Domain name drop SEDO Buy it Now

[stevieboy1101]

I am looking to buy a domain name for buy it now price through SEDO.

The domain is currently in a redemption period and will be free to renew in a few weeks time if no one registers it before me.

The domain is being sold for low 3 figures and is not exactly premium. However i would like it.

The problem is that i want rights to both .co.uk and .uk for obvious reasons. The Sedo seller doesn't reference rights to .uk in the SEDO description.

I spoke to Sedo sales team who wow't allow me to speak to the seller to make sure they don't cynically register the .uk domain once i purchase the .co.uk domain.

I don't know whether to wait for the domain name drops and take my chances or to buy the domain through Sedo blind. Where a multitude of horribleness (baring in mind this is SEDO) can go wrong whereby the seller re-registers the domain and refuses to sell and then later increases the asking price or tries to hawk the .uk .

The domain is for a new business and not for me to flip .

I'd like to speak to the seller directly to clear this up. Any advice from people with a similar problem would be helpful

Thanks

 

[RobM]

Don't buy anything through sedo. They sold cwr.com to someone, which was stolen, took the money and then closed the issue after the domain was returned to the rightful owner. You can't trust them to get proof of ownership. As they have ignored this on other forums I would give them a very wide berth.
Also in the past I purchased (what I thought was domain with rights) and after the 'sale' they registered the .uk and said it wasn't included. I contacted sedo with that info and asked the sale to be nullified. Sedo didn't want to know and are still trying to invoice me to this day. Absolutely appalling company.

 

[diablo]

Have you checked to see if the name is listed for sell elsewhere?

 

[Adam H]

Is the domain registered to a certain tag ? The seller maybe on this forum and you maybe able to confirm uk inclusion and possibly negotiate a slightly lower price due to no Sedo fee's

 

[Systreg]

I spoke to Sedo sales team who won't allow me to speak to the seller to make sure they don't cynically register the .uk domain once i purchase the .co.uk domain.

You don't need to speak to the seller, request Sedo to contact the seller and ask them if the rights to register the .uk are included in the sale.

[edit]

It says this on Sedo sales pages, which fits with asking Sedo to ask the buyer:

Important Notice
This offer only relates to the .co.uk domain. If the purchase of this domain also includes / rights to register the .uk TLD, it needs to be clarified by the seller. Please check the description below for information or in doubt ask the seller or our customer support.

 

[dee]

As mentioned by Adam H, might be worth asking if the TAG holder is on here if its anything other than a godaddy or a 123 reg for example.

 

[Nigel]

Would like to post some defence of sedo here. I can only speak from personal experience but our company has been using them since 2003 and are happy with the service. Transfer staff are courteous and help where they can. You do get some sales that don't complete but that's down to unreliable people and you'd get that anywhere. We've tried other platforms but have always found sedo to be the best. You have to realise that sedo probably account for over half the sales reported - see dnjournal.com so there's bound to be some problems somewhere.

 

[RobM]

I was also using them from 2003 and I estimate that in commissions and cuts alone I have given them around $150,000 over the years. That doesn't change the fact that now they are very shoddy - the days of helpful people like Nora have gone and they no longer seem to care about the quality of the site or the perception of their business. They are aloof, unhelpful, arrogant, and now entering the realms of costing people money due to their incompetence. If a domain seller that takes a HEFTY commission for doing nothing can't even be bothered to perform a bit of due diligence in protecting buyers and sellers by ascertaining ownership then what, exactly, is their purpose? They have a marketplace. That's it. They are doing nothing for the industry.

 

[Nigel]

fair enough Rob - all I'm saying is that I haven't encountered those problems. I agree that they have become complacent in certain areas. Their landing pages were beautiful in the early days and don't know why they didn't put more resources into that area of the business. The staff I deal with are helpful and apart from unreliable buyers who have backed out from a few deals this year there haven't been any problems. They pay us by paypal now which is very quick - I know they take a cut, but you can get on with other work, and just run your portfolio with very little effort, and let sedo deal mainly with the customer. It doesn't sound like you had a good experience on that .co.uk purchase (mentioned above) and I certainly wouldn't have been happy either. Hope you get it sorted out.

 

[RobM]

That doesn't bother me - it's just indicative of their attitude. It's only for a few quid they can go whistle. There are far more horror stories increasing in frequency but the latest is the nail in the coffin for me. Someone lost 5 figures due to Sedo's lack of doing anything and incompetence, and they don't seem to care - they have the money, case closed.. That is why I would avoid them if you are a buyer. They cannot be trusted to broker a domain sale. If anything just park there and make sure after you get an offer you like that you change the page to one where the buyer can contact you directly. Likewise if you see a domain you like make sure YOU find out who the owner is and get in touch with them directly unless you want to risk losing your money.

 

[Nigel]

don't really know much about that .com sale. Just reading up on it now. Looks a messy business - but it is very recent with a lot of the info only being posted in the last few days so maybe there will be more info soon, and maybe an update from Sedo. I'm sure they'll have someone looking at this now. It seems to be a .com problem on very large sales. It is worrying - we do have a few .com domains and it might discourage bidders. So thanks for update. We'll keep an eye on the outcome.

 

[Nigel]

So it appears the crux of this is - how does one verify the history of a .com? How do you know for certain it hasn't been stolen sometime in the past, or has any other legal claim against it? From what I have read looks like sedo collected the money, the domain gets transferred to new owner, sedo release the money to seller, and domain then gets snatched back sometime later by a registrar on behalf of the original owner (i.e. the one who had the domain stolen). If that's incorrect in any way would be pleased if someone could advise. Can any escrow service protect against this? Can better safeguards be put in place by domain marketplaces or escrow services to protect against this?

 

[RobM]

There are places you can subscribe to with whois history. Phonecalls can be made. Passport ID/Utility bill scans can be requested. Registrars can be contacted. There are umpteen ways for a company to earn a brokerage commission. Sedo don't do any of that - I guess they don't want to spend time to earn their chunk. If they don't want to do that for all sales fine (although I would think with 5/6/7 figure deals they should get off their asses) - they should have to suck up the loss as clients are trusting them to provide the sales service they exist to provide. Either that or they should stop taking commissions and introduce buyer to seller directly... but that kind of negates their purpose. Basically they have a website. Clearly don't expect any support and keep your fingers crossed with any transaction.

 

[gimpydog]

Can any escrow service protect against this?

Probably not 100%. The question should be, do they take reasonable steps to prevent fraud, or do they just not care.

In my experience (also since 2003 & €xxx,xxx commissions) it is the latter, even if you explicitly ask them to verify ownership.

I recently used escrow.com for the first time in ages & had to open a new a/c & start from scratch, but the service, speed & due dilligence was much improved on what I remember & far superior to Sedo - they even work weekends!

 

[Nigel]

thanks for post - I read your link - and can see the worry - but I can't see what the company listing your domain had to gain. They didn't have control of your domain so how could they successfully have transferred it anyway - even if someone had bid for it. Was it a mistake by the sedo pro member when they were listing domains? It's easy to mistype into the listing page. Sedo are quite stringent now on the listing of domains.

 

[gimpydog]

I can't see what the company listing your domain had to gain.

In my case Nigel, it was probably cock-up rather than conspiracy, even though it was repeated a few weeks later. What does that tell you about Sedo's competence?

But, isn't it possible that a malicious actor could take advantage of Sedo's lack of diligence? I can certainly think of some scenarios which could be quite damaging or expensive for the domain owner, although I won't go into detail her, for obvious reasons.

Just a thought, but how would you feel if you opened the local paper & saw someone had put your house or car up for sale?

 

[Systreg]

Could be a case of a Sedo Pro member uploading domains in bulk, and they neglected to remove certain names form their own files/database prior to adding to Sedo, would explain why they might get listed more than once.

Regardless, even if a domain is listed by someone else, they wont be able to sell it, because any sale depends on the seller releasing the domain to the buyer before they get paid, if they don't have control of the domain, they won't be able to transfer it, and there wont be a sale.

 

[gimpydog]

Regardless....they wont be able to sell it,

I think the case robm refered to disproves that!

Snipped: [don't want to give people ideas.]

 

[Systreg]

I think the case robm refered to disproves that!

I don't know the case other than what Rob wrote above, but that's a different scenario, as the domain in that case was actually a stolen domain:

They sold cwr.com to someone, which was stolen, took the money and then closed the issue after the domain was returned to the rightful owner.

As it was a stolen domain, the thief would be the listed registrant, as such they'd be able to list it for sale, and as the rightful owner (even if they weren't), Sedo would accept the bid as it would look like a genuine seller, and due to the domain being stolen, the thief would have been able to complete a transfer and sale if they'd had the chance.

That's completely different to someone listing one of my domains for sale on Sedo, they wouldn't be able to complete any transfer/sale, as they wouldn't have control of the domains.

 

[gimpydog]

...they wouldn't be able to complete any transfer/sale, as they wouldn't have control of the domains.

Tempting though it is, I'm not going to tell you how I would do it.

But, it's worth remembering that many stolen domains are listed on popular marketplaces and that some of them do get sold.

Also, most domain owners are not domain traders, so what seems idiotic or fanciful to us, may not be so incredible in the 'real world'.

Lastly, dot uk is a different beast to the gltds. No matter how good the thief is, if they steal a .uk domain, they can't get further than Oxford!