At 02:00 PM 4/1/00 -0800, Tiger Technologies wrote:
>At 4/1/00 7:07 AM, cfm@maine.com wrote:
>
>>You are supposed to be reselling these domains. Generally speaking,
>>that is your business, not theirs. I can't think of any wholesalers
>>that accept any responsibility for chargebacks when retailers in the
>>chain screw up; that's counter to the whole concept of wholesale.
>
>And sys@zanmai.com wrote:
>
>>Excellent point, and the entire point. Theft/loss/fraud are always parts
>>of the cost/model of selling anything retail. It is not the upstream
>>supplier's
>>responsibility to indemnify any loses the retailer may suffer.
>
>
>But there's a difference. OpenSRS is NOT a traditional wholesale/retail
>arrangement in which we buy something from them, take ownership of it,
>then sell it to someone else.
>
>You're suggesting that we work like car dealerships, where we buy a
>product from the manufacturer, legally own it ourselves, then sell it. If
>that were the case, you'd be absolutely right: I would be the prior owner
>of any domain name people bought through me, and therefore I would still
>own it if people didn't pay, and we wouldn't be having this discussion.
Actually in many cases the manufacturers floorplan, or loan, the vehicles to
the dealer for sale...
>
>But that's not what happens. Instead, we're selling a product that
>OpenSRS has total control over. At no point do we own it or have control
>over it.
But you have complete control over how and to whom you implement the sales
contract.
>
>In fact, we're more like a car financing company than we are like a car
>dealership. We pay the whole amount of the transaction for the customer,
>who becomes the registered owner, then we count on the fact that we're
>going to be able to collect the money (and keep a little extra).
>
>There's one difference: ICANN rules and OpenSRS policies don't give us
>the right to repossess if the person doesn't pay. If you buy a car from a
>Honda dealership with a loan from Wells Fargo Bank, and you don't pay the
>bill, who owns the car? Wells Fargo bank, that's who, and they have the
>right to repossess it and sell it to someone else.
And the reason they have the right of reposession is not because the
manufactured does anything for them, but because the dealer/finance co
has a seperate written contract/agreement with the consumer that allows for
reposession in the event of default.
You too can implement a written contract in *addition* to TuCows/ICANN
rules and regs, it's a free world/country (mostly) and the law of contracts
between consenting individuals rule. So draft up an agreement/contract
that states that if for any reason the registrar/reseller is not paid
by the consumer, that all right title and interest in said domain shall
transfer to the registrar/reseller.
> Do you think banks
>would give people the money to buy a car if they didn't have the right to
>take ownership from people who don't pay? The system would collapse.
Not entirely, they just would't be so frivolous with whom they loan $$ to.
And more to the point, the Manufacturer does not give the right of
repossession to the dealer/finance co, the dealer/finance co have their own
contract with the buyer/borrower which specifically allows for reposession
of the security interest.
>
>People keep parroting "it's the normal cost of doing business." That's
>simply not the case. There are few, if any, businesses where the retailer
> accepts the full risk of collecting payment but has absolutely no
>ownership or control of the product if the customer refuses to pay.
Not true at all. That is a valid and very widespread business model.
Much the food on the shelves of your local supermarket is not
owned or purchased by the supermarket, but placed on *consignment* by
the manufacturers. Payment is only made for the inventory sold at the end
of the month/week, with the very poignant note that the supermarket IS
responsible for theft of any product.
>
>As it stands with ICANN/OpenSRS, one of my customers can tell his credit
>card company he refuses to pay for it, and he still has legal ownership
>and use of the thing he won't pay for.
Not true, you guys are tilting an windmills here. No credit card company is
going to allow a "dispute" like this, where the customer gets to keep the
product they don't want to pay for, and gets off paying for it. It's one or
the other, pay for it or return it.
> Does that sound like the way
>business normally works? Of course not.
And it doesn't operate or happen that way. Cite one single example
of a registrar getting charged back AND the consumer getting to keep
the product i.e. domain name(s). (now granted you may not want 100 stupid
speculative domain names returned to you)
> If you claim you never authorized
>a charge to buy a mail order television, you don't legally still own it.
>(Whether the company that sold you the TV will be able to get it back
>from you is another matter, but at least they have the *right* to do so,
>because it's theirs, not yours.)
Same with the domain name and any resultant arbitrated dispute for payment
via a Visa/MC/AMX.
>
>I know these are tough issues that OpenSRS has to deal with, especially
>since some of the rules are imposed by ICANN. But a solution like
>allowing the reseller to be able to change the password on an account,
>effectively repossessing it until the registrant/reseller resolve the
>issue, would solve the problem.
That might be too strong a "solution" looking for a "problem".
How about just drawing a contract that gives a "quit claim" from
any customer who defaults on payment for any reason. You can then
fax the quit claim ownership transfer to the Registrar and own the errant
domain.
>It sounds like this is what Domain Direct does, and I'd like to
>respectfully request that OpenSRS consider giving resellers the same
>power.
Think about it, would this really fix/solve this issue/problem?
Some boxo registers $5000 worth of stupid speculative domains, fails to pay
for whatever reason ... and you will find some value in reposessing these
wortheless domains?
Turning it off at the root names servers *might* be a better tool to induce
payment, but converting ownership would have no greater inducement to pay.
If the domain name is vlauable and usefull, Lawyers.com, it will get paid for,
the one's that don't get paid for are usually stupid and worthless.
The last thing finance companies/banks want is some used beatup repo they
have to try and sell themselves, they'd much rather have $$, and I'd
suspect you would too. Your argument makes the assumption, errorneously I
think, that
the domain in dispute would be valuable and active, and that some fool just
doesn't want to pay the $20 or so... the reality is that the domains people
do refuse payment for are not even worht the $10 we pay.
Best Regards,
Eric Ross
QuickNames.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.3 : Tue Oct 19 2004 - 23:35:28 EDT