Why would someone sell a website that's making $126 pm for only $900?

**Melissa** · January 5th, 2010, 08:22 AM

As in this Flippa example?

"Thank you for taking the time to look at this auction. You are bidding on the website, http:// reversephonedetective101.com

The site has earned $337.44 in the short period it has been online. It did $126 in the December even though the December was generally a bad month for all my online business."

**tke71709** · January 5th, 2010, 09:20 AM

Look more closely at the stats.

It made $126 in December (the most recent month), it has made only $337 since it started (July) so the per month income is actually closer to $50/mth. This is a pretty standard Flippa scam, put the best month as the gross revenue per month rather than the average. If you ask the seller they will state that they just started promoting it, or that revenues are increasing so the first few months don't count, etc...

The site is essentially an affiliate site that relies on articles on Ezinearticles getting good rankings in Google to drive traffic.

So you're looking at a site with little earnings history, somewhat shady entries in the listing, completely reliant on one form of traffic (and a not particularly good one at that) that has earned an average of $50/mth for the last 6 months.

Not such a great deal now is it?

**Melissa** · January 5th, 2010, 01:56 PM

"This is a pretty standard Flippa scam, put the best month as the gross revenue per month rather than the average"
Hmm, I see what you mean.

So they can get away with saying that it's making $126 pm when it's making $50 pm? Isn't that fraud or something?

**hooperman** · January 5th, 2010, 02:01 PM

Originally Posted by Melissa

So they can get away with saying that it's making $126 pm when it's making $50 pm? Isn't that fraud or something?

They don't usually let a pesky little thing like The Law stop them

**tke71709** · January 5th, 2010, 04:19 PM

Originally Posted by Melissa

So they can get away with saying that it's making $126 pm when it's making $50 pm? Isn't that fraud or something?

Flippa doesn't actually police their listings, they seem to just collect a fee and then, if someone else reports it, and if the violation is flagrant enough they may have them correct the listing.

Really, Flippa is no worse than 99% of the buy/sell forums, they just charge a heck of a lot more so they have less of an excuse for not monitoring things more closely. It took me all of reading the description once to catch that doozy.