FP - Should flippa be avoided?

[Andrew]

Hi Adam.

I stand by my initial response back in February last year that addressed the immediate points you raised in your original post: http://experienced-people.net/forums...ll=1#post41449

In short, we have an established process for refunding listing fees and waiving success fees. Regular buyers/sellers on this forum will vouch that this works - albeit without avoiding a relist at this stage (we're working on that!).

I'm not sure why you'd go ahead and pay the fee even though there was no sale (its not something we're used to and be assured its not something you agreed to in our terms ;-)). Happy to concede that our more recent correspondence should have checked the whois records of the original site for sale to see that the sale did clearly not go ahead. We've since put in place a more accommodating handling of unsuccessful sales so far outside of the standard dispute process. Our accounts guys will be refunding your payment along with the original listing/upgrade fees in the next day or so. Please accept our apologies for what seems a prolonged mix-up on that - we've added a few credits to your account for the inconvenience.

Unfortunately we're pretty big on ensuring users only have a single account to reduce fraud (eg shill bidding) and it seems our algorithm has since picked up you've opened another account. I'm hoping to rectify this by closing down the two more recent accounts and leaving your original account in place (please PM as soon as you can if you would prefer a different account to be preserved instead).

Hope that clears it up.

[Prosperly]

I'm not sure why you'd go ahead and pay the fee even though there was no sale (its not something we're used to and be assured its not something you agreed to in our terms ;-)). Happy to concede that our more recent correspondence should have checked the whois records of the original site for sale to see that the sale did clearly not go ahead. We've since put in place a more accommodating handling of unsuccessful sales so far outside of the standard dispute process. Our accounts guys will be refunding your payment along with the original listing/upgrade fees in the next day or so. Please accept our apologies for what seems a prolonged mix-up on that - we've added a few credits to your account for the inconvenience.

I paid the fee because 2 years after this all went down I got an email saying flippa was suspending my account if I didn't pay the fee. I tried to escalate it and the answer I got was "our managers won't talk to you until you pay the fee." I didn't really care about the suspended account because I don't buy or sell on flippa but I figured that if you guys were going to be that insistent about it then I would just pay it and then make sure and let everyone know how horrible my experience was.

I explained my problem over and over and the only answer I ever got was "sorry you have to pay the fee." I'm glad to hear that you have new processes in place but that doesn't change the fact that just a couple of months ago your people were emailing me, demanding payment and suspending my account because I hadn't paid the fee. If you really want to do the right thing give me my $250 back.

[Clinton]

We've since put in place a more accommodating handling of unsuccessful sales so far outside of the standard dispute process. Our accounts guys will be refunding your payment along with the original listing/upgrade fees in the next day or so. Please accept our apologies for what seems a prolonged mix-up on that - we've added a few credits to your account for the inconvenience.

That's a very good outcome, thanks Andrew.

[Andrew]

Thanks Adam.

Not sure the logic works in your last post. Either way, be assured we're humbled to have someone who is clearly not a fan of Flippa still pay $250 just to have an active account on our marketplace (maybe we need to revise our business model ;-)).

As Clinton highlighted, my post yesterday included an offer to refund both the "success fee" as well as your original listing fees. You should now be seeing this in your paypal account. Let us know if not.

Unfortunately we'll still need to shut down your two duplicate accounts (no matter how much you pay us!). In case you missed it, please let me know if you would prefer one of your newer accounts to be preserved rather than your original profile.

Regards,
Andrew

[Prosperly]

Thanks Adam.

Unfortunately we'll still need to shut down your two duplicate accounts (no matter how much you pay us!). In case you missed it, please let me know if you would prefer one of your newer accounts to be preserved rather than your original profile.

Regards,
Andrew

I wasnt aware I had two duplicate accounts. They must be really old (pre 2009).

[Andrew]

Thanks Adam.
One account was created back in 2005 (while we were still sitepoint!) and other was created in march of this year. I'll PM you the details.
Rgds,
andrew