$8,500 STOLEN by Prateek Jain & Chirag Shah

[simon]

i wonder why the seller is not responding in this thread.

[MAllie]

Is the seller the same person who has been looking for domains in the $1-$100 section, or is the name just very similar?

[pcproffenno]

The seller(s) should definitely be exposed, so they can be banned.

[Devil Dog]

Originally Posted by MAllie

Is the seller the same person who has been looking for domains in the $1-$100 section, or is the name just very similar?

Looks like it: http://www.dnforum.com/f201/domain-n...ad-313012.html

[GAMEFINEST]

Alot of fradulent activities, have to keep your guard up all the time.

[prateekj]

Thanks ck89102 for bringing this thread to light for me before things blow out of proportion (well they already may have). I hadn't yet commented on this thread because I didn't know it existed. It would have been much more professional of you Steen, to have invited me to the thread when you started it.

It just sometimes amazes me how easy it is to show just one side of the coin and get everyone to bet on that side too.

Let me begin explaining myself:

1. About the "Fraudulent Clicks"

Firstly, let me tell you that neither me, nor any of my clients are involved in any sort of Click Fraud. Feel free to go through my itrader rating and contact all the DNF members that I have dealt with in the past. I am sure all of them will vouch for me.

Secondly, I don't know if anyone noticed but the period of fraudulent clicks that Steen is talking about is from April to date. The domain was sold to him in February. Now, is he trying to say that we have been clicking on the domain that we sold to him 6 months back for the past 4 months??

2. Revenue Drop

Refer to the following stats as provided to me by Steen: http://img367.imageshack.us/img367/8282/chazeoq2.jpg

Now guys tell me one thing. Is there a single person on this Forum who hasn't seen a sudden drop in Parking revenue for American traffic over the past 5-6 months? I personally have seen my earnings drop of 70-80% on my American portfolio. In fact, I too have had some major domain purchases going bust because of the sudden fall in Domain parking.

Steen my friend, when there is a drop in RPC or CTR, there are only 2 parties you can blame: the Parking Provider (in this case DS) or the Ad feed provider (I guess its Google).

3. Traffic Drop

One thing that really shocked me too was the traffic drop in June. I mean I personally too cannot explain this extreme drop. It sure is a good enough typo to be receiving 10 UVs a day (if someone here has a S-Z typo, please back this claim).

The only 2 reasons I for the sudden drop that I can think of are either
i) DS has stopped accepting the traffic on this Domain, probably due to trademark concerns or a TM notification from chase or Google.
OR
ii) Highly unlikely, but a nameserver change by Steen could have caused the domain to stop resolving to the parked page for a while.

I only have one suggestion, try parking this name with an alternative parking provider. Try Parked since they have a Yahoo feed and Yahoo has shown me better revenues than Google on such domains in recent times.

4. The whole Prateek-Chirag fiasco

I assure you that Chirag and I are 2 completely different people. If the Mods need it, I can produce documents verifying this.
Chirag is an old friend of mine and I was selling this domain on his behalf as a favour to him. Trust me when I tell you that I have NOT made a Single Penny in this entire deal. As far as the email addresses go, its completely a matter of chance that they are so similar.

Still, I want to apologise to Steen for not having made the me-being-a-broker part earlier. It was just that I was a relatively new member here then and I wasn't sure on the forum's policy on Brokering.

5. About the Refund

Steen, as I told you in the mail, your stats clearly show that:
- The Fraudulent clicks started 2 months AFTER you bought the domain,
- The traffic dropped 4 months AFTER you bought the domain,
- The parking RPC has shown a drastic drop across the board for all domains industry wide.
Now, on the basis of which of the above can you claim a refund?
Tell me one thing, why is it that Typos/TMs are sold for 15-18 months revenue while generics sell for 48-60 months?
It is only and only because of the Risk involved. You never know when your domain might get banned or when you might receive a letter from the Company. Steen, you took a risk and maybe it did not pay off. Or maybe, you haven't been tapping the full potential of the domain. Instead of blaming Chirag and me for the drop in revenue, maybe you should have considered asking us for suggestions for keywords, landers etc.

I too recently bought a typo for a high $x,xxx amount and its making only a 3rd of what it was 4 months back when I bought it. The only reason I am not complaining is that I know that this phase in the parking industry is only temporary and soon the revenues should get back up to the previous levels. That is whats keeping me and most domainers going in this industry.

So before you guys jump to any conclusions, try looking at this from my point of view. Now that I know of this thread, I am ready to make any clarifications that you need.

[Steen]

Originally Posted by prateekj

It would have been much more professional of you Steen, to have invited me to the thread when you started it.

I offered you the benefit of the doubt and ability to solve this quietly and in private. You outright refused.

1. About the "Fraudulent Clicks"

Firstly, let me tell you that neither me, nor any of my clients are involved in any sort of Click Fraud.

If you are indeed not Chirag, how could you know if any of your clients are or are not involved in click fraud?

Secondly, I don't know if anyone noticed but the period of fraudulent clicks that Steen is talking about is from April to date. The domain was sold to him in February. Now, is he trying to say that we have been clicking on the domain that we sold to him 6 months back for the past 4 months??

Check Escrow, the transaction started March 1 and ownership confirmed March 19. Yes, I did test the domain for a few days in February but it was not purchased until March.

Reread the quote from DS: Going back in the data that's easy to get to (April 20th to present), it's got 91 clicks, 55 of which are flagged for user
excess clicking. Basically, mostly fraud
I am going based on what DS provided me. What is "easy to get" for them. The domain was acquired March 19. I am saying that it was falsely clicked on for at least two months following (April and May) - check the stats. Only a complete idiot would sell a click fraud domain and completely cut traffic the day after it sold.


How about this (also from DS)
The pub you bought the name from was terminated from DomainSponsor due to fraud
Care to explain this?

2. Revenue Drop

Refer to the following stats as provided to me by Steen: http://img367.imageshack.us/img367/8282/chazeoq2.jpg

Now guys tell me one thing. Is there a single person on this Forum who hasn't seen a sudden drop in Parking revenue for American traffic over the past 5-6 months? I personally have seen my earnings drop of 70-80% on my American portfolio. In fact, I too have had some major domain purchases going bust because of the sudden fall in Domain parking.

Steen my friend, when there is a drop in RPC or CTR, there are only 2 parties you can blame: the Parking Provider (in this case DS) or the Ad feed provider (I guess its Google).

Are you looking at the stats? RPC and CTR is not the issue. The traffic went from 299 in May to 4 in June. DS is saying the clicks since April are mostly fraud. Quit blaming the American economy as I assure you economic woes did not cause most domain names to lose 98% of their traffic in one month.

It sure is a good enough typo to be receiving 10 UVs a day (if someone here has a S-Z typo, please back this claim).

Explain what an SZ typo is.

i) DS has stopped accepting the traffic on this Domain, probably due to trademark concerns or a TM notification from chase or Google.
OR
ii) Highly unlikely, but a nameserver change by Steen could have caused the domain to stop resolving to the parked page for a while.

I only have one suggestion, try parking this name with an alternative parking provider. Try Parked since they have a Yahoo feed and Yahoo has shown me better revenues than Google on such domains in recent times.

As you know I have been in contact with DS over this issue. They certainly would have notified me if it were blocked. Clearly this is not the case as the domain continues to serve ads to this date.

Check the nameserver history. Since purchase it has been set to DS' DNS.

Your suggestion to park elsewhere is moot as the domain does not receive traffic and the traffic it used to receive was click fraud.

I assure you that Chirag and I are 2 completely different people. If the Mods need it, I can produce documents verifying this.
Chirag is an old friend of mine and I was selling this domain on his behalf as a favour to him. Trust me when I tell you that I have NOT made a Single Penny in this entire deal. As far as the email addresses go, its completely a matter of chance that they are so similar.

If he is an old friend of yours have him refund YOU the funds so YOU as the seller can refund me.

Still, I want to apologise to Steen for not having made the me-being-a-broker part earlier. It was just that I was a relatively new member here then and I wasn't sure on the forum's policy on Brokering.

You joined over a year ago and felt the need to lie to me not in public, but via PM about your position in the transaction?

Steen, as I told you in the mail, your stats clearly show that:
- The Fraudulent clicks started 2 months AFTER you bought the domain,
- The traffic dropped 4 months AFTER you bought the domain,
- The parking RPC has shown a drastic drop across the board for all domains industry wide.

- This is based on reports DS quality team would easily generate. Surely it is not the whole truth as the DS account which the domain was previously in was terminated.
- If it dropped immediately you would have not got the funds from Escrow or even gotten as far as Escrow. Click fraud is a controlled activity.
- RPC averages over $12/click for this domain which is unrealistic. The "drop" in RPC is not the issue whatsoever.

Now, on the basis of which of the above can you claim a refund?
Tell me one thing, why is it that Typos/TMs are sold for 15-18 months revenue while generics sell for 48-60 months?
It is only and only because of the Risk involved. You never know when your domain might get banned or when you might receive a letter from the Company.

This has nothing to do with TM/generic domains. The issue is that the domain's traffic was a result of click fraud. Traffic was manipulated to sell this domain at hugely inflated price.

So before you guys jump to any conclusions, try looking at this from my point of view. Now that I know of this thread, I am ready to make any clarifications that you need.

Good- you will need to clarify a lot because your above arguments make very little sense. Anyone with experience in domaining/monetization will see right through them.

Where is your "old friend" Chirag in all of this? If what you are saying about him is factual then he has some explaining to do and owes you $8500.

[trader]

Something I find interesting about this affair is the name itself.

IMO, Chaze would be a very rare typo for Chase as far as spellig error goes. There are Chase banks everywhere. They just built 2 new Chase Banks in my neighborhood only 2 miles apart. It seems like most everyone would know how to spell Chase. I guess the traffic it did get was the result of the S and Z keys being near each other?

[cjmacd]

When I look over the stats and quotes provided by Steen and Prateek it seems to lean very heavily that this is a case of click fraud.

Steen is clearly a victim here and it may be possible that Prateek is as well.

I can speak from experience here, a number of years ago I was in the same sort of predicament, I was assisting with a then large sale (some of the veterans will remember that one). Found an interested buyer fairly quickly, Long story short and unfortunately the domain turned out to be a stolen one. I acted more as the seller in that case and responsibility for the deal pretty much landed on me, at least in the eyes of everyone of the industry. Much like you Prateek, I was caught in the middle. I can 100% empathize.

At that point I had two options open to me.
1) I could have stuck to my guns that I had done nothing wrong and completely wash my hands of the situation. This, quite possibly could have damaged my reputation I worked so hard to establish.

Or

2) I could take the high road, and even though it would set me back temporarily, I could arrange to make good with the buyer who was obviously a victim as well. While this option would not be a good one financially for me it did have the saving grace that I would able to come out as the good guy.

I chose the latter, sure it set me back a little bit and I had to climb back up to where I was, but my reputation was in tact in fact I was able to make many more solid business relationships as a result of it. I also didn’t have the luck of the ”owner” being a long time friend of mine. Unfortunately I was unable to get the money from him, and had to take the loss on the chin. Hopefully you would be able to have better luck with Chirag.

It does seem seems you did act as the seller in this case.

The point is that situations like can have a Devastating effect on your business reputation. In this industry your reputation is everything. It’s your good word, your trustworthiness; it lets people know you are someone who they would enjoy to do business with. Like it or not, it can have a great effect on future success.


$8500 is a decent sum of money, and unfortunately the domain doesn’t seem to be living up to is sales claim.

If I were in your shoes Prateek, (I once was) I would try my very best to give a partial refund for the name, minus the money earned by the name so far (I’m sure Steen would comply)

Anyway that is my 2 cents.

cjmacd

[Duckinla]

interesting situation. chasestudentloans.com was created in 2001. If this were truly a valuable typo with that much traffic and revenue, hard to imagine it would have remained unregistered until 2008, given all the tasting going on.

On the other hand, it's just possible that seasonality is a factor. Possibly student loan applications are heavy from Jan-May, and greatly reduce when school lets out in June. But it seems DS has already verified that multiple clicks were coming from one source, not just with this domain but with others owned by the same person.

[Focus]

Speaking from experience.."Z" instead of "S" typos usually get little to no traffic..take Bahamaz dot com for example...the domain Bahamas dot com surely gets ALOT more traffic that a chase student loans domain..and I have Bahamaz dot com, it is lucky to get a stray visitor here and there..and it even sounds like it is spelled with a "z"! I remember this typo and seeing stats on it when it was for sale and I thought to myself what a bunch of BS! or should I say BZ?

My advice to buyers of names like this is a traffic test at a parking company where you can track the referrers. Also, get at least 90 days of stats and above all, go generic if you can! The weather is much nicer over on the good side

[trader]

Exactly what I was thinking. Chaze is a very dubious value typo as per my last post. Your Bahamas(z) example is excellent with that one a significantly better typo than Chaze is but still little traffic.

It is also a good point that Bahamas sounds like it ends with a Z but Chase in fact sounds like an S.

I fail to see how the name being such a poor quality typo could have done nearly as well as claimed and surprised it sold for such a high price and believe the domain to be of little if any value ($00 what with the Wipo risk involved and these kind of names now being blacklisted by parking firms).

Originally Posted by Focus

Speaking from experience.."Z" instead of "S" typos usually get little to no traffic..take Bahamaz dot com for example...the domain Bahamas dot com surely gets ALOT more traffic that a chase student loans domain..and I have Bahamaz dot com, it is lucky to get a stray visitor here and there..and it even sounds like it is spelled with a "z"! I remember this typo and seeing stats on it when it was for sale and I thought to myself what a bunch of BS! or should I say BZ?

My advice to buyers of names like this is a traffic test at a parking company where you can track the referrers. Also, get at least 90 days of stats and above all, go generic if you can! The weather is much nicer over on the good side

[Focus]

Word.

[rentdn]

Originally Posted by Focus

Speaking from experience.."Z" instead of "S" typos usually get little to no traffic..take Bahamaz dot com for example...the domain Bahamas dot com surely gets ALOT more traffic that a chase student loans domain..and I have Bahamaz dot com, it is lucky to get a stray visitor here and there..and it even sounds like it is spelled with a "z"! I remember this typo and seeing stats on it when it was for sale and I thought to myself what a bunch of BS! or should I say BZ?

My advice to buyers of names like this is a traffic test at a parking company where you can track the referrers. Also, get at least 90 days of stats and above all, go generic if you can! The weather is much nicer over on the good side

Exactly ....

[gemsergio]

Well if I remember correctly the domain was getting very small traffic and very high RPC.
It was very easy for them to fake this traffic IMO a couple of proxy click per day and voila.
Never buy small typo with huge revenue per click IMO. Many times are ver fishy.
The registration date does not really matter you can register some kind of names like that everyday.
Cheers

[trader]

The price paid was extermely excessive to begin with even without prior knolwedge about the low traffic.

[cjmacd]

Has there been any sort of resolution?

This seems very fishy…

I personally haven’t noticed any dips in my PPC revenue on my domains, so it would be hard pressed for me to believe that such a deviation was because of a “poor economy”

As for the huge drop in traffic
The only thing I can think is that maybe it had some link traffic that was bringing in some traffic, and now possibly those links are now gone.

Steen, was there much link pop when you got the domain? My experience with good typo names is they have little inbound links if any. But maybe this could be an explanation, albeit far fetched.

I’ve seen “typo” traffic disappear just after the dust settles in the past.

A couple of months later the traffic starts to go down and down and you begin to wonder if some underhandedness went on. But going down to almost 0 and no more revenue that’s really fishy :/

Just playing devils advocate here.

It seems to be a name about “Student Loans” you could consider that a little seasonal

http://www.google.com/trends?q=%22st...ate=ytd&sort=0

if that was correct, you should be seeing a nice upswing in revenue / traffic , going into July. Since this is almost august if it was legit traffic you should see something on it.


How is it performing now?

[Raider]

Originally Posted by prateekj

Firstly, let me tell you that neither me, nor any of my clients are involved in any sort of Click Fraud. Feel free to go through my itrader rating and contact all the DNF members that I have dealt with in the past. I am sure all of them will vouch for me.

How does your itrader rating in anyway prove your not involved in click fraud?

I would of asked the parking provider to examine the stats before I paid anything for this domain.. Why don't you give DS or the parking provider permission to release stat information to the buyer? I think that would put the issue to rest.

Originally Posted by Duckinla

interesting situation. chasestudentloans.com was created in 2001. If this were truly a valuable typo with that much traffic and revenue, hard to imagine it would have remained unregistered until 2008, given all the tasting going on.

On the other hand, it's just possible that seasonality is a factor. Possibly student loan applications are heavy from Jan-May, and greatly reduce when school lets out in June. But it seems DS has already verified that multiple clicks were coming from one source, not just with this domain but with others owned by the same person.

Welcome back Duck

[Rezarekta]

I looked at Prateek's profile... he has been on daily since his last post in this thread.

I don't understand why he doesn't come back to explain what is going on here. This is looking extremely shady. Definitely looks like Steen was taken for over $8,000 here.

Best of luck getting the money back

[prateekj]

I apologize for not having responded for so long. I need some hard evidence of some sort of click fraud before i can go after Chirag on this one. From what Steen has told me, I agree that it does look a bit murky but I cannot pursue this matter with Chirag until I have proof that He was the one involved in click fraud when he owned the domain, since Chirag himself claims that he was not involved in any such activities.

Now only the DS team can provide this info since it was parked with them even when Chirag owned it. Believe me, over the past few days I have been trying to get their help in this matter. I have shot them 3 mails with no response yet.

I am trying my level best to clear this matter since it is my reputation that is at stake. As soon as I get a response from DS, I will be getting back to this thread. Steen, if I do get proof that Chirag was involved in click fraud, you will have my full support in this matter. I personally cannot pay you such a sum as frankly, I don't have that sort of money. However, I will fully help you in getting the money out of Chirag as long as i have the necessary proof. Until then, we are just making assumptions.