Oh, the irony!

[benitez17]

Take a look at this Flippa listing:http://flippa.com/auctions/84065/FINALLY-a-GENUINE-Unique-ESTABLISHED-site-with-ORIGINAL-content-and-2500-pages


The site looks good, it seems to have a nice community built around it, the price is reasonable, and the seller seems committed with his $1 reserve.However, the listing itself leaves a lot to be desired, and is more comical than persuasive to me. He clearly spent a lot of time writing the sales pitch, but he spent more time denouncing all the scammers and junk site sellers that he has to compete with than really talking about the benefits of the site itself, and completely ignored the huge flaws in his own listing, the primary one being that the revenue he claims is not actual revenue!


I personally find it hillarious that someone would spend so much time bashing the other sellers on the site and claiming that he operates at some special level above them, when he broke one of Flippa's most basic rules regarding the claimed revenue and profit, claims that the site is worth $65,000 because of the estimate he put on the blog posts written by the users and then says that the number is legitimate because "that is not some bogus number made up by a fly-by-night web-capitalist. This is an accurate estimate based on the value of the domain name, the established site, the FREE employees, and the 2500+ pages of unique content" without any external references as to where he got that number from, makes guarantees that he has no ability to follow through on, calls the members of the site employees, and takes a condescending tone when responding to some of the questions.


I posted the following question to him after he confirmed that the revenue he claimed is not real: Why would you go to such great lengths to separate yourself from the crappy listings and then post information in the summary that is incorrect, misleading, and in clear violation of Flippa's rules? You are only allowed to claim revenue that the site has actually made in the past, not what you think is possible.

I assume he will either delete and make it look like I asked some offensive question when he responds, or he will state that no one can expect to buy a site that makes $900 a month for $3500, so he is not misleading anyone.


Either way, I reported the auction, but it will probably end before Flippa can be bothered to look into it.Does anyone else have an opinion on this?

[Clinton]

To "go off on a tangent" means to go off topic.

Priceless!

The prominent authors on Tangents are educated, well written, American authors. Not some "Slumdogs" outsourced from India or another non-English speaking nation.

Ouch! As I'm Indian I suppose I'd better not bid, he may not sell to me!

On a different note - American authors? And he calls it "English"?! hooperman and co, I hope you lot have something to say about that.

[hooperman]

Amongst the many other annoyances in that auction, check out the wholly believable guarantees:

I guarantee that the current authors of Tangents will remain active for AT LEAST 12 months from the time of purchase.

This guy is a megalomaniac who thinks he can control his staff, sorry, volunteers. Heaven protect those bloggers who simply change their mind about blogging!

I love this guarantee:

I guarantee that I will be 100% honest and direct with you.

Something about the logic employed, here...

Oh, for G's sake, finally I get to your comment about actual revenue benitez, and the telling reply.

I have NEVER made a CENT on this site

[3Six]

Thanks for cheering me up, that listing was a good laugh

[benitez17]

The guy is now beside himself because he apparently was unaware of the absurdly high amount of hypocrisy in his listing. I think I made him realize that almost everything he rants against in the listing can be applied to himself, and he doesn't know what to do about it. I was seriously interested in the site near its current price because it looks like a solid foundation for a blogging platform, but I don't think I want to deal with this guy as a previous owner of the site.

Clinton, you're right, I forgot to include his misguided racial stereotypes in my laundry list of issues with the auction. That's just the icing on the cake.

I guess I should give the seller some credit for not just deleting my comments and moving on like nothing had happened, but the guy seems like a real piece of work.

According to him, since Flippa has not explicitly forbidden people from making up their own estimates when they provide the revenue history for the site, sellers can type in whatever they feel is valid. Given that this seller estimates that the entire site is worth $65,000, I will have to take his estimate for monthly revenue with a grain of salt.

I also appreciate his attempt to turn the tables on me and claim that I broke the terms and conditions of placing a comment when I asked a "negative" question.

[hooperman]

It's a shame he spoilt that auction with his diatribe about the usual standard of crap on Flippa, because the site does have something going for it. But claiming $900 / month when it's not making a cent is just puts him in the same boat.

[benitez17]

Flippa fixed the auction in a hurry this time, despite the seller's claims that there is no rule against passing off revenue estimates as the actual revenue.