Silenced for Uncovering Corruption: How Flippa Banned Me for Exposing Insider Favoritism and Unethical Practices
My experience with Flippa has been deeply frustrating and disheartening, especially in how they apply their policies. Despite successfully selling over 550 websites with consistently positive feedback, I was met with unprecedented scrutiny and unfair enforcement of policies targeted solely at my account. After raising valid concerns about other sellers who were selling unlicensed Codecanyon scripts, my account was banned under the pretext of “policy violations, blackmail because of mentioning their CEO name.” This entire ordeal felt less like a policy enforcement and more like retaliation for speaking up.
Throughout my time on the platform, I consistently noticed that Flippa’s policies were enforced selectively. For example, I was flagged for offering BIN (Buy It Now) deals, while it’s common for other sellers to offer BIN bonuses like unrelated courses or ‘buy one, get one free’ offers. In my case, my BIN offer was directly relevant to the product, yet I was singled out. Another example was my use of the term “potentially higher margins,” which is standard phrasing on Flippa, used by countless other sellers. However, I was forced to remove it, only to face new issues shortly after. Each time I complied with their requests, another rule seemed to appear, making it clear this was not genuine policy enforcement but rather a targeted effort to harass me and my account.
When I reported two specific sellers who were deceptively selling Codecanyon scripts by disguising SaaS products on subdomains while presenting a basic WordPress front page, I expected the same scrutiny to be applied as it was with my listings. Instead, my concerns were disregarded, and no action was taken. Notably, both profiles appear to be indirectly linked to Flippa executives; otherwise, there’s no explanation for how they’ve been able to operate for so long without consequence. Rather than addressing these issues, the Integrity Team, led by Ian McFaul and Rachel O., repeatedly harassed me with demands to change trivial elements of my listings, while other sellers continued these practices unchallenged. When I mentioned my plan to document and escalate these issues to the CEO, they accused me of “blackmail” and permanently banned my account without addressing the actual concerns I raised. It’s worth mentioning that two years ago, I left a detailed review exposing these kinds of unethical practices on Flippa. At the time, I was contacted by a respectful representative from Flippa who requested I take it down, and I agreed in good faith. Unfortunately, that individual is no longer with the company.
The harassment I faced was systematic and unrelenting. Both Ian McFaul and Rachel O. seemed organized in their efforts to push my account off the platform. They would flag my listings for minor infractions while overlooking the same or worse practices in other accounts. After complying with multiple demands, I began to feel this was no longer about maintaining policies but was a deliberate targeting of my account.
After they banned my account, I tried to appeal, sending multiple heartfelt messages explaining the impact of their actions, not only on me but on the 25+ families who depend on the income generated from this business. Many of these families have made commitments based on this income—supporting their children’s education, covering medical expenses for elderly family members, and more. Instead of understanding, I was met with cold, dismissive replies like “Thank you for your note, Vijay” repeatedly. I even changed my approach entirely, offering to comply with any specific rules they set, yet my sincere requests were met with sarcasm, showing a clear lack of empathy for the people affected by their decision.
In the end, Flippa’s approach is not just a matter of policy—it’s about accountability. I believe that their actions represent online bullying in the name of policy enforcement. This experience has left me with deep concerns about how Flippa’s Integrity Team operates and the selective enforcement of their rules. If a platform’s success depends on fairness, transparency, and trust, Flippa has demonstrated a complete disregard for these principles in my case.
I hope that others considering this platform can see beyond the facade of “policy” and understand the real practices at work here.
BitsForDigits
Flippa Invest, the anti-VC fundraising platform, is here!
Raise $50k to $1M+ growth capital from 80,000 accredited investors (founders, operators and acquirers, including high net-worth individuals, family offices and private equity). No VCs and BAs demanding board seats or liquidity preferences - just big cheque sizes from accredited investors.
Invest in growing tech startups, cashflowing online businesses and profitable digital companies in all categories, including SaaS, apps, AI, marketplaces, media, fintech, eCommerce, gaming, service and more. All US-registered and internet-based.
How to raise on Flippa Invest?
1️⃣ Apply to raise at flippa.com/product/invest
2️⃣ Sync your business KPI data
3️⃣ Set your deal terms
4️⃣ Launch your round to 80,000 accredited investors
5️⃣ Secure up to $1 million in funding
Flippa Invest handles the heavy lifting of bringing its registered accredited investors into your virtual deal room so you can review their profiles, engage directly and secure funding with ease.
How to invest on Flippa Invest?
1️⃣ Register as an accredited investor on flippa.com/invest
2️⃣ Sign NDAs to view deals on the platform
3️⃣ Enter dealrooms to engage with the raiser
4️⃣ Sign LOIs and term sheets to commit capital
5️⃣ Fund businesses to secure equity and rights
Flippa Invest offers secure end-to-end technology for signatures and payments so that investors can perform their due diligence on the company in confidence.
@laurits_just Awesome lets go!
This is exactly what the digital business space needed! Not every founder wants (or fits) the VC path, so having an alternative like @Flippa Invest is huge. Excited to see how this plays out—props to the team for making it happen!
BitsForDigits
@alexander_kelm Thanks Alexander. That's exactly why we built this!
Great! Flippa is now partially an investment platform, from now on provides easy access to diverse assets, automates transactions, reduces risk with portfolio management, and enables passive income growth—making investing simpler and more profitable. Many of us wanted this and its finally here!
BitsForDigits
Off to a fast, high quality start. The deals loaded in for investment include a variety of businesses, across a range of investment levels and include very high quality founders.
Excited about this!
No Cap
Much needed product. Who do you guys compete with?
BitsForDigits
@ednevsky thank you! Appreciate the question.
We indirectly compete with @angellist except their platform targets mostly moonshot pre-seed startups while Flippa Invest supplies growing, bootstrapped/Seed/Series A businesses with growth capital to scale their operations.
Similarly we somewhat indirectly compete with crowdfunding platforms like @wefunder although they're built for B2C and community-led businesses raising small cheque sizes from lots of friends and family in personal social circles. Meanwhile we at Flippa Invest offer access to our own network of 80,000+ accredited investors that cut bigger cheques.
Finally we sometimes compete with lenders of non-equity financing like @Founderpath and other revenue-based invoice factoring providers, but founders often don't have to choose between raising debt or doing equity fundraising and can do both.
Steve - AI for E-com
Awesome work! Proud to be among the first companies on the list!
BitsForDigits
@goldman_artem congrats to you and your team! Happy to see you guys getting so much traction on Flippa Invest and generally.