website investment gone wrong

Yurple

Hi,

Im looking for some advice on the following:


I bought a third website on Flippa, while having been really happy with the first two, I am not with the third. The third website has false reported statistics and "verified" earnings, but I based my bids on this information to get a return on my investment.


Also in the auction listing it was stated I would receive a full email list of previous customers and I was planning an email marketing campaign to get some initial sales in - I have not received this information as of yet, and having to ask for it many times. While the owner does stay in contact and says to get me the email list and other information I have requested, it never happened.


So far I have received the domain name push, FTP details and wordpress login details, 3 email address (two of suppliers and one lead generator) and that's it. I sent all 3 email addresses a "hello" mail, introducing myself and my company and to thank them for allowing me to work with them - No response as of yet. All the received information is worthless in itself, domain push is just a random cheap new domain, ftp details etc the website is hosted on their server so they can change these details at anytime really, 3 random email addresses can easily be fake.
I installed google analytics since the 1st of December, which is when the website "relaunched". Reported traffic is meant to be: 1600 uniques on average per month - so far: 20 unique visitors in 20 days. This also includes myself, the owner and a lot of people from flippa that looked at the website.


No revenue what so ever as of yet (obviously because of the lack of visitors) and this is reported and supposedly verified as: 1400 average per month.
I bought this website 1 month ago but this almost seems like a scam, I am wondering if anyone can give me some advice on what to do next or if I can reverse the purchase or what is the best next step?


I contacted flippa and they said they dont involve themselves after an auction. I also contacted PayPal and they suggested to open a dispute as its still within 45 days but they said to talk to the other party and try and get a refund / sort things out before going this route.


I am wondering if I tell the owner that the visitors and income just do not reflect the ones in the auction, I still haven't received the email list etc and I ask for a refund. If he refuses I will open a dispute. What if this person clears the paypal account, then there is no money to dispute or do paypal front the money and then chase the person for it?



Thanks to anyone in advanced that will reply.

The Apprentice

Quite frankly you probably know the answer to your dilemma as you wrote the above.. its clearly disheartening

I have also purchased and being burnt on the flippa website with traffic/stats that are and were clearly made up.. I would advise you asap to file a dispute with paypal, it takes ****ing ages for them to actually resolve any issues let alone a complex website issue.

Yes the money may be gone from the paypal account but as far as i know you may still get paid im not sure if paypal get burned or whatever :S
There are supposed to be guidelines with a verfied analytics/stat details with all the auctions im surprised you cannot claim from flippa the seller as i would througly investigate this route - Feel free to email me the auction to see if i can spot any discrepancies on what he said/you said etc that may help your case

Clearly this may burn you and with those sort of uniques with revenue i feel you may be out of pocket four zeros which is horrific, i would just say dont hesitate under any illusions this guy will send you this list, the probable fact of suppliers etc are all dud emails also..

I feel bad for you bro, been there myself just did'nt lose too much !!

Best of luck with it either way !

Yurple

Thanks so much for your answer.

I have asked the owner to refund me as clearly something went wrong, I think the lead generation guys pulled out.

If they do not refund the money, I will have to file a dispute. I have screenshotted and recorded all conversations and any other evidence.

The figure was high enough (2300euro) to make this a very serious case.

Thanks again and merry Christmas!

dozy doctor

Yurple wrote: »

Thanks so much for your answer.

I have asked the owner to refund me as clearly something went wrong, I think the lead generation guys pulled out.

If they do not refund the money, I will have to file a dispute. I have screenshotted and recorded all conversations and any other evidence.

The figure was high enough (2300euro) to make this a very serious case.

Thanks again and merry Christmas!

Unfortunately,.paypal NEVER lose out.... Sorry to have to say this, but unless your seller has a conscience, you wrong very your cash back...

I to have lost over €1500 and even through I realised I had done a stupid thing straight away, I contacted paypal and they point blankly refused to do anything about it until the 10 days were up, abc then I could file a complaint.....
my advice is file your complaint now and fingers crossed, but as the other poster said, it could be gone already...

Best of luck and happy xmas to you....

Dirac98

Hi
I've never purchased on Flippa, but we have a business which uses Paypal as a gateway.
I would thoroughly recommend filing a claim immediately. It may take time to resolve but we have founf Paypal to be very fair and even returned money after a bogus seller had withdrawn it from his bank.

The main thing to do now is file a claim. Don't be worried about what the seller of the website thinks etc. Just file the claim. You clearly have evidence that what you purchased is not what you actually have, so there's no point in my opinion waiting and waiting for a refund from the seller.

newfrontier

Dont paypal have a disclaimer about digital goods..be careful how you file the claim try to ensure you dont give them grounds to negate the claim..flippa is very hit and miss, I have had both good and bad results.. you really have to do alot of your own research and question all the stats

Yurple

Thanks all for the replies.

I currently have a dispute open with screenshots, flippa customer support logs, google analytics access and screenshots available and paypal evidence.

A link appeared to: Escalate this dispute to a PayPal claim

I have no idea to wait or to press this, I will have to read into this as I do not want to do something wrong.

Does anybody have advice or experience they can share when they have an open case / dispute and then having to turn it into a claim

And does anybody think it will be help and be in my favour I trade between 1000 and 3000 a month on paypal and paying a huge amount in their damn fees?

Thanks all and merry Christmas!

The Apprentice

Escalate this dispute to a PayPal claim - you cant do this yourself.. Only paypal do it

The process goes something like this - dates may be out

10 days for him to reply then escalate to a claim
30 days to respond to the claim
then claim goes through
3 -4 days money in your account !!

Yurple

ah right thanks! That makes sense.

So clicking this link won't speed the process up?

Have you had any disputes / claims yet? Virtual or tangible goods? Thanks again

The Apprentice

Well im understood that its not a clickable link once you go through the process of claiming

Yes i have escalated several claims through paypal and only just recently had 2 in the last 3 weeks.. One for my sister on an undelivered personal item (mobile iphone etc) not cleared through customs and another digital good through steam platform "dayz" game

Once you click the button through the paypal it just sends you an email stating it has went to claim ..
And as above he gets a chance to reply .. 10 odd days ..
Then he gets another 30 to reply to the charges etc, so it really is a long drawn out process just in case both sides have a legitmate claim etc

But afaik there is no clickable link, in that email as you have already gone through the process etc ..
If so just do it anyway..

Cheers buddy !!

Yurple

Ok so it was updated to a claim and he had until the 8th of Jan 2013 to respond and there was no response.

What happens now? No change on the claim yet.. or do i have to wait until tomorrow...

It's black and white clearly a scam... PayPal even contacted Flippa for information and they banned him on Flippa.

My worst fear is that they left the country or emptied their PayPal account and I get 0. That would be horrific.

The Apprentice

Im not really sure to be honest..

Im still waiting on my original claim of 13 euro from steam .. its been weeks.. slow process but let us know how it goes ..

Best o luck

cosher10

hi,

i know this is kind of off topic but what is flippa and is it worth having a look for a small investment obviously im going to have a read through the website now but always better to here about people who have actually used it.

thanks

Yurple

I like Flippa. I have both successfully bought and sold websites and domain names there. Everything went fine until my last transaction. I should have done more research and analysis of the website. I should have checked stats and other things they claimed more thoroughly... I learned my lesson.

The Flippa support team has been very good and have collaborated with PayPal and the user is now banned.

On Flippa there are a huge amount of different investment opportunities, from $100 to $1 million, just do your own research and analysis of the website, and check the presented figures and numbers with your own. When it looks too good to be true... it is! For example if a website makes a net profit of 1500 per month and you can buy it out for 3000.... it is definitely too good to be true.

I have bought some very cheap websites, improved it with SEO and monetised it in different ways and sold it for 10 - 50 times the amount i bought it for... and I love doing it!

Some people go on Flippa that don't know anything about websites, others are web experts themselves... some people buy to resell, others to make a living or additional income. Just explore it ... but be careful!

The Apprentice

I love this kind of area Yurple - I find it fascinating
If you ever need some help Seo Wise or Content wise let me know, i can do most things with a view to gaining more experience in this field..
Or even to bounce some ideas off of
Free of Charge with no gain other than filling my fat head

cosher10

sounds like a brilliant concept. if i was thinking of buying a clothing website that is already active would this be type of thing they would do. i had a browse through it but found it difficult.

thanks

Yurple

Good news everyone... I won the claim...! In my PayPal it shows reversal and I only lost 18 euro on currency transfer... i paid 2301 euro and got 2283 back.

It shows its gone back to my credit card but checked my account and its not there... hopefully it just takes 24 hours and it will all be fine!

riveratom

Yurple wrote: »

Good news everyone... I won the claim...! In my PayPal it shows reversal and I only lost 18 euro on currency transfer... i paid 2301 euro and got 2283 back.

It shows its gone back to my credit card but checked my account and its not there... hopefully it just takes 24 hours and it will all be fine!

Super stuff Yurple! I was reading your thread with interest and delighted you've come out with the right result!

Have been looking over Flippa myself, got any tips? Some of the stuff on there looks a bit too good to be true. There is one guy selling a site for approx 1k, where he is claiming almost the same in revenue, and nearly 1k uniques/month... I've asked for Analytics stats but nothing back yet..!

Yurple

Tips... do a lot of research and analysis before hand and ask for proof on the public comments or through private messaging.

A website for 1k with the same in revenue and uniques is a great deal and sounds too good to be true.. but doesnt have to be. I found many great deals.. mostly people that had a huge number of visitors and no monitisation for example.. i bought the website.. added some Adsense and quadrupled the income.

Also remember that revenue doesnt mean profit.. some drop shipper sites as example have 1k revenue and 150 in profit so take a look at that statistic too.

Good luck!

dozy doctor

Yurple wrote: »

Tips... do a lot of research and analysis before hand and ask for proof on the public comments or through private messaging.

A website for 1k with the same in revenue and uniques is a great deal and sounds too good to be true.. but doesnt have to be. I found many great deals.. mostly people that had a huge number of visitors and no monitisation for example.. i bought the website.. added some Adsense and quadrupled the income.

Also remember that revenue doesnt mean profit.. some drop shipper sites as example have 1k revenue and 150 in profit so take a look at that statistic too.

Good luck!

Great thread,,,,
Think i might be doin some website investing too.... Do you have to add any content to the websites on a daily basis or do they pretty much take care of themselves?

riveratom

dozy doctor wrote: »

Great thread,,,,
Think i might be doin some website investing too.... Do you have to add any content to the websites on a daily basis or do they pretty much take care of themselves?

That's one thing to bear in mind actually - most of the websites I have seen have been built up to where they are now with a lot of content and regular updating of said content. So, there is an overhead there in terms of time / cost to factor in. For example, some of the sites are reporting monthly revenue of around €50 or less - it would take consistent effort along with your commitments to increase this over time.