Independent of where you originate from, you will have more than likely heard of Vodafone: the mobile phone carrier originally set up within the UK in the eighties.
Over the years they have gone from strength to strength, last tax year earning a post tax profit in excess of £3 billion. Running businesses within 20 different countries, and employing 79,000 worldwide gives off a general aura of a well run business. Wrong.

Now I appreciate wholly that I am a tiny fish in the grand scheme of things, however a sample of ‘me’ suggested that 100% of Vodafone customers were extremely disappointed. Stats do not lie !

I have been a Vodafone contract customer for the past 18 months. Prior to that, I had previous contracts with them. My family all have mobile contracts, and the majority of them are with Vodafone. We give them a few thousand quid a year, so logically they would want our custom right? Nope.

Having lost my phone, I decided to get a new contract. My previous contract expired in 3 months, so compared to what it could have been, it was a minimal financial loss.
Thus, knowing I could not cancel my contract I went into Vodafone to change my contract to a lower tariff. I.E Rather than spend £35 a month on a phone I did not have, simply spend £15: a saving of £20 monthly for 3 months.
After ‘a period of time which made the effort not worth it’ the woman told me I could only reduce my contract by £5 a month. I stated that with previous contracts we had reduced the contract in one lump, but she was having none of it. Essentially Vodafone wanted to make £30 extra out of me over a 3 month period by making ‘me saving money’ excessively complicated.

What Vodafone in fact did is make me decide that I did not in fact want to take out another contract with them. On the assumption I would have taken out a £30 monthly contract for 18 months, they lost a whopping £510 for having no business sense. Further to this, I have informed all family members to stay away from Vodafone when getting a new contract. We can multiply that number by 5, and state that Vodafone will essentially lose £2,500 bi-anually (minimum), and it is all their fault.

I am ridiculously stubborn, and business acumen influenced. Vodafone have ticked every box for me as a company NEVER to deal with.

After going through paypals ridiculous automated system I clicked 3. Yes, of course I would like to speak to an operator! Paypals website has details as to how masspay works but does not actually state who is, and is not allowed to use it (at least definitively). I proceeded to ask.

My question was met with an extremely polite, “I am sorry, I do not know. Will you hold“. I did. I waited, and a response came back saying yes it is absolutely fine, anyone can use it.
The staff member however suggested masspay had different fees than those documented, and seen by those who have used it. I re-asked my previous question, and asked for clarification. After a labouress process, and multiple periods on hold I was happy with the response. Masspay definately can be used for anything, and you are well within your right to request payment be sent via masspay for absolutely anything.

On ebay, payment can be rendered by normal paypal, cheque, postal order, bankers draft, and yes masspay. This has come from the horses mouth: paypal staff.

Clarification however I feel is neccesary here. You are allowed to request payment be sent by masspay, however you are under NO circumstances allowed to request masspay payment for the purposes of saving on fees. This may be a by-product of such a payment, but paypal Terms of Service clearly state that you can not request the buyer absorb their fees.

The only other slight thing is that you need a premier, or business account to utilize masspay.

I would at this point like to point out, paypal provides the masspay feature as a tool. I use it because it makes the large number of transactions I complete easier to manage, and log.
If every Jack, and Jill uses paypal to buy their Christmas presents on ebay for $20 each, then paypal are well within their right to remove this feature. Dont ruin it for the legitimate users by abusing it !

Best of luck with your business transactions.

When you pay for an appraisal, what you are getting is their opinion, or perhaps their softwares opinion as to the value of the domain. I would advise that you NEVER pay for an appraisal. There is no reason too.
There are numerous appraisal tools which can give you an appraisal value, an opinion, for free! My appraisal service will be released soon. It will be completely free, and it will be a better opinion than most.

I have seen a few appraisals: Moniker, Godaddy, Estibot. To say they are reasonable, and fair opinions is ridiculous. Unless you pay for premium services you get an automated service, and a bad one at that.
They base their appraisals of a variety of metrics BUT not all domains are deserving of usage of certain metrics.
‘Reece’ off namepros mentioned how he had been asked to appraise certain short domains. Why? Because he knows his stuff. Want to know how much your assett is worth? Ask an expert. Simple as.
Another member stated that if you ask 20 people of varied backgrounds to do proper research, and appraise a domain, then average these results, you will get a pretty decent idea.

My domain appraisal tool will seek to do this. Fine you may have to wait a while longer to get your appraisal, BUT at least you get a good one…
Thinking about it, perhaps I wont make usage of my tools free. Perhaps rather I will make a reward system. Help me, help other members, and we will help you!

I now have approximately half of what I started this adventure with, and I am having a tough time deciding how I should proceed.

The economy is not at all like what it used to be. I see people posting: ‘Invest in stocks!’; ‘Buy Gold!’; ‘Buy Money!’; the list goes on. The question is, is domaining what it used to be, and can I really make a living from it?

I want to buy a LL.com. I want to buy a LL.net. I want to buy a LL.org. I want to buy lots of LLL.com. I want to buy some great generics. I will be extremely lucky to be able to complete one of those with my available funds. To reach all those ‘targets’ I would actually have to invest: buy, sell, trade etc. The old bigger, and better philosophy. Buy low, sell high etc. Easier said than done of course.

You can buy a LLL.com cheaper than ever before now, however it is not actually cheaper. I would hesitate to buy a LLL.com for $4k now whereas I would have jumped on it had I been around a year or two ago. The reason is $4k costs more GBP than it did before.

If you get lucky, and find a cheap LLL.com for say $3,000 USD. You now have an asset which you simply cannot sell. People need money at the moment, hence why they are selling on the cheap. This means you cannot do a quick flip. This is where my problem arises. Should I have these opportunities, I can buy BUT I MUST hold. This therefore means I cannot sell high, reinvest, and continue on my circle of money making madness.

I am going to keep this short, and sweet. In answer to my question/statement ‘How to invest in domain names…’ the answer is buy low, stop, and wait – Hesitate at all times, Think carefully. Something may seem like a bargain but don’t rush, consider the economy. Contrary to popular belief this has a HUGE influence.
Once you have your prized assets hold them, develop them. Make money of development, and reinvest it. Hold you domains until we are out of recession.

New to the business: Great! (In some respects you are in a better position than the old hands: those who bought cheap at the time, but have since seen their investments lose value AND liquidity). Got money to invest? Great! You are all set to go.
What I would say is that if you know in your heart of hearts you cant afford to invest, DONT. Riding the wave out of recession is going to take a long time, and not many seem to make it big in this business. Lets just hope I am one of those few!

Best of Luck!