Safest way to buy/sell a website?

[carjamlangley]

PLEASE tell me how you all protect yourselves when you buy or when you sell your websites.

Buyers want "proof of revenue" but I truly doubt screenshots really mean anything. Seems like anyone proficient in Photoshop could come up with a great looking screenshot.

Sellers can get into trouble by assuming a paypal payment to be gold, and from what I understand the process at escrow.com doesn't really protect the seller either.

The best method I can figure is to trust the reputation that people gain from from being active on the webmaster forums, like ******** and *********, etc. But even that isn't foolproof...I suppose someone could make little transactions to get a good name then make big money by selling junk for a lot of dough, then jump ship from there.

I've come to the point of either looking for some kind of super web expert/lawyer guy (do you know of any?) or only spending what I can afford to loose.

What is the real proof? How do you guys do this without getting screwed???

 

[Brett Lewis]

You can always have your attorney hold escrow on the domain name and funds until they have both cleared. Also, an attorney should be able to assist with the due diligence. You might even try holding some amount of the purchase price in escrow until after the transaction clears and the traffic figures bear out.

Hope these help.


Best,

Brett E. Lewis, Esq.
Lewis & Hand, LLP
www.lewishand.com

 

[SouthernTn]

Well, if you want to save money, you can do it yourself through escrow without the use of an attorney. Its pretty easy


Always provide big screenshots. Telling the buyer it means nothing only leads them to the assumption that you're trying to pull one over on them.


If you dont have proof, be upfront about it. Which will most likely result in the loss of a sale, but you can't blame them.

 

[G_Gekko]

Perhaps monikers Escrow service could be for you. They have much better protection for the seller from what I hear.

 

[carjamlangley]

I did a search for monikers escrow on Google and didn't find anything. Did find a website of some band named the Monikers though

I like the lawyer idea but don't know of any that have specific knowledge in buying and selling websites. I think I would know more than my lawyer if I found just anyone, so it would have to be some kind of internet guru lawyer...(seems like a good niche for someone to get into.) That sounds expensive, but maybe appropriate.

Thanks for your thoughts. Very helpful.

Nevermind. Just found Moniker. I was searching for "monikers" and so I got completely different results.

I'm really liking what I'm reading so far on their homepage. I would only go with an escrow service that has a good reputation with other webmasters and it looks like this one does.

Thanks again.

 

[G_Gekko]

Moniker dot com

check under domain services.

 

[flybuzz]

always ask tons of questions first.

 

[totenmaske]

Does the domain have to be registered at Moniker for them to handle the Escrow?

 

[carjamlangley]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I don't believe it does. They will also help you with writing up a purchase agreement for $100 extra (at least that's what the guy told me a couple of weeks ago). I really liked the phone support at Moniker. With my last purchase, I decided I trusted the seller enough to not use an escrow service and so I typed up my own purchase agreement. It took quite awhile to research what I needed to think about and then writing it was a pain. I finally came to the conclusion that I didn't save any time/money by opting to write my own purchase agreement.

 

[GT Web]

Does the domain have to be registered at Moniker for them to handle the Escrow?

No, you can always transfer the domain to Moniker from another registrar when using them for Escrow.

Moniker's Escrow is far and away the best out there, much better than Escrow.com for basically the same money.