Problems, Bugs and Fixes at Afternic - Report Problems Here

[carob]

I suggest a new thread titled Problems, Bugs and Fixes at Afternic - Report Problems Here. Then we can all list our issues so Afternic have to fix them. These Afternic probs have been repeatedly flagged up across numerous threads on here over a period of time, including the need for 2FA. Godaddy own Afternic and have the resources and motivation to fix it - this risky mess is unacceptable and reflects badly on their brand.

For info, Afternic keep reverting some of my domains to "In Review" status for no reason, and I only know that if I log in there to check on them. Until I then ask support to take them out of Review they are not listed for sale and will not sell at Afternic.

@Joe Styler When can we expect Godaddy to take action on Afternic, including implementing 2FA?

 

[SuperBrander]

@Joe Styler

I've been having a lot of problems with the premium network. I had many email exchanges with Afternic support to try and figure this out. Almost all the domains that are registered at Domain.com, MyDomain, Dotster and Netfirms can't be added to it. Regarding Netfirms I can understand because it isn't listed as a fast transfer partner (even though I had some domains there that were enrolled). But why are there problems with the others? Domain, Dotster and MyDomain are listed as a part of Afternic's premium network (https://www.afternic.com/domain-reseller-network). However, your support claims that Dotster and MyDomain aren't a part of the premium network. They say only Domain.com is.

Funnily enough, I currently have some domains at MyDomain that are enrolled into the premium network despite these claims and had a few at Dotster too before pushing them to Domain.com with other domains in order to try and fix this problem. I only managed to approve a select few though. Most of the time, after trying to enroll domains, I just get emails from all of these registrars with links to approve the enrollment to the premium network, but these links lead nowhere. They just log me into the account. In the best case scenario I get to a page where a couple of domains can be approved, but 99.999% of the domains that are eligible don't appear there and so can't be approved.

Enrolling domains into the premium network at Domain.com doesn't work for me either. I got enrollment emails for just 3 domains out of hundreds. And those too require entering an auth code for each domain (enrolling at Dotster/MyDomain/Nertfirms didn't require an auth code, for the few domains I managed to somehow approve there). It's pointless adding just those 3, plus am I really expected to enter an auth code individually for hundreds of domains, even if I somehow get to the point where I actually get emails with links that are leading to a page where I can approve them? The same problem happens with Fasthosts, BTW. I got hundreds of emails, but in each email I'm being asked to enter an auth code in order to enroll. It just doesn't make sense for people with large portfolios.

I hope you guys can look into this whole fast network thing because something there is seriously broken. Tons of domains are pending approval, but there's no way to approve most of them and the ones that can be approved require entering auth codes individually. Really bad system.

On another note, I want to use this opportunity and join the people who are asking for a better interface. Afternic's interface isn't user friendly to say the least. It's really hard adding, editing and removing domains. Some of the problems:

1. No ability to add/edit/delete in bulk more than 50 domains.

2. Editing listings is hard because of the way the information is embedded in the page. The chart isn't comfortable to use. Not all the fields can be seen intuitively or rearranged according to the values inside them. Seeing some of the fields requires having to scroll down to the bottom of each page before being able to scroll right.

3. After marking domains for deletion, a pop up window comes up. If there are more than a few domains there it requires scrolling down in order to approve the deletion.

4. There's no ability to bulk search for a specific list of domains and then bulk edit them. Please learn from what Uniregistry has done in terms of bulk adding/viewing/editing/deleting (Godaddy auctions would really benefit from the same feature). This feature can save so much time and effort.

On a positive note, you guys give domains a lot of exposure and help close sales. Glad that you're listening to feedback, making changes and trying to improve. I hope you'll be able to fix the issues mentioned in this post. Thanks for taking the time to read this.

 

[carob]

There were too many threads going so I created one as an answer here: https://www.namepros.com/threads/afternic-update.1015990/

The threads are multiplying because the problems a re multiplying. This might have run differently if Afternic had announced the coming changes and sought feedback instead of rolling the changes out quietly and letting people struggle and find out that stuff is not working.

 

[wwwweb]

The threads are multiplying because the problems a re multiplying. This might have run differently if Afternic had announced the coming changes and sought feedback instead of rolling the changes out quietly and letting people struggle and find out that stuff is not working.

It seems the technical stuff can be fixed in house pretty quickly, small coding tweaks.

The main concern is people who have not been paid for weeks, how is this payment processor running their order of operations, it seems so random, it should be in a FIFO type method. If Godaddy does not get payment in 3 days, your account is suspended, I really feel for some people not being paid for weeks, as they have obligations, and bills, and you need to apply some pressure to the payment processor to maybe hire more help, as more business for you, is more business for them, win win, but nobody wants to chase, and sit waiting while afternic agents talk to accounting on where payments are? Accounting stating payments are sent to processor, and out of their hands, as money is in space somewhere.

When you hear things like payment is sent, but I don't know when I will be paid, it just does not sound like we are in 2017, more so 1997.

It is a big waste of everyone's time from godaddy staff to the sellers.

We are a few people discussing here, but support told me this is a larger issue than just a few people, there is alot of people who are awaiting payments.

 

[tonyk2000]

Joe, in light of recently discovered WiFi security problem -

https : // www. easydns. com/blog/2017/10/16/major-wifi-vulnerability-discovered-krack-attack/

maybe it is time for afternic to finally implement https protocol, in correct way? As this namepros thread (together with the 2nd related thread) are indicating, afternic techs were never able to correctly setup forwarding from http to https (the site showed all sorts of errors), so they elected to disable this forwarding. Moreover, even if an user is using https - then the browser would still warn them about https issues after login, such as insecure images or scripts or whatever.

As per careers dot godaddy dot net website, GD is now looking to hire "Senior Software Development Engineer - Security". Since this job is still posted at the time of this writing, why not to hire one-time "elite" freelancer to fix all the security issues afternics main website currently has? Also 2-factor authentication would be helpful, just imagine what would happen if somebody manages to login as domain seller and change all prices to $10

 

[namesilo]

I wanted to post a quick message on this issue... we have had 2 customers bring this problem to our attention. We have been in contact with Afternic and they are researching the issue and hope to have a solution in place by Monday morning. We are standing by to help their technical team with anything on our end to help them locate and resolve the problem they are having. We will be sure to post back here once we have more information from Afternic.

 

[Arca]

How hard it is to change the 50 domains per page layout to 500 or 1000 per page?

Showing more than 50 domains at once at Afternic.com is in fact widely considered one of the most difficult issues ever encountered in the area of website development.

It’s an incredibly complex issue and no solution is currently known. The brightest heads at GoDaddy worked on it for years, but they were just not able to figure the convoluted and mysterious workings of the Afternic platform, and the issue was consequently de-prioritized. The developers working on it were ordered by management to stop trying the impossible mission of improving Afternic, and return to their regular and more familiar task of developing new systems for up-selling add-on services to registrants that don't want them at GoDaddy.

Hence the challenge remained. GoDaddy then proceeded to enlist the help of the computer lead scientists at Space X to figure out this most daunting challenge, but to no avail:

“Getting two Falcon Heavy side core rockets to return to earth and land simultaneously side by side, perfectly balanced, was an easy task compared with trying to show more than 50 domains at once at Afernic.com. It is a challenge that is on par with the technological challenges we face in our quest to colonize Mars” one of them is quoted as saying.

It is hoped that by 2028, major advances in AI and quantum computing will finally enable GoDaddy to figure out how to show as many as 100 domain per page at Afternic. Until then, GoDaddy has announced, they will not touch the Afternic website.

 

[Arca]

We have made hundreds of thousands of payments without issue.

From your perspective it is without issue for your company, but as my experience indicates, it's not without issue for sellers.

With increasingly strict banking regulations, more and more sellers will face this issue. As @Haris noted above, his bank warned him of receiving payments with false payment info.

You also receive an email letting you know your domain sold and what the sale amount was.

Sorry this is also incorrect. Afternic's bare bones domain sold emails do not list the sold amount.

This is what your sold emails look like FYI:

It does not contain details such as the amount paid for the domain.

You're looking at this purely from GoDaddy's perspective. Instead, consider a bank looking into a wire transfer from GoDaddy for online advertising.

They then receive the email above as proof that the wire transfer info is false, and the screenshot is the truth. From their perspective, what does this email even have to do with online advertising income from GoDaddy? How can they they see "online advertising income" from GoDaddy, and draw the conclusion that the above email is that? As my account remains frozen, they've clearly not managed to draw such conclusion yet.

You work for GoDaddy, so of course you know that Afternic is owned by GoDaddy, and that Afternic's system is used by GoDaddy for selling domains, and that GoDaddy pays out domain sales payments for Afternic, etc. Banks don't have a clue about Afternic, GoDaddy, and domain sales,they simply want me to send them proof of activities that have generated online advertising income, as that is what you say the payment is for.

KYC and AML regulations are becoming so strict that banks do not have the flexibility and leniency, let alone mental gymnastics required, to accept that "online advertising income" from godaddy = "domain sales proceeds" from afternic... They require congruity and consistency between what things seem to be, and what they are. You are putting us in a situation where that becomes impossible.

Even if the bank believes the screenshot, they will then also have to conclude that GoDaddy must in fact be sending payments with deliberately false payment details. That's the best case outcome, and it's still a really bad look for us from the banks' perspective! Again, I do not understand why you are fighting against accurately labeling payments, why do you want to mislead banks and governments' banking regulators around the world, is GoDaddy gaining anything from falsifying payout details to sellers?

@Joe Styler - Is GoDaddy going to fix the issue and begin labeling wire transfers for domain sales as domain sales? It's really just about correcting 3 words in your SWIFT template, and it's really not difficult to carry out. Despite what you have claimed previously, you're not going to run into any compliance issues as a result of labeling payments truthfully (what kind of regulations would you be breaking?? What kinds of permissions would you have to seek from legal and accounting to start label domain sale payments as domain sales payments??). Or, are you just going to keep sending out payments with deliberately false payment information?

 

[campout]

Yeah it's 65% exactly. GoDaddy takes liberty to insert a min. offer of their own choosing if your name is not in fast transfer.

 

[Arca]

I sold a domain last month via fast-transfer.

The domain did not automatically transfer.

The domain is still in my registrar account.

Afternic has no interest remedying this issue and transferring the domain to buyer manually.

I have messaged the TA Agent 8 times since then, but nobody replies. It's like there is no one there, and I'm just senselessly sending messages into the void.

I don't understand why they wouldn't want to look into it. Doesn't Afternic want to run the platform professionally and deliver sold domains in a timely manner? Why do they want to not move forward with the transfer of ownership? Though I should be used to it by now, the indifference of many Afternic staff continues to flabbergast me.

Similarly, I contacted [email protected] with an issue. They replied that they had fixed the issue. The issue has not been fixed. Why did they reply that the issue has been fixed then?

Either your message gets ignored or staff reply that they've fixed the issue without fixing it. Welcome to Afternic customer support.

It seems that Afternic don't try to fix issues by fixing them. Rather, their strategy seems centered on attrition, actively wearing us down with their unresponsiveness and indifference until we simply give up and go away. Afternic's logic seems to be that getting a user to give up complaining about an issue is the best way to "solve" that issue...

 

[tonyk2000]

Generally speaking, if afternic was able to deliver the domain to the buyer, and mark the transaction accordingly - then the seller will be paid with no need to followup. At least it is what I see (year 2018). There may be exceptions, but rare. So afternic definitely does not have cashflow issues.

I still remember how afternic "upgraded" payout process some time ago (switching to the current scheme). It was... a nightmare.

Earler today the following newsletter was sent out:

(quote begin)
We are excited to announce that Afternic is launching new payment options and lower minimum payment thresholds for your domain sales and parking earnings. We’ve been listening to our customers and have partnered with an external payment processor to support these new features.

In October, you will notice a new look and feel to your payments section within My Account and you will be able to take advantage of these new options. While these changes will be seamless for our customers, you will need to submit an updated tax form by the end of 2018. This is not a requirement to receive your parking earnings, but we must have an updated tax form on file by December 31, 2018 in order to issue you a Form 1099 for 2018.

Please review below the new payment options, minimum earnings, and payment fees.

Payment Method Minimum Earnings Payment Fee
ACH no minimum USD $1.00
eCheck no minimum USD $5.00
PayPal no minimum USD $1.00
Wire Transfer(international) USD $25.00 USD $20.00
Wire Transfer(domestic) no minimum USD$15.00

(quote end)

Somewhat misleading.

Cc @Joe Styler - can you please comment what it is about?
Where are the exciting news and what exactly is changed?
I see nothing changed (from non-U.S. sellers point of view). With the exception of a new $25 min. non-US wire amount which makes no sense - a final amount received may now be negative if $25 is wired (after intermediary banks charges). And who is selling domains for ~$30 to need $25 bankwire anyway? However, I heard that U.S. based sellers were always offered paper check option, correct me if I am wrong, but there is no such option anymore for any country according to this newsletter.

Did you change the company that is processing the payments? If so, wil we need to resubmit payout profiles? Should we expect the same level of bugs as with (we all remember) the previous financial upgrade?
What is 1099 form? I do not need any U.S. taxforms (to the best of my knowledge) as I"m not in U.S. Which thing I promptly certified when I configured current payout profile. Will afternic now ask me to setup another payee profile with the same details but another non-U.S. status certification? If so, this is incorrect since the previous form is valid forever (if I did not move to U.S.). Long story short - if it is not broken, why fix it... ?

Joe, can you clarify please.

 

[Josh Sexton]

Please label PayPal payments to include the domain name in the notes. Without the domain name noted, it makes tax season incredibly difficult.

Something like this is very much needed. Afternic payments do not work like clockwork. They seem to come at random intervals with more than a few occasional hiccups. With multiple sales running at once and continuously (using the same price points over and over), it's an absolute nightmare to track where you've been paid and what is still pending.

Factor in the fact that payments are sometimes bundled together, and the problem is even worse.

Trying to compile exact documentation for taxes is next to impossible, but I do have to give Afternic props for the comedy...

You can go to your sold section and see all the sold domains. Or you can also go to the account section once you are signed in, on the left near the bottom and select statements. You can see all your activity for any given date range there, domain name, sale price, amount paid, commission etc.

Huh?

For one, both of the sections you note are poorly organized with no export possible. Secondly, they show only a small % of the sales processed through Afternic. Going to the "Sold" section shows less than half of the names I've sold through Afternic. Same with the "view archive" link.

The "Statements" section is even worse. It shows 20 of 90 sales for the year.

And there biggest point of all... even if the info provided in the stated sections were complete, properly organized, and exportable, it would not solve the problem of knowing where payments have actually been fully processed and paid. That comes from verifying the payment landed in my bank account, which is important and next to impossible.

Neither the sold section nor the account section have all my Afternic sales. It's not even close. I have to rely on my own bookkeeping. When it comes to tax season, I like to crosscheck each item line-by-line. Asking for the domain name to be mentioned as a note in PayPal is not a big nor unreasonable request and would make everything easier. Especially when Afternic's reporting doesn't even work. I'm not the only one frustrated with this.

Same. And I have seen something like this done elsewhere when being paid both through PayPal and for bank transactions as well.

I understand the request. I didn't say it is not a valid request. I was just giving you an option. You can also email your account rep to ask them to give you your sales. Any sale from Afternic should be in the statement section.

I believe your customer support will have a hard time verifying that each and every payment for all sales have landed properly on my end. What I personally need is some sort of way to verify what a specific payment from Afternic is for. As of now, each payment received from Afternic is nondescript.

Better reporting on the Afternic site would be a big help too ( both completeness + exportability are severely lacking now), but that is not really the issue at hand.

 

[SuperBrander]

Just wanted to thank @Joe Styler for being so helpful in solving a problem I had at Godaddy (that wasn't Godaddy's fault but was caused by a mistake I had made). Joe, you're a real asset to Godaddy and Afternic. Thanks for devoting so much time here at NP to explaining policies and helping so many people. Godaddy should clone you.

 

[alcy]

@Joe Styler
hi... I am wondering if you can explain:

I rarely get an email notification for incoming offers (the one that says price request)... so sometimes when I login to afternic.. in my dashboard I see old offers waiting bin and floor prices.. and I never got emails for those. is this a known issue? will it be solved? I already checked my spam folders etc.. and thats not the problem.

2- when I login to my dashboard, I often see 100 or so names going in and out of review. for no reason. without me touching them or changing prices.. in fact I was not even logged into afternic since then... then they are accepted again.. and then days later.. randomly.. go into review again.. this keeps happening.. for random names it seems.. sometimes 50.. then 100.. then 150.. etc.. is this a known issue?

thanks!

 

[tonyk2000]

How was it possible for the system ( or for any human from service@ ) in the above circumstances to allow somebody else to add it, and to remove my listing?

Well, service@ responded extremely fast. A good sign. But, unfortunately, they were unable to address the root cause of the issue. The response is not too logical - afternic agent confirmed that I had the domain listed originally, and, at the same time, his is of opinion that listing the domain (again) should be sufficient to prevent others from "adding" it.

We see that you're the owner of the domain <..>, but the domain was listed from another account.
We have verified the domain ownership and cancelled the listing. We will not be able to get back your listing, but you should be able to re-list the domain from your portfolio. Having the domain listed from your account will prevent other people from listing it.

So, the original question is still open. Who removed my listing of GD-regged domain with instant transfer approved and matching whois email? Are there any guarantees the my resubmitted listing would not disappear again (and instantly, after the privileged afternic api customer sends his next batch of domains, with my domain inside)?

Cc @Joe Styler ...

 

[Skyvisum]

Bugs bugs bugs .This is upsetting @Joe Styler .I have a closed transaction already and another happening already .Why does it keep resetting my account info ?I dont get it .Afternic needs a total overhaul .

I rather sell my names through Godaddy buy service and get my payment not wait for a bug or whatever it is that resets my payments info and delays me again.I have 2 transactions,one already completed and payout delayed and a new one already being processed and definitely would be delayed because of this bug resetting my payment choice .I am tired of using afternic for payment and would prefer they pay through Godaddy .

As i type this,I am waiting for my account exec to give a call back so we can sort this out again even if he told me everything was fine just last Friday.

Update:Afternic got back to me and confirmed there is indeed a bug.Below is what I got from them;

Thank you for contacting Afternic Support.

I have confirmed that you have submitted your payee settings. There is a small bug on the website that does not update to remove the alert for some users. I have fixed this but for a very small number of users, the issue may reappear. If you see the alert again just ignore it, as it's a fault in the code that we have advised our developers to fix, but it is NOT revenue impacting since I have confirmed all your payee details are submitted.


So now I know better. Got paid also today for the first transaction .Waiting for the second .

 

[thedotsol]

Today I can't delete any of my in review domains. Yesterday I did some domain transfers and all of them went to in review status. I wanted to re-list them, but when I click the delete button nothing happens.

This is not happening for the first time. I'm amazed how Afternic treats us with not listening to our complaints at all.

 

[FolioTeam]

It seems that someone has the privilege and was able to delete other’s domains in bulk and add to his or her Afternic account without the verification from the staff at Afternic?

In my memory,
Rick Latona was one of this inside club.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/ho...ting-my-domains-for-sale-on-afternic.1006237/

When one ordinary user uploads a list with domains already existed,
he gets an insite duplication existed Notification, but not emails.
and his domains will not override the existed domains.


A small suggestion,
When your domains were deleted from Afternic,
There should be an email notification,
Or at least a daily email notification,
Not just disappeared silently.

I agree. While going through my list at afternic against Dan, I noticed that one of my domains listed since 2018 and renewed till 2023 was silently moved from my account to another afternic account. No notification whatsoever. I had to contact support before it was relisted in my afternic account

 

[kite26]

In my opinion, AN should use a automatic verification system like Dan or GD do. Simply add a txt and done. I realized that i had too many names that they didn't be added there. It takes too much time to send e-mail with screenshot again and again.

 

[Joe Styler]

They hired a person to head up making listings easier this year so stay tuned. It is a priority for Afternic to make this process better.

 

[Embrand]

Just noticed some names using ns5.afternic.com/ns6.afternic.com now displaying "Buy now, pay later: Klarna".

Very cool if GoDaddy has introduced this. Not sure if it works exactly like a regular payment plan?

 

[Charybdis]

If you add a new domain or domains to Afternic, then you need to wait about 3 seconds before you proceed to the next step. Because if the domain is already listed on Afternic, then they will tell you during the first step. So you click on "List Domains", and during "Step 1: Enter Domains" you enter a domain name. Now wait here for about 3 seconds. Then if you don't see any errors, proceed to the 2nd step.

Here is a bug: if you add a domain which is already listed on Afternic and you immediatley proceed to the 2nd step, Afternic will allow you to proceed, add the domain, set your pricing. Then they will tell you that you have successfully added the domain. But it is not true. If the domain is already listed on Afternic, then nothing will happen, even if you see the success message. This is a bug (old Afternic version).

So just make sure to wait about 3 seconds during the 1st step before proceeding to the 2nd step.

Here is how to replicate this bug: select a domain which is already listed on Afternic. Add this domain in your account, and immediately proceed to the 2nd step without waiting. Set your pricing and confirm the domain listing. Afternic will display the success message. Now check this domain in your portfolio and you won't find it, of course because the domain is already listed under a different Afternic account. The bug is that Afternic displays the success message despite the fact that the domain listing failed.

 

[main]

It's such a constant struggle with Afternic. I really want to love you, but you're such a pain to deal with.

Step 1 - Add listings. See that a large percentage of the domains I'm adding are "already listed".
Step 2 - Email support and ask for the "already listed" to be removed and for "in review" from my previous attempt to be resolved.
Step 3 - Receive an email back from Afternic saying that the "already listed" domains have been removed and that the domains are ready to add. Also that a couple domains couldn't be removed because they don't have my whois information.
Step 4 - Check the domains they said don't have my whois information, they do!
Step 5 - Go to re-add the "already listed" listings that were removed, they weren't all removed!
Step 6 - Go to check if the "in review" domains were resolved, they weren't!
Step 7 - Email Afternic support again, yay!
Step 8 - Repeat the steps.

Do I sound frustrated?

This is nothing new. Afternic has been promising to resolve this for YEARS. It's just empty words now. I'll believe it when I see it (and absolutely shocked and relieved). You are supposed to be the industry leader.

Your competitors have listing systems that work.

 

[Arca]

It’s impossible to mark transferred domains as transferred now. Even though you click the button 15 times, it reverts back to asking you to transfer the domain whenever you revisit the escrow page. I have not managed to get a single transfer acknowledged by Afternic since this new system was introduced, so all my escrows are completely stuck. I have yet to hear any sign of life from a "TA Agent". A record of sent messages would be great, so that at least we know that the message has been sent.

Some domains were transferred to Afternic in March, prior to this system being introduced, but the new system still asks me to transfer them to Afternic, and I am unable to get the system to acknowledge that these domains have already been transferred, also not with manuan intervention from escrow agents, since they seem to have disappeared after this new system was launched. Never experienced this kind of unresponsiveness with Afternic's escrow before. Escrow was the only thing at Afternic that seemed to work smoothly. If the old system was still up, escrow would have completed for these domains, and I would have been paid already. Now I don't know how long it's going to take for these transactions to close.

I sold a domain through the premium network today, but unlike the old system, I have not received any email to notify me about it. I only discovered it when I logged into Afternic. The domain is already in the buyer’s account at another registrar, so it looks no emails are being sent out for premium network sales anymore.

However, whenever I do get a "transaction assurance" email from Afternic regarding manual transfer names, it often does not identify the domain name in question, and because I have multiple domains in escrow, I don't know which domain they are referring to. To make these emails helpful, the domain name needs to be identified in the email.

I have set up my payment to be sent to me by PayPal. However, the transaction page of Afternic indicates that I will be sent the payment by “NON_US_WIRE” - So will I get paid by PayPal or wire transfer? Shouldn’t it have said “NON_US_PAYPAL”? I once had GoDaddy Auctions inexplicably send me a payment to the wrong profile (a non existent one) after I sold a domain through their buy service, and it was impossible to get them to help me to solve it (I had to solve it with PayPal by myself). With that experience in mind, I hope that at Afternic, "WIRE" actually means "PayPal", and that this payment is not about to be wired somewhere, since I have not set up any wire transfer payee profile.

 

[Arca]

I pushed a domain to Afternic on April 5. Afternic has acknowledged that I have transferred the domain. Estimated payout date for this domain is April 9. Still haven't received the payment. "TA Agents" have yet to respond to a single message since this new system was launched. It appears that messages go nowhere (I don't receive any receipts for having sent messages either).

Please bring back the old system.

 

[Arca]

This new system is clearly not fully operational and should never have been launched in the first place. I don't understand why Afternic don't reinstate the old system immediately (presumably an easy and quick solution to alleviate all these problems), because the new one undeniably needs a lot of work and extensive testing before it's going to get close to the level of functioning that characterized the old system. Paying a 20% commission fee and then having to deal with all these issues is nonsensical.