The website flipping industry is a lucrative one - Sitepoint recently cleared $1,000,000 in sales monthly for the first time and those are just public deals.

Sadly, in any industry where there is so much money, there is always going to be people looking to scam newbies out of money. Here’s a few tips to stay safe, both when buying and selling.

When selling:

1. Always take payment up front. I don’t care whether you’re a new member on a forum and your account was created two minutes ago - anyways that asks for the website up front will usually be trying to scam you.

2. If possible, use Sitepoint. Although it costs you to list, it’s a lot safer than Digital Point (there is the verification process - which requires a phone verification, as well as site verification for sellers) and if you’re selling anything worth more than around $50 you will usually get 30 - 70% more for the sale than you would at Digital Point or other webmaster forums. Sitepoint has a higher class of clientele, with more money to spend.

3. For larger deals, use Escrow.com - for me, I take my chances with Paypal (however I follow the next step to the letter), however you guys should use Escrow for larger deals. What quantifies as a large deal? Depends on the person, but for a newbie it would be anything over $500, for a slightly more advanced webmaster it would be anything over $1,000. It is a hassle, but it’s THE safest way to do business online.

4. If you’re too lazy to use Escrow (*coughs*) and go through services where chargebacks can be done, wait 24 hours before you transfer. The thing is that a lot of scammers pay with hacked Paypal accounts, whose real owners report unauthorized activity and get their money - Paypal will NEVER side with you in this case.

If you wait 24 hours there is a good chance the real account owner will find out before then and chargeback, saving you from transferring and losing everything.

5. Pay attention to the buyer. On forums, there are things that can tip you off - some forums have the ‘iTrader’ or past history as a feature, while members with large reputations and large post counts should be trusted more easily than those without. However, do not blindly go with anyone, no matter how reputable they seem - remember, forum accounts can be hacked too.

If a buyer is jumpy - wanting to close a sale quickly, that’s usually a sign that something is amiss. Don’t be pressured.

You can also look at a person’s Paypal record - someone that is verified and has a few hundred as their rating (mine is something like 420~) is a lot more trustable than someone that is unverified. However, remember that the Paypal account may be hacked so follow the previous step.

What you do is look at all of the above - if there are too many things that you feel uncomfortable with, don’t go through with the deal, no matter how good it seems. Remember that the more unrealistic it is (for example, a buyer offering you $2,000 for a website worth $100 at best) the higher the chance that you’re dealing with a scammer.

When buying:

Do the above in reverse.

Seriously though, take a note of the user’s history, reputation, Paypal level. Other things:

1. Ask the user to put up a page - something like /forsale.html - to prove they have access to the website.

2. Check WHOIS details and see if it matches the name of the person you’re dealing with.

3. If you can get access to statistics, make sure you verify them. If someone has a website promising thousands of hits daily and wants a high amount for it, ask for them to make you a Google Analytics account on the domain so that you can check if they’re lying or not.

If the website has a truckload of income, check where it’s from - for example, if they tell you that it’s a digital product which has been marketed on forums, ask for the forum thread and see how active those threads are.

3. Ask for profit. If they have expenses, you want to see proof of them. You don’t want to buy a website with $10,000 in revenue only to learn that it was making $100 profit monthly. If they tell you that they’re spending X on marketing, you want to see screenshot proof of that X.

4. For larger deals, try and discuss the sale with the buyer via a phone or even just Skype. Ask all questions you have before concluding a sale - including those about how they advise marketing the website, whether they provide after sale support (to you) and whatnot.

5. Don’t go for unrealistic deals. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is - or there’s something you’re not being told.

Do you have any other tips you use when buying or selling a website? Let us know

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!