Hello everyone,

I think this is the longest gap I’ve taken in between two posts but I’m sure this will come as a surprise to many of my fellow domain investors that I’m leaving Afternic.com

As many of my readers know that since January 2020, I’ve been using Afternic.com price request lander. It’s been almost 6 years using them and I had an overall great experience. With all the challenges and ups and downs including economic crisis and uncertainty in global market due to wars, I still had many extra ordinary months with the help of Afternic team. It was really nice working with so many Afternic brokers and especially my rep Adam Ramsdell who did all his best he could to get the maximum sales out of my portfolio. I sincerely appreciate Adam and the entire team whoever was involved in getting the sales happen smoothly.

There are two main reasons for leaving Afternic:

1. I’m no longer interested in paying any commission.
2. Like the way I opted Afternic from Uniregistry, now I would like to prefer handling and managing the portfolio and leads myself.

Overall, it’s been a rollercoaster ride with a lot of inconsistencies which I believe is part of the business especially domain investing. It took a lot of time to think and decide about this decision but I believe now is the right time to go and move onto the next level of my domaining journey.

Currently I’m in the process of trying something new and I’ll share more details in my next post, so stay tuned.

Thank you!

Hello everyone,

Before I share anything about the domain sale, I wanted to thank Andrew Allemann for having me for another podcast which I enjoyed it once again. Anyone interested in listening can click this link.

I know a lot of domainers have bought and sold domains using crypto as a payment and funds receiving method. But this sale had a little twist and I wanted to share with my readers. By the way, I’m sure this post will come as a surprise to many since this was my first domain sale where I received funds via crypto.

So the person inquired about one of my domains Solaine.com via WhatsApp. I think he probably found my number via WHOIS and thought the same number would be used on WhatsApp which is true.

The domain had a BIN of $9,888. We exchanged call and several messages for a few days for negotiating and finally the buyer agreed at $8,900 which is still better than 15% commission I pay at Afternic or Sedo. After the deal was agreed, he wanted to use Escrow.com where he created an account but later found out that escrow.com are asking for too much of information/documents for some sort of new account verification.

He asked if he can pay via crypto to which I agreed but he was reluctant in paying first and asked me straightfoward “What will be the assurance for me to get my domain?” to which I replied:
“Good question.
You may visit AbdulBasit.com for your satisfaction.”

I believe he was then satisfied and paid via crypto. Later I transferred him the domain as soon as the USDT were in my account. The interesting part is that a person who isn’t a domain investor but still trusted in me so I’m thankful of him and the deal was done very smoothly, right from the beginning till the end.

I’ve been saying this for years now that anyone seriously interested in this business and wants to do as full time, must have their identity open in public and try to be active and not hide yourself like hidden WHOIS. There are a lot of invaluable opportunities.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this sale and feel free to share if anyone had such an experience.

Hello everyone,

Finally Afternic launched one of the most requested features: Self-Brokerage. I wasn’t expecting any gamechanger because I’ve already used a better version at Uniregistry in the past and know how it works.

With the Afternic Self-Brokerage available now, I think it’s not going to benefit the domain owners but only Afternic. There are a several reasons why:

1) Currently without the Self-Brokerage enabled, the buyers are shown a form where they need to enter their name, email address and phone number. With SB enabled, the potential buyer has to sign-in to a GoDaddy account to submit the form or create an account before proceeding any further. This extra layer will push many serious buyers out of the way because not many are willing to create an account just to submit a simple form. I can understand that Afternic will say that this will bring in quality leads but why miss the others who are genuine but are not willing to create an account with GoDaddy upfront but possibly create one after the successful domain purchase.

2) It was surprising to see that the commission structure for Self-Brokerage successful sale is the same 15%. This is seriously crazy. If the Afternic brokers are handling my leads and I have to pay 15% then why would I bother handling my leads and go through all the hassle and still end up paying the same commission!

3) Last but not the least, Afternic has allowed Self-Brokerage to only those GoDaddy customers who have DDC (Discount Domain Club) membership. This will definitely push back many domain owners as they wouldn’t risk paying for DDC membership just to try out the Self-Brokerage system.

Personally I do have DDC (Discount Domain Club) membership so this isn’t an issue. And even if the commission would be 10% and form submission remained the same as it’s for someone not using SB, I still have no interest because paying 10% commission for all the hassle isn’t worth my time.

My suggestion for Afternic is to keep the same submission form which requires no GoDaddy account creation and login to submit the form. Also, the DDC membership requirement should not be made compulsory. Lastly, the maximum commission to attract the domain owners is to keep it at 10%. The ideal would be 5%.

Feel free to give your feedback and let your voice be heard by Afternic.

Hello everyone,

Last time I shared my first experience using Lumis.com for selling one of my domains AaronWhite.com for $9,000 in 2021.

So I was initially approached by Adam Chase in September 2024 for buying OnLook.com which at that time was priced at $29,888 both at Afternic and Sedo. I would not like to go into the details of the negotiations because I don’t want the tactics and expertise of the broker to be made public.

After going back and forth negotiating for 3 months, I sold the domain for $25,000 NET and the deal was concluded via escrow.com

What I can tell you is that Adam is a great guy especially for someone seeking to buy a domain and hire a domain broker. He will do his best and is great at his job I must say.

Thank you Adam and Lumis team for making things very smooth and handling things very professionally.

Feel free to give your feedback no matter how good or good it is 😉

Hello everyone,

It’s with a heavy heart that I’m sharing this incident where the person goes by the name of Naveed Yusuf, using https://x.com/BreakingDomain as X (formerly Twitter) handle and info@411media.net for email communication.

Almost all of the communication we had was over X platform and in total I paid him $17,500 via Wise in total 10 separate transactions. His Wise email ID is payment@411media.net. His PayPal ID is info@411corp.com and contact number is +1-416-457-3411.

Some of the below domains he still owns or may have sold/dropped during the time we exchanged messages were as follows:

areapost.com
findmyzipcode.com
flfk.com
publicmessageboard.com
forex411.com
hippages.com
oakvillehouseforsale.com
athingofbeauty.org
streetzoom.com
civicall.com
cdnweb.com
commongoodplan.com
placeorderhere.com
newswirein.com
googoal.com
lunchbook.com
masonryrenovations.com
youlistit.com
1947.org
pak.tv
opxi.com
deiq.com
swisscreations.com
choiceofplayers.com
idefamation.com/idefamation.org
indianmedic.com
bizgulf.com
verifind.com

Initially I was contacted by Naveed Yusuf around a year ago via X platform. He approached me to sell his domains. So every time we did any deal, he transferred the domains to me first before I transferred money via Wise. The last transaction which included two 4L .com domains which he unlocked and provided the auth codes. I initiated the transfer process on 7th February 2025. He was as always in hurry to receive the money so this time I didn’t wait for the domain to be released from his end and sent him $2,000 via Wise. I waited for him to release the domain which he didn’t and went completely silent until now. I sent him several messages and after some hours of no response, I had a thought that possibly I am being scammed by this guy.

2-3 days later, he quietly locked the domains so the transfer got automatically cancelled. I messaged him about the situation and warned him of making things public if he will not honor the deal or return my money back. Still no response. I could’ve waited a little longer and see if he gets back to me or not because sometimes there is internet connection problem or any issues at registrar for releasing the domain or anything else but when he locked the domain in around 3 days of providing me the authorization code, that’s the time I came to believe I was been scammed.

So after doing 9 separate transactions for a $15,500 amount, Naveed Yusuf scammed me for $2,000 and ruined his reputation forever. It’s really mind boggling to understand such a type of people’s mindset.

I know my money is gone but the purpose of sharing this post is to make fellow domain investors beware of Naveed Yusuf. I strongly suggest being cautious and not to deal with this person.