Urgent !! ... Total newbie got scammed on Flippa ? DELIBERATE !!

[Somepibe]

Hi !

The newbie would be me =D

I think I just made my entrance to the online marketing world the expensive way..

Please look at this flippa auction;
https://flippa.com/127106-Musicenter...0month---CHEAP

Seller had a 999$ BIN and also offered other site as a bonus if you'd BIN (which wasnt monetizing, but had a catchy name & design)

So I enter in contact with the guy (claims from Singapore, but traced back to Indonesia) via messenger, and made him a 750$ offer. He asked if I could do 800$..
But I stick to 750$ and he accepted. In just about an hour I was the new owner of my first site... (this was ysterday) -

OK the guy gave me access to his wp panel, the site files remains in their original host. Just finished the adsense/analitics recoding to see the site is not making $$...
I dont see the adsense counter increasing - I see 20 unique visitors in 12 hours - more or less the traffic he is claiming- but no 5$ a day in adsense whatsoever.

I dont know maybe its too early to know but I try to analize counterclock here in case I have to make a paypal dispute or something like that...

I just wanna know by your first sight evaluation if this is a Scam or not

I just got carried away by the passive income claims and did not pay attention to;

1- his english is nice on the Ad, but through MSN he had bad grammar and took time answering (like if translating in the middlle...)
2- I asked for traffic proves of past months and he claimed "I changed the analitics (or adsense, dont recall) script past month and all data erased
3- he didnt push too much for his 800$ counteroffer, i did not have to further negotiate my 750$ position
4- he has a video in the Ad, proving adsense income. The adsense account # didnt match with the adsense code embedded in the actual site. Of course I only realized this while changing this code with mine..

Please help deliberate and what steps should I take? does flippa usually helps? or once the ownership of a site is transferred the transaction is considered succesful?

Thanks a lot!
S.P.

[delta4]

I ckecked google analytics (pdf from Mar 16th) that he gave. Site had 3571 pageviews since feb 13th. In truth since Mar7 because till then no pageviews or analytics not installed.

And since Mar7 i see too much direct traffic. It´s 45%!!! Very strange. If no one knows the site how can it have so many direct traffic?

Site has visits from US but have a bounce rate of 99.17% (never saw a value so high).

To tell you the truth i don´t get it why you bought that site. Passive income? You only have access to 10 days of google analytics. Site has no history and if don´t have to work on it it´s an autoblog. Why anyone could buy one autoblog is beyond me. Easier to create.

I am not saying you were scammed. I just don´t like what i see.

I also checked and seller has lot of this type of sites. Maybe he is letting them age to sell.

[Clinton]

Hi Somepibe, and welcome to experienced-people.net

The adsense account # didnt match with the adsense code embedded in the actual site. Of course I only realized this while changing this code with mine..

You do realise that you could have checked the Adsense publisher ID before you went ahead with the purchase, don't you? You could have got his publisher ID simply by looking at the source code of his site.

What due diligence checks did you do on this site before you bought it? For example, when he claimed that the Analytics/Adsense script was changed in the last month, did you dig into the reasons or ask for access to the stats prior to the change?

[grynge]

How did you pay?
If visa or escrow or paypal put in a dispute.
If you paid cash via westernunion then you got no chance.
About the only thing flippa will do is ban his account.

[Somepibe]

delta: can you explain to me the bounce rate meaning?
clinton: I realise I could have checked that, but I've learnt it when I already got the site. For stupid newbies like me is that these kind of listings already succeed on the marketplace.
grynge; I've used paypal. I see there is an option "Unauthorized transaction" claim.

Analytics Stats shows now 33% bounce rate - 85% traffic is by direct search and (weird) 95% traffic is from CHINA
I just changed all the adsense code and the site is not making even by far the money this guys claims. Unless I am doing
something very wrong, but what could it be? just one adsemse banner showing blank for wathever reason. Site did 0,50usd yesterday..

I know that I deserve this to be happening, you might be thinking this as well. A total newbie comes to the scene and pretends to
invest 750$, to recover it in 6 months and start earning income without work. Yeah, right! So in some way this is deserved,
however at least I expect to learn in the hard way how to avoid this in the future and how to do proper due dilligence of a site..

Please tell me what other info can I supply to analize

Thanks

[grynge]

grynge; I've used paypal. I see there is an option "Unauthorized transaction" claim.

I wouldn't go down the Unauthorized transaction because they would be able to determine that you actually sent the payment. I would use the resolution centre and use the "Item Dispute" giving them as much details any logs etc that you have of any talks with the seller and the reason why you are disputing it.

[Somepibe]

URGENT ! He's been suspended from FLippa - Can I use this to my favor in paypal? Should I initiate a Item not as described dispute? or what kind of dispute?

grynge yes, I had the same ip as always when I sent payment, still I could claim it was sent from my office w/o my authorization? let me know please the best method..

[Clinton]

I know that I deserve this to be happening, you might be thinking this as well.

Not at all. I don't like to see anyone getting scammed and we have a section on these forums - the due diligence section - especially to flush out scams. You have done the right thing to notify Flippa. I have long argued that Flippa shouldn't allow this type of seller - the type that preys on less aware or newbie buyers. Flippa seemed to be positively cheering them on last year and actually encouraging newbies to buy sites from these sellers, but it looks like that is changing now.

I was merely trying to ascertain what due diligence you did do prior to the purchase. I am still curious.

With Paypal the advice seems to be to claim that you didn't receive the goods. If he doesn't have a courier receipt to prove delivery the matter would seem to be in your favour.

BTW, I don't believe the seller is suspended. He has a trust rating of -6 and needs another four negative points to reach the -10 required for suspension. Here's something else at Flippa I'd like to see scrapped: the "Trust" rating. It's a flawed implementation of a rubbish idea originally designed, I suspect, to drive up the "reputations" of the serial sellers of template sites.

[crabfoot]

I would think that the complaint to Paypal should be that the site traffic and income are substantially not as described.

[benitez17]

This discussion from a past scam discussed on here seems relevant: http://experienced-people.net/forums...-Dispute/page4

Also, I would tell PayPal that you didn't receive the item, not that it wasn't as described, and make sure not to tell PayPal that it was a domain purchase, because they will not pursue the issue any further in that case.