Domain sellers lose a chunk of money on SnapNames.
A domain seller who claimed his cash balance was ‘stolen’ from his SnapNames account, is reporting that the chargebacks were reversed by SnapNames.
Despite this satisfactory closure, other users are reporting that the SnapNames domain selling platform is inviting scammers that reverse their payment – some as late as 120 days later.
The end result is that the domain sellers are left with a negative balance, which are required to pay back. In the process, they lose the domain names they sold as well.
Says one such affected SnapNames user:
“The first chargeback I suggested to Snapnames that I will only pay the negative balance if and only if they guarantee that the domain will be returned to my Moniker account. After paying the negative balance I fortunately got the domain back.”
For the other domain that was affected, the same seller mentions:
“Anyway I’m still in negative balance for the second domain chargeback but have until October this year (when the domain expires) to retrieve it. Snapnames have at least guaranteed me that the domain will be returned to my Moniker account upon payment. However this and all other horror stories about the Snapnames chargeback scam just shows how sloppy their TOS is regarding seller protection. I’m now no longer selling on their platform until they learn how to secure a domain sale with buyers signing a solid legally binding sales contract or similar paperwork, a photo, 200 point id check etc.”
The sale of domain names using unwarranted funds, will always be an issue for platforms that are not licensed escrows. The funds are guaranteed only by true escrow services with a federal license, such as Escrow.com.
This post is 100% true!
😆 Yeah that was my post on DNF. I emailed MartiJ the Snapnames representative who posted there to see what he could do. He was able to get the domain back to my moniker account which was a relief and I was able to renew it for another year. I still have the negative balance in Snapnames ($1,504 excluding their nullified commission) from the second $1880 sale which I’ll pay before or in October this year.
The main issue I had on their aftermarket platform apart from the chargebacks on the two later sales are the commission fees which swallow most of the profit I can get from selling at realistic aftermarket sales prices. For example I paid (escrow fee included) $800 each for 4 short exotic domains and already sold 2 of them on Snapnames with no chargeback before the later 2 that received the chargeback.
I sold one at $1,200 but only received $960 after Snapnames commission of 20% 😯 which equates to ($1200-$960) or $240 😯 leaving me with ($960-$800) ie $160 😕
They made $80 more than I did! The other sale I was able to squeeze a little more pricing into it but in reality bursting at the outer limit of the domain’s aftermarket value based on other sales histories for these domains genre eg: LL/NN or LLL/NNN or LLLL/NNNN type.
Anyway I sold it for $1,600 and received $1,280 after the 20% commission or in this case Snapnames $320 take. My profit on this sale was ($1,280-$800) equating to $480.
Lesson I learned here is that to lose $560 ($320+$240 commission fees) just use the Snapnames aftermarket sales platform 😮 However to improve ROI do it yourself, brand and develop your own aftermarket domain sales site 😉 or cold call/email alot more potential end users, which I seldom do due to spam rules and reputation loss from people reporting such harassment on forums.
Spammers emailing with unrealistic prices, crappy newly registered domains or domains they don’t own let but know they are on the expired list have made it hard for genuine domain investors with decent domain names to contact such endusers.
But never the less I’m heading towards the self branded sales platform (with email subscription) and cold calling potential endusers as my main strategy to increase ROI and avoid the over commissioned, marked squeezed domain sales platforms online.
jayjay – Thank you for sharing your insight and advice, very valuable! 😀