Warning against a member...

[Coral Cove]

I strongly urge any of you going into business with Dejan Lesicar (NamePros member @venturefile.com and owner of sites like sexydress.us) to be very cautious. He is about to cost our company Brandroot a lot of stress and money as we pursue serious legal action against him.

In short the details are as follows:

4/08/2014 - Dejan creates a Brandroot account
5/09/2014 - Wuvo.com is accepted and listed for sale at a price of $6750
09/29/2014 - Dejan requests that Wuvo.com be removed from Brandroot because "The name was accepted to an auction event."
10/14/2014 - Brandroot receives a $3,000 offer for wuvo.com
10/14/2104 - Dejan rejects and reminds us that he removed his name

We then remind him of his contractual obligation of keeping Wuvo exclusive to Brandroot for a period of 30 days following the request of removal.

10/15/2014 - In the interested buyer impatience he raises his offer to $4500.

Dejan is intrigued and writes, "Thank you for the update. That is a decent offer and I will seriously consider it." For several days Dejan is unresponsive, ignoring several of our emails.

10/22/2014 - In a matter of minutes of informing Dejan that he is no longer welcome to sell at Brandroot and that Wuvo.com will be removed, Wuvo.com sells at full price for $6750.

10/22/214 - Dejan decides that he does not want to sell Wuvo at Brandroot and that my email stating that his name was removed ended his contractual obligation with Brandroot (which the email in no way stated).

Our financial loss due to Dejan's unprofessionalism is not the concern. Brandroot is now left with one very unhappy customer threatening us with litigation. We have informed Dejan that we will stop at nothing, "making this venture of [his] a lot more expensive and stressful than [he] thought possible."

You've been warned. Dejan Lesicar is very capable of leaving you in one sticky situation if you enter into business with him.

 

[Horizonconcepts]

Well that was a big read....11 pages.I hadn't noticed this thread until today.The guy "pluto"from his pictures just looks like a kid to me with a nice white smile and tickets on himself (meaning he thinks he is above people).He is just on a sharp learning curve right now and I hope he learns some life lessons from this whole experience,good luck.Enough said.

 

[NameFu]

This thread again?? lol.....Kill it with fire!!

 

[N-A]

@Pluto , has Michael or yourself returned the domain name you registered in bad faith against @venturefile.com ?

I am still seeing

Update Date: 2014-10-23 02:15:37
Creation Date: 2014-10-23 02:15:37

And it's under privacy.

Returning by means of pushing it could help in reputation repair as an apology. I'm sure the coupon you used or the full price with privacy isn't that much to lose over this. (Deleting it wouldn't be the best option IMO as it's quite possibly bound to be registered by someone else at this point)

This is referring back to post #2 where it's stated you or a representative of your company registered his first and last name .com.

My post with the whois got overlooked a few pages back.

I surely wouldn't want someone (I know an author owns my name) to deface and slander me in the future because they could.

Just my 2c.

 

[venturefile.com]

@David Walker the domain is not in my possession. As for me not answering any other questions, my lawyer advised me to not post here and just make screenshots of everything. That is what I will keep on doing..

 

[N-A]

Ok, I hope that helps your case. I just had to point out the fact that the domain was registered in bad faith and owned by them.

 

[Coral Cove]

@David Walker the domain is not in my possession. As for me not answering any other questions, my lawyer advised me to not post here and just make screenshots of everything. That is what I will keep on doing..

Coming from the guy who blatantly violated our terms, dragged us on with a sales lead, telling us you were interested and would get back to us and then completely backed out once the domain sold for full price (much more than the initial offers you were interested in), all for what? Probably for the sole reason of screwing us over just because you could and felt like it.

Also, for the record, I apologized to the NamePros community for my rude comments here to them. The apology absolutely had nothing to do with Dejan, who has caused us more trouble, time and money than any of you would be pleased with dealing with. Again, we now have a customer who has a pending trademark and legal issues with us because of Dejan. We didn't think for a second that he would turn down the full sale of Wuvo, especially after he nearly accepted a much lower offer.

Because of this move from Dejan we have also closed off our marketplace to new domainers while we evaluate new ways to verify identity, ensure better control and understanding of our sellers, and stress the legal ramifications of not completing a sale through Brandroot. There is a lot to be done to avoid sellers like Dejan. We are not SEDO, where I have experienced a similar issue of not receiving a domain I paid for, which was a long, miserable experience! We take responsibility for the domains and sellers we accept at Brandroot, including offering a 100% guaranteed transfer of a sold domain. Brandroot is more than just a broker. We are a community of domain owners who work together to make as many successful sales as possible, provide an honest and reliable service with very open and sincere communication. We will do anything necessary to prevent the jeopardization of these principles.

We made the mistake of taking on just any seller in the first place. The fewer sellers with more sales the better. As stated in part our exclusivity description:

"Brandroot is a partnership and a club.

Brandroot’s goal is to be positioned as a partnership of domain sellers and a business name club for buyers. We do not want to become a flooded domain name marketplace of domains that exist at a number of other marketplaces. We strive to be an exclusive market where individuals can find the best name for their startup only at Brandroot. When a given domain is found to be available at multiple sites, at different prices, Brandroot is no longer in line with its goals and also loses stance and credibility from its buyers and visitors."

I certainly acted too fast regarding this issue but in all honesty, it has already helped us identify other problem sellers and has definitely taught us (actually just me) some valuable lessons. As some of you already stated, I am young. I'm a young entrepreneur learning the hard way it seems. It has also shown me that there are very dishonest and untrustworthy people that are very important to watch out for. I've learned how to identify the shady and scam buyers through the years, but now I'm learning a lot about the other side and how to spot those as early on as possible, before they cause distress and money at my expense.

 

[N-A]

@Pluto , you made politically correct statements regarding a case between yourself and another party whom privacy rights were violated as well as an apology to the community for your remarks.

However, you ignored the fact that you own his first+last name .com. Why not address that issue as it will help you repair your reputation much further than a private NamePros press release and more flaming?

Who owns his first+last name .com and what are the plans that BrandRoot has with it? I believe that is called, cyber squatting (not in the legal sense).

 

[NameFu]

Blackmail, humiliation, cyber-bullying, trashing of reputation?

 

[Coral Cove]

Blackmail, humiliation, cyber-bullying, trashing of reputation?

Precisely what Dejan has done to us, yes. If you're suggesting we have blackmailed Dejan in any way or have bullied him, I'm not sure where you have received your information.

 

[N-A]

Blackmail, humiliation, cyber-bullying, trashing of reputation?

Those are not my intentions. The 2nd post of this thread was overlooked by everyone that BrandRoot / Michael / @Pluto registered a first+last name.

Is this a brandable domain name?

 

[NameFu]

Usually when someone register's someone's name after a confrontation, it's done as revenge. I've even heard of a rapper trademarking a rival's name, so that he owes royalties to sell merchandise with his own name on it....not sure if the story is true (or if it's even possible legally), but if it is, that's just wow....

Anyway, I hope you kids work things out. Life is short. Move on. Reputation is not just about what happened in the past but also how deal with your conflicts moving forward.

 

[discobull]

Because of this move from Dejan we have also closed off our marketplace to new domainers while we evaluate new ways to verify identity, ensure better control and understanding of our sellers, and stress the legal ramifications of not completing a sale through Brandroot. There is a lot to be done to avoid sellers like Dejan.

So what are you going to do when a buyer behaves badly? Close off your business to buyers as well? You can tie yourself up in knots trying to design a system that will be foolproof if you want, but I can tell you right now that that system doesn't exist and that no matter what you do someone is going to bend the rules and abuse your system. Yes, you can minimize the abuse to a degree, but you will never eliminate the problem altogether. What you should be focusing on is learning to deal with people in a manner that steers them back on course rather than adopting an adversarial posture and effectively pushing them towards doing precisely the thing that you're trying to prevent.

From where I stand, your biggest problem isn't people like Deja, your biggest problem is that you take this stuff personally. If you want to make progress, instead of thinking about changing your system, start thinking about how to handle people better. Do your business a favor and get yourself some public relations training. You've worked hard to design a good venue. Stop letting your emotions screw things up for you.

 

[Paul]

The popcorn supply is dwindling. Any chance we can all just agree to disagree, or are we going to have to disagree on that, too?

 

[S-B]

The popcorn supply is dwindling. Any chance we can all just agree to disagree, or are we going to have to disagree on that, too?

My popcorn bag comes with free refills.

 

[Poldermaffia]

Are you coming to play?? I have good domain name! toys.place

 

[gina ferrano]

 

[DnEbook]

The part about owning someone else's name does open up another pandoras box ......why do that ?

 

[gina ferrano]

@Pluto , has Michael or yourself returned the domain name you registered in bad faith against @venturefile.com ?

I am still seeing

And it's under privacy.

Returning by means of pushing it could help in reputation repair as an apology. I'm sure the coupon you used or the full price with privacy isn't that much to lose over this. (Deleting it wouldn't be the best option IMO as it's quite possibly bound to be registered by someone else at this point)

This is referring back to post #2 where it's stated you or a representative of your company registered his first and last name .com.

My post with the whois got overlooked a few pages back.

I surely wouldn't want someone (I know an author owns my name) to deface and slander me in the future because they could.

Just my 2c.

The part about owning someone else's name does open up another pandoras box ......why do that ?

Radar mentioned why he did this at the beginning of this thread but its since been deleted.

 

[DnEbook]

At no point can anyone really justify doing that in my view, although i am happy to be told why it did happen

 

[hookbox]

Pluto/BrandRoot says

"Yes, their reasoning for threatening Brandroot with a lawsuit is that they started a trademark as soon as they purchased. It was much more than a few hours before we let the buyer know that the seller backed out. We gave Dejan some time to change his mind."

but Pluto?BrandRoot said this

"10/22/2014 - In a matter of minutes of informing Dejan that he is no longer welcome to sell at Brandroot and that Wuvo.com will be removed, Wuvo.com sells at full price for $6750."

So if the buyer is pissed because he supposedly started the trademark on 10/22/2014 when he bought the name then why was the trademark filed on 10/14/2014 a total of 8 days before the buyer purchased it? Who in their right mind would file a trademark before he secures the purchase of the very name he wants to trademark? Which makes me not believe this whole story.

http://www.trademarks411.com/marks/86422907-wuvo

 

[Coral Cove]

Pluto/BrandRoot says

"Yes, their reasoning for threatening Brandroot with a lawsuit is that they started a trademark as soon as they purchased. It was much more than a few hours before we let the buyer know that the seller backed out. We gave Dejan some time to change his mind."

but Pluto?BrandRoot said this

"10/22/2014 - In a matter of minutes of informing Dejan that he is no longer welcome to sell at Brandroot and that Wuvo.com will be removed, Wuvo.com sells at full price for $6750."

So if the buyer is pissed because he supposedly started the trademark on 10/22/2014 when he bought the name then why was the trademark filed on 10/14/2014 a total of 8 days before the buyer purchased it? Who in their right mind would file a trademark before he secures the purchase of the very name he wants to trademark? Which makes me not believe this whole story.

http://www.trademarks411.com/marks/86422907-wuvo

There is a lot more to the story I did not include and don't feel like sharing anymore. This entire incident was a very long and drawn out process. I also had no idea when the buyer had filed for Trademark and don't know why he did without having the .com (although many companies have before him... including myself). He told me after I informed him of the buyer's decision not to sell that he had already started the Trademark. You can contact Dejan for the entire story if you'd like. Believe the story or not, it all happened. The opening of this thread was a very short timeline of all that occurred over a span of a week or two.

 

[DU]

A 100% guarantee over something you have 0% control over ?

 

[.NJ]

 

[gina ferrano]

It's more than likely the person who started the trademark may also have been the person who regged the .net on 29-sep-2014 (private reg) something is off about all of this. It may turn into a wipo dispute in the end with the new owner of the .com. Anyway my sympathies for radar, dejan, and the new owner. Sounds messy.

 

[Dave_Z]

So if the buyer is pissed because he supposedly started the trademark on 10/22/2014 when he bought the name then why was the trademark filed on 10/14/2014 a total of 8 days before the buyer purchased it? Who in their right mind would file a trademark before he secures the purchase of the very name he wants to trademark? Which makes me not believe this whole story.

http://www.trademarks411.com/marks/86422907-wuvo

Off-topic a bit, registration isn't really necessary to show trademark rights as long as one uses the term or so as a mark (although registration makes proving such rights easier).

I believe there's a saying that the Internet never forgets. Heh, this thread is yet another grim reminder of that saying.

A shame this thing had to happen...