other 49 deals, I would have lost out around US$2,500 in international wiring fees (or had the hassle of getting familly members to bank US$ checks in a UK banque.

(This is about almost 20% of total income from sales)

(plus the escrow fees if any that I agreed to be responsible for).

So I guess it is like any business - there will always be losses due to theft, but it isn't too bad as long as they remain a small percentage of revenue/profits.

Thanks again for your commiseration FrontRow

[Rocket2Uranus]

Short of escrow, I would NEVER let go of a domain before full payment clears. That seems to be standard operating procedure in this biz.

But I know you don't need to hear that now. Experience is a great teacher.

[dotNetKing]

Originally posted by nameslave

Do you mean it's YOUR account that was frozen? Do you know why?

Yes, my account was frozen near the end of January this year.

It had already been frozen once in August 2002, but after faxing documents and them telling me that they had decided to permanently restrict my account and I had no right to appeal (!?), they finally lifted after I appealed.

I haven't been able to unfreeze that account yet, and I think the reason is because although I am a Brit and my account is a UK one, I am living in Peru. Peru is not on their list of acceptable countries, and I think they do IP checks.

It's a pain. :(

[dotNetKing]

Originally posted by FrontRow
Short of escrow, I would NEVER let go of a domain before full payment clears. That seems to be standard operating procedure in this biz.

But I know you don't need to hear that now. Experience is a great teacher.

Thanks for the reminder. I'll be a lot more cautious in the future. If someone really wants the domain, they can pay up front or pay any additional costs and we'll do it with escrow.

[dotNetKing]

Originally posted by bidawinner
Hack the domain.. bring the domin.. he has not intentions of paying... dont ever let him set a site up at that address..bring it down everytime he tries

Don't know how to do that bit. :(

Or simply make his life miserable by calling everyday..
http://www.register.com/whois-result...7a3cab49351cc8

Harass the H out of the ahole..

at least until he pays..or you feel better !

But I can try that (evil grin)

Was the buyer from this board?

No. 'Fraid not.

I'll give it a little while to see if there are any other suggestions and then I'll try the hassle bit.

[dotNetKing]

I've just checked the isus.net page again, and he has recently changed it.

It looks like he might be up to some scam there.

Try looking at the source code of his page purportedly selling Norton Anti-Virus. It's some weird one line script.

You can't right click his links. Very fishy.

On further checking he is selling a US$49.95 product ( Norton AntiVirus 2003) for US$29.95, and the download is from

http://216.71.118.69/norton2003.exe

http://216.71.118.69/ is a "forbidden" page

[WildCard]

what the heck? I couldn't right click anything, or highlight anything on that page. did you check out the source code? It's encrypted somehow. Anyone know what's going on there?

-WC-

[dotNetKing]

I've written an e-mail to Norton asking if they could possibly check that the guy is selling a bona fide product

Whether my e-mail will ever actually get to the right person, I have some doubts.

The script looks like it jumbles up the html text.

You can actually get to his order form and thankyou page at the following links.

http://www.isus.net/order.htm

http://www.isus.net/thankyou.htm

I had to keep flicking my cursor over the links for 5 minutes until I could catch what the link was. (It is possible using Netscape Navigator if you have a quick eye!)

[WildCard]

Yeah, i did the same in IE6. Somehow that status bar is refreshed an immense amount of times.

Pretty impressive script.

-WC-

[WildCard]

Wait, instant download? Certainly this is not legit...

-WC-

[dotNetKing]

I wonder what the norton.exe file that you download actually does!!!! (I'm not going to try it!

[WildCard]

yeah, that would be interesting - sell a program that should help you, but it backwardly hurts you.

-Wc-

[Rocket2Uranus]

Originally posted by dotNetKing
I've written an e-mail to Norton asking if they could possibly check that the guy is selling a bona fide product

Good start!

[avs162]

you might want to report the name to icann for having false whois information as well as in this case it might be justified as opposed to preying on simply incorrect info to try to force drop.

dont know if this would work or even be appropiate to do but if the guy screwed you i would think all bets were off.

its strange that his transfer of money coincided with paypal freezing your account did he get the 100.00 back on a paypal complaint maybe?

shame that this happens and forces ethical sellers to use expensive methods or transfer.

there should be some kind of database with known fraudsters being listed after being given adequete chance to respond to listing.

lot of work maybe but i rent apartments and local landlords have list of the tennats they have evicted for nonpay in the past and it works


who knows

good luck and not going to download that exe either very strange protocol. if he has a billing option for something the credit reciepts will show who was paid.

sounds like he should have paid the 200 would have been cheaper in the long run

[TexasFilly]

Sorry too hear of your trials with regards to rec'ing payment for the domain, and also the situation with PayPal. Your not alone, I've heard many horror stories about frozen paypal accts.

you might find this payment service of use:

www.StormPay.com

(I'm not recommending them, I'm just suggesting this payment method.. they are new on the payment processing scene, and I have absolutely no experience with them what so ever)

goodluck

[DomainPairs]

I use www.auctionpix.co.uk to convert dollar cheques into sterling. If you get them to pay directly into a UK bank account they make no charges for the conversion. They use the NatWest spread and make a small profit from this. It's a bit slower than a normal bank (around 9 days) but it means you get something for those small $25 aff. cheques.