I’ve bought–and sold–many domains on domain name exchanges like Sedo and Afternic. These transactions usually go well because of the exchanges’ built in escrow services. I’ve been able to complete transactions–including the domain transfer–in as few as two days.
But it doesn’t always go as planned. Twice I have “bought” domains on Afternic which turn out to no longer be owned by the seller. A few months ago I bought a 3 character domain for about $5,000. The seller started escrow and agreed to the transaction, only to email me a day later and say that it was an error and the domain was sold the week prior. Just yesterday I found a domain I like when searching at Whois.sc. I clicked over to the Afternic listing and placed a bid at $650. The seller subsequenly set the reserve at $650 with an asking price of $850. I bid $850 to “Buy it Now”. The escrow transaction started, but then I noticed that the Whois information for the domain was different than the Whois information for the seller’s other domains. I asked the seller about it, and the seller realized that she must have sold the domain or it expired sometime ago.
I can see how this happens. Heck, I probably have domains listed on exchanges that I’ve sold in the past and just forgot to delete. Sedo does a good job of at least verifying the domains are owned by the seller prior to posting. This can sometimes be a pain but reduces problems in the long run. Afternic doesn’t verify ownership prior to listing unless the domain is already listed by another seller. What the exchanges need to do is to verify ownership any time there’s a change in Whois. This shouldn’t be too hard if managed through a company like Whois.sc.
Has anyone else experienced similar problems?
Keith Klein says
I just ran into a similar glitch at Sedo.
Got an offer of a couple hundred dollars on a domain name and the transaction link was broken on the site. Several emails/contact us’s and a week later it was fixed, only to let me find that some of the buyer’s information was “in the process of being verified”. I was surprised that that didn’t happen BEFORE the offer was approved and the seller (me) was notified.
Editor says
Sorry to hear that. I guess I’m OK with the occasional problem so long as the exchanges make a reasonable effort to clean their database.