Does when a buyer doesn’t pay — What Sedo

I now know who my deadbeat buyer is.

A couple of months ago I thought I’d struck my first deal to sell a domain under a fresh top level domain name.

It wasn’t a big deal; it was just $500. But for a .xyz domain I paid $10 for, why not?

Following a bit of back and forth with the buyer on Sedo, we settled on the price and entered escrow.

Then…crickets.

The buyer simply disappeared. He never paid.

It was interesting to see how Sedo handled this non-paying buyer. Overall, I think it is the right approach.

Following sending a number of reminders to the buyer to pay, the firm stated it was handing the transaction to its “Accounts Receivable” department. A month later, following still not receiving the payment, Sedo canceled the transaction.

But it also did something else: it unmasked the identity of the buyer. Along with unveiling the owner’s name and address in the purchase contract, it noted:

“Since the buyer has failed to fulfill his part of the contract, you may take legal action against him. His contact data are now available in your Sedo contract.”

Obviously, I’m not going to do much over a $500 sale.

But following getting the buyers identity, I was able to see why he was interested in this specific domain.

I emailed him to ask him why he didn’t go through with the deal. Perhaps this will prod him to pay up.

Non-paying buyers are a problem at all venues, especially on negotiated (not buy-now) sales. I think the workflow at Sedo for handling these issues for modest transactions is reasonable.