I Got Greedy: Should I Just Take This As An Expensive Lesson?

Sometimes, you gotta let things go.

Sucks, but it happens, even with the biggest of companies.

Kill (unfortunately).

Flippa seems to be getting worse with all this crap.

Lesson learnt I guess. If it doesn't feel right deep down I'd be ditching it.

I have been burned from buying a website on flippa. I just learned to move on and focus on what is working for me.

BTW, you are not being greedy buying a site.

Truth be told, there is a secret network of sleazy sellers on Flippa who do a lot of tricky things to promote members' listings and that network has some talented individuals who have skills that can make just about any site seem better than what it really is.

How do I know this? Because I was approached by a recruiter of the network over a year ago when they were just getting started, but I reported his post, and since that time I have tested buying blogs from popular listings that seemed to get an unusual amount of interest, but got nothing when I re-posted the listings myself.

I even had someone I know who is a successful seller on Flippa run a test like this for me and got the same result as I did.

Also, I was approached again by a different recruiter for that network about two months ago. I didn't bother reporting it this time, however, as Flippa seems to think the whole threat is a fantasy.

I've had a few of my products ripped off and resold as businesses on Flippa and had to go through and report all of those listings.

Their marketplace seems to be going downhill fast.

Why?

There are a heap of products that have been created showing people how to bank on Flippa by creating sites and making them look better than they are. So the marketplace is filling up with more and more people abusing it just so they can make some quick cash.

I wouldn't buy anything from Flippa anymore.

Everybody,

Thanks for this, I needed to hear it. I was hesitant to put this out here as I was expecting a torrent of abuse but I'm glad I did now.

I've been beating myself up for weeks over this and convincing myself that I need to make it work. I've realised that I'd be doing so at the expense of my other (profitable) ventures.

Remember this, there is no such word as failure, you just learn. Continue doing what you think is best for you.

Unfortunately you are better off killing it and focusing all of your attention on more profitable things.

You always have to do your proper due diligence whenever you purchase anything off of Flippa.

Just consider it a valuable lesson learned.

hey man,

There may actually be a silver lining to this. If you really want to not deep six the whole thing, you can actually spend some time creating some twitter accounts in real niches with real followers, providing real quality tweets/content.

Then when you have a few niches with a decent amount of followers, you can actually offer to tweet sponsored tweets to x amount of followers over y amount of niches.

This may take more time/effort/money (if you outsource it) than what you have already sunk into it, but it's just a possibility that you may want to look into. You won't be able to guarantee results of the tweets obviously, but no one can. You're doing exactly what you said, tweeting to X amount of people over Y niches the offer. You can sleep well at night offering this service.

Most websites sold on Flippa are scams that will never have a chance of making money for anyone.

OR, they used to legitimately make money, but now something has changed that has caused or will cause future earnings to decrease. Therefore, the owner sells it and pretends that it will still be profitable in the long run, in order to maximize his profit from the sale.

(Think about it: Why would a website owner sell it if it was making him easy passive income? Any smart business person would just keep it and collect the cash!)

The very few websites that are legitimately producing income will usually sell for big bucks, because the owners know that they are actually worth something. As an anecdote, a friend of mine is trying to sell a website that legitimately makes around $10K/year in passive income from SEO traffic, and from what I've heard from her, she is asking for something around $30K or more for the site.

I would kill sorry to say,Had a look on flippa for the first time in ages and was not impressed with the standard of websites on sale.Been burned a few times in the past myself,wont be making the same mistake again.

It's not clear from what you write, but are you saying the site creates a fake db record to give the impression of delivering what it promises, but doesn't actually deliver anything.

If you are saying that, then you ought refund every customer and stop taking new orders.

There is such a thing as integrity, and keeping yours is with far more than the $3000 that you paid for the website.

It's not a failure just an expensive seminar. We all go thorough them.

If you have no further use for the domain name I'd be interested in it.

Tsnyder

Expensive lesson... be pleased you don't have to run that miserable business model though.

You could turn in it into a legit site that teaches ways to a grow a following without resorting to black/grey hat tactics.

Or build something out of it that is valuable to a potential buyer of the site. Plenty of agencies that might be interested in purchasing an asset for their social media marketing stuff.

Profollower could also be a good name for a saas... for example a service that notifies you when a person of interest publishes a new work, interview etc, without having to subscribe to keep track of them on twitter/rss/facebook etc.

Well at least you got a site that does something. There are a lot worse deals on flipper.

Too bad that it means you would have to scam people though, pull the plug

I'm surprised it took you this long to figure out that the business model for the website was sleazy. I'd kill the site and chalk it up to experience.

This website has amazing Alexa ranking, if you would stop using that horrible spam software which is very illegal and it kills accounts, there are 50 other very legal and fine ways to bring real human twitter followers, much much more cheaper and 100.00% according to the terms of service.

$ 3,000.00 USD for that website was a very low price, but you used a spam bots software this is the problem, and you sold super extra expensive... it was like (I will be giving a metaphor) selling regular Coca Cola bottles but expired since 1 month ago, with $ 45.00 USD per bottle...

the BIG BIG problem was that you were using these spam illegal tools which are against Twitter terms of service:

proxies and the VM required to run Tweet Adder

That sucks. You sound like you are not comfortable cheating people, so cut your loses and get rid of it. If I were you I'd stay away from Flippa, and invest your money into what is already working for you, it's to easy to get scammed on Flippa.

Those 3k could have went a long way to outsource some of your current work

I am interested in buying that domain if you seriously want to give up on that goldmine

I dont understand the concept of buying followers or likes, no matter how its done. To me its just a horrible way of manipulating social networks. If it works and makes money then I guess go for it. Its the people buying them that I dont understand.

Anyway a couple of suggestions

The site has traffic if its targeted (not sure where your getting traffic from) I would say the domain has huge potential.

1: Setup a wordpress plugin that helps people gain followers or make the process easier sell it on that domain. (not a developer so not sure what this could be)

2: Make a product and blog around how to become a twitter powerhouse and use twitter to leverage ones business. Teach them how to correctly get followers and educate them on how buying followers will not help them in any way. (you already have traffic so just change it up)

3: Sell the domain. Not sure the rank or analytics

4: Put the site back up on flippa and hope to recoup as much cost as possible.

Hope this helps if so "thank me"

Wast of time,

All these websites, buying and selling followers and thumbs up, and like,s it all blackhat.

and it all stopping with a new Google update good as well, any body found with x amount of any of the above will be instantly Google penalized for life .

if anything is found to be added at a rate to any website then Google banding it it Google next massive move to get proper content.

when you become a proper internet marketer you dont need none of that rubbish.

there millions of ways to earn proper cash on the .net, without getting banned from web sites, and people thinking that drip feeding from cheap programs really going to get them there need to re study internet marketing.

all the major websites that use thumbs up,likes,ticks, are all being revamped and Google joining in.

because Google so abused with silly 3rd party programs eventually where all have to pay to submit a domain name to be listed...

that all because of the black hat situation you can blame it on social websites and stupid programmers trying to get around web site features ...


i just wish everybody study internet marketing properly or do seo properly these applications are getting you all in trouble including me.

it all coming to the end especially when you got to pay for all listings and position in Google website.

Google has nearly garbed the whole meaning of search engine and will eventually be a paid service as it only wants proper content and not crap.

word press has been attacked this week,because of stupid plugins that are so easy to hack, now even word press got million of holes with a plugin so that done, not worth using anymore.

everyone getting peed off reading a page half down and getting links to press or promises of free items on the .net real ppl want proper content and no silly popups or links to press for promotions.

people that are programming software to get websites more seen via thumbs up , ticks, ect are destroying the internet marketing world in realty.


if you want to earn real money use Google to help you like adsence, use tools to get long keywords, understand the title page and keyword research.there millions to earn from Google

only saying dont moan......

If you feel like you are lying to or cheating people, you probably are. While there are always temporary successful ways to do this (cheat people), in the end it's not worth it. Many people find out the hard way.

No matter what "goldmine" we may be giving up, being able to sleep at night, tell our kids and our mother exactly what we are selling and how, and being proud of how we are truly adding value and helping people's lives is priceless.

It sounds like you already know what's the right thing to do. Even though I don't know you, I hope you do it.

Mark

Thanks for the input folks,

As far as I can see I have two choices:

1. Take the hit, kill the site and move on
2. Change the business model but keep the domain (low traffic but lots of backlinks) - perhaps selling a Wordpress plugin of some description.

I need to weigh up my options as I've got a few things on my plate right now but obviously I'd rather not pull the plug and chalk it up to experience when I could potentially make something work.

So it's not a total loss of money I'd say change the business model but keep the domain, links and traffic.

The business model he was selling was fake. Just a lesson to learn.

I was talking to another warrior on the phone yesterday, and I told him not everybody knows how to B.S or con people, you either have it or you don't. It's good to know you don't have it in you, but for everyone one of you, there are a 1000 others who could give two spits about lying or cheating others.

To answer your question, you didn't get "greedy" you simply let your guards down and got burnt for doing so. Always invest in your business first, before you even think about looking for so called "established" sites.

Sometimes due diligence goes out the window when people are looking to buy sites that are already making money.

I am a firm believer, you get what you paid for, but I doubt the majority of the people know they are buying bots. I have yet to see a site selling followers, post on the main page that they are selling bots. Everyone I have seen claim to be selling "real followers"

I have only had 1 good experience with Flippa, and count myself lucky !

I would just move on to other things if I were you.

"There is more than 1 way to skin a cat, and the cat don´t necessarily need to like it either."

what it really comes down to is, are you passionate about this website, and the services offering, and can you think of ways to innovate it and make it better than any other service out there, so that people would be compelled to use it to the point where you can set up some sort of membership program, or something like that, because this site would provide phenomenal benefits.

there are plenty of examples of people who have taken over companies that were dying, or on the edge of bankruptcy, and turning them around by innovating a new way of doing things, and finding an angle to provide customers with a service that made the business extremely lucrative unprofitable.

like, for example, one of the reasons I decided not to become an affiliate, even though I tried it and make good money off it, was because I was waking up every day knowing that all I was doing was promoting sites and products for money.

not that that's a bad thing in itself, but it's something I wasn't truly passionate about, and inside I felt like I wanted my life to be really worth something, and to do that I had to be able to give to the world and share with people what I was best at.

for example, when I look at your site, I just see an ordinary Internet marketing that doesn't really stand out, or offer anything unique.

for example on the site to try to make it more successful, you could try educating customers by focusing more on educating them on why your service is good for them, why they need us, what the benefits are, and how it's going to help them and get the results; because, when I arrived on that website, is basically just looks like you're throwing a product in my face in trying to get by.

you've obviously invested a lot of money in the site, so before you try throwing it out, or giving up on it, assuming you have some level of passion and interest in what you're doing, I would try to rework the marketing,and try telling people a little more about what they can expect from your service, how it makes their life easier, and what they'll receive from it.

I think your biggest problem is that all your site seems to do is try to immediately get someone to give you money, and in order to ask for that kind of money you really need a way to make your products stand out from the competition, and make sure people know what they're getting for that money (I don't even see a clear offer of a promise or refund, and in conjunction with the fact that you don't really tell anything about your service,spending $225 randomly for a bunch of followers [your site doesn't even clearly explain what you do] with scare me).

really try to dig and think about the customer experience, and if you were one of your ideal customer's landing on the website, ask yourself what you would want to know right away, what's confusing you about the website, or not made clear, and just really try to think about the experience from the point of view of the customer, and how you can make the experience as compelling as possible for the customer or the reader.

Life is short, if you don't feel good about it, I would chalk it up to experience. It seems many of us have had similar experiences such as yours, and that is the route I took as well. Hope that helps....Kristie from Georgia

No def. do the right thing and for everyones sake, pull the plug. It takes integrity but don't scam people, okay? I mean, that's just wrong. I know in this business there are more scams than legit people and products, but you don't have to be a scam.

Here's what you do: you keep pushing forward and then you use this experience, this waste of money story, to fuel some product you make which is legit. You know all that stuff like "I spend 10,000 on how to make money ebooks....." you can use this as that bit of your story, to humanize you. If you become successful, find a method and write an ebook. Your intro can have this mishap and it'll help the book sell and you'll make your money back.

Sorry about the experience, but you shouldn't' scam people, and should just try to learn from it and profit with integrity. Good luck!

hey guy with long number as post, jcpeden can easily not scam anybody at all.

he was doing a great business the wrong way.

it's the same as he bought a restaurant with great name, and great place,
but unfortunately he had a cook who was cooking expired altered food.

If he removes the cook (tweet adder) things will be great for the site
and the clients

Personally, it would not sit well with me if I were to quit. Sure it has cost you $3000 but just keep plugging away at it and maybe it will turn in to something in time.

If you can easily make the money elsewhere then make that your priority but set a side some time for this project every now and then

Running away just wears out your shoes

You shouldn't give up on it, you can make it into something worth while. You're a smart guy, use your brain and make the website work for you and the visitors. Never give up, never surrender, just keep pressing forward.

For me personally, I will just close this project and proceed ahead with other projects that will get you better ROI. Especially if you do not feel good selling the products to customers, then just stop it and do the things that you like to

Take the domain and place another offer that the visitors might be interested in. Capitalize on the traffic and put an opt-in (offer 500-1000 free followers and to them down the line), affiliate offer, ebook, plugin, bot, and/or something else of interest on the website.

If the site does indeed have traffic it still has an innate value.

I avoid any and all arbitrage websites on Flippa. These Flippa listings have a particularly high incidence of fraud. It is too easy to fake all of the stats. Simply stay away from them or if you see something that you think could work, make it yourself.

its depends, you could start tweaking and improving it to make it work better or you could as you say pull the plug. what is your end career goal, is this fitting in? If not it might be better to start new, however i never like to quit thats what the masses do and never get successful, so my advice is find a way to make this work, even if if revamp the business framework, it will be worth it long term when the sales start rolling in,think long term and focus on it.

At least it is cheaper than

Buy Twitter Followers | Twitter Followers | BuyFansToday.com | 1-855-BUYFANS

Decided just to let it go, site is now for sale on Flippa at $1 with no reserve.

Profollower.com for sale on Flippa at $1