Sedo responds regarding Autism.rocks sale

Firm explains why the client ended up paying a marketplace commission rather than for escrow.

A few days back Sedo disclosed that it handled a $100,000 transaction for Autism.rocks.

It’s a big price for a domain under a fresh top level domain name. Both the buyer and seller are involved with advocacy for people with autism.

It was made more interesting by the seller’s allegation that Sedo steered him to a full transaction at a 15% commission rather than just an escrow at 3%. You can read regarding the seller’s concerns here.

Sedo looked into the matter. Luckily for the firm, it seems that the initial communications between the seller and Sedo were over the firm’s chat tool. Here’s what Sedo states:

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to respond to the assumptions formulated by the seller of autism.rocks in our direction and regarding us not having provided the appropriate service and asking for too high service fees. Taking complaints seriously, we immediately analyzed the chat protocols showing the evidence regarding the communication between the seller and our Client Care Specialist.

Here is what our records show: The seller told us via chat tool regarding an offer he received, and that he wanted to know how to list his domain for sale. He also asked what to do if he receives an offer and if he can counter an offer. These are typical questions from users that want to start listing names and sell them through our marketplace/ platform. The seller didn’t mention that he by now had an agreement with a buyer in place and was only seeking for transfer service. If he had mentioned that, our Client Care Specialist would have pointed him to our External Transfer Service.

We are in direct contact with the seller and together we are going to analyze the process on potential mistakes and how to proceed. You know that we are very transparent regarding our services and the fees that apply when using them. In addition, we have the largest collection of FAQ to answer all questions regarding a sale of a domain name. At the same time we know that misunderstandings can happen.

For your information: We are very happy to support registered charities and donate to respective organizations following our own criteria. Knowing that there are millions of charities registered in the world it is impossible to know and/ or support them all. Furthermore, if we are not informed and asked for support upfront for a proper case by case decision we cannot support the client in his desired way.

We very much hope that we were able to clarify a few things with the above explanation. Again, we are in contact with the seller and hope to sort out the situation.

This seems like a reasonable explanation.