New on LowEndTalk? Please Register and read our Community Rules.
All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.
All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.
Comments
Pete Brownell and NRA is cool too.
This is insane, are you able to tell how much is he asking for Terra alone?
Oh wow, for real? i stopped back then cause i got enlisted & got scared of c&d email from gravity, it was very profitable running ro pservers back then, easily 5k a month.
I have no idea. The $160M is in the emails that got released. I've had no contact with Robert, never talked to him. I'm only aware of a single employee of Epik's that i've talked to. If there is anyone else I've talked to that worked at Epik, I wasn't made aware of that fact.
Yep, many RO's were doing $30k - $40k/month if they ran full cash shops. Even some of the Pinoy servers were doing $10k/month+. It was incredible how much people would pay for over powered 'pay to win' servers.
Francisco
The bad experiences from their users in the latest time also interesting:
https://www.trustpilot.com/review/epik.com?sort=recency
Not following all this Epik drama, but can somebody summary in few sentences why Epik failed to pay fees to icann? What hapenned?
Rob Monster spent money on dumb shit.
Not up to them.
I, and a few others, read that as "they are trying to sell Terra to me", as in you are the presumptive buyer.
Now that I have read it a few times I realize you meant it as in "looks like to me that they intend to sell Terra".
Ooh dammit all, sorry.
Francisco
ceo confirmed it for me, that's as close i will get to any public statement.
i have plan b though.
1.) Rob Monster was suddenly replaced as Epik CEO on 9/2/2022. He has not been heard from publicly since.
2.) The new CEO Brian Royce is some domain noob. How he got this position is still not fully known.
3.) Epik is millions of dollars in debt to companies and customers.
4.) They have screwed customers over via their unlicensed "escrow" and other services.
5.) Masterbucks has no cash value, as it can't be withdrawn. Epik has been keeping the actual currency and sticking customers with this worthless fake currency.
6.) Epik, Rob Monster, and Brian Royce are facing a RICO lawsuit alleging -
"This lawsuit is about a widespread and illegal fraudulent scheme—replete with misrepresentations, embezzlement, and misappropriation"
It alleges that Epik/Rob took a $327,000 "escrow" payment for the domain Nourish.com in May 2022. They never delivered the domain, or a refund.
https://onlinedomain.com/2023/04/05/domain-name-news/a-lawsuit-was-filed-against-epik/
Also, to make it clear in the RICO lawsuit Epik has already admitted in their response -
There are other victims of this "escrow" scam as well, like Kathleen Kalaf -
https://domainnamewire.com/2022/12/05/an-epik-victim-tells-her-story/
7.) At this point Epik can't even carry out the basic functions of a registrar. There are many reports of Epik not being able to process registrations and renewals in a timely manner, if at all. There are reports of people paying for renewals, then the domains expiring.
8.) They have sold off many of their assets including large domain portfolios, the other forum, etc. Most of their employees have been terminated.
9.) Current CEO Brian Royce and current Chairman and majority shareholder Rob Monster are basically at war with each other. During this entire time Rob Monster has still been the Chairman and majority shareholder.
source
Steps to follow originally posted by someone who knows a bit about registars;
Remember the 21-day countdown has ALREADY started (started June 1st) till Epik has to prove they FIXED their financial issues (egarding ICANN fees & domain renewals / transfers -- which is unlikely -- or ICANN starts the termination process. Transfers typically take 5-7 days to complete + time to gather the domain info needed to start the process, remember auth codes have to be obtained individually at Epik.
REMOVE WHOIS Privacy on ALL your domains at Epik and VERIFY the Registrant / domain ownership info is accurate, so it is easy to tell who owns the domain. Use an authoritative WHOIS to check the current registrant info.
lookup.icann. org/en (remove the space BEFORE org to get link to work) (If Epik loses ICAAN accreditation, gTLDs will likely be taken over by another registrar and you will NEED to PROVE ownership of your domain(s). Do NOT assume that Epik has kept accurate records of domain ownership for ANY domain with them. (Search the pheenix. com registrar takeover for how bad things can get in this regard).
Start the transfer-out process for ALL the domains you want to save ASAP (and by that I mean get the transfer process started within a few days if at all possible). If you can't afford to transfer out ALL the domains you want to keep, transfer out the most valuable / important domains ASAP followed by domains that are closest to expiration. REMEMBER you will have to get auth codes one at a time, so this may take significant time if you have many domains.
Once the domain transfer out process has been started at the receiving registrar, keep an eye out for any issues with the transfer process. 24 hours after the transfers were started, use an authoritative WHOIS to check the current domain status.
lookup.icann. org/en (remove the space BEFORE org to get link to work) Status SHOULD show "pending transfer", if it does NOT, check the receiving registrar for any issues they mention, ie invalid auth code, etc. If none are mentioned, attempt to contact Epik customer support.
Wait another 24 hours (2 days from when transfers started). Check the authoritative WHOIS again. If it STILL does not show "pending transfer" status, double check your receiving registrar for any issues they mention (also check spam folder, etc). If no issues are found and Epik support hasn't fixed the issue, file a complaint with ICANN listing ALL the gTLD domains you are having issues transferring out of Epik.
icann. org/compliance/complaint (remove the space BEFORE org to get link to work) NOTE: ccTLD's are NOT covered by ICANN policies, but still advisable to transfer them out too.
It goes without saying do NOT ATTEMPT to RENEW any domains at Epik since they have a history of taking the money without renewing the domain in a timely manner OR in some cases never renewing the domain at all!!!
Regardless of the above, there is NO guarantee that the above will work and/or for how long it will work, especially steps 2-5. So far, Epik is ensuring domains with ICANN complaints transfer out, but as the ICANN deadline gets closer and closer, the odds become higher & higher that this method will NOT keep working. As a result, the SOONER you start the transfer process, the HIGHER the odds you will succeed in transferring your domains.
source
Not up to him either.
@Francisco source for the first screenshot?
https://www.namepros.com/threads/the-fund-cant-be-withdrawal-from-epik-com-via-masterbucks-wallet.1284050/page-290#posts
From 290+ you'll find it.
Francisco
Thank you mate!
It will be like the old "Net4 India" domain registrar situation, where your domains will be locked with Epik (you can't renew, transfer-out) and will have to wait for ICANN action which will ask any other domain registrar (Net4's domain portfolio was taken over by PDR) to come forward take over all the domains from Epik. Once that is done, you'll be able to renew your domains at the new registrar. But if your domain expires somewhere in June/July or August 2023 and then it could expire until this full process is done from ICANN's side.
This does not affect Terrahost in any way. We are a separate entity, and if anything it would just mean a change of ownership.
We are going full freight forward, and as you may know, DC3 is almost at completion these days. The first servers are already in testing and we are bringing clients servers up next week.
Congratulations, and hope everything goes smoothly!
Do you know if APIK is looking to sell his Terrahost shares?
What % does they own? I hope not the full 100%
If they own a substantional % TerraHost just can’t say it won’t mean anything.
And they bought that % with money they defrauded from their users and suppliers
By definition, a change of ownership is not nothing.
I like Terrahost a lot, but IMO, anyone who hosts controversial content there should consider formulating a "plan B" in case their potential new owners are not so open-minded. The general management inside Terrahost is unlikely to change soon, so I'm not suggesting that people need to jump ship right now, but to be clear, we don't know what % is owned and what kind of contracts were in place.
And it is in Terrahost's interest to say that business continues on normally, but given the volatile situation at Epik, it seems wise to at least plan for what might happen, especially anyone who takes advantage of Terrahost's open-minded content policies. Again, I'm not saying jump ship, but just consider being prepared.
I wish Terrahost all the best. I believe no one at Terrahost who agreed to the Epik deal ever imagined they would be in this kind of situation. What I hope is that Terrahost can buy themselves back 100% and wash their hands of this. Other hosting providers have bought themselves back before in other situations, so maybe Terrahost is already working on trying to do that. Good luck to the Terrahost team.
I'm torn in this matter.
I've always liked Terrahost and has nothing but good to say about them, the servers I have with them always perform flawlessly, Enigma works really well and the staff is awesome. But as much as I like Terrahost I dislike Epik, and I refuse to have anything to do with them.
Ever since Epik acquired Terra I have not bought any more services from them, but of course the once I already have continue to work flawlessly. I have taken preparations so I can quickly move everything away from Terrahost if it should come to that, but I sincerely hope it does not.
I hope that what Terrahost says is true and I guess time will tell, but I will not bet any money on something said by someone even remotely associated with Epik.
The filings showed epik owned 100%.
Francisco
This is naive. No one can predict the outcome of a bankruptcy sale.
The new owner might be an existing business that wants to use Terrahost's hardware and infrastructure for another concept.
I giggled
... or worse.
I agree it was a naive statement, and actually it would probably be better for Terrahost's rep to not say anything right now, since there is active litigation going on.
And in fact, since Terrahost is probably one of the only parts of this messy tragedy that is likely in good shape financially, it will be viewed as a crown jewel and a primary asset to sell off to pay back debtors.
None of this is Terrahost's fault of course, they probably entered into the deal with Epik in good faith with high hopes it was a great opportunity for them, only to later find out what a mess Epik is. Who knows, but maybe even Terrahost (or their prior owners if they didn't get full payment, for example) has a legal case against Epik?
No matter how you look at it, it's a raw deal for Terrahost, since even if they manage to stay 100% intact, and they get a good new owner, there are going to be some people who won't trust them because of their association with Epik. It's just sad.
Ouch. That's not what I was hoping to see. The lawyers will be eyeing Terrahost like vultures.
Again, I wish Terrahost the best possible outcome from this unfortunate situation that they've been sucked into.