Flippa.com has become one of the largest website buying and selling marketplaces. It is a spinoff of SitePoint.com.
You may ask, “Is Flippa a safe place to buy a website?
That’s a good question. If we take a look at what Flippa does to protect buyers you can see that it does have some mechanisms in place to help potential website buyers. That’s all fine and good, but what happens when we go to actually use one of these ways to keep the marketplace safe, such as the “report it” link. Unfortunately the link is near the bottom of the page and so small as to be barely noticeable.
If you happen to see a Flippa listing who’s seller is not telling the truth you can report it to Flippa.
An associate of our did just that hoping Flippa would keep a bad seller’s false claims from luring someone into a lousy purchase. What happened when our buddy reported the listing? Flippa support came back with some limp-noodle response that basically be interpreted to say “We are not going to do anything”.
We would have to make a judgment call here and say that it is irresponsible of Flippa to not investigate such things. It would be irresponsible of any marketplace to not do all in their power to protect the interest of the members of that marketplace.
What will happen next?
It appears that Flippa will allow the listing to run its length. After the listing has been successfully won Flippa will collect its fees. Flippa could not have collected its fees if it did as it was supposed to do and investigate the sale and close the listing.
Because the listing contains false information that will make the website in question sell for more that it would have with truthful information some would consider that theft by deception. Does that make Flippa an accessory to the theft?
Never, and we mean never buy a website from a marketplace that is not looking out for the buyer’s interest. If a marketplace like Flippa is not adequately policed it could easily be considered an unsafe place to buy a website.
Caveat Emptor!
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