About Our Auction System - Please Read.

[admin]

[After Reading, Please Vote in the Poll]

As many of our subscribers know I designed Got Zip to be incredibly flexible subscription-wise... and I also designed it so no one would ever lose money in the Program.

Although I've been giving 100% refunds the last year to anyone who requested them (very few) I realize that as we grow the process of cancelling, refunding and relisting Territories could become complex.

That's why I've created the GOT-ZIP Territory Auction System.

Here's how it works.

A Territory will be listed for auction in this forum under the following conditions.

1. A Subscriber Cancels their subscription and wishes to be refunded.
2. A Subscriber Cancels and does not contact/reply to Admin.
3. A Subscription Expires and they do not contact/reply to Admin.
4. A Subscriber requests their Territory be listed for sale.
5. A Condition I'm not thinking of at the moment.

If you change your funding source, or PayPal cancels your subscription due to an expired funding source, please contact us immediately. Otherwise upon your Territory Expiration it will be listed for auction.

STARTING PRICE

The starting price of a Territory Auction is the cumulative price of all the current subscribers payments, less commissions paid.

[Commissions on account are forfeit at this time, but this may change]

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For Example...

A State Subscriber has made 3 Payments of $59.97 and received a commission payment of $30.00.

Then they cancel their subscription.

The Starting price for this domain would be (3X$59.97)-$30 Or... $149.91

Auction is over 7 Days after the first Bid.

Winning Bidder's Payment Includes Months They Paid For.. So the winning bidder on this Auction would get first 3 Months included. Think about this for a second..

If you won this Auction Example and paid $149.91, your next payment would be in 90 Days. You are not paying extra... you're paying less than you would have to buy it new.

Any Bidding Profit is split between the Seller and Got Zip...You guessed it (80-20 split)

So if someone paid $300 for this Territory, that leaves a profit of $150.00 (rounded off)
Seller would get roughly $120, Got Zip $30

After 60 Days, if no one purchases the Territory Got-Zip we'll buy it back.
(our 20% profit will be for a buy-back fund)

100% Guarantee!
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Now previously when someone cancelled their subscriptions, I would contact them with refund instructions, and work out special arrangements if necessary, but this is simply too time consuming.

If you cancel your subscription without notifying GZ, it will be listed in this forum and we will send you a link to the Forum Option.

Everyone will know this is the Policy so there shouldn't be any confusion.

You have 7 Days from the Auction listing date to contact us and make your account current.

That's it...

Let's address the benefits of this Auction system one more time..

1. You can't lose your money buying a Got Zip Subscription
2. Everyone gets a chance to bid on any Great Territories that become available.
3. This is going to drive a ton of people to this forum each week.
4. It frees up a lot of time for GZ Administrators.
5. It's fair to everyone.

Does anyone see any flaws in this logic, or have questions to help me improve this post or just let me know fair or unfair? Please vote in the Poll...

Updated Condition:
If there is no Bidding, Administrators can terminate an auction without notice in order to resolve a Territory Situation in favor of the Subscriber.

[norfolk_ma_r]

Cannot find poll to vote? I would, however, not only vote yes, but compliment your efforts for changing the process and simplifying the horrendous amount of work your administrative dept. must have had previously.

[internetguy]

Dan,

I think it's a great system. However, looking into the future, what if someone cancels after being a subscriber for, let's say, 2 years. That means the winner of the auction automatically locks into a 2-year subscription. What if they don't want to have it for that long? That's the only flaw I see in the system right now.

[Dennis Sirois]

This situation will likely be rare. Most territories pickup commissions just by default and offset the subscription payments to date. The $ amount that constitutes the negative difference for the new subscriber only locks them in for the $ amount, not a specific timeframe.

3 year zip code subscription ($19.97 x 3) = $59.91

Minus $22.00 paid commissions = $37.91

In this situation the new subscriber will get a discount on a second year zip code subscription.

Also,
Maybe we could apply credits to other subscriptions when all of the subscribed territories are merged under a single member control panel.
(Is this something we are looking at Dan?)

[admin]

My take is pretty much the same as Dennis's but with County and States we're obviously talking about much higher values.

Here are some points to think about it.

1. Commissions are growing every month so the total amount will be offset by commissions. Our goal is obviously to get everyone cost covered as fast as possible too.

2. The winning Bidder is getting an equivalent amount of time for their purchase.. And we can offer all kinds of other incentives with large auctions too.. A 2nd Territory free for example. We can add a lot of value to the offers.

3. A lot of People actually like to pay for things up front.

4. After 60 Days we're going to refund the subscriber in full anyhow, using the buyback money from previous auctions.

5. If we don't get to the point this year that no one is willing to give up their subscriptions we're doing something seriously wrong.

Anyhow, that's my thinking..

About the Poll, it's right at the top of this thread..