Two domainers take over forum for talking about domain names.
Domain investors George Verdugo and Kevin Faler purchased the forum from Adam Dicker.
The once-popular domain name forum declined in popularity in recent years and mysteriously went dark last year without any warning. Adam Dicker’s business had run into financial and other troubles, but it remained a mystery as to why he didn’t sell the forum to raise cash. Now he has.
Verdugo and Faler are the fourth owners of the forum.
You can’t reach the forum by its old shortcut, DNF.com, however. Dicker sold that domain last year. You’ll need to visit DNForum.com instead.
George Verdugo is business partners with Adam Dicker, this is simply a matter of conveyance of assets, in trying to fool the public that Adam Dicker is not a roach, who refuses to crawl back into the little hole he came out of.
Namepros has taken over, what will DNFORUM provide apart from the fact of no moderation, and no users that anyone would want to be a part of? Along with it who knows what backdoors Dicker has access to thru the panel?
Just let it die already, the members are all gone, there is no longer a need for 2 such forums. Namepros filled the void, and exceeded what DNFORUM ever was.
Please outline how Adam Dicker was paid for this? Why hasn’t he paid his victims back?
“Why hasn’t he paid his victims back?”
Because dishonest people who defraud others have no morals and no guilt, so where’s the incentive to do the right thing? there is none.. And I will bet that Dicker and the new owners sleep quite well at night.
Yes, where is the responsibilities of the new owners? many say they have none, Legally that may not be true, Morally YES, and from a business perspective, its FOOLISH not pay the victims back.. I was reading a thread recently where a domainer made some good points before he was banned, and for no good reason, he stated that compensation to the victims could have been written into the sales agreement as part of the sale, If you were buying a web site where fraud was involved, wouldn’t you want to restore the trust and dignity of that site? Verdugo states he want’s to restore trust, but stops short of mentioning compensation to the victims, this would help tremendously in that regard, but neither Dicker or Verdugo addressed it or will even acknowledge the debt.. Instead they found it more necessary to include a NDA agreement, protecting only themselves.
I find the NDA quite suspicious, considering Dicker has always gloated about his sales, even exaggerating them to make himself look successful.. If I was the new owner and wanted to rebuild trust and restore dignity to my web site, I’d want to disclose everything, complete transparency.. Yet this wasn’t done.
Too many red flags for me, and this recent banning of a member who was respectful and broke no rules, but was banned because he questioned why the victims haven’t been reimbursed, Censorship and the same Stalin-istic approach as it’s previous owner is what you can expect..
If someone rips you off once and gets away with it, there is nothing preventing them from doing it again.
How did Adam rip you or anyone off, IN DETAIL.
Ha! Print this. Try to unsubscribe from Namepros newsletters. It’s a Indiana Jones adventure where the movie doesn’t end.
Too late imo. DNF is now a tainted brand.
Sorry guys, but I don’t see a need to be filled here. NamePros is providing everything a forum can and they have to have like 99% market penetration in domain forum space (everyone who likes forums).
I’ll remember the good days of DNF fondly but it’s in the past and the need for it to exist has expired. If I were the owners, I’d rival the invite only domain forums since there might be a hole to be filled there. All the success to you!
Nothing wrong with multiple outlets
JP you are within arms reach of Dicker, clearly you are not biased.
Bias, me, no sir. If anyone doesn’t hold back it’s me, in fact I have lost many relationships because I speak my mind and call a spade a spade. I am not happy with the way things went with Adam at all but we are now dealing with new ownership and having multiple forums to discuss, learn and trade is fine by me. As far as Adam goes his behavior was unacceptable and now the forum can move on with new blood.
If we were discussing a new forum and outlet for domains that did not include the name Adam we would support it, why not the new owners (who I do not know btw, no bias).
I’m glad to see the DNF back online. It’s other place where I can sell my domain names.
Your better off selling them to Adam Dicker,than the ghosts that haunt DNF
I don’t see any ghost at DNF.
You’re acting like the forum had anything to do with whatever happened in the past.
There’s new owners and I think they deserve a chance.
I don’t know Mr. Dicker or the new owners of DNF.
But I do have a soft spot for the forum since it was my first domain forum that I have ever joined.
Like I said before it’s another place for me to sell my domain names.
If you or anyone else want to send me a PM I can be found at Namepros.
I disagree. Choice and Competition generally = market good. I say give the new owners a chance to make good on a place that went dark for the most part because of the deeds of one administrator; not the entire community. I think an alternative space is positive for all.
The “DNF” and “DNForum” brands are completely poisoned and worthless. They have a massive database sure but that is pretty much it. I would recommend starting fresh with a new name, email to old members, and redirect on dnforum.com to wherever. Oh, and Adam Dicker must be banned from the forums.
hmmm new ownership… really?
Its common knowledge of George’s and Adam’s personal and business relationships.
George also made it quite clear during the Dicker saga where his morale and business compass was pointed.
Some things and people are best served not to be supported and/or given a lifeline.
Stick a fork in it… its done!!
@Ron,
You say:
“Just let it die already, the members are all gone, there is no longer a need for 2 such forums. Namepros filled the void, and exceeded what DNFORUM ever was.”
NamePros does a good job. I agree. But monopoly is never a good thing. We’re all much better off when there’s competition. Even if DNForum trails NamePros in 2nd place, the front runner will try harder and do a better job with someone to race with.
When there’s only 1 company in a space, ultimately that company rests on its laurels, ignores customers, ceases innovating, and raises costs. It’s remarkable that NamePros continues doing such a good job even without much competition. That’s a testament to everybody who works there. Even so, we ought to be cheering for smaller businesses – not hoping the #2 or #3 guys all fail just because someone else happens to be #1 at the moment. We all benefit from having more options.
It’s not true that DNForum “members are all gone”. Long after Adam Dicker was publicly outed, people kept sending me messages through DNForum asking to sell domains or buy mine.
It’s also not true that NamePros is the only game in town. Those of us who really pay attention to the domain market know that there are a bunch of smaller niche forums that specialize in ccTLDs or IDNs or nTLDs or languages other than English. I could rattle off a list of half a dozen forums other than NamePros where people are doing business and discussing domains all day long, every day, year after year. So why can’t DNForum find a way to differentiate itself and add value? There’s room for multiple domain forums. If there weren’t, those others wouldn’t exist.
You say:
“George Verdugo is business partners with Adam Dicker”
Maybe. It’s conceivable that Adam Dicker is still involved, calling the shots from behind the scenes. But do you have any evidence for that? That approach would be very unwise. Any involvement from Adam Dicker would be discovered sooner or later, and that would prove absolutely FATAL.
Remember, Adam Dicker took advantage of a lot of people by seducing them into becoming his “business partners”. Are you really so sure that George is scamming people at the behest of Adam Dicker? What if you’re wrong. What if George Verdugo was himself one of Dicker’s victims. What if George defended Adam in the past because he wasn’t yet ready to admit to himself that he might have been cheated. What if Adam Dicker owed George Verdugo a lot of money? What if George accepted ownership of DNForum as a way to settle that debt?
Under that interpretation, blaming George Verdugo would be blaming someone who was victimized by Dicker. Under that interpretation, DNForum is a way for George to get back part of what Dicker may have taken from him. In that case, we ought to allow George a chance to succeed – especially if he’s offering us another venue for buying, selling, and discussing domains. Remember, DNForum was once a vibrant site. Many of us, including me, bought and sold a lot of domains there. Many of us learned a lot there – not from Adam Dicker but from all the other domainers who wrote the actual content in the forum … from one another.
I don’t pretend to know the facts here. But we ought to suspend judgment rather than risk being unfair to somebody. If DNForum turns out to be exploiting people, then we can criticize it then. Until then, give it a chance, guys! If you had bought the forum and were trying to re-launch it, you would want to be given a fair shot, wouldn’t you? DNForum existed before Adam Dicker. It had owners before him. And DNForum will have owners after him. It’s just too valuable a site to disappear. Someone will always want to buy it and rebuild it. If George Verdugo and Kevin Faler can revive the forum, superb!
You asked for evidence that Adam is still involved (good call) and promptly follow up with a “what if” scenario (bad follow through)
@jane doe,
Nonsense. I can recognize 2 possibilities at once – even though they’re contradictory and even though there’s evidence for neither. Can’t you do that? How do you get by in life if you MUST judge without evidence or CAN’T imagine alternatives, sneering at whatever isn’t proven?
Until there’s evidence one way or the other, I prefer to give someone the benefit of the doubt.
They were partners in rams.com
Everyone knows this, the fact you comment on every blog you should to.
@Dan,
Yes, I know. What’s your point?
“we ought to suspend judgment rather than risk being unfair”
When someone is evasive, doesn’t answer questions, refuses to address compensation to the victims, is non transparent and hides behind a Non Disclosure Agreement, that person is inviting judgment.
@Nick,
You’re talking about Adam Dicker. I’m not.
No, I was actually referring George Verdugo.. Who refused to answer anything with regard to compensation to the victims, There is only 2 positions he and whoever else owns the Forum can take;
1) I am not liable in anyway to what the previous owner owes to the victims, they should go after the previous owner.
2) I feel an obligation to make things right with DNF members who lost money here, and will compensate them for their losses..
The latter opens to the door to re-establishing DNF as a legit forum, the first seals the forum’s fate as a untrustworthy web site.
There’re thousands of small websites that let you list your domains for sale but they’re all a waste of time, including DNForum, because they have no distribution/eyeballs. It’s like directory sites in the 90’s… you could go around adding your website to 10,000 directories that will send you 0 traffic or you could be smart by focusing on the top 5 that will bring you traffic/eyeballs.
DNForum has only a handful of eyeballs and it’s all people trying to sell their garbage domains. That’s not a market and it’s not worth your time. Post them for sale on the top 5 websites and use the rest of your time more wisely.
Yea Joseph Peterson trying to sell all those .nets
Well said, you need massive traffic, and membership to get followthru sales of sub prime domains.
Liquid domains are easy sold on flippa tdnam namejet pheenix namepros
Yea, I’m sure DNF guys are your buddies, but Adam did so much damage, the name as mentioned is so badly tainted it’s not even worth recovering.
If they want to make money specialize in Chinese domainers or something.
What are you going to talk about there with 7 other members?
@Dan,
“Yea Joseph Peterson trying to sell all those .nets”
Yeah. Flipping a 2-word .NET from $200 to $9k in under 2 years without lifting a finger – shows what a fool Joseph Peterson is.
It’s pathetic that you can’t reason your way through a difference of opinion with somebody without committing a logical fallacy. Chasing me with an ad hominem is like running a sprint with your pants down around your ankles! Pull ’em up or quit trying!
Seriously, dude, we’re talking about whether a business being relaunched under new ownership should be given a fair chance or sent straight to Hell becomes of the PREVIOUS owner’s misdeeds. I’m advocating an open mind, which seems like a pretty tame proposition. Logically it doesn’t matter WHATSOEVER whether I’m ugly, what I ate for breakfast, or what domains I own. We’re not even discussing domains at all.
To use that as a distraction shows how flimsy your position is. And the attempt to ridicule a colleague – laughable though it is – shows how childish and unprofessional many domainers still are. It’s no wonder Dan, you’re not going to hurt my feelings. But you ARE hurting your reputation. Do you have the guts to use a surname? I doubt it.
“Yea, I’m sure DNF guys are your buddies”
Conspiracy theories. The usual. Anybody you disagree with is in league with the devil, right?
No. I don’t really know George Verdugo at all, though I have said hello to him in passing at NamesCon this year and last.
Adam Dicker owed me money, which I had deposited to advertise on DNForum back in the day; and I had to twist his arm to get it back. Before Adam was outed, I had privately warned my colleagues in this industry not to do business with him. Adam had a bad habit of telling people to give him part ownership of their premium domains in exchange for his building them a website. Lots of domainers can attest to that. And that’s 1 reason why I’m in no hurry to attack George Verdugo merely because of their joint involvement RAMS.com. Joint involvement was the scam Adam Dicker ran, after all.
So, although I don’t know all the details and can’t vouch for George based on any personal interactions, I do believe in fairness. Innocent until proven guilty, remember? Moreover, the domain industry DEPENDS on startups and rebrands. Without websites launching and re-launching there IS no domain industry, folks. For domainers, of all people, to undermine someone else’s attempt to launch a website – especially when the guy is from their own community – is grotesque and insane. As a default, domainers ought to be supportive of one another’s online projects.
“a place that went dark for the most part because of the deeds of one administrator”
This is FALSE. It’s been explained by Andrew and others: DNFORUM had turned into a ghost town long before the deeds of Adam Dicker. If you read Shane’s original post when Adam’s “deeds” first came to light, Shane literally calls DNFORUM a “barren wasteland.” It was dead. 5-10 spammers trying to sell their domains there doesn’t change that.
DNFORUM was outgunned (big time) by NAMEPROS before any mismanagement/deeds of “one administrator.” That was years ago and as Joseph said, NAMEPROS continues to improve and progress, much to our surprise since they have no reason to as the leaders. It’s simply impossible for a new owner to bring back something that was already dead, now has a tarnished named, and is long forgotten.
Joseph gives good advice that they can try to carve out a niche for themselves but it will have to be MASSIVELY different or don’t bother.
“I could rattle off a list of half a dozen forums other than NamePros where people are doing business and discussing domains all day long, every day, year after year.”
The way I see it, this is why we don’t need DNFORUM. These smaller niche sites do a decent job, don’t have a tainted brand name, and they aren’t trying to compete with NAMEPROS which is plainly impossible in 2017. I support all good companies in this industry but the name DNFORUM leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Another commenter said to rebrand and redirect and that might help.
I think this will sum it up..
DNForum.RIP Available $19.99
DNForum should have never been re-launched until ever victim was reimbursed, period.. By not making good on it and ignoring it, the name will remain tainted forever, regardless of how many times it changes ownership.
@Nick,
That seems unfair to me. Suppose Adam Dicker had owned a restaurant (including the building itself) and hadn’t paid his employees.
When a new owner buys the space and opens up a restaurant there, should people refuse to eat at that person’s establishment? Wouldn’t that be punishing the wrong person?
If the previous owner still owes money, then he ought to repay as much of his debts as possible using proceeds from the sale. But the new restaurant owner can’t force the guy who sold it to him to be responsible.
It would leave a sour taste in my mouth if:
– the new owners decide to keep the same tarnished brand
– one of the new owners is a known business associate of the previous owner
So there isn’t a clear break from the past really. Same brand, and converging financial interests.
Of course it’s a matter of personal appreciation, but it is dictated by the course of events.
The real asset is the database of members, not the brand. When you buy a troubled business what you do is salvage the assets and ditch the liabilities.
People usually won’t return to a restaurant where they have suffered from poisoning or had an otherwise bad experience.
@Kate,
“The real asset is the database of members, not the brand.”
Possibly the site could superimpose a new domain name. But think of all the URLs that would need to be rewritten for a site as vast and sprawling as a forum! Hard to imagine anybody going through that process.
There is value in keeping a website alive using the domain name all its past customers already know. Changing the name and undertaking a big rebranding + SEO challenge would be costly, and that would probably undermine any chance of success the relaunch has.
Definitely the brand was tarnished by association with Dicker. No disputing that. Certainly, the relaunch will face an uphill battle now that former members are disaffected and suspicious.
But it’s 1 thing to acknowledge the difficulty of overcoming a tarnished brand and another thing entirely to insist that that tarnish OUGHT to be fatal – i.e. that the new owner ought to be judged for the actions of the previous owner.
You say, “One of the new owners is a known business associate of the previous owner”. Sure, but every single person Adam Dicker exploited is ALSO his known associate. On the face of things, this guilt-by-association idea is worrisome because it fails to distinguish between predator and victim.
I mentioned earlier that George’s relationship with Adam looks very ambiguous to me. For all I know, Adam scammed him; and George received the forum as restitution. In that case, by attacking or boycotting the forum, domainers would be ensuring that a victim’s repayment FAILS.
I have seen no evidence that George Verdugo helped Adam Dicker scam anybody. Nor have I seen any evidence that the 2 men are partnering to run DNForum today. Innuendo just won’t do, guys.
People remember that RAMS.com was jointly owned by Dicker and Verdugo. But, as I’ve said, Adam routinely tried to worm his way into joint ownership arrangements. I know innocent domainers who narrowly avoided getting sucked into precisely that sort of joint ownership “deal”. So I don’t think George ought to be condemened for that.
People also remember George having defended Adam at NamePros. Of course, I think George (or anybody else for that matter) would be mistaken for defending Dicker’s conduct. But people who have been scammed are often reluctant to admit it to themselves. Light bulbs don’t go off in every head simultaneously.
Truly, I have no idea whether George Verdugo is doing a good job or a bad job running DNForum. But I think it’s only fair to wait for evidence of misconduct before judging someone and to give any entrepreneur some chance of running a site successfully. Then you can all judge DNForum based on how useful the site is and how it’s managed.
Charles…I’m responding to you because you were the last comment on Andrews Blog from a year ago titled, “DNForum Launches Under New Ownership” I’m Richard Morris from Va. Beach, and I’m here to share that the new owners of DNForum are obviously no different than the previous owners that I just read about. They ALL appear to be a bunch of crooks. I was just booted from the forum because I dared challenge domain tradition. I also noticed that your response from @Kate seemed fair, but I’d also like to point out that @Kate has serious issues of her own.
Finally, it will be interesting to see if this old blog thread is still alive because I have a lot of information I have to share with the likes of 60 Minutes at CBS about the incestuous and criminal side of the Domain Industry. Stay tuned.