Last Summer, I wrote an article urging caution to domain investors who might be tempted to blindly approve “Authorize your domain listings” emails from Afternic. If someone fraudulently lists your domain name for sale on Afternic and you click the approval link, it could get listed in someone else’s account without your approval. This could cause major problems down the road.
Andrew Allemann mentioned that he received a fast transfer opt-in email for a domain name he wasn’t selling. I also received an email for MLR.com that I reported to Afternic immediately. Their system had it removed by the time an account manager had a look.
Other domain investors mentioned receiving multiple approval emails:
This is getting out of hand. I've gotten dozens of these over the last 24 hours and have had some previously. I have zero names at afternic now. Too risky if I do not know who is instigating a listing. @GoDaddy Needs to be a better way other than letting anyone list any name
— adamstrong 🌲 (@adamstrong) January 23, 2024
I received 9 emails from @afternic in the last 12 hours to "authorize your domain listings".
I did not list anything, so I have no idea what is going on with that.
All of them were for LLLL, many of which I have owned for well over a decade. https://t.co/KjJxjZozHU
— DataCube (@datacubecom) January 23, 2024
I believe a third party – or multiple third parties – is creating faulty listings on Afternic en masse. I don’t know what the objective is, but I know the potential damage this could cause if an investor accidentally approves a listing they did not authorize.
If you receive one or more of these emails, be wary. They come from Afternic, but if the emails weren’t sent because you added domain names to your account, someone else might have added them for sale in their account. By clicking the email, you are authorizing a fast transfer.
I believe I was told one work around is to add domain names to your account that you own but aren’t selling and put them as “Not Listed” for sale. People should not have to do a workaround to prevent fraudulent listings, but it was something I was told a while back.
I had attempts today for two high value 4 letter dictionary .com names. I called and reported the emails to Afternic. They mentioned that it’s an ongoing issue, and that they did shut down accounts this week that were involved in these scams. Thanks for posting, Elliot!
That the reason why I don’t want my high premium domains to associate anything to do with GD/Afternic
They have so many ongoing security issues.
I had this attempt yesterday on a 4 letter company acronym domain that we have owned and used for over 25 years. It scared me enough that I moved it to a different registrar immediately.
Mind I asking – what is your go-to registrar for your high premium domains?
I use GoDaddy for a variety of reasons. I have 2 factor authorization and DTVS (enhanced) security on my account. This Fast Transfer issue scares me because clicking that approval link will bypass DTVS security.
I am new to the domain business and have a lot of good domain names listed for sale via godaddy / afternic. I have received approx 20 of these email messages quoting domains I have listed for sale on afternic. Being new to the game i automatically “authorised” as, from the wording, it looked like no-one could see my “for sale” domains unless I authorised. Very misleading. I didn’t think to check spelling to confirm the domains listed were mine. So, as my domains are listed on Afternic “for sale” is it necessary to “authorise” ?