Bad experience with a member here

[josdo]

Hi,

I had a bad experience with a member of DNForum. He cheated me to sell 13 revenue domain names. I want to expose this guy to this industry as Ed from Namedrive's suggestion. I created a ticket with DNForum but I am not sure it's a right place to report this problem. I want to send a message to the admin of this DNForum first, and after that I will expose this scammer to the forum. Please let me know whom should I report to? Where do I report or post this problem? Thanks

[theinvestor]

How did he cheat you?

[Acro]

Sounds like an issue with traffic domains.

[longhorn]

Tell us what happened

[DotComGod]

Post the whole story if you like.

-=DCG=-

[Admin]

moved here

As Adam says, post away and expose the guy!

[josdo]

Hi,

This is a brief story.

From August 19/2008 to Oct 06/2008, I bought 13 domain names from this guy Silverdom based on their revenue stats he showed to me. I paid over $16,xxx for these 13 domains. I parked these domains at NameDrive as he parked these domains before he sold them to me. After over one month, the revenue of these domains was good as I expected until I realized their Views and Clicks drop down a lot. I sent a message Ed (from NameDrive) and posted a message in this DNForum to ask why the Views and Clicks of my domains drop down so much (drop 2/3). Ed sent back a message below to explain about this:

"the traffic on these domains was clearly not real and the clicks was manufactured to make the earnings appear higher. This is the most obvious explanation for the drop in traffic on your domains as the seller is no longer faking the traffic to make up for your purchase price."

After investigating about this case, NameDrive suspended his account since he also has problems with NameDrive such as driving traffic to his domains and clicking on them to drive the earnings up before he sold them to me and others.

He also has an account at NamePros with nick Teabag. I bought these domains in the DNForum and NamePros Forum. So I report this problem to both DNForum and NamePros to expose this bogus seller to the industry and we can ensure that this doesnot happen again to someone else in the future.

Please help me to expose this scammer Silverdom (DNForum) and Teabad (NamePros) and kick him out of your forum. I appreciate if you give me a suggestion or advice. Thank you very much

Sorry, this scammer is Silverdom (DNForum) or Teabag (NamePros) not Teabad.

[stewie]

sorry to hear this ...josdo hope somehow it works out. where is the original post?

thanks for the headups

[longhorn]

Originally Posted by josdo

Hi,"the traffic on these domains was clearly not real and the clicks was manufactured to make the earnings appear higher. This is the most obvious explanation for the drop in traffic on your domains as the seller is no longer faking the traffic to make up for your purchase price."

After investigating about this case, NameDrive suspended his account since he also has problems with NameDrive such as driving traffic to his domains and clicking on them to drive the earnings up before he sold them to me and others.

Was ND's response of fake clicks/traffic stated before they launched an investigation of the user? Meaning did ND know about the problem before you brought it to their attention? If so, that would not be good.

[josdo]

Nope, ND didn't know about this problem until I sent a message to Ed. When I bought the fourth domain in these 13 domains, I asked Aidan (from NameDrive too) to confirm its traffic for me since it was an inspecting period for this domain. He answered that its traffic if type-in traffic. That the reason why I trusted this guy Silverdom and keep continue buying some more domains. Ed said that the reason Aidan didn't know the traffic is a generated traffic because its traffic had only been with ND less than 48 hours in my account. But Aidan didn't let me know that traffic was less than 48 hours with them and I had to wait for more days. As a newbie in this industry, I don't know about that and I trusted Aidan's response. Now I have problem with all 13 domains. If you are in my case, you cannot control of prevent if the seller keep continue clicking on ads of you domains.

[Acro]

Were these domains generic? If not, how would you expect the traffic to remain at a sustained level?

[simon]

never buy revenue domains which were registered after 2007, most of them have fake traffic
-not sure when your names were regged

[longhorn]

Originally Posted by simon

never buy revenue domains which were registered after 2007

I get what you are trying to say but not sure that is the best advice from my own experience.

[josdo]

Acro,
I don't expect the traffic to remain at a sustained level. Of course, the traffic can be changed day by day, month by month. But the Views and Clicks were reduced 2/3 to 3/4 (100 clicks/day in average reduced to 30 clicks/day) in one day after I let this guy Silverdom know that I suspected their traffic and I sent a message to Ed to check the traffic. Because that time he still wanted to sell some more names to me, after hearing this, he didn't reply my message and ran away. The traffics haven't come back as before. As a customer, I don't know their traffics were fake or were generated or not. But Ed confirmed to me that they were generated by Silverdom and his contacts, and the fraud was not on my side.

Simon,
Some of these names were regged in 2004, 2005; some were regged in 2007

[Seraphim]

Josdo, next time consult with an experienced member here before buying traffic domains. There are lots of trustworthy folks here.

[josdo]

Seraphim,
Thanks for your advice. I'm sure most of times you want to buy a domain name, you don't ask people about it. Sometimes, you want a quick buy before other people can get it. Right? In my case, I asked Aidan from NameDrive in the inspection period. He sent me an email to confirmed that the traffic of the domain is natural and type in traffic. However, I still have a problem with its traffic now. When you want to buy a revenue domain, you get a response from an employee of NameDrive, Parked or Sedo etc... Do you trust them? Of course, I did. I know there are a lot of experienced domainers here but also have a lot of scammers here.

[longhorn]

Originally Posted by josdo

Seraphim,
Thanks for your advice. I'm sure most of times you want to buy a domain name, you don't ask people about it. Sometimes, you want a quick buy before other people can get it. Right? In my case, I asked Aidan from NameDrive in the inspection period. He sent me an email to confirmed that the traffic of the domain is natural and type in traffic. However, I still have a problem with its traffic now. When you want to buy a revenue domain, you get a response from an employee of NameDrive, Parked or Sedo etc... Do you trust them? Of course, I did. I know there are a lot of experienced domainers here but also have a lot of scammers here.

Yeah I think some of the blame here lies with ND unfortunately.

[theinvestor]

This is why you shouldn't buy traffic names based purely on traffic. I prefer generic names that receive traffic instead.

Josdo,

This isn't really your fault though. We are straying from the issue here. The fact is you got scammed and i'd like to hear Silverdom's story. Is he going to pay you back or what? This is not just an "oh well i got scammed". I want you to get reimbursed.

[josdo]

theinvestor,
One week ago, I sent a message to this guy Silverdom (Teabag) to request him reimburse my money. I said that I accept to lose 20% of the total of $16,xxx. But he's never replied my message. We use Escrow.com for most of my transactions. I just used paypal for the last two transactions. I filed an Unauthorized Activity Claim in the Resolution Center at Paypal. However, they have denied my Unauthorized Account Use Claim. I plan to appeal this decision since they didn't ask me anything, they just ask the scammer. Does anyone has experience with this problem?

NameDrive blocked my domains (not suspended my account) as Ed explained that the only way ND can prevent fraud clicks from the seller. ND didn't pay the revenue of September for my account too even though it's not my fault. Yes, I accept that ND doesn't pay the whole total of revenue, but a portion. Right? It's not my fault, so if ND doesn't pay, it's not fair for me. Now I moved my domains to another parking company and the clicks and revenue is 1/3 compare with last month. These domains still have some traffics and I believe so. But not much as the scammer cheated me. I hope Ed can solve this problem for me.

[nameadvertising.com]

Josdo,
Future traffic and and revenues cannot be guaranteed. However, as in your case, a fraud is a fraud. The least your seller can do is - Respond.

Adam, I had casually proposed to implement a rule within the forum for traffic/revenue in one of earlier threads that traffic/ revenue domains which are listed for sale must have a minimum of 12 months in stats - mandatory. And with no exceptions.

1] This will give a buyer enough evidence of the legitimacy of the domain stats/revenue.

2] It will give a parking company enough time to scan for possible click fraud.

It is one thing to offer sympathy here and another to do something about it.

I expect DNForum to implement this rule soon or at the very least consider it with some modifications.

Thanks