Sedo: Please show the proof of fraud

[jimbaggs]

how about sedoreallysucks.com? sedoreallyreallysucks.com??

 

[DomainDealer]

Many times a domain with bad traffic is parked with us completely unbeknownst to the parker that the traffic is bad. Many domains picked up from drop catch services have this problem. They were former websites, tgps or portals that were aggresively promoted by the former owner through link exchanges, unsolicited mail and promotional software and other means of generating untargeted traffic, then left to expire.

Fine, I absolutely agree with you my traffic is very very extremely bad. Are you still going to pay me for the 40 days you used my traffic without notifying me of how sadly bad my traffic was and when it comes to payment (with a push of a button sending an email); claiming my traffic is very bad ?

I received this email from Sedo On ( Sat, 9 Jul 2005 05:20:36 ) that I am going to get paid by the 15th of the month.

Hello xxxxxx xxx-xxxxxx,

Thank you for participating in our Paid Domain Parking Program.
Please find the evaluation of banner clicks as a result from
your parked domains of last month in the following:

Revenue June 2005: $xxx.xx

The total amount will be transferred to you via PayPal
by the 15th of this month.
We will provide you with a printable revenue statement at
http://www.sedo.com/member/domainparking in a few days.

Good luck for the upcoming month!

I received another email from Sedo On ( Tue, 12 Jul 2005 13:43:49 ) that my traffic is fraud and not making sales, you can read the statement in my 1st post !

So, what happened Sedo ... you didn't scam enough people ? Your accounting books did not impress the share / stock holders ? You made to take a little bit from here and there from your members to bring you revenue up ?

Note to Sedo: Pay me or not, Sedo are still Scammers

 

[jdk]

Hello all,

I need to state emphatically that we have not suspended anyone's revenue without good reason. We are obligated to our advertising partner not to intentionally accept untargeted promotional traffic because of the detrimental effect it has on the value of the ads and the ability of them and us in turn to offer a premium price for that traffic.

Our parking program is very liberal. We accept traffic from all over the world and it would be crazy for us to randomly remove, even a portion of someone's revenue. It is a competitive market.

Our ability to offer high paying clicks is tied directly to how well this traffic converts to sales. If the sponsors don't generate sales from the ads they're placing through our advertising parter they won't buy future ads and prices per click will be brought down for everyone accross the board.

Although there are people who are intentionally trying to defraud us I have not accused anyone here of doing that. Many times a domain with bad traffic is parked with us completely unbeknownst to the parker that the traffic is bad. Many domains picked up from drop catch services have this problem. They were former websites, tgps or portals that were aggresively promoted by the former owner through link exchanges, unsolicited mail and promotional software and other means of generating untargeted traffic, then left to expire.

Of course, I cannot go into the details of our internal procedures to prevent unnatural traffic. However, I can say our parking department does regularly audit traffic to make sure everything we're sending to our advertising partner is good. Unfortunately this is a manual process and it takes time to make a thorough investigation.

As I've mentioned before, if anyone has any questions about their traffic please do contact me. I'll include my number and if you are not in the US and would like to speak to someone by phone please pm or email me your number and I will ask someone in our Cologne office to contact you.

Jay Finnan
(617) 758-4268
[email protected]

If this was the case wouldn't you say to the owner of the domain that just that one domain no longer can be parked at Sedo instead of stating he is committed fraud? I do not see how blocking a whole portfolio would be beneficial to Sedo over one domain that may not be converting.

In addition, why not state the domain with the untargeted traffic has to change their keyword to potentially make the traffic targeted and convert many sales? i.e.) he is using keyword ballet and people are coming from baseball sites. Wouldn't informing the owner his keyword has to be changed to baseball?

Also, about his payment. If he received an email stating he would be receiving a deposit on this date he should at least receive the payment minus that domain and hold those funds pending the investigation.

I think the problem here is that this has been handled the wrong way and blown too far out of context.

 

[SedoCoUk]

Fine, I absolutely agree with you my traffic is very very extremely bad. Are you still going to pay me for the 40 days you used my traffic without notifying me of how sadly bad my traffic was and when it comes to payment (with a push of a button sending an email); claiming my traffic is very bad ?

I received this email from Sedo On ( Sat, 9 Jul 2005 05:20:36 ) that I am going to get paid by the 15th of the month.



I received another email from Sedo On ( Tue, 12 Jul 2005 13:43:49 ) that my traffic is fraud and not making sales, you can read the statement in my 1st post !

So, what happened Sedo ... you didn't scam enough people ? Your accounting books did not impress the share / stock holders ? You made to take a little bit from here and there from your members to bring you revenue up ?

Note to Sedo: Pay me or not, Sedo are still Scammers

I'm sorry we could not contact you sooner. I would like the ability to address problematic traffic immendiately. However, as I mentioned, when we are reviewing traffic it is a manual process, it is labour intensive and it can take some time.

We don't want to mislead anyone in terms of what kind of traffic we can accept. What we can accept is detailed in our parking terms and conditions that everyone has to agree to before parking with us.

Jay
[email protected]

 

[PapaStiz]

Hi Jay, still awaiting my reponse to the Pm you initiated last night...also wondering why Sedo waits 40 days and makes use of traffic before cancelling accounts?

Also starting to wonder why there has been no official Sedo apology yet or any swallowing of the pride because this thread is probably hurting Sedo more than the little money Sedo would be out of even if the accustions your company makes is true.

Slitting your own throat is more important than the 1 or 2 hundred bucks you are debating about? Seriously...you need to reevaluate what is at stake here.

Any reputable company would have come on here, stated the problem was fixed, PM'd the guy who needed the attention and would have come to some sort of compromise.

I really cannot beleive it has gotten this far without some sort of fix offered by Sedo.......hope this bit of negative advertising was worth that 1 or 2 hundred bucks

 

[SedoCoUk]

If there's ever a problem with just one or two or x number of domains then just that revenue will be suspended until the matter is resolved.

We do not withhold revenue for issues with keywords. When there's a problem with a keyword we change the keyword and notify the customer explaining why.

Jay
[email protected]

If this was the case wouldn't you say to the owner of the domain that just that one domain no longer can be parked at Sedo instead of stating he is committed fraud? I do not see how blocking a whole portfolio would be beneficial to Sedo over one domain that may not be converting.

In addition, why not state the domain with the untargeted traffic has to change their keyword to potentially make the traffic targeted and convert many sales? i.e.) he is using keyword ballet and people are coming from baseball sites. Wouldn't informing the owner his keyword has to be changed to baseball?

Also, about his payment. If he received an email stating he would be receiving a deposit on this date he should at least receive the payment minus that domain and hold those funds pending the investigation.

I think the problem here is that this has been handled the wrong way and blown too far out of context.

 

[jdk]

Thanks for the prompt response Jay.

 

[PapaStiz]

Tell me, if a domain that is convertig at DS and not a Sedo...why should I not send you a bill asking for the difference...would you pay? This is becoming a bit disgusting to me. I am sorry for all of those who have dealt with Sedo. My domains are almost gone, and the rest will be soon.


Hope your 2 hundred $ was worth it. In fact it really pisses me off.

 

[namestrands]

Well, regardless of what has been said, I have to admire Jay as throughout all of this and the fact that this is so negative to SEDO he is still protecting the person accused of fraud.. I am seeing some serious hole digging here..

I am having to read between the lines of all the comments here. I have now come to the conclusion(based on the comments only) and as I am not bound by any privacy issues or any real moral ones.

Ok so DomainDealer has allegedly commited fraud as you have said that if it was just one or two domains then this would not be an issue.. based on that I would assume that it is more than 2 domains. Which would make me suspicous amd if someone is commiting fraud on SEDO then its only right that you terminate the account if you have absolute proof as I personally dont want someone selling domains on SEDO if they are a fraudster, I question as to why if they are commiting click fraud then why let them still allow to sell domains surely that should not be the case, and the user should be banned from SEDO?

Click fraud hurts me and everyone else, not just sedo users, but all who use ppc, as bid prices go down..

also if I am earning €0.40 for the keyword "fraudster" and someone else on sedo is using the same keyword and is using automated or clicking on his own links then my €0.40 turns in to €0.01 which does not please me or anyone else for that matter.

If this is the case then shut them down.

I recall getting an email a few months ago about a domain in my account that was getting traffic from a pop up, unbeknown to be as the domain was a catch from snapnames. I responded to the email and all was ok.

I appologise Jay for giving you a hard time, but I can see you are protecting the privacy of this person which is a little misguided under the circumstances.

Looking at both sides of the story here it is very hard to know who is right and who is wrong.. so I guess the Jury is out on this one.

Jay, I would suggest that you speak to your MarCom team and draw up some new emails for these suspected fraudsters.

I appreciate you taking on board all the comments that have been made here, fickle as we may be at times.. we all want the same thing is to make money and to trust that we are getting the best deal available..

SEDO Germany really need to get some outside advice on how to address these situations, Even Audi realised that the German work/life ethics did not reflect well with the rest of the world, and tell them to treat there staff a little better, as they have lost a great bunch of guys/gals over the past few months. Make the staff happier and you have happier customers.. its a policy I live by.

There are some issues here that need to be resolved, but as far as I am concerned I will be considering moving back some of my domains on a trial basis.. as I still believe that sedo offers the best revenue and I love the security of the sales system (still hate the comments system though)

Lets hope some lessons here have been learned.

 

[DomainDealer]

I have switched all my domains to DS .. so far so good and even better ! What pushed me post on this board is that they kept referring to me as a fraudster and the comment, "you know where we stand".

All I want now is Sedo to pay me for the last 40 days that they kept my revenue (approx. $285) and that's it. I don't want to privately talk to them, email them, or call them. I am not a fraudster and if I was; I wouldn't bring the subject on the board and I hope they wouldn't ask me to keep my domains in there "Sale" section.

Which begs the question ... how can they accept money (commission) from a fraudster like me if I make a sale ?

.......... The Irony.............

 

[namestrands]

DomainDealer no one actually called you a fraudster on the board here. You have raised some issues, and this is the first time I have seen SEDO stick to their guns so strongly on this case.

We all assumed by your comments that your account was closed because of one domain, but now it turns out that it is more than two domains, that shines a whole new light on the subject and to be honest it brings a lot of questions..

I agree with your comments as to why would SEDO let you sell your domains but not allow you to earn from the revenue, that is bad judgement on SEDOs part one that I hope they will rectify. Because if SEDO have absolute proof that you did indeed defraud then I would be concerned that a fraudster would be selling domains.

I understand you are upset, but you are now breaking the rules of this forum by having an affiliate link to DomainSponor in your signature.. which under the circumstances is really an attempt at a collateral attack against SEDO and somewhat in bad taste.

 

[DomainDealer]

We all assumed by your comments that your account was closed because of one domain, but now it turns out that it is more than two domains, that shines a whole new light on the subject and to be honest it brings a lot of questions..

How do you know it's two domains ? or three ? or four ? where is that stated ?

 

[namestrands]

how may was it then for the record?

If there's ever a problem with just one or two or x number of domains then just that revenue will be suspended until the matter is resolved.

We do not withhold revenue for issues with keywords. When there's a problem with a keyword we change the keyword and notify the customer explaining why.

Jay
[email protected]

 

[DomainDealer]

how may was it then for the record?

In the PM they send me they never showed me proof of fraud (not one domain) ... they only showed me like 6-8 domains were receiving traffic / revenue but not converting sales to there sponsor.

 

[namestrands]

You were aware of this issue a month ago when you posted this thread
http://www.dnforum.com/showpost.php?p=587636&postcount=1

your revenue jumped to $25 a day from less than 10% of that.

Jay also stated that they only withhold revenue for the domain in question.. SEDO cancelled your account and in the original email they Used the words domains

we have had no choice but to decline future traffic from your domains and withhold your parking revenue.

Based on your previous post last month you can see that the domains in question were generating huge amounts of traffic and then stopping... so you were aware and the note from SEDO should not of been a suprise to you...

I think you really need to put this down to a lesson learned and move on.

 

[DomainDealer]

You were aware of this issue a month ago when you posted this thread
http://www.dnforum.com/showpost.php?p=587636&postcount=1

It was one domain and I did Pm the previous Sedo Rep. and he never stated any illegal or fraud activities on my part. It's unfortunate I deleted the Pm, I wish I still had it. His pm tone, was like this, "You are right the traffic did jump, and one of the reasons could be a new song, movie came out, or a link was accidently place on a website". He did look into it, but there was no bad activities or any of that nature. I don't know if the Admin. are able to retrieve deleted pm's because I want to get it.

Jay also stated that they only withhold revenue for the domain in question.. SEDO cancelled your account and in the original email they Used the words domains

They froze my revenue with no evidence against me ! They froze my revenue and now are looking into why they froze my revenue.

Based on your previous post last month you can see that the domains in question were generating huge amounts of traffic and then stopping... so you were aware and the note from SEDO should not of been a suprise to you...

Yes, it is suprise to me. Because the domain that jumped in traffic happened for 3 days and these 3 days were 35+ days away from the email they sent to me concerning the fraud activities.

I think you really need to put this down to a lesson learned and move on.

Yes, you are absolutley correct we should move, put this behind me and I have moved on to other programs. But, that still does not disqualify my 40+ days money which I rightfully own !

 

[Theo]

After 5 days of testing with GoldKey, I'm back to Sedo & willing to establish a long-lasting relationship. I definitely appreciate Jay's constant feedback, support and good sales skills :-D

 

[namestrands]

I think all in all this was a positive thread and hopefully sedo take on board our comments and concerns... we all appreciate that click fraud harms us all.. perhaps this will serve as a warning to potential scammers out there that this will not be tolerated be it from the Program or the Parker

 

[DomainDealer]

It's been 2 weeks and Sedo still hasn't proven anything ... tells you about them ! They just randomly sent emails and scam clients.

 

[Try-Searching.com]

It's been 2 weeks and Sedo still hasn't proven anything ... tells you about them ! They just randomly sent emails and scam clients.

thats for sure, they are a bunch of scammers, i still have jays email that he is going to call me, actually its 4 emails that he is going to call me but guess what "NO CALL" and he doesnt plan to.

Last email dated 7/18/05

Thank you Gene,

I will give you a call tomorrow morning and I hope we can resolve this matter.

Best regards,

Jay Finnan
Director of Customer Relations

Guess what Jay, I am still waiting, you and your company still have my money that you stole from me and I will continue to post until you do contact and resolve this matter, or until another few domainers get as tired as myself and we join together to see you and your company in court to find out what really is going on at sedo.

Domainers beware, SEDO is a bunch of crooks, read the post