Matthew Adkisson is worried that an asset sale would leave people like him holding the bag.
A man who sued domain name registrar Epik because the company owes him $327,000 has amended his lawsuit.
Matthew Adkisson agreed to buy nourish.com for $327,000 in a deal that was to be handled by Epik. He never received the domain and didn’t get his money back, either, despite multiple pleas.
He sued Epik at the end of March.
Today, Adkisson filed an amended lawsuit (pdf). The three main differences between the original and amended cases appear to be:
- Stating concern about an asset sale. The amended complaint adds a section titled “Defendants Attempt to Sell Epik and Its Assets”. It explains that Epik CEO Brian Royce recently tweeted about negotiating asset sales and that former CEO Rob Monster confirmed to Adkisson on May 12 “that he understood ‘that an asset sale is being finalized'”. The complaint states, “If an asset sale is completed, Epik intends to pay its creditors before repaying the consumers whose funds Defendants misappropriated.”
- Adds examples of more people who say they were ripped off.
- Adds an additional RICO claim.
Royce has asked the court to be dismissed from the lawsuit because the nourish.com transaction predated him being named CEO. The amended complaint makes it clear the plaintiffs believe he is at least partially to blame. [Update: Indeed, the plaintiff also filed an opposition to Royce’s motion to dismiss.]
So the customer sent the money to Epik and Epik did not send the good to the customer and has not refunded the money back to the customer since the good has not been materialized.
So what the problem here…it is cut and dry… “stealing”
Here what really happens is that all of Epik smells very bad, the entire system in Epik is a mess, if you renew and pay for the domain after 5 minutes the pdf invoice arrives by email and after 10 minutes an expiration notice arrives domain that you have paid and renewed 15 minutes ago you answer the email to support adding the invoice and the answer after 6, 12, 24 hours. That my domain is in the renewal queue, this means that they are using our money and that has been the case since all this started.
For my part, I have lost the illusion of continuing in this domain market, domain registrars should all have much more vigilance “Not from ICANN because it never does anything”
But if from an important estate such as the stock market.
There are several other potentially problematic tweets as well, including multiple referring to Rob Monster and another referring to “Two hold first-lien positions” and more.
I am sure the plaintiff’s attorneys have seen all of these, since they incorporated at least one into their amended lawsuit.
From the response –
“In his Motion, Royce focuses largely on what he terms a “timing issue,” claiming that because he did not become CEO of Epik until after Mr. Adkisson transferred his funds to Epik, Royce cannot be liable. This is chronological sophistry. Royce purposefully omits that as CEO of Epik he personally made several materially false representations to Mr. Adkisson about repaying Mr. Adkisson’s funds—which Epik was purportedly holding in escrow. Royce deliberately misled Mr. Adkisson for months while Defendants embezzled Mr. Adkisson’s funds for purposes other than what Mr. Adkisson had intended. That is illegal. And, as detailed in the Amended Complaint, Royce was not just involved in this tortious conduct, he is in charge of it as the only person fully in control of Epik’s finances.”
That’s the way this Royce Rolls
Wow wow wow.
Remember all the enthusiastic members of the domain community who used to vociferously tout Epik? Even a top domain investor was on Epik’s board until a few years ago.
You really have to feel for the customers who were impacted by all this. Especially this guy with so much money owed to him, struggling to just get back what he is owed.
And ICANN? Where is it in all this mess? Hello? Silent? A significant registrar essentially collapses and what have we heard from them?
The ICA? Many domain registrants are Epik customers. Anything from the ICA to help? Any proposals from the ICA to help safeguard their domain assets prevent this from happening to members of the domain community in the future?
Hmm. Seems like domain registrants are on their own yet again.
Do ICA members use Epik? I’d be surprised if any still have their domains there.
Braden Pollack still has very valuable names there.
Interesting
Not sure on that, but the point is a larger one.
This is not the first time a registrar has unraveled. For example, Pheenix ran a popular drop-catching service, then all of a sudden they had issues, went silent, and has now vanished. Take a look at Pheenix.com for their current status.
The ICA exists to protect the rights and interests of domain owners and “to improve the domain name industry.”
Helping make a plan to prevent registrars from folding and jeopardizing registrant’s assets in the process is pretty important. If well-capitalized banks can fail, as we have seen, then certainly a domain registrar can too.
In theory, ICANN does have a plan for this. It can just be a slow process. Are you an ICA member? If so, I recommend bringing this up to ICA’s leadership to see what it can do.
I used to happily use Epik for all my domains. I found Rob’s anti censorship approach to be refreshing in a world where all someone has to do is mutter the words hate speech and get something or someone censored by big tech.
I also appreciated his hands on approach. I’ve never dealt with a company before or since where I could have reach the CEO especially directly.
But to be honest I saw the writing on the wall when they had their spat with Dan, then lost PayPal and went off the rails about it. Then lost fast transfer shortly thereafter. It was at that point I moved out my domains.
I don’t know that anyone can honestly say they didn’t see this coming. I knew it would only be a matter of time before there was a big Epik meltdown. Though to be honest I assumed it was going to be them spatting with ICANN and loosing their Accreditation.
If I lose the illusion of this domain market it’s because of the domain registrars, first it was Networksolutions, then Moniker, now Epik the first two stole 100 domains from me, there was where to claim with the first No! with the second one I had the help of Mr. Paul Keating Lawyer for domains he was able to do something No!
With Epik at the moment I have not lost any domain I am transferring to another registrar we will see what happens with the next one,
ICANN has never done anything else, it has been involved in matters that we already know, I am not from ICA and I cannot comment.
But if there could be this that exists in the US for the stock market a regulatory body, here I copy and paste:
To protect investors and ensure market integrity, FINRA, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, is a government-sanctioned, non-profit organization that oversees US stockbrokers. We work every day to ensure that everyone can participate in the market with confidence.
Epik and in particular Rob Monster should be investigated over running an unlicensed escrow service. it has been pointed out many times in the past that Epik may be acting illegally and now the worst has happened. I would imagine charges could be laid if enough victims came forwards.