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Site sold on FLIPPA but site broke down!

by zarg
7 replies
Hi,

I recently sold my site through FLIPPA but while I was in the talks of contracts and transfers with the buyer, my site broke down. It was a kind of an SQL injection or something (I'm not very technical) and now the database is corrupted.

I'm in talks with the freelancer who helped me design the site initially and he is taking time to fix it.

But it might take some time and I'm afraid that I'm going to be charged the success fee by FLIPPA when I haven't even sold the site successfully nor received any funds from buyer obviously.

I wrote to FLIPPA customer support and they said that I must file a 'dispute' for them to investigate the issue.

But I find it silly because there is no 'dispute' as such and it's my fault.

Now I have two questions:

1) If FLIPPA decides to relist my listing, am I under any compulsion to keep the reserve price same as earlier?

2) FLIPPA has my credit card details and I'm having nightmares that they might debit my card more than the success fee to 'punish' me if the buyer files a dispute because its my fault that my site went down. Can FLIPPA actually debit amount from credit cards apart from success fee if they decide that the seller is at fault? I'm really troubled knowing they have my credit card details with them!

Would any warriors please help me with this?

Thanks.
#broke #flippa #site #sold
  • Profile picture of the author TimShi
    I don't know much about Flippa, but if you're concerned about them charging you, just cancel the credit card and get a new one from your credit card provider. Then communicate with customer service to sort it out.
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  • Profile picture of the author WF90te
    I think you will have to study FLIPPA's terms and conditions or conact them to see what they can do to you. To prevent this type of problem from happening again , I suggest you build and maintain your own sites. It is easy to set up sites nowadays.
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  • Profile picture of the author OnlineAddict
    Never use your main credit card online. Get one which you can easily fund/load from your main one or the bank account. Then you can only load it when needed and you won't be afraid to use the card anywhere.
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  • Profile picture of the author Dan Grossman
    The Flippa guys aren't out to steal your money. They're good people. If you can show them you didn't sell the site, they won't charge you the success fee. Unless you're crazy paranoid and act like everyone wants to scam you like certain people telling you to cancel your credit card and use throwaway cards, if you're reasonable with them they'll be reasonable with you.

    Anyway.. backups man! Consider this your wake-up call. Figure it out. You should have an automated system in place making backups of your database every night to at least two different hosts.
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    • Profile picture of the author zarg
      My hosting is the worst unfortunately - Yahoo. They are not co-operating at all and I don't think there are any backups at their end. Neither at my end, which is very foolish to say, I know!

      Originally Posted by Dan Grossman View Post

      If you can show them you didn't sell the site, they won't charge you the success fee.
      How can I show them that the sale didn't go through? The buyer was to pay me by PayPal.
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  • Profile picture of the author SuperPreneurship
    Originally Posted by zarg View Post

    It was a kind of an SQL injection or something (I'm not very technical) and now the database is corrupted.
    When downloading the sql file you wont know the file size before the download done. Do it again and compare it, sometimes it is corrupt just because it is not correctly downloaded.

    Do you have sql and site backup? If you're not, and if i am you, i will contact the hosting provider to ask if there any change i can get the the earlier sql database before it's corrupted.

    Originally Posted by zarg View Post

    I wrote to FLIPPA customer support and they said that I must file a 'dispute' for them to investigate the issue.
    Before that, i think the most important thing is the buyer. if the buyer serious about buying your site, than you can contact him/her to convince that your will doing your best to fix it and asking him to be patient for a while.
    Skype them it will be more convincing than using flippa message page.

    Of course the buyer will doubt about your effort, you lose their trust a bit, someone pass your database. It's mean not really secure.

    No need to go with flippa support if you can fix it with the buyer. You can give something as an exchange for delay or to say sorry.

    Originally Posted by zarg View Post

    1) If FLIPPA decides to relist my listing, am I under any compulsion to keep the reserve price same as earlier?
    After re-list i think the rule will be same with the first auction, including pricing:
    You can raise the reserve price only if no bids have been placed in your auction. ~flippa
    You can lower the reserve price, but you can't set a new reserve price that's lower than the highest accepted bid. ~flippa
    I think this is will be important question, how about your buyer? is he/she want to cancel the transaction?

    Originally Posted by zarg View Post

    2) FLIPPA has my credit card details and I'm having nightmares that they might debit my card more than the success fee to 'punish' me if the buyer files a dispute because its my fault that my site went down. Can FLIPPA actually debit amount from credit cards apart from success fee if they decide that the seller is at fault? I'm really troubled knowing they have my credit card details with them!
    I dont think so. No its not on their rule.
    About success fee
    Naturally, if the sale fails to complete successfully and the seller files a dispute advising us of that, the success fee is waived. ~flippa
    Flippa may relist a property free of charge, where the dispute is resolved in the seller's favor, and waive the success fee on the auction or sale. ~flippa
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  • Profile picture of the author birdie28a
    Who is your hosting company? Contact them and have them restore the site, they should be able to restore your site before it went down.

    If your having trouble transferring your site go to Fiverr and hire someone to do it for you for $5.
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