Flippa May Force You To Pay

Interesting, not sure if they can do this unless the auction was ended above the reserve price i.e. won by a bidder.

If the auction ended without reaching the reserve price, they have no business asking you for money. If this was the case, I won't give them a dime.

That is pretty interesting, and I think you should ask them directly about it.

You do not have to pay flippa a dime.. The internet is full of empty threats. The internet as a whole has becomes a cesspool for a scam and half the shit on flippa is just that.

You have people here making review pages on products they have not used or even know about

Well.. it does make sense, as you would not of found a buyer without flippa, however I dont think its good.

I guess you can report to FBI's Internet crime section which is ic3.gov if this kind of stuff happen.
Doesn't sound like it's part of their terms and agreement for such a scenario, and they do not have rights to demand such compensation.

That practice is such BS. You sold your site after an auction. After the auction you could've found your buyer from other advertising efforts on your part.

I have one bid from Flippa buyer, He bided and passed my reserved price, BUT he did not pay for the domain(although i contacted him with details).
After that, Flippa asked me to pay for the success fee .
Why?
My domain had a bid that passed my reserved but not SUCCESSFULL payment.
I left that fee, did not pay, forgot it.
and then, my account was banned !

I don't know why i have to pay for that fee because buyer does not buy the domain.

I tried to register another account but my new account got banned,too. Because the new account linked to old banned account.
Try to contact Flippa but no willing answer.

Since that, i never list domain on Flippa.

Did you tell them that you can not get blood from a turnip and wish them luck in their endeavor

I can see flippa wanting to protect themselves but they can't charge you after the auction term is up unless they have wording to that effect.

wow has flippa really gone to that level?.. I have sold and flipped many sites on flippa with a positive rating of 100%, I never had an issue with them... I guess its because I do a lot of business there they won't bother me... thats' horrible though,... I hope thats not true!

Not enforceable. They have no way of knowing where you found the buyer. I'd tell them to get lost.

Well, I wouldn't pay them a dime if I sold it after the auction ended at some point. For them to imply that they have control over what you do with your site after it is no longer listed with Flippa is a bit over the top.

Did the buyer contact you through Flippa or outside of Flippa? I know offers are not allowed to be made via the Flippa pm system.

Hi Ken.

Andrew here from Flippa. As in our earlier email to you, congratulations on making a great sale!

At the end of the day, we're in the business of matching great website buyers with great website sellers and our pricing model reflects this - a modest listing fee upfront with a success fee payable when we've been successful in delivering you a quality buyer for your site as per our terms.

I'm not sure that you want us to publish the specifics of how your auction played out but I feel it is clear that that Flippa delivered you a great buyer and a terrific website sale on this occasion.

Hopefully that clarifies it. Feel free to let me know if not.

Wow! I didn't know Flippa would do that. But if you sell it to the 2nd highest bidder using their system then they have the right to collect their fees.

IMO, if you get buyer from Flippa, and he approach you after the listing is over. You owe Flippa, not the buyer know you from Flippa. but if you sell it to another man, that isn't bid in your auction in Flippa. you owe nothiing. Flippa didn't help you to close the sale.

As a few people point out upthread, what we're working against is sellers intentionally taking the transaction off-Flippa as a way to avoid paying success fees. If the transaction goes through as a result of the Flippa auction, we obviously had a large part to play in the sale.

When the sale goes through as a result of another posting, and the seller feels that the success fee is unwarranted, they can simply contact us at support@flippa.com to let us know that their site sold elsewhere. Of course, evidence in the listing itself may dispute this.

In the case where a success fee is charged on a transaction that has fallen through in post-sale negotiations, we do need the seller to let us know that the sale won't move forward. Otherwise, we assume that the sale was completed. Sellers can do this by filing a dispute from the sales completion area of their listing.

My 2 cents.

I think you can see the point from both the seller and Flippa. Flippa charge the seller to list his domain on their auction site. They also charge them for successfully selling said website through Flippa.

If everythings done as it should be then the seller gets rid of his site to someone who he would have not known was interested in it without Flippa and Flippa get a reward for introducing seller to buyer. Job done.

Now if, and I have no idea if this is the case, the buyer and the seller colluded to complete the sale outside of Flippa to avoid the charges then Flippa are well in their rights to ASK for the expected success fee, but only if they can prove collusion took place.

That would be the only reason that Flippa could legitimately ask for the fee. Forget the whole we ensure you got a great sale speech from the Flippa rep. The seller paid for the service to list his site. For whatever reason it didnt sell on Flippa but it did sell x amount of time afterwards, privately.

If Flippa have proof that collusion took place then they should ask for the fee but it doesnt mean that the seller has to pay it.

And what happens if they dont pay it? Do they serve them? For $200!!! Or do they just ban his account?

Either way, Flippa need to have proof of collusion to deceive. If they dont have that then they dont have jack, and being a big company like Flippa, they should know that before taking action.

I think its a case of Flippa wanting as big a chunk of the pie as possible. They want the fee if it sells outside Flippa but they dont want to be liable if a site sells and the buyer does a runner without paying.

Would be interested to hear what the Flippa rep thinks about the "proof of collusion" viewpoint.

Either the OP edited the post, or I missed a key detail the first time reading it. Because of that, I removed my previous post.

Now, since you DID sell it to an original bidder on Flippa, I'd say them asking for a success fee isn't being unreasonable at all.

You sure you got the mail from Flippa? I doubt that. It is not difficult to fake up the "From" of an email. You should contact Flippa directly, and let them know about the mail and ask if it is official mail or from some scammer. When they respond, dont forget to update this thread and let the community know.

Intresting , I Thinks Itz New For Me :O

Without knowing the specifics it is difficult to say much about the subject.

But if Flippa truly only does a Whois search to see if the site changed hands after a failed auction this becomes a complicated case.

A owner can sell the site through other venues later just to have Flippa asking for fees for a service they had nothing to do with.

It's difficult to keep a good, healthy relationship with customers if you suspect they all to be fraudsters.

Hi all.

Please take note of the specifics of the specific scenario here as outlined in the OP:
- Ken listed his site for sale on Flippa,
- He negotiated a price with the highest bidder after the auction ended
- The bidder accepted the price and now owns the site
- We invoiced Ken a success fee for the sale

It is pretty clear that Flippa connected the seller with a buyer to make this sale.

Flippa's intent here is only to recognize the sale when the buyer was introduced to the website for sale via our marketplace (ie we did our job!), regardless of the mechanics of the auction.

We do not impose any penalty on sellers who found buyers elsewhere - be assured this is rarely the case ...

Thanks for sharing. I don't know anything about flippa. Now I have more doubts about selling websites on it.

These clowns were hounding me. Call Flippa up. Ask them if this is going on. I am sure they will feign ignorance. They are worse than ebay - if that is possible yes. At least ebay does not say - hey I saw your vintage camera on back page. Well, you gotta pay up.

Site point use to be a great site years ago.