Am I entitled to a refund?

Just recently, I bought a proxy site on DP, from the member Lucidly.com through this thread. I didn't buy his whole network of proxies, I just bought NowStealth.com on its own for $950.

Here's how it all starts

(I've bolded and underlined the important bits)

Ok, so here's the problem

As soon as I found a host a day or two after purchase, I got it moved to the new host. A day or two went by and the unique visits were at around low-mid xx / day average. I thought that was ok since I just moved the site to a new host, so I just spent some time advertising the site further and adding it to more toplists as the seller recommended. I even bought a custom design for the site, hoping that that would encourage people to continue using the site and even increase the likeliness of them bookmarking it.

A week went by, traffic still the same at xx uniques / day. Revenue was $0.01 from Adversal. It was then that moment when I started to ask what was wrong, and he said he was shocked and told me that it could've been something I did, the new host, or the new design. I then told him that all I did was move the site to a new host, promote it further by adding it to more toplists, and add a new and better design that was more user friendly. He then insisted that I had done something or it was my hosts fault that the traffic went down like that.

Then I asked him for a refund and he refused, saying that he doesn't want to take the site back when it was nothing like it was before he sold it. So, now I'm left out of $950 with a site that gets xx uniques / day and has generated $0.02 of revenue so far via Adversal. That's nice.

I even offered him to transfer it back on his own host, to prove that it wasn't my host that was the problem.. but he didn't say anything..

Should I be entitled to a refund? What should I do?

To sum it up: I just want a refund because this site is nowhere near close to what it was when it was for sale - 2000 uniques / day and around $500-$600 / month revenue, while the seller on the other hand refuses to refund and take back the site because it is nowhere near what it used to be when he was selling it.

Well.. what do you think? Appreciate any advice you can give me and any opinions you may have on this.

 

Did you get any type of traffic (refer) or revenue stats (screenshots) before the sale?

 

Yep.

Adversal:



Adbrite:



Traffic:

 

Site was only 5 days old???

 

Nope, I'm pretty sure it was started earlier (somewhere in November). Look at the adbrite earnings screenshot. Whois says it was registered on the 31st of october, so the site was around a month and a half old when I made the purchase.

 

What Many scammers on DP do is buy popup or automated robots traffic and come and sale on DP..
Make sure before you buy you should see the referral domains + day wise traffic and keywords by which that site is gettin visits from (thats the only way you cant be scammed by anyone)
I am afraid but i think you cant do anything to him except disclosing his review on suggestion or underground category and let everyone know that he's a scammer

 

if you look at the screen shot of adbrite erning did u see that it is on all zones so other words if he has other sites on that.He has show u all hit sites stats and on the stats for his site he can all ways jst copy the link in to the browser when the stats are not realy for that site do you no the names of his other sites aswell ill try and see wat is under the page stats url wat he has hiden with the red line i think he scamed u with the stats any ways hope that helps.

 

This image is showing the earning for "All Websites" . So he could probably have other sites as well. You should've ask for "Single Site Stats".
Though I've dealt with that guy and so far I don't have any problem with him (didn't purchase any site but some other work).

Lets hope your problem gets solved.

 

The site was getting 3000 uniques per day STEADILY when I transferred the site to him. There is downtime in transfers, and he has it at a new host with a new design, so I don't know why the traffic went down so much, but maybe the things I mentioned could affect it.

I still can't believe that skribblez would publicly accuse me of a crime which I did not commit.


PS- We were working this out privately and I would appreciate it if no new posts were made as this is unwarranted and damaging my reputation. We WERE working this out privately when skribblez posted this, and I will continue to try and work this out privately, but I would really appreciate it if no new posts were made as this is a private matter.

BTW: That red line in the stats picture > I was told is just to avoid identifying the host it is hosted with. It never made sense to me but someone told me once that it is a common practice so I started doing it when I took screenshots.

 

How could they do that it is your url and we could just do a dns search for that. iver by domain or find the ip of it and finding what hosts own that ip simple.

 

you might could switch to another ad company (like adsense or YPN), that might bring you some more income...or, hang on it and sell it later.

 

how did your traffic jump from 38 visitors on day2 to 3007 on day3.

day2 : 38 visitors - 1702 hits

day3 : 3007 visitors - 15864 hits

looks weird

if digitalpoint forums has a downtime for a week im sure the change in traffic wont be so drastic.

lets all watch how this unfolds. hang in there Skribblez

 

Different types of traffic, search traffic to return visitors versus Top Site generated traffic.

I ran a site years ago that lived and died by topsites and can see a few possibles here.

#1 Downtime with a site that depends on Top Site traffic can KILL IT. If it's not sending traffic to the topsites it continues to drop in the rankings to possibly being tossed fully off the toplist front page, or completely off of it as a whole. If you drop off of the top list you stop getting any traffic, pretty fng simple.
#2 Design change. Even if the design is better, is it better from the stand point of driving traffic to the toplists? My site the 'uglier' it was the better it was setup to drive traffic to the toplits exchanges. Trying to make it more 'user friendly' to get people to come back resulted in killing the toplist traffic every time.

If you know toplist traffic it's actually pretty easy to see how this can happen to a site, especially such a new site that depends fully on topsite generated traffic.

 

All i say is build the site up and get it advertised on lots of people sites get good back links and then you will start getiing hit in i dont think 15,000 hits a day is alot for a site like that i think you could easy get that up to 25,000 hits or more a day alot of the topsites giv you about 1,500 hits aday for being on the first page and if you add to 50 topsites list i have sore some topsites with the first three rankings geting 15,000 hits a day.Have the topsites list buttons on a javascript marquee scrolling script it is pritty good for puting your topsites buttons on if you have alot.

 

this really sucks....

I've always been against buying websites on forums. Another way some people scam is fake PRs, but I never saw this kind before...

Who knows, maybe the guy is right and didn't try to scam. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt until this thing is over...

 

I had just transferred to bluehost that day and that is when the stats started generating and it started generating near the end of the day. Call bluehost and ask for a copy of my invoice, or I can send it to anyone who wants it.

Also, its prime marketing was topsite listings and links on other proxy sites. If some of the other powerful proxies that linked to it dipped in traffic then that could affect it. The fact that it had downtime also could've done this. Anyways, I know a guy who has made, built, and ran over 300 proxy sites, and he says that this kind of thing happens with his sites every once in a while if he is changing hosts. It is rare, but it is possible because he only uses topsite listings to market.

Once again though, skribblez and I have been and are continuing to discuss how to work this out, so I would really appreciate it if no more posts would be made so this thread that is publicly accusing me of a crime I did not commit does not stay alive.

 

Lucidly.com, seriously, LEARN to READ.

Does it say "scam" or "scammer" ANYWHERE in my opening post?

I am not accusing you of anything. I'm merely posting FACTS and my experience, and asking people for advice. I'm out of $950, you refuse to refund my money, what do you expect me to do? And why would I want to work out something else with you? You're hardly ever on MSN, and when you ARE on, you either take a while to reply, or just go offline out of NOWHERE even after I've been sending you messages and nudging you.. Yep, that's what I call "willing to work something out" ...

I don't want another site. What I do want is nowstealth.com to be what you claimed it was, a site with 2000+ uniques / day and $500-$600 revenue / month

 

i hope everything will be justifiable for skribblez

 

seriously dude, you actually thought someone would sell a site that earns 500-600$ /month for just 950$ ? you have to use your brain more next time before purchasing something. There's no such a thing as a bargain on the internet. A site is usually sold for about 10xmonthly revenue, so a site that earns 500-600/month would normally cost more than 4000-5000$

 

What are your stats liek at the moment you need to use some metatags in your home page aswell and y if i go to www.NowStealth.com and NowStealth.com i get a difrent layout thanks.