OK, I never posted any criticism on Sedo so far and I preferred to handle this issue in private, but as no reply seems to be coming from their supportdesk (they have been mailed by 3 different parties, none of them got a reply thusfar), please allow me to post this:
I think most domainers have gone through the situation where you see a domain up for sale at Sedo at a price which seems too good to be true. You make an offer, other party accepts the offer and you wire the money to Sedo thinking "wow, let's pray this goes through, it would be a killer-deal".
After not having heard from the seller for a couple of weeks, you realize it not only looked to good to be true, but indeed it wasn't true: "fake seller".
Is Sedo to blame for this ? Well, one can argue both ways, I guess. But "errare humanum est", things like that can happen.
BUT:
Last week I sold a domainname which I had bought months ago from a respectable domainer. He had forgotten to delete the domain from the Sedo-database. Coincidentally, he also received an offer (from someone else) and accepted the offer (as he forgot he already sold the domain months ago).
Sedo didn't track the WHOIS-data and let the deal go through...
Murphy's Law wanted that my (legitimate) buyer received 2 "confirmation"-emails at the same time (it was an intra-registrar transfer of a ccTLD). He accepted the wrong one (he cannot be blamed for this as the first name of both parties were the same and he doesn't speak the language in which those emails were written).
Consequence ? Domain is transferred away to the "false buyer" (you can't blame him either as he thought he bought from the real owner).
This is causing me 1) a lot of extra work to sort out the situation and 2) loss of credibility towards my client.
One would think that if you pay a broker to handle a transaction, the FIRST thing he would do is check if the seller is the owner of the domain. One look at the WHOIS would have made clear the domain didn't belong to the Sedo-seller.
At this very moment, I need to BEG to Sedo in order for them to confirm both Sedo-seller and Sedo-buyer they'll get their money back in full, otherwise the Sedo-buyer isn't willing to transfer back the domain to my client... Go figure.
I'm not even talking about the (rather small) extra costs all parties involved will probably not be able to recuperate (2 times transfer-cost / phone call to Sedo & Registry involved / banking costs for both parties / etc.).
I'm sorry for this rant, but it irritates me tremendously.
I think most domainers have gone through the situation where you see a domain up for sale at Sedo at a price which seems too good to be true. You make an offer, other party accepts the offer and you wire the money to Sedo thinking "wow, let's pray this goes through, it would be a killer-deal".
After not having heard from the seller for a couple of weeks, you realize it not only looked to good to be true, but indeed it wasn't true: "fake seller".
Is Sedo to blame for this ? Well, one can argue both ways, I guess. But "errare humanum est", things like that can happen.
BUT:
Last week I sold a domainname which I had bought months ago from a respectable domainer. He had forgotten to delete the domain from the Sedo-database. Coincidentally, he also received an offer (from someone else) and accepted the offer (as he forgot he already sold the domain months ago).
Sedo didn't track the WHOIS-data and let the deal go through...
Murphy's Law wanted that my (legitimate) buyer received 2 "confirmation"-emails at the same time (it was an intra-registrar transfer of a ccTLD). He accepted the wrong one (he cannot be blamed for this as the first name of both parties were the same and he doesn't speak the language in which those emails were written).
Consequence ? Domain is transferred away to the "false buyer" (you can't blame him either as he thought he bought from the real owner).
This is causing me 1) a lot of extra work to sort out the situation and 2) loss of credibility towards my client.
One would think that if you pay a broker to handle a transaction, the FIRST thing he would do is check if the seller is the owner of the domain. One look at the WHOIS would have made clear the domain didn't belong to the Sedo-seller.
At this very moment, I need to BEG to Sedo in order for them to confirm both Sedo-seller and Sedo-buyer they'll get their money back in full, otherwise the Sedo-buyer isn't willing to transfer back the domain to my client... Go figure.
I'm not even talking about the (rather small) extra costs all parties involved will probably not be able to recuperate (2 times transfer-cost / phone call to Sedo & Registry involved / banking costs for both parties / etc.).
I'm sorry for this rant, but it irritates me tremendously.
