I’m not going to lie, I’ve made some foolish financial moves in my times. All pretty good lessons and nothing that physically damaged me. One of the reasons that I have always done well financially is that I have a cast iron stomach when it comes to money. I have never lost a minute of sleep of due to money. It’s not because I’m wealthy but because I am pretty confident in my decisions, don’t spend more than I have, and realize that my decisions don’t always work out. I have lived by the motto that if you can buy your way out of a problem (even if you don’t have the money), it’s not that big of a problem. It’s when money isn’t going to help you that you better start worrying. But that doesn’t mean I don’t get pissed at myself for making hasty, stupid ass decisions
Last night I bought 8783.com on Dnforum from a person named BizGates for $500. He was a brand new member of Dnforum, that I knew. He sent me his paypal and I checked the whois of the domain and it matched. I have purchased a few names from new members a dnforum before and although very cautious, I’ve had good luck. This time I wasn’t cautious enough. If a name is a great deal I know something’s up but I didn’t think this name was far off the value. I have purchased 6 NNNN.coms over the last two weeks for $500 each and this name was no better than the names I’ve purchased. This member said he was from Hong Kong and again, fit the description of all the owners of the NNNNs I’ve bought. Asians seem to have a lot of these things.
I sent the money, didn’t think twice and got the email from Godaddy saying the domain had been pushed. I was happy to see the email and went to bed. When I woke up I realized I forgot to accept the name. I got up at 4 am to go running and woke up quickly when I didn’t see the name pending. Immediately I had a gut feeling I had been scammed. I checked the email from Godaddy and saw it was real. I knew the name had been stolen and probably had been returned to the rightful owner. I checked the who.is and magically it was a completely different person. I go back to dnforum and the user had been banned.
At this point I was only pissed because I was now going to have to go back and do a charge back on my credit. One problem. Evidently I had forgotten I had just gotten a big payment in the day before and it came out of funds not my credit card, translated, I’m fucked. Every paypal purchase comes out of my credit card but I have it set up to come out of funds if I have them, which is a rare thing. Just a bad combo of things
To head off the you shoulda responses. I know I should have used Escrow.com, should have done more research, should have used a credit card. I know the rules, I know the risks. I have made a lot of money being the first one with money on the table, taking risks that a particular deal may be too good to be true. Dealing with people that others are scared of. The walks like a duck, looks like a duck statement is true. A 3L dot com for $2500 or I’ll only take paypal does send up flags for me. I can be dumb but I’m not a complete idiot. Secondly, I have never done a private deal over $1000 that I haven’t done escrow.com. I will never…..knock on wood……get taken for big money but evidently it’s pretty easy to take me for less than $1000.
For those of you that think it can’t happen to you are fooling yourself. Sure, you know better than to get caught in something as stupid as this but how protected are your names? Do you have a security code texted to you on your paypal? There are a lot of ways for people to scam you, I just choose to protect the big ones and be completely stupid and reckless on the smaller amounts. I figure it’s a lesson learned and a lesson that may save me thousands down the road. My wife also made it much easier
When I told her what happened she shrugged it off. The main reason is it’s not her money. My domaining money is pure play money and in no way affect the family’s finances, so she lost nothing. Two, she said this. “You’ve made a lot of money by taking risk and sometimes you get burnt. You got burnt a lot when you are trading and you did fine. Look at this like a trading loss” The words made me feel better but the night didn’t get any better.
I went to Subway after our little talk and got a Subway Club. As I got home I realized I had paid $7 for the club when clearly on their ads it says the club has been added to the $5 footlong campaign. Now, that’s fucked up and I just can’t let this one go.
PS: All my ad rates are going to go up until I make this money back
Sorry about the news. When I buy on forums I only buy from people who have some history on the forum.
Yeah, but where’s the fun in that? Buying domains just becomes routine if you do it that way.
Shane did you drive back to Subway? I would have 😀
Shit happens. You learn and move on. In a day or two it will flush out of your system.
The subway mishap made me laugh… sorry 🙂
Shane I know it’s got to hurt, but you have your finger on the pulse… those who risk and loose the most also stand to gain the most. A lot of the very successful lost their ass many times before getting it right. The main thing is to stay in the game. Better luck next time!
P.S. I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I am selling cheap if you are interested?
🙂
Thanks and Ouch!
Bastards. Both the scammer and Subway.
Just curious, do VISA/MC/AMEX treat chargebacks for domain names equally to tangible items? Seems like they would be especially resistant if the charge was through Paypal.
I lose that amount everyday or more from DOMAIN PARKERS and virtual every aspect of this industry. It’s no big a deal. I have the same attitude as Shane when it comes to taking risks. When I used to Go to Vegas a lot, I tip BIG like a high roller, until I realized that those BUMS dealing the cards didn’t care either way 🙂 They were too stupid to let a big tipper when a big hand on the Black Jack table. I digressed…
If I sell some Domains, I’ll let you live a little, Pal.
u got screwed… so it goes… i have i general policy that i self insure under a thousand dollars and use escrow on anything above that. losing $500 would make me sad but then i remember… it’s only money.
That was you? I thought another member bought it, with username “Name”?
I saw it first and thought about buying, but a quick investigation turned up many question marks – it’s pretty risky to deal with a new member with no itraders.
I just hate it when they charge full price when they are promoting a sale, still love my subs anyhow.
Shane,
I’m sorry to be doing a double post on your blog, but I was on the phone when I made the last post.
Here is what I want every old timer Domainer to know:
I would be ashamed to tell everyone that I’ve been domaining for a long time. The reason is that the Industry basically sat there while Domain Parkers and Google ate our lunch. Imagine where someone registers a domain, or acquires one for say, $50 or less, and is able to park the domain, and receives (at a minimum) a revenue of $15 to $100 a month per domain a year from ads every charged to Businesses and every eye ball that goes to that domain, imagine for a moment what will happen to this industry. The owner of a Domain will not want to part with his domain. There will be a rush on the most common domain name. Businesses should not be able to run ads and not expect to pay for it? Who made these negotiations? Today, you park 2000 domains with a company, and you’ll be lucky to get a cent on each one per month? Is that madness? I am ticked off about this. When eyeballs watch a game on super bowl day, the network charges for the slot and space, not when a consumer goes out and buys the product. That is BS! But all old time Domainers like shane and myself do is complain about how a Newbie did this or did that. Who is to say Shane wasn’t ripped off by an Old Time Domainer? But more than that, the point I was making earlier, and why I was cavalier about the loss is that we get ripped off far bigger than that everyday and nobody is complaining. The deal between Domainers and Parkers and Google, Yahoo etc needs to be redone. They post Billions of Dollars every quarter, and some of that money belongs to the owners of the domains. Sedo, Godaddy all of them needs to know that we are not stupid dunces! Paying somebody 1c a week for a domain is idiotic!! Regardless of what quality the domain is. It must not have been too bad if somebody landed on it to warrant 1c. Perhaps, its the ad runners stupid product that prevented either a click or a purchase, and that shouldn’t be a Domainers problem.
Here is my rule: NEVER buy a domain from a domainer.
In 15 years I have never bought a domain from another domainer. Do you really think that is the right place to buy a domain? If you do, then you are still a rookie in this industry.
Why pay domainer prices when domains can be bought at 1/10 the price and almost no risk?
Also, do you really think they would ever sell you their good domains? No. They sell you their dogs…..the non-ppc-earning trash.
Just my opinion!
BTW…..I won’t sell to them either. They want everything cheap…..just like me. 🙂
I must have gotten your alloted amount of good kharma — when I was paying at Subway I didn’t have my debit card and I was $2 short, and they gave me the sandwiches anyway. I couldn’t believe it!
When something like that happens it sucks great deal, as you said, there were some red flags out there, but we all make mistakes, I have made my fair share of very stupid mistakes too, you just have to let it go, sometimes I look back and it still sucks but there is nothing to gain from living in the past.
The positive part, is that sooner or later you will recover the losings, you got your fingers burnt but it’s not gonna be that way for ever.
Thanks, somehow it always makes me feel better when others make the same mistakes I do, of course in this case most people would have been smart enough to avoid it.