what is the point of sedo?

[pendragon]

After weeks of negotiation, my offer of $4800 was accepted by the seller. 2 weeks later on, still no transfer. Finally I get an email saying the seller has a pre-arranged agreement to sell on another site. What a load of blcks. Sedo is now transferring my payment back, for which paypal will charge. Is sedo going to cover this because one of their clients didnt complete the transaction, even thougfh they accepted the offer ( despite another agreement?).

Sedo - I can see no legally binding obligation anywhere. You dont have your buying members interests at heart. Although i have lost out on a purchase, i´m doubley glad youve lost out on $480 commission. Absolute bowlocks the service you provide. Basically, you have no legal standing in any domain sale or purchase, so whats the point. No only has a purchase failed on sedo on this occasion, I have had numerous sales that have been cancelled due to non payment. From what I can tell, sedo is pretty much a lucky dip. No enforcement to pay up or even release a name when an offer is accepted.


I for one, will never be using your service again. Its about time you realised that without domainers, you have NOTHING.

Like most people, if I want to buy a domain name, I type it in to my address bar. I can be greeted with an aweber optin to register my interest. Or I can go direct via whois details. So therefore I put it to you, mr sedo, why do we need you?

Goodbye sedo. Your commissions are poor, your customer service could be better, and lets be honest, you make money for doing pretty much bugger all.

 

[itrends]

Totally agree. Been moving my domains over the last couple of weeks too.

Bye sh*to.

 

[Alex-Z]

I have about 150 domains in Sedo.
I took a 1200 euro offer for one of them about 4 weeks ago and they haven't paid me yet.
If I don't get my money I'm going to park my domains somewhere else.

 

[pugyrob]

i moved all my sites from Sedo last week.....

 

[monaghan]

If you guys are moving from sedo, where are you moving to - another parking site (if so which do people feel is the current best option) or are you creating minisites?

 

[pugyrob]

i personally like Namedrive, they seem alot hungrier right now and James who works there is a top guy, very on the ball.

Rob

 

[stender]

Sedo are comparable to estate agents. They do F all for the money. Unfortunately where else do you go to sell domains that get their traffic?
Not sure what selling through namedrive is like.

 

[ratboy]

Namedrive. Use the custom link in your account to attract attention to the fact the name is for sale. You can direct it either to a contact form (Job1.co.uk - top right) or your own website. Then negotiate yourself.

 

[sedo]

Hello Everyone,

You are right, without our customers (not just domainers) we would be nothing. Therefore, we take complaints seriously and feel free to bring them directly to me.

First of all, let me address the 'legal obligation' issue; the transfer of a domain is legally binding between buyer and seller - if you are the wronged party in a transfer, you have the right to take legal action and Sedo would support your position in this.

In terms of Pendragon's case with a seller who had 'a pre-arranged agreement to sell on another site', I would like to have a look at that before commenting, please PM or e-mail me the domain name if you would like me to look at that. However, you made a comparison between us and Ebay; at the risk of sounding glib, if I sold you a camera on Ebay and then decided I wouldn't send you it, that would be my fault, not Ebay's. If this happens to any of you, please let me know and I will promise we will take punitive action against the 'sellers' (I've been suspending accounts for that this morning), but it is genuinely really difficult to do more than that, even though we are constantly researching into ways to improve security in our marketplace. For example, here is something that might interest you all:

Ethoca Helps Sedo Keep Fraud Out of Its Domain

As always, you are welcome to contact me at any time if you want to discuss any issues.

Regards,

Shaun

[email protected]

 

[rob]

First of all, let me address the 'legal obligation' issue; the transfer of a domain is legally binding between buyer and seller - if you are the wronged party in a transfer, you have the right to take legal action and Sedo would support your position in this.

On that point is Sedo aware of any successful action which supports what you say?

If so do you have the details?

 

[sedo]

Hi Rob,

As I am sure you can understand, we can't really give out information about court cases. However, I just had a chat with our Legal department about this, there have been plenty of cases where the 'victim' has sued, and much more often than not has won (whether Sedo was involved or not).

Regards,

Shaun

[email protected]

 

[Alex-Z]

Hi Shaun, thanks for your answers, I'm sure it's obvious to everyone here that you're always doing your best to help.

I have a couple of questions:

a) What does SEDO do to people who don't buy a domain they made a legally binding offer for?

b) If the seller wants to sue the buyer who broke the legally binding contract, how does he get the details of the other party? Do you just ask sedo for the details?

 

[rob]

As I am sure you can understand, we can't really give out information about court cases. However, I just had a chat with our Legal department about this, there have been plenty of cases where the 'victim' has sued, and much more often than not has won (whether Sedo was involved or not).

Surely outcome of a court case is public knowledge, it would be excellent PR to post them online

 

[GreyWing]

Personally any problems I have had with Sedo have been sorted by Shaun.

If Sedo had 10 - 20 people that were as clued up as Shaun I think it would be a different organisation.

But unfortunately a good competent guy is in the position of trying to defend the incompetance of others.

Well that's how I view it anyway.

All the best
GW

 

[rob]

Would agree with that, Shaun + Nora are excellent.

 

[sedo]

First of all, thank you to Alex-Z, Greywing and Rob for your very kind words.

First of all, Alex-Z's questions:

What does SEDO do to people who don't buy a domain they made a legally binding offer for?

As a rule, we lock them from bidding on other domains, so that they can't do it again. We do occasionally make exceptions, for example if both parties are happy to cancel the deal, or if it is somebody who has had many successful transactions with us and never done this before. I have mentioned on other threads that we have been guilty in the past of being too lenient with cases like these, we have got much tougher in the last few months.

If the seller wants to sue the buyer who broke the legally binding contract, how does he get the details of the other party? Do you just ask sedo for the details?

If a transaction is cancelled, the transfer agent should make the buyer's name and address visible in your Sedo account. If for some reason you can't see them, please contact either myself or your transfer agent, and they will give you the address.

Rob - Publishing cases where a wronged domainer wins against a faker/timewaster would be great publicity for us, and we are always happy when it happens, but since the case is always between a buyer and seller and not between buyer/seller and Sedo, it would be wrong of us to put such results on a forum!

Again, feel free to contact me if you want to talk about any of these issues.

Regards,

Shaun

[email protected]

 

[Alex-Z]

As a rule, we lock them from bidding on other domains, so that they can't do it again. We do occasionally make exceptions, for example if both parties are happy to cancel the deal, or if it is somebody who has had many successful transactions with us and never done this before. I have mentioned on other threads that we have been guilty in the past of being too lenient with cases like these, we have got much tougher in the last few months.

Do you still pay them any outstanding balance in their accounts that they've earned from other transactions and from parked domains? Or do you freeze that money?

 

[sedo]

Hi,

If they have already sold other domains and carried through the transfers, we are legally obliged to pay them out for those. The same goes for parking earnings. However, these cases don't come up that often, buyers who don't pay are people who haven't used Sedo before in the vast majority of cases.

Regards,

Shaun

[email protected]

 

[Alex-Z]

Hi,

If they have already sold other domains and carried through the transfers, we are legally obliged to pay them out for those. The same goes for parking earnings. However, these cases don't come up that often, buyers who don't pay are people who haven't used Sedo before in the vast majority of cases.

Regards,

Shaun

[email protected]

Ah ok, thanks for you answer Shaun.
The reason I asked is because as you can imagine I'm interested in knowing how much SEDO does to get the buyer to pay.

 

[sedo]

Another thing when it comes to chasing up non-paying buyers is that different sellers have different wishes when in this situation. Some prefer us to cancel as quickly as possible so that they can relist the domain for sale, some prefer us to pursue the buyer as long as possible.

I recommend making it clear to your transfer agent what how long you would be prepared to wait. As a rule, we are trying to be a bit quicker in cancelling such transfers.

Regards,

Shaun

[email protected]