100perday.com is for sale
As I was surfing Flippa yesterday, I came across a website auction that peaked my interest. What got my attention was the $450 per month in net profits claimed by the seller. As I read the rest of the auction details, I became even more interested. The website 100perday.com, was advertised as:
This is NOT one of those cheap “cookie cutter”, or “template” sites. Everything is 100% unique. There is only one site and product like this in the world, and that’s all there ever will be
The website apparently also comes with an operations manual detailing where and how to advertise and ad copy to use among many other details. Not only that, but the seller was actually offering a 100% money back guarantee! Plus, the seller has a +15 trust rating on Flippa, which is the highest I’ve ever seen and his feedback from several deals done in the past year was unanimously positive.
It sounded too good to be true…
It WAS too good to be true. As I looked deeper at the auction listing I noticed that the site was registered within the last week and a half.
Hmm… How could the seller already be generating such strong revenues after such a short time? Not only that, but the seller had not posted any proof of traffic or revenue. I searched through some of his previous listings and noticed that a few of his past sales were for websites were strikingly similar to the one being offered in this auction.
It seemed fishy, but I decided to message the seller to ask a few questions. Specifically, I asked:
- If the seller had proof of traffic or revenue.
- How could the website and product be 100% unique if his previous sales were so similar to the current one?
- What the refund rate on his product was?
- How many sales he had made in the past month?
At the same time, I decided to message some of the seller’s previous buyers to see how their experiences had gone. I got three quick responses from his previous customers. One said “Run from this guy. He is a TOTAL SCAM!”
Another previous buyer essentially said that I would be buying a domain name, website, an ebook to sell and an operations manual with details on how you are supposed to sell the ebook to make money. He told me that because of the money back guarantee he decided to go ahead with the auction. Now he’s trying to get his money back from the seller, who is apparently not responding to his emails.
The third response I got said that the seller “is a great guy, very professional, and will hold your hand throughout the entire process if you’re new to it, which is why I gave him that feedback.” However, he also said he had not yet made any money with the similar site that he’d bought because he hadn’t put in the time required to properly promote the site. This buyer also tried to get a refund from the seller but was denied because the seller would only make the refund if the instructions in the operations manual were followed exactly and no money was made.
The seller eventually got back to me saying:
This is a new site, so what I provide is a notarized statement that guarantees at least a minimum amount of income for the new owner.
Everything is unique. Yes, I have sold similar “sales letter” style websites, but the sales text, the graphics, and the actual products themselves are completely different. Not the same product at all.
I think this is an excellent lesson in the need to conduct as much due diligence as possible when buying websites for sale. I sure am glad I didn’t put down a bid without carefully checking into what I was getting into.
After hearing from the seller and his previous customers, I emailed Flippa support to say that I thought that the seller’s auction was incredibly misleading given there the site has no traffic and no earnings. I really dislike this kind of dishonesty in some of the Flippa listings.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
That’s a great idea about contacting previous buyers. Most buyers leave Feedback because the transfer went smooth, etc. But no one really knows what goes on after the transfer.
I wish Flippa would concentrate on this type of information instead of their social marketing and finding ways to add more fee’s for themselves:(.
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That’s a case in point of why people shouln’t hesitate to do their due diligence just as you did. Many people are too trusting of sellers and many times it’s because they go buy a seller’s trust rating alone. They don’t think to take things a step further like you did. Great article!
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Eric Reply:
December 5th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
Thanks for the nice comment!
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Great article! That’s another reason why it’s important for people to do their research. Don’t just go off their trust rating alone.
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Thank you for the article. I’m bound to write an article in late January about this type of business that are more and more present in the most Internet selling (domains, web site-es, services) marketplaces.
Can I contact you then and ask for your personal opinion this subject (no more than 3 questions asked)?
Kind regards
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You know I’ve seen the same style website touted back and forth…so yes, you did dodge a hefty bullet. It’s funny that I just read this because I came across a similar listing today.
I don’t just sell websites, but I buy them as well. This particular one which carried a hefty price tag, claimed to have made the owner over $30k in the past 3 months. Now what got me was that the BIN price was $15k — which made me further investigate it since it seemed far too low. As it turns out, this website which claims to have over 2k unique visitors and $30k in 90 days was actually registered not even 3 days ago.
I really do hope that buyers exercise due diligence when it comes to researching what they’re purchasing.
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To all: Thanks for stopping by and leaving comments!
@Dee: Yeah, I agree with you. I think a great thing for Flippa to do would be to send a quick survey to the buyer and seller of the auction, say a few weeks to a month after the auction ends. The survey could have questions like:
-was the auction listing accurate?
-did the seller/buyer act in good faith throughout the process?
-Would you do business with this person again?
In fact, I think that’s such a great idea, that I’m going to email Flippa about that. I don’t think it would be difficult to incorporate that into the user profiles.
@Investigative Journalism: Absolutely you can contact me! I’d be happy to help out in any way possible.
@Niche Websites: Wow, that’s even more blatant than the one I found! That’s really terrible. Just a total misrepresentation of reality. I think they get away with it by “guaranteeing” the buyer will make his investment back. But, in my case, the seller would only provide the refund under strict conditions.
Maybe Flippa could integrate a button on each listing where you can flag that particular auction if the claims of the listing seem fishy. Then Flippa can investigate a bit further.
It’s interesting that Flippa support told me they’d look into the auction I posted above. Luke Moulton (Flippa’s marketing manager) also told me the same thing over Twitter. Yet, the auction remains up with the false statistics – which is disappointing to me.
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How convenient it is to guarantee earnings on condition that you follow TF’s instructions – and you won’t know what they are until you buy the site! That paltry 30 mins per day work requirement might involve a bit of webcam jiggery pokery for all we know. Omitting significant details like what you have to do to make money from the site is very suspicious.
Love the site Eric.
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Eric Reply:
December 12th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Hi, thanks for stopping by and commenting! Well said.
By the way, I checked out your site – very nice. It’s great to find someone else in our niche. At first glance, a lot of your posts look pretty interesting – I’ll be sure to check those out in more detail very soon.
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I’m the seller on Flippa that the above article refers to.
I’d like to clarify a few things here.
1. Each site AND product I create are unique….no two are the same.
2. I have a 100% guarantee. And YES, I do stipulate with that guarantee that the owners manual must be followed exactly as it is written. Why do I do this? Because I’ve built over 30 sites myself, and have had 100s of clients. Every single client that follows my instructions has made money.
I’m not going to have someone sit on their butt for a month doing nothing, or decide they know what works better, and then ask for a refund after not making money. That’s a complete waste of my time. That’s why I stipulate that they must follow the owners manual, to protect myself from “buyers remorse”, and generally lazy people.
3. The owners manual does not contain anything crazy or otherwise that would make a profitable site a hard thing to do. Any beginner with 30 minutes a day can do it. And as one of the replies Eric received even mentioned, I’m willing to help out buyers along the way. And if a potential buyer has questions/concerns about exactly what’s in the owners manual, they can always ask me before placing a bid.
4. I have a +15 rating for a reason…it’s not from scamming people. It’s from providing my products at a great price, and providing customer support. You don’t see any other sellers providing notarized statements, guarantees, or the kind of after sale support to the winning bidders that I do. I stand behind everything I offer 100%.
If someone wants to call my products a “scam”, because a week after purchase they decided they wanted to go another direction with their business, and I wouldn’t give them a refund…there’s nothing I can do about that.
5. When you (or anyone else) asked me questions regarding the listing, I always answered honestly.
Josh
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Eric Reply:
January 5th, 2010 at 12:39 pm
Hi Josh,
Thanks for your comment.
Just to start off, I’ve never said your sites or ebooks aren’t unique and I won’t dispute your claim. Although, at first glance, since your auction and site looked so similar to your previous sales, that’s why I asked you if they were unique or not.
I agree that you’ve answered all my questions honestly. I’ve never said you’ve lied. I’ve also never said that you’re scamming people (although one of your previous buyers had that opinion).
My problem is specifically with your auction. Stating $800 gross revenue and $450 net revenue when there is none is highly misleading in my opinion. Stating 1200 unique visitors per month when there is no traffic is highly misleading in my opinion.
I would have no problem with your auction if you simply left those two details out.
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I believe there’s a market for start-up sites – the package of domain + pre-built site that a new webmaster can start promoting immediately without the baptism of fire that’s HTML, CSS etc.
However, the people making and selling these template sites seem to be getting more and more predatory in their activities. There seems to be an increasing reliance on naivety to make the sale. That’s worrying.
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