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Using ESCROW with Flippa - do I still need to vet buyers?

by Stevie G
9 replies
Hi,

I'm selling my first site on Flippa. I've had a couple of bids from people with no history and no feedback, one has had thier flippa account for 3 months and the other 6 days. Do I have to do any vetting of these people or should ESCROW provide me enough protection?

Stevie
#buyers #escrow #flippa #vet
  • Profile picture of the author ClickMonkey
    Originally Posted by Stevie G View Post

    Do I have to do any vetting of these people or should ESCROW provide me enough protection?
    You should be fine with Escrow.com, because they're getting paid. They're purportedly verifying the funds are good. Depending on how you have it setup, you'll either get a check or an ACH transfer to the bank account of your choice. What happens if the funds turn out to be bad? Does Escrow.com attempt to get the money back from you? You might want to run that scenario past an Escrow.com representative or read the fine print in their TOS. Never had any issues when using them, but there's always a first time for certain things.
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  • Profile picture of the author Stevie G
    Thanks Clickmonkey. Anyone else got any opinion on this?

    Stevie
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  • Profile picture of the author OLechat
    Escrow provides you with a high level of security once the buyer places their money in escrow, but it's still a good idea to vet bidders if you're concerned about a potential non-paying bidder.

    The best way to prevent a situation where the highest bidder walks away from the transaction is to have at least one exchange in private messages before the end of the auction.
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  • Profile picture of the author Stevie G
    Thanks OLEchat. What happens if the winning bidder does not pay, do i just get to default to the second highest bidder? Will Flippa allow me to relist for free?
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    • Profile picture of the author OLechat
      If the buyer doesn't pay, you can start a dispute against them. Once that's done, you'll be able to relist your site for free, and we'll notify all previous bidders and watchers that your site is back on the market.
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  • Profile picture of the author anonymous99
    Yes vet the buyer. I had a scare on there as a seller and took a good look through the terms of service. To put it short, their are a few way that a buyer can scam you. For example what if the buyer says they never recieved the domain and set the whois to private. when I asked escrow about it, they acknowledged they didn't have an plan in place to deal with it.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jon Patrick
    Are you selling a small site that you can afford to take a hit on? I maybe wouldn't worry about it in that situation. But if you're selling a business, you can be damn sure I'd thoroughly vet my potential buyers.
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  • Profile picture of the author onegoodman
    I would say be careful with Escrow, if you are doing a transaction that goes beyond 1 or 2 k, you need to go for a written contract and sign it before you guys move on with Escrow, You will also need to confirm his detail on Flippa is the same as on Escrow transaction and on the who.is once you move it to him.

    Escrow is not as safe as it seems to be. The only security it provide is it guarantees the seller has the money and we can hold it.
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  • Profile picture of the author fedor50
    Originally Posted by Stevie G View Post

    Hi,

    I'm selling my first site on Flippa. I've had a couple of bids from people with no history and no feedback, one has had thier flippa account for 3 months and the other 6 days. Do I have to do any vetting of these people or should ESCROW provide me enough protection?

    Stevie
    ALWAYS use Escrow when buying and flipping sites
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