OnlineDomain.com Domain Name News & Opinions
Since 2012 that I have been using DomainNameSales.com I can’t say that I am impressed with support. DNS is a very good platform (with some glitches here and there) but support needs some work.
Support is sometimes responsive and other times they just never reply or reply after a couple of reminders.
On the 16th of September I started 2 tickets. The first was about a few problems I had with syndication. I had turned off domain name syndication for more than a year now and I was still receiving inquiries from syndication. Taura replied and was really helpful and we exchanged a few emails on the subject. It was a great experience.
But in my second support ticket I asked them to change an entire portfolio of 366 domains to a certain generic lander I wanted. The ticket was open for 5 and then 9 days without a reply when I asked them 2 more times. Finally on the 13th day I got a reply that my request was completed and some apologies.
The problem is that this was not something I could do myself (there is no bulk category edit option) and it was a legal matter as well. I didn’t want my 366 serving the wrong ads. So there 13 days I was exposed and I was not even getting a response from support. That is not acceptable.
And this is not the first time there have been delays. I don’t know if it depends on who is handling the ticket or the nature of the ticket but 4-5 days for a response are not uncommon.
But I know that I have a support ticket from 2 years back that that never received a reply. It had 21 problems and suggestions for the DNS platform…
I don’t know what the support is like at Uniregistry but I am hearing they get hundreds of new account every week so a lot of people are needed in support.
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Not responding customers is one of the best ways to destroy your business. Fine with me. You don’t want my business, I’ll take it to someone else who wants/earns it.
Uh oh!….You just ruined your chances of:
A. Receiving an industry award
B. Becoming a Sherpa
C. Receiving a cake during the holidays
All of which don’t mean a thing to most of us “freestyle” domainers…..
Hmmm… I don’t know about A. and B. but they can’t ship food from the Caymans to Greece. 🙂
Evidently freestyle is another word for clueless
Ohhh, did I say something to offend you Shane?
Nah. You make me all tingly inside. We’re good
Sit down and shut up then!…Your not in charge around here!….
Receiving a cake was nice. But I would have preferred to receive 100% of my buyer inquiries, or a response from customer service, or some respect as a customer instead of meddling and threats from the VP.
I had a similar issue not receiving inquiry notices. Many emails later and Jeff G. found the issue. I had it set to make inquirer click the link to confirm email. If they did not, no inquiry notice sent and then reassigned to broker months later. Someone at namepros did as well: https://www.namepros.com/threads/domainnamesales-com-issue.868832/
How did “Sherpa” get into this discussion?! 🙂
“Sherpas” are everywhere!
Michael – Sponsors and promoters of Shane Cultra carry around his baggage. His baggage includes a long history of harassing new and experienced domainers. It has been going on for a long time, too many people have been hurt…..Sponsors and promoters are thus diminished by his actions. The industry is hurt, not just Shanes victims…..To keep credibility to your endeavors it would be best to stay far away from his childish and hurtful actions……….You are the company you keep… Best to you!
I haven’t used it enough to give any variables, but it’s been fine. Can’t be as horrid as 4.cn which is just pot luck to non existent, even with your broker.
Why don’t you just phone them or contact with a employee via your LinkedIn to clear the matter.
Howie it is not rocket science what I am asking. It is a matter of 2 minutes and a simple edit.
@konstantinos occasionly support doesn’t meet your requirements, and yes I been there with most major companies.
I think you’ve taken the wrong approach tbh. Usually, if I haven’t heard anything for 2/3 days I’d tweet the company; that’s always worked.
Would have saved you time no doubt, by using other forms of communication.
Howie I have tried tweeting when the company doesn’t have a support system and don’t know if they got my request.
I had a problem at DomainNameSales many months ago. It was a very serious issue, and nobody ever responded. Their non-response is one of the reasons I began A/B testing by parking at other platforms such as Sedo and Afternic. That was all before their bullying VP banned me.
Unlike most DNS customers, I have always transcribed all inquiry details in my own database. But I also would periodically download a spreadsheet of my DomainNameSales inquiries in order to audit my own database records. Then I noticed all sorts of discrepancies.
DomainNameSales had records of inquiries I had never ever seen, going back months. For those buyer inquiries, messages were never sent to my inbox at DomainNameSales.com; and notifications were never sent to my regular email inbox. I know this because I used to check my DNS inbox several times per week as I responded to the inquiries I did receive. And I checked my gmail archive to be sure none of the notifications had gone to spam. Nothing.
Most of the time DomainNameSales did forward me buyer messages – both to my DomainNameSales inbox and to my regular email inbox. But in a significant minority of cases, buyers asked me for price quotes or made offers; and I never even knew about them until weeks or months later. DNS brokers didn’t respond to them either. (That said, I did have another problem with DNS brokers answering inquiries when they were all supposed to go to me; but that’s another story.) The buyer inquiries I’m talking about simply fell between the cracks so that they were only detected long after the leads had gone cold.
Did I lose sales? Maybe. Maybe not. 90% of inquiries at DNS are from unqualified buyers with $50 maximum budgets. Lost sales or not, I couldn’t rely on the DomainNameSales platform to pass along buyer messages to me. At the time, as a database architect, I would have been happy to troubleshoot DNS’s glitches in order to ensure inquiries were handled properly. But customer support literally never responded to my questions. Months of zilch.
That’s why, when Jeff Gabriel threatened to ban me, I let him. Because the platform was already unreliable from my perspective.
P.S. Everybody ought to keep separate records of their DomainNameSales inquiries. Given their VP’s propensity to strong-arm and ban customers, it’s important to have a backup so that his threats don’t sabotage your business. Also, you may notice discrepancies. I’m sure I’m not the only seller on the platform where some percentage of buyer inquiries were sucked into a black hole.
These are some important problems. I will have a look at my past inquiries. Lately I have been noticing some other stuff but now is not the time.
Unfortunately because Uniregistry is one of my sponsors, everyone will think I get preferential treatment but I’ll say it anyway. Two things I didn’t like this past year. One, I didn’t like the answers to my questions because they were always, this is how UNI does it and we think its best even though it wasn’t best for me. Second, I don’t like the landing pages at all. Especially the “make offer” page. It has led to worthless inquiries and a ton of wasted time. But I also realize that I don’t pay anything for domain name sales. Yes he gets my parking but my parking sucks. But service is service and everyone should shoot for the best quality simply because many of the others that use the service have giant portfolios and make a ton of money for UNI.
I personally talked to Frank in a video conference about all of this and he knows of the problems and has a new release that will make everything go quicker and smoother. We’ll be able to make changes with toggles instead of emails. And like typical Frank, he’s super excited about it.
No, I don’t represent UNI or speak for them. Only saying I had many of the same problems and while I didn’t get solutions I did get acknowledgement about my issues and that changes are coming. But I haven’t had the service problems. I got immediate answers. I just didn’t like the answers
I have received a similar email about something I suggested. They told that this is what they have decided and that is it. They could have made it optional but they didn’t even want to talk about it.
The DomainNameSales platform has pros and cons. Compared to Sedo and Afternic, it has some advantages even as it lags behind them in other ways. Those other companies often respond slowly too, but DNS is unique – from my experience – in not responding at all.
I no longer use the site, after the VP meddled in negotiations and banned me for questioning his interference. How much does his heavy-handed, domainers-know-nothing approach hold the company back, I wonder?
21 suggestions in a ticket and no reply. Must be a record.
If you self-broker, then you’re a freeloader. If you use the site at all, you must act as a representative or employee of Uniregistry. Failure to do so results in banishment.
Why would a boss listen to 21 suggestions from a freeloader or an employee? He knows what he’s doing, and you don’t count.
Hmmm… 🙂
I don’t know. Maybe because they want to get better? No?
They actually fixed a couple of problems but still no reply.
Were you trying to change all of them to the sales banner only page? Or is there another landing page I am not aware of besides that and the parking / ads page?
2 requests:
1. Please change the landing page. Submit button should not be activated if buyer does not meet minimum quote.
2. Please release android application.
I am waiting for the android app for a couple of years now…. 🙁
I would complain, however for what I pay for the service I can’t complain. It is free and a valuable tool for my business.
Free? Not at all!
(A)
Advertisers pay per impression or per click. If everybody parks with InternetTraffic.com, then Frank Schilling gets everybody’s impressions and clicks without paying anybody for that rented publicity. That boosts brand awareness for Uniregistry (the registrar), Uniregistry’s nTLDs, and DomainNameSales.
Frank Schilling monetizes your traffic at least 3 different ways aside from parked PPC earnings. He’s acquiring customers from your visitors. So Uniregistry gets paid from:
(1) domain registrations / renewals / transfers to Uniregistry,
(2) registrations of Uniregistry nTLDs at any registrar,
(3) visitors who may not buy from you but who later buy something else via DNS brokers.
(B)
Naturally, InternetTraffic.com makes a lot of money from PPC ads on all those domain portfolios. Even if your earnings are small, cumulatively it adds up. So there’s another source of revenue:
(4) PPC earnings
(C)
When Uniregistry representatives interact with buyers, they’re performing work. Are they paid? Why, yes they are. If you self-broker and interact with DomainNameSales visitors, you are also performing work. You’re staffing the website for free. Customers at DNS need somebody to talk to, and you’re that somebody. DomainNameSales benefits from your time and effort whether or not they make a penny from any sale. Where else could they get free staff? If you chat with anybody on any commercial website, that person is paid minimum wage at least. Not domainers, though.
(5) Unpaid work from domain owners responding to inquiries via the website.
There. That’s 5 different ways Uniregistry makes money or saves money by using domainers. That’s a fair trade, provided Uniregistry staff treats us with respect. In practice, both Jeff Gabriel and Frank Schilling talk as if we’re freeloaders. In that case, domainers are being disrespected and exploited.
DomainNameSales is not as free as you think, just like the airmiles you receive from credit cards, if anyone knows what one of the biggest silent businesses out there is, and that is hard DATA.
To have all this lead info on end users, all sales data, what type of keywords are selling, to be able to follow up on old inquiries, and get a 15% commission on some of the best names online, it is not simply free.
My big issue is now inquiries are getting a confusing box asking them to signup for a uniregistry account, which may cause inquiries to have some bounce rates, which is never a good thing.
So when people say FREE service, there is something in it for both parties.
Since November 2012 that I joined the DNS platform, I’ve had 49 tickets. All but 3 were responded to and resolved.
The 3 currently open have been in “wait” mode for the past 6 months, because they are requests to improve or expand on current functions. In that respect, I don’t consider them to be pending, they’re effectively responded to negatively.
The DNS platform works for me, and while not being perfect, it has streamlined my communication with buyers and allowed me to complete numerous sales, and the combination of an open sales platform with PPC revenue is great.
Some issues that require ticket escalation could be taken care of more efficiently. So far I haven’t had a “life or death” situation that’d push me over the edge, as it did with Sedo in the past.
Joseph you complain a lot. Its so boring listening to your incessant bleating, bitching and complaining on all these blogs. I wish you would volunteer to that mission to Mars.
Thanks for not complaining, thou whited sepulchre!
Kostas,
My suggestion is to try Voodoo, it’s a nice platform, support is fast, good payout, you get many tools and traffic stats also by country, and Donny is a nice guy.
Give it a try 🙂
Lost in translation…
You guys know DNS/IT was setup as a low cost, low support, bare bones platform. It was created as a invite only place were domain investors would be able to get the most from their PPC earnings. When it first came out many people saw rates they could not believe 2x,5x,10x their previous rates. It was industry changing at the time the entire industry was suffering from massive cuts in PPC.
Then over time it expanded and continues to expand in terms of functions and support. But at its core the goal has always been to pass on PPC earnings directly to the domain owners.
Of course development requires money, and the company itself makes money, along with the side benefits of better leverage negotiating rates we all benefit from. But all of that said you can’t expect most of the revenue to come to you and at the same time have the support of lets say Go Daddy.
Even when I was making XX,XXX a month in PPC income I went years without having to submit a single trouble ticket and when I did Frank or another top guy would email me.
I mean we have domains, it’s a pretty straight forward thing. If you are submitting tons of trouble tickets chances are you are the problem and not the platform 🙂
Sure it was setup this way but it shouldn’t stay this way forever, should it?
When you expand you expand all ways. Support is one of them.
When Go Daddy started it didn’t have the support it has now.
I wouldn’t have submitted half of my tickets if there was a bulk category edit option. But there isn’t. When I want to edit 500 domains at once I ask support.
“I went years without having to submit a single trouble ticket and when I did Frank or another top guy would email me.”
That is the difference between you and the rest of us…
Frank is his own largest customer – by – far – so any problem anyone finds are problems he also shares. All ships are sailing in the same direction with this one. So if you find a bug, everyone gets the same itch.
“The problem is that this was not something I could do myself (there is no bulk category edit option) and it was a legal matter as well.”
If you have some specific problem that is related to your domains, then don’t blame the platform, blame your domains. The platform was best when it was restricted to high quality domains in my opinion. Those are the domains that don’t need emergency bulk edits due to legal reasons.
Frank has direct access to the database and can do whatever he likes. We are not the same.
There is no problem with my domains. I just want them all using a certain lander.
It was not an emergency bulk edit. These were domains I bought in the past few months and I added them all in the system. Once I added them I asked them to bulk edit the lander.
Please don’t judge without knowing. When I own e.repair I don’t want celeb ads on my domain. Is that clear?
It seems that you feel that all us with lesser quality domains (and I bet you don’t know what I own) ruined DNS for you. That is far far from the truth.
So its NOT a legal issue like you said? Its a simple header change. Tone down the dramatic flare.
The system auto detects and will adjust ads anyway that is basic PPC platform stuff.
But given you have zero and I mean ZERO type in traffic from now till the end of time on that domain you’d have a better ROI looking for pennies on the street then changing headers manually, in bulk, or at all.
IT IS a legal issue because I don’t want to have a legal issue, Bill. I have lost domains because of this. I have lost generics because of this. You can lose any domain if you are not careful. Don’t you know that?
I will not let DNS or any other parking company take away my domain name because they are lazy. They are making money of my domains. They better earn it.
The “system” and all parking systems will cost you your domains if you let them do whatever they want. Simple stuff.
What domain???
@Bill Kara,
“Frank is his own largest customer – by – far – so any problem anyone finds are problems he also shares. All ships are sailing in the same direction with this one.”
That argument won’t hold water. Frank Schilling, the boss, is a customer just like us? Therefore he shares our concerns, and he’ll make the improvements that benefit us?
Frank makes money from DNS in ways we don’t; therefore his ships and ours do not necessarily sail in the same direction. He doesn’t use DNS because it’s the best platform; he uses DNS because it’s HIS platform.
“If you have some specific problem that is related to your domains, then don’t blame the platform, blame your domains. The platform was best when it was restricted to high quality domains in my opinion.”
Bill Kara, voice of the people! Happy to see annoying scum like me kicked out of DNS. If others need support, should they be offloaded too? How obnoxious of customers to ask for service! Let them get out of the way so that Bill’s emails can get personal attention from Frank Schilling!
The system is set up in a way to pass the buck on to us. That means you and I. The trade off includes many things – support was one of those things listed when we first signed up. I think its fair to say parking a domain should not require support. Its simple and efficient.
Now I didn’t call you scum or say you should be offloaded. But it might be considered obnoxious to sign up for a system that offers the highest payouts because it is bare bones and then turn around and bash it because they can’t meet all your customer service needs.
Now my comment about Frank using the same system as us remains true. he has said all his domains are on the same system. Means same flaws, bugs, annoyances ect… so he has an incentive to fix this asap as a owner of the company, but also as a customer of the platform.
These are your words. Better ask Frank what he thinks about support and its value.
Everything is simple and efficient until it stops working. In you mind we should not have support for anything and everything would work perfectly from the start and forever. Sign me up.
As I said Frank is the admin. NOT the same as us. If was the admin I wouldn’t file a single ticket. I would fix everything myself.
@Bill
I’m only half serious when I exaggerate your remarks that way. Just pointing out how you might sound if you’re not careful. As a big customer, being out of touch with small customers is a risk.
Maybe you misunderstand why I criticize DNS. Personally, I’ve never paid much attention to parking. For me DNS was primarily an interface for dealing with inbound purchase inquiries. I needed essentially zero customer support. In fact, I asked to be left alone; and for that I was banned!
Glitches like missing inquiries deserve to be reported, don’t you think? Volunteering to help fix them – is that a bad thing? That’s what I did. Did I beat DNS up publicly for not responding to me? Nope. I just quietly began looking at alternative sales platforms.
Then one Monday out of the blue, their VP of Sales, Jeff Gabriel, reprimands me for a trivial non-incident. Beyond that, he orders me to behave like his employee, dictating how I respond to inquiries, asserting his right to meddle in all my negotiations as he sees fit, and demanding that I apologize to him. I don’t. He bans me.
THAT’S why I no longer bite my tongue. That’s why I distrust and criticize Uniregistry. You weren’t treated that way; but if you had been, I daresay you’d be annoyed.
@Bill Kara,
That was true in the beginning. Not anymore.
Put it this way. Some lady made me a $21 offer for ArtHistory.org. After 3 messages, she felt offended that I said “Listen, Lady” to her. She complained and received an immediate response from DomainNameSales. Not only that, the VP of Sales himself took several hours out of his Monday to reprimand me, order me to behave as his employee, meddle in negotiations, and then ban me from the platform for not apologizing to him.
Is that bare bones? Hardly! It’s grotesquely inefficient, given what his salary must be. If the VP can respond to such people so quickly, then he can give the same level of consideration to portfolio owners.
These days, DNS is not the bare-bones experiment it began as. Rather, it’s part of a large conglomerate. Uniregistry (the registries) / Uniregistry (the registrar) / InternetTraffic / DomainNameSales aims to compete with the biggest companies in the space – Sedo, Afternic / GoDaddy, et al. Uniregistry (the registrar) has been growing steadily through transfers. If they don’t care about responding to domain owners, that isn’t because they can’t afford to spare the time. No, it’s because their management views domain owners as freeloading parasites and scorns to listen them at all.
…maybe they just find you annoying.
@Bill Kara,
After the treatment I received from that company, I fully intend to annoy them, Bill.
You’re a big customer. As a fat cat, you’ve been petted by senior execs personally – which means you’re complacent and don’t really realize what it’s like for the rest of us.
During my years at DNS, I probably submitted no more than 3 tickets to customer support. Mostly those would have been suggestions for better functionality. Even in the email where I reported missing inquiries, I volunteered my time as a database architect to troubleshoot their glitches. Volunteering to help? How annoying!
Meanwhile I self-brokered nearly all my inbound inquiries with hand-written messages to DNS customers. To my knowledge, there were no complaints. Working quietly in the background? How annoying!
I don’t recall ever criticizing DNS or Uniregistry publicly until Jeff Gabriel banned me. Certainly, there were issues – like the missing inquiries. And I viewed Uniregistry with some suspicion. But I bit my tongue, hoping that these issues could be resolved quietly. So if you think DNS banned me because I criticized them, then you’ve got a time machine.
It’s true that I interacted with Frank Schilling in online discussions several times. Are you suggesting that he was embarrassed enough to order his VP to ban me?
That seems unlikely; but if you say so, Bill.
I have no idea what you are talking about. I didn’t comment about you being banned in any place. I’d rather stay out of that entirely.
Second, I used to have a larger portfolio now its quite small in comparison. I didn’t get vetted by anyone to join IT. Like most people I read about it, tested it, benefited from it and hence now recommend it.
@Bill,
Ah, but you didn’t stay out. You implied that I deserved whatever I got. So you get a full answer.
Bill,
Don’t do it. This is going to get you no where. I’ve been on the defending side for Namejet, and then Flippa, and now Uniregistry and Domain Name Sales against Joseph. He is a man of the people and we represent the privileged. The tens of millions you’ve made building and selling sites like AddictingGames and your games sites won’t get you an leverage here. Move along 🙂
PS: Can I catch a ride on your jet next weekend? Frank sent me front row tickets to the Pirates-Cubs play in game and Flippa said their jet was already taken.
@Shane,
People who have no answer to what I say complain that I speak at all. Why think about criticism when you can whine about critics, eh, Shane?
Like you, I’ve defended NameJet and Flippa and Uniregistry as well. Plenty of my online comments about those companies are very favorable. But you only pay attention when your sponsors are under fire; so naturally you assume I’m always negative. Guess you didn’t notice that I write weekly articles showcasing NameJet sales at DNW? Or that I highlighted a $75k Flippa sale (JiuJitsu.com) that I had a hand in? Facts are inconvenient.
I’ve sold domains through all of them. And bought through all them. And helped others buy 6 figures in domains through them in the past year alone.
Keep harassing everybody who questions your sponsors, Shane. They ought to buy you a private jet by now, after your countless hours spent harassing your peers – Theo Delevegas, myself, and others.
Can you do a few more blog posts so we can fly to Macau after the game for margaritas?
Shane, there is no reason to defend anyone.
Companies, just like people, screw up. If they admit it and how they improve that makes the difference.
Bill’s opinion is that support is not needed. That is a rather new and radical opinion that the rest of the world doesn’t support.
Yet he wants Frank to solve his problems. That is called support even if it is from the CEO.
You should not have said “Listen, Lady”…..sounds snooty and arrogant. I does not matter what she did to make you mad. You should not do that on their platform no matter what, IMO.
My Mom can’t stand when men address her that way. I bet this lady felt the same way.
You don’t know what she said.
@Domain Player,
Keep in mind, my first 2 emails to this woman were polite, hand-written, and informative. Her $21 offer would have been ignored completely by most domain owners, whereas I was being generous with my time in order to help her. Many domainers would have sent a template email to push her away, whereas I did my part to educate her about the domain market. The domain itself was something I don’t intend to sell at all; so100% of what I did was meant as a courtesy to her.
By nature and by training – thank you, militrary – I’m very polite. I’ve responded by hand to hundreds of buyer inquiries every year with no complaints ever. When I use harsher language, it’s quite deliberate. In this lady’s case, I wanted to emphasize – after her rudeness to me – that I was a private owner taking time out of my day to help her and not a customer service employee. In order to make that distinction plain, after she had failed to listen to what I’d said already, I couldn’t continue using the same polished, polite tone I began with. Instead, I needed to wave my hand and get her attention. “Listen, Lady” sounds a bit stern; so it fit the bill.
On a 0-to-10 scale of rudeness, “Listen, Lady” might rise to a 2 … maybe a 3. I’ve asked several women what they think of the phrase, and they’ve all concurred with me. The phrase is firm and no-nonsense. It ruffles feathers, but it isn’t actually offensive. Put it this way: If I were out in public with my mother, and she were being a bit pushy to a stranger and he said, “Listen, Lady” to her … I wouldn’t bat an eye.
Consider this: Numerous owners on DomainNameSales say things like “Fuck off” to buyers. They’re still selling on the platform. So clearly DNS has no sensible, clear-cut policy for censoring and banning our remarks. As a matter of fact, Jeff Gabriel didn’t ban me for rudeness. He reprimanded me (which I found rude and, as you say, “snooty and arrogant”). What really got me banned from DNS was when I questioned whether it was a good idea for Uniregistry staff to interfere in negotiations and take sides against a domain owner. That he couldn’t stand. (He never answered.) And that’s why he banned me.
Jeff Gabriel might have approached me in a less arrogant way. If he had simply asked me to reconsider my level of sternness, perhaps I might have. What he did, though, was ORDER me to phrase replies to his liking … with an implied “or else”. He showed no open-mindedness about phrasing or policy and zero interest in listening to me as a customer. Furthermore, he began by insisting that I behave as a “representative” of his company, telling me that I’m seen as his employee and must therefore act like his employee.
That’s something I – and most domain owners – wouldn’t agree with. We are NOT Uniregistry representatives; we are independent domain owners. We are NOT Jeff Gabriel’s employees to be ordered around under threats of being fired. We are Uniregistry’s customers – people as deserving of respect as an obnoxious lady who will never spend a dime on an aftermarket domain.
When a company begins bullying its customers and insisting that they act like its employees, that company has crossed the line. That’s unacceptable.
That’s what this is about. The phrase “Listen, Lady” is just their pretext for abusing a customer.
They seem to have gotten a lot better at responding to tickets, so I have no complaints there.
I do wish for a few things out of the system:
1. Dont let submission be made with no comments. It has become a problem lately with so many inquiries with nothing said. This makes it really tough when dealing with trademark sensitive domains and a huge annoyance with the rest of the domain leads.
2. Don’t allow an inquiry to be recorded unless they meet the minimum offering amount. Why put us though this? If someone offers $10 they are left with the impression that somebody will get back to them. That sucks big time.
3. If I find out they have been taking over my leads I will leave permanently. Rumors are that they have been “taking over” leads months after leads have gone cold. If that’s true, that’s stealing in my book. I have not seen this but if I do I’m gone forever. I take that kind of stuff very personally.
I do like a lot of things about DNS but they could do better. I feel like at first Frank made it feel like we were all going to be a big team working together. However, now, it feels more like DNS is separating away from us and treating us more as clients instead of partners. I prefer to be on a team. I hope he will think about this and not make any mistakes.
I never felt like I was on a team. I spent hours finding bugs and problems and they couldn’t care less.
1. That is your preference. I prefer not to get all the “it is for a school project” comments.
2. That was a problem from the start.
3. Are you sure that this is not in the terms you agreed to?
Mr. Player and Shane, #2 is for you:
#1: Once the buyer submits their contact details they are asked to make a comment. If someone does not write something, and you are fearful of being on the receiving end of legal issues ask the buyer what it is pertaining to and who they represent.
#2: We try and cast the largest net possible to provide the most sales opportunities as possible to our team, and our users. You can filter that down by going to: SETTINGS ->For Sale Configuration. Bottom of the page, set minimum offer. Choose email confirmation. Those are defaulted off.
#3: We are taking old leads. The only way that is happening is if you opt into the service yourself. You can do that by going to SETTINGS -> Old Lead Management. Many people like yourself work on a lead for X amount of time. Then you never follow up again. If that amount of time is 30, 60, 90 days you can set that to then reassign the lead to our Brokers.
The time starts from the last time you committed an action on that lead. We will not be taking them midway of a heated negotiation on day 30.
Jeffrey M. Gabriel
VP of Sales DomainNameSales
1-800-818-1828 x6261
Thanks for the explanations, Jeff.
Regarding #1. I meant that more as targeted to all leads as opposed to TM-sensitive leads. I find it extremely annoying when leads are set with no comment.
Is that so much to ask of an Inquirer to leave a message? Secondly, why make us go through all the work of vetting these no-comment inquiries? What’s the point of creating the hassle? Having them leave a comment helps screen people and companies for bogus inquiries and gives us something to work with.
As I said… Some people prefer to not get the usual lie as a comment. Why do you want a comment? And what do expect to accomplish? People can just type “dudjhjejdjd” and make the inquiry.
@Andrea . Payouts suck at Voodoo from what I have seen. Sedo and Afternic are total trash as well.
@John
We have all our domains with Voodoo and payout is good, we know what we are talking about. As far as I know, also many of Rick Schwartz names are parked with Voodoo as well.
Can you post a screenshot, please?
You don’t use privacy on your domains, maybe you can share some screenshots showing PPC if you want, that would be very important for all…
James,
I was referring to “payout”, which is the % of ppc revenues they pay out of the total they receive from their main ad provider.
PPC depends on many factors, including keywords involved and the quality of your domains.
@Bill Kara
One thing that DNS showed us is that all the other parking companies were stealing from us. They were screwing our payments downwards because the domain parking market is small and there were few enough players who were able to control the market.
Once Frank showed up on the scene and Released DNS all the other parking companies have to start paying more. The spotlight was put on them for having paid us all so little. I won’t forget how they treated us.
That is one really great thing you can say about DNS and Frank : They treated us right when it came to PPC payouts.
I agree, I was shocked at the increase I got when I switched. But all those booths, and promotions and 15 personal teams flying around the world to every conferences all cost money.
I’d rather take a back seat on support and be passed forward the savings.
I’d rather see these conferences take a back seat and they focus on support and fixing real problems. Not saving pennies.
My comment was implying the previous parking companies used to spend like that.
DNS/IT are bare bones compared to what parking companies used to spend on promotions.
“IT IS a legal issue because I don’t want to have a legal issue, Bill. I have lost domains because of this. I have lost generics because of this. You can lose any domain if you are not careful. Don’t you know that?
I will not let DNS or any other parking company take away my domain name because they are lazy. They are making money of my domains. They better earn it.
The “system” and all parking systems will cost you your domains if you let them do whatever they want. Simple stuff.”
———————-
Sorry Kosta calling you out on this one hard bud…
1. You’ve never lost a generic domain name (period)
2. You’ve never lost a generic domain name due to the platform running any ad
3. Parking companies don’t take way domain names, in most but not all cases its due to trademark issues and the parking company is not the one taking the domain
4. No one is making any PPC money off your generic names, not the parking company, not yourself.
You do know the platform makes more money when people click your ads, its the main way they get paid from PPC. If no one clicks, no one gets paid. So virtually all the value add from a pure parking company is optimizing ads vs domains vs viewers vs negotiating upstream contracts. That’s what they do. Everyday thinking of ways to get ads on domains that viewers will click. Everyday morning till night. For this service they take a %.
So put down the trouble ticket button and enjoy the service. Its amazing – trust me – I know what came before it. Every day before you hit submit for yet another trouble ticket I want you to light a candle and thank science you are parking today and not in 2007-2008.
1-4: Sorry Bill but you lost me…
Give me 10 of your domains to see how you are doing it so well.
Trouble ticket button? What are you saying? DNS can disable support altogether if they agree with you.
It is not amazing. It is good but far from amazing.
Sorry but I can’t trust you. Nothing personal.
Other people know what came before 2012 and even before 2007. Not just you.
I was making 5 figures at that “horrible” times. Guess how much I make now…
ur drunk 🙂
Whatever…
Joseph P. You are more than annoying, some day some one will cut your throat like a pig.
These threats are taken seriously.
Joseph asked me to publish it.
I agree with smiley26. Somebody probably will.
@Shane Cultra,
Care to do the honors at NamesCon?
Joseph,
You are morbid and that is taking it way too far. To suggest I would ever take it to something of that level is just wrong. I disagree with you on many things but suggesting I wanted I would kill you is not funny at all. The original comment was wrong and yours was just as bad. I guarantee I will not be participating in any conversations from this point on. That was too far.
@Shane,
Relax! Quit taking domaining so seriously, and laugh at yourself a little, man.
Yes, my sense of humor is morbid. But I’m glad you, at least, find references to slitting people’s throats to be unacceptable. Thanks for expressing that sentiment. This is the internet, as Bill Kara says; and I have a 6-inch thick skin, but I would hope that some domainers disapprove of that sort of thing. Colleagues ought to look out for one another.
I play rough, Shane. Just tone down your sponsor-critic-bashing from 10 to maybe 4 or 5, and we’ll get along splendidly. You contribute good things to this industry. Just wish you wouldn’t muddy the waters by stalking / smearing your peers and writing personal attack posts. I told by phone once to knock it off. Happy to shake hands any time you’re ready to stop.
It’s done. We can shake hands at any time. Once throat slashing and killing became part of the joking I’m out. One last explanation. Bill has been a friend for many years and was one of the first people to reach out to me and give me support. Always answering any questions I had and sending emails full of support and advice. And that was after all the success he had and me being a new person in the industry.
This is why I “defend”. All these companies have real people behind them. They do things well and just as many things poorly but they are still real people. But Bill here, Frank at Uniregistry, Kevin at Flippa, and Matt at Namejet have all given me help, support, and answered questions after I reached out to them. Before they sponsored my blog, before anyone knew who I was. And those are the same guys that I defend when others claim that they are not making effort. I agree that many things their companies do are poorly done. That I can criticize ,but I can’t criticize the people and have trouble letting others do it.
I should let it go as it only makes things difficult for me but they got me here (in addition to a little work on my own) so I might as well help them when I can.
In short, thanks for the conversation. Yes, DNS has a ton of work to do. Kon is 100% correct. Hopefully much of it gets resolve.
But no talk of killing. That is ridiculous and has no place here. Kon should not let that be put in his comments.
@Shane,
I realize that you see yourself defending friends. And you see the companies who sponsor you as people you interact with. But just keep in mind that the people you “bully” – and remember that was your word, not mine – are also people.
As a matter of fact, the people you defend are usually fabulously rich or else drawing a nicely padded salary from the companies where they work. Meanwhile, the people you attack are usually less well off, with no salary as a safety net, and working hard to make the industry better.
It’s great that you feel some loyalty to industry big shots who’ve stopped to help you out. Just don’t become a henchman, Shane. As a new arrival in the industry, I’ve seen you do things to sabotage my career. It didn’t work, but it was hardly constructive. Remember that people have supported you, as a little guy. Try supporting the little guys, or at least keep an open mind. Domains are what I’ve done full time since 2011. These days, it’s tough enough without the backstabbing. When we criticize companies, we’re trying to make the industry work better for all the new arrivals. Bill Kara might be a nice guy in spite of his sneering, but he doesn’t know what the majority domainers put up with. Neither does Frank.
As far as the slitting throats comment goes … Konstantinos asked me what I wanted to do about it, and I asked him to publish it. My reason is simple. Domainers as a class are grotesquely unprofessional – worse than any group of people I’ve ever met. I spend a lot of my time defending the industry to outsiders, but I also want insiders to realize how nasty the domaining world is.
Standards need to improve. Good people don’t engage in online discussions because they face personal attacks. Smart people don’t participate in the domain market because interacting with domainers means plugging one’s nose day after day. This holds back the industry as a whole AND lowers market prices. Many more buyers would be participating if domainer culture were better.
From getting banned by a bullying VP at DomainNameSales to having people wish my throat was cut because I use that throat to speak – that’s what participating in the domain industry is like. That sets the tone. I doubt there has been a day in the past 4 years where I haven’t been called a liar, a cheat, a cybersquatter, an idiot, etc. That wasn’t my first death threat – not to mention threats of lawsuits, threats of being banned from websites, etc.
People ask me why I don’t go to domain conferences. There are various reasons. Really, though, after years of dealing with domainers online – getting backstabbed, cheated, harassed, and hung out to dry every single day – why would I want to hang out with such people? There are some talented, professional folks in the industry; but the proportion of lowlifes is higher here than anywhere else I might work.
People need to see that. That’s why I asked Konstantinos to post the remark. Not that I take it seriously. Not that it’s unique to the domain industry. But it’s fairly typical of domainers.
Hey Kosta I’d like to submit a trouble ticket….. to your blog. Your comments section is wrapping our posts up all wonky. Please fix this immediately I’m already freaking out.
If this wrapping causes any legal problems, let me know and I will pay the bill.
Oh… I forgot. You are not my client, are you?
I don’t think Ill have legal problems from my comments they’re not full of typo’s – pun intended
😛
zing!
The core issue of this post is the responsiveness of DNS to tickets. While their record isn’t stellar, it’s pretty good, from my personal experience.
I respect Joseph’s objective approach in many posts, and he has had a negative personal experience with DNS that led him to redefine his stance. I did the same thing with Sedo.
I’d rather read a well-established analysis of one’s position, than a caveman’s chest-thumping, attempting to discredit a perfectly articulated argument. Those with ADD can stick to tweeting.
If anything, learn a new word, people; I had to Google “whited sepulchre” 😀
Kosta, to avoid lander issues make sure you define a keyword and check the box “Specific Keyword” under Parking Details. It will ensure that you get no questionable landers.
@Acro,
Thanks. It is possible to have a positive opinion of DomainNameSales and even Uniregistry sponsorship, as you do, and yet interact cordially with colleagues who are critical of that company.
Brown nosers like Shane Cultra will never understand professionalism. He announced literally today (September 30) that Uniregistry began sponsoring him. Like clockwork, here he comes to stalk and harass anybody who offers substantive criticism. While Flippa was sponsoring him, he shadowed whatever I wrote about Flippa. He had so little to say that he actually took to writing paragraphs of self-confessed gobbledygook because he thought it would bug me. Huh? Now he’s stalking my Uniregistry comments in much the same way.
Domain Shane takes his job as sycophantic thug seriously. I swear that guy spends half his day looking for the next kissable ass; then he spends the other half throwing pebbles at anybody who says his master’s ass has a mole.
Even while kissing Uniregistry’s brand new behind, Shane simply can’t stop himself from gushing about Bill Kara’s immensely kissable rump! Guy’s got a private jet, after all. Shane, do you want to be taken for a private mile-high-club jaunt, or do you wants to be taken seriously? Can’t have it both ways, bro.
@Bill Kara,
If I’m having a conversation with a colleague I disagree with and somebody else chimes in that he wants to “slit [his] throat like a pig”, I would pause. Maybe express some solidarity. Maybe suggest that death threats aren’t acceptable.
Instead you brag about your wealth and pretend to invite a toady to “fly to Macau after the game for margaritas”. Not the classiest thing.
The slogan for my first website…”Hacker Network – Were egos grow large and ranting is a skill”
It’s the internet Joe no one is going to slit anything, or fly anywhere. Relax. Laugh. We are talking about parking domains not curing cancer here.
@Bill Kara,
You know what’s funny? The people who tell me to laugh are always the people who can’t tell that they’re being laughed at. Bill, haven’t you noticed who’s the butt of my jokes here – literally?
Still, class is class; and you don’t seem to have any.
@Acro
“Those with ADD can stick to tweeting.”
Was this geared towards my tweet comment to chase up support?
Acro’s comment was made well before yours.
Well I’ll be darned, cheers KZ. Just getting the ‘comment’ out of context scenario, sorry.
The problem is that I also had a similar experience such as Joseph with Jeff Gabriel…
Joseph’s problem was not an isolated incident and neither was this ticket response delay.
If it was I wouldn’t write about it.
The only way to avoid legal problem from ads and related searches is to use:
CATEGORY general
SUB CATEGORY generickw
I had my domain at uniregistry under privacy, reg’d since 1999, someone files a tm for term in 2015.
They are stumped by privacy email, so they contact uniregistry support, I get a cc of the reply in which they give the inquirer a link to the udrp process, like WTF!
They are under no order to respond to random emails unless they have legal documents or suponeas ordering them to do so, why share such information with some reverse hijacker?
Time for some policy reviews, also bulk edits, I had a domain that was part of a viral campaign on a lessor extension .com
Caught like 15000 uniques over a single day, tons of confused Inquiries, one by one had to be deleted.
Also if I sell a domain via NDA, and hide it does dns still have access to this Info internally.
North sound names may use such info when reserving names based on inquiries and sales on such user portfolios?
did you face an urdp ?
Hi Bill,
There are varying discussions taking place on this thread. I want to reply to your specific comment about how we handle alleged tm complaints. We are actually registrant friendly – we let you know that we received a complaint. We inform the complainant that we are bound by the terms of the UDRP process. We only act on disputes if we receive a formal notification as part of the UDRP process, and we provide the complainant a link to ICANN for more information. We are obligated to respond to all inquiries sent to our Abuse Department.
I hope this clarifies our registrant centric position. If you have any additional questions specific to this incident, please reach out to us – help (at) uniregistry.com and we can further investigate. You can address your ticket to me and I will follow up.
Thanks,
Michael Ward
Director of Registrar Operations
Uniregistry
Honestly, does not sound very registrant-friendly.
Mentioning anything about the UDRP or ICANN does not help us at all. Maybe I’m missing something.
Yeah, that looks weird to say the least.
I am hoping that Frank has been reading all these comments and make necessary changes to improve the DNS.
He needs to seriously think about that landing page. He prefers to collect the data about the inquirer. But, several domainers prefer to deal with serious buyers only.
There the ships part ways.
Krishna, instantly recognize the name and the 15,000 plus domains you own.
Frank said ,com is like the AM dial, and owns like 300K domains, why continue to proxy namejet bids above, and beyond on your own clients into the thousands?
Why not sell your 300k domains, make a killing, and move into your hundreds of thousands of generated GTLD’s, and the new FM dial?
I guess uniregistry needs to choose where it wants to land, I am not going to get keep getting pushed up by taryn, and give them my business so they have more powder to outbid me, others needs to think, and unregistry needs to figure out what kind of company it wants to be.
To many hands in the cookie jar, a random users thoughts, shared by many.
#WhoCanWeTrust
Krishna,
Thank you for your comment. We cast the widest net we can. You are provided filters in your sales settings to tighten that net.
You can use email confirmation links.
You can also automatically respond to inquiries from undeveloped countries that your chances of sale are very low.
Both of those features will bring your lead count down.
Jeffrey Gabriel
VP Sales DomainNameSales.com
Do the domain owners get commission for purchases made by the people captured by the Uniregistry form on our inquiries??
I mean the form that pops up after a buyer has made an inquiry. People have mentioned that in these comments above.
Hey @Konstantinos,
While plenty has been discussed here already, I just wanted to quickly drop a note here that the ticket that resulted in this post was re-assigned to me while I was out of the office and overseas and I unfortunately did lose track of it in the CRM during that time and resulted in the unusual delay. It was an honest mistake on my part, so you have my sincerest of apologies. If you do ever need any direct or urgent assistance, especially with parking, I believe you have my email, so feel free to use that absolutely any time.
As noted above in this comment thread, we are actively working on some substantial improvements to DNS that includes the ability to make bulk changes in the interface such as the one that was requested. As someone who has been with DNS and InternetTraffic since the beginning and is working on this project, I’m doing my best to get in some features that are overdue. Overall we are extremely excited about what is coming and what it means for our whole ecosystem here.
John Smrekar
InternetTraffic
DomainNameSales.com
Hi John,
there must be a problem with your CRM then. I created the ticket and then submitted 2 more requests on the same ticket.
Did you receive all that?
The main problem is that whatever someone suggests to DNS as a new feature or option they get the answer “This is what we have decided.” and the conversation ends there.
Or they get no answer at all.
Good old Shane, wants to shake hands. 😀 Obligatory smiley.
Look me up at NamesCon, I don’t have a posse and my handshakes are always firm and honest.
I’ll be there. Will shake your hand. And Shane’s. Hell, I’ll even shake Jeff Gabriel’s hand.
Diplomats seldom trust each other; but if they don’t begin with the handshake as a formality, nobody can get anywhere. The goal is to normalize relations and engage in trade.
Put 150 people in a tube underwater, and they won’t all like each other; but they can damn well work together. Even if human beings don’t respect one another inwardly, we can show each other respect outwardly. As a cynic, that’s my wildest hope.
And the result?
DNS came to this post and never replied to my concerns.
Great!
That’s their VP, Jeff Gabriel, for you. As I joked above:
“Why would a boss listen to 21 suggestions from a freeloader or an employee? He knows what he’s doing, and you don’t count.”
Also:
“If they don’t care about responding to domain owners, that isn’t because they can’t afford to spare the time. No, it’s because their management views domain owners as freeloading parasites and scorns to listen them at all.”
People are free to think I’m wrong. But Jeff Gabriel proved me right. He showed up just enough to pointedly ignore both our concerns about sluggish responses and missing buyer inquiries.
The guy views domainers who self-broker as expendable freeloaders whom he can order about. Anybody who questions him is shut out. Frank must really like him personally to overlook his incompetence.
Both of your cases have been proven correct by lack of response. Communication cures. Regarding your cases, lack of communication led to bigger problems, as expected…..
DNS has some faults, Joseph and Konstantinos, but as a guy that’s been doing domaining since the summer of 1995, when the word domaining did not exist, and there was only 10,000 domains registered in the world, I can say that DNS is the best thing that has happened to the domain industry outside of parking payments from PPC being invented.
Joseph, take a step back and realize that your beef is with a representative, Joseph, and not really the service. The service, when launched, made it clear that they did not want a lot of customer service inquiries. You, by signing up, understood this . Remember, it’s free to use, and nobody has ever offered a system this advanced for dealing with inquiries. You can always develop your own since you are a database expert. Maybe go start a new service? You seem to have enough energy to do it.
Konstantinos — I know it’s annoying sometimes when a ticket is not answered, but putting a emotion aside there is not currently a better or as good alternative to DNS, so looking at it just from a business perspective, it’s the best option for now. If you know of anything close to as good as DNS, I’m all ears.
I already voiced my complaints, one of which was addressed completely to my satisfaction (the taking of old leads), so I’ll just roll with the particular annoyances of the system and hope they listen to us about the faults of the system.
@Domain Player,
“The service, when launched, made it clear that they did not want a lot of customer service inquiries. You, by signing up, understood this.”
Backwards. I lodged hardly any customer service inquiries. A complaint was lodged by a disgruntled buyer, and the VP personally wasted half his work day harassing me as a result.
“Remember, it’s free to use”
Not really. See my remarks above.
“You can always develop your own since you are a database expert. Maybe go start a new service?”
Partly done already. If I had money pouring in, it would have launched last year.
“your beef is with a representative”
My beef is with a management culture at Uniregistry that thinks it’s ok to order customers to behave like employees. That’s always wrong. Always. That’s a dangerous trend that affects a lot of domainers – not just me.
I’ve to agree. So I recently added a hot lead to negotiate a domain sale deal for of my domain. The buyer is serious and he has the money to spend on this domain. It’s a great fit for his new business.
Anyway, I thought as I’m traveling a lot why not just send it to DNS and enjoy my vacation. 15% commission will be well deserved by them if the sales happen while I get to have fun.
Bottom story buyer went from $100 to $2k and my broker shows zero passion to be honest. There’s zero communication between us so I have no idea if he actually called them and presented them my counter offer which is pretty reasonable and I think a good closer can close this deal pretty fast.
Now, I can’t contact the buyer as well because somebody else is already in the middle of this negotiation and I’m in the dark :/
DNS needs to step up. Communication with client should be absolutely vital for a domain platform. I liked that platform.
Management at DomainNameSales can’t tell their left foot from their right foot.
DNS brokers are still sending spammy “followup” emails to people I personally negotiated with long ago. I know this because I’m receiving complaints about DNS brokers from my potential buyers! Who knows how many sales I’ve lost through their interference?
These DNS brokers have no authority whatsoever to represent me. They’re wasting their time sending out those email blasts, since I won’t honor any terms they negotiate.
Even when I was DNS customer, I had chosen to handle negotiations myself. Even then, I didn’t want DNS brokers touching my business. Their VP of Sales banned me months ago; yet he’s still got his employees contacting buyers based on my leads, as if they represented me.
I’d never circumvent any of my brokers. Sometimes I’ve voluntarily paid a double commission to 2 different brokers just because they handled the same domain in quick succession, and I wanted them both to be rewarded for the effort.
But DNS sales staff are emphatically NOT my brokers. I don’t recommend entrusting your negotiations to DNS staff.