Crossed on classifieds.

[henz]

So somewhat new here on geekhack. I have now joined the club on beeing crossed on classfieds(Still hoping, but the guy has not been active since the day i bought the item from him). Anyone else in the club? Is there a list going around privatly which contains information of who not to trust or buy from?

[tp4tissue]

uh oh... that's a bad start for thxgiving dinner... 

[henz]

uh oh... that's a bad start for thxgiving dinner...

Swedes dont do thanksgiving, but yeah, still unhappy times

[SpAmRaY]

The mods shot down the idea of having a thread dedicated to shaming and naming but you'd be surprised at the deadbeats who miraculously come back when they get named for not completing a deal. Hopefully you paid with PayPal goods and can dispute.

I get PM's all the time from random people asking if people are trustworthy but anymore there are so many new people buying/selling it is hard to know how to trust.

[Signature]

The mods shot down the idea of having a thread dedicated to shaming and naming but you'd be surprised at the deadbeats who miraculously come back when they get named for not completing a deal. Hopefully you paid with PayPal goods and can dispute.

I get PM's all the time from random people asking if people are trustworthy but anymore there are so many new people buying/selling it is hard to know how to trust.

Yeah I recently suggested to have a heatware client inside Geekhack like a trading tool. Hoffman said that they may make it as soon as they are done with the current problems. Lot of work but it's better in the long run imo.

[FrostyToast]

A post count is a nice indicator.
Something that can be more reliably used for new users who have less than say 200 posts is to check how many posts they have make per day on average. This is located in their profile.

If they insist on having you send by gift, then insist back at them requesting to pay for goods.
I have never had a sale go rotten to date and I practically buy out half the classifieds section. It would be surprising to me if this does not end well.

[berserkfan]

A post count is a nice indicator.
Something that can be more reliably used for new users who have less than say 200 posts is to check how many posts they have make per day on average. This is located in their profile.

If they insist on having you send by gift, then insist back at them requesting to pay for goods.
I have never had a sale go rotten to date and I practically buy out half the classifieds section. It would be surprising to me if this does not end well.

As one of the people who most prefer to be paid by gift, I would say that one must exercise some judgement in these things.

No sensible person who has run up over 2000 post count, helped various people, relies on people's goodwill for technical assistance and written lots of substantive stuff on the forum would cheat you over $10 of keycaps or $30 of stems. All his 'social investment' would be destroyed.

It isn't even worth it to me to scam 10 people for $250 each. (That's the theoretical max I am capable of since nothing I have is worth more. If after my many and oft repeated rants against overspending on keyboards you still believe I have $800 keyboards to sell just because I can display a photoshopped pix, you will be the fool and not me.)

Does it mean that you can trust me or anybody with similar profile with $100,000 worth of stuff in a huge and expensive group buy? I don't think so. Not unless you've known me personally for a few years at least.

This was the problem in the WhiteFireDragon group buy. That guy got a ton of expensive keyboards and parts from everyone, and somewhere along the line decided that the work versus the temptation was too great and he'd rather give up his reputation and social investment. But he did complete projects for some people, and presumably did not scam the people he had the best relations with, because some of the people who trusted him most got their stuff modded as promised. It was the people who had the least ties with WFD that never got their stuff.

One way is to check out someone's previous posts. If he's got a post count like 20 and they are all super short, you don't have a handle on this person's personality and character. That's not good enough to risk gift payment.

That said, PM me privately this person's name. It doesn't sound like the guy you talked to me about last week.

[heedpantsnow]

Ouch. All I can say is sorry. I don't know what a good threshold for post count is.

[fohat.digs]

I strongly recommend that all business transactions be conducted truthfully as the buying and selling of merchandise between strangers.

The 3% additional fee is rather insignificant for the protection it provides. I can understand why a seller would want to fake a gift, but not a buyer. If you have been on both sides of the table for very long you understand what I am saying.

[Mandolin]

Ask for feedback, heatware and/or ebay. Longevity in the forum and paypal invoice if they've yet to prove reliability.


(I've got higher fees than the 3 percent in personal accounts, as merchant with low sales paypal charges 5.3% + 0.3 usd for invoicing, rather high, but if the buyer is happy to pay it, I dont oposse resistance. Be wary about sellers that don't give you full payment options or act shady around it).

[Coreda]

Really should be some reputation system. Does GH have some sticky thread for leaving feedback? One which compiled feedback on a regular basis into a spreadsheet would probably help with this.

[SpAmRaY]

If people would just use heatware (which can be linked through everyone's GH profile) it would probably help to some extent.

[henz]

A post count is a nice indicator.
Something that can be more reliably used for new users who have less than say 200 posts is to check how many posts they have make per day on average. This is located in their profile.

If they insist on having you send by gift, then insist back at them requesting to pay for goods.
I have never had a sale go rotten to date and I practically buy out half the classifieds section. It would be surprising to me if this does not end well.

That didnt help in my case Ill update if anythign changes, havent given up yet.

Ouch. All I can say is sorry. I don't know what a good threshold for post count is.

tanx

[katushkin]

Have you tried messaging them directly?

Recommending using another system is all well and good, but I'd rather not have to sign into another system to sell my stuff...

[nubbinator]

Do you mind saying what you got screwed over on OP?

The mods shot down the idea of having a thread dedicated to shaming and naming but you'd be surprised at the deadbeats who miraculously come back when they get named for not completing a deal. Hopefully you paid with PayPal goods and can dispute.

Yeah, that made me sad. If someone screws you over, you have every right to call them out on it.

[tbc]

i'm under the impression that people can make individual threads naming names every time it happens, just not a properly maintained master list.

[nubbinator]

i'm under the impression that people can make individual threads naming names every time it happens, just not a properly maintained master list.

Now what if we came up with a "Call people out" thread wherein someone updated a list of people and what someone was waiting for from them?  Would that be acceptable.  It's not a "masterlist," just a "waiting for updates on the sale" list.

[byker]

Yeah, could set up a google excel sheet so anyone can see it, and edit it.

[SpAmRaY]

Yeah, could set up a google excel sheet so anyone can see it, and edit it.

The problem with that is if someone gets called out then they can just edit themselves out.

[tbc]

i'm under the impression that people can make individual threads naming names every time it happens, just not a properly maintained master list.

Now what if we came up with a "Call people out" thread wherein someone updated a list of people and what someone was waiting for from them?  Would that be acceptable.  It's not a "masterlist," just a "waiting for updates on the sale" list.

no clue, but that was a loophole i was considering as well.

but there was alot of anger so i didn't want to bring it up then.

[byker]

Yeah, could set up a google excel sheet so anyone can see it, and edit it.

The problem with that is if someone gets called out then they can just edit themselves out.

All of those google drive things save every time an edit is made, so we could always go back. Or maybe you PM me and I can add it to the list (or whoever is in charge), after being shown screenshots or sufficient evidence to show that someone is a scammer.

[Coreda]

Yeah, could set up a google excel sheet so anyone can see it, and edit it.

Still think a general purpose feedback thread would be more useful than a waiting for updates or purely negative thread (although they have their use, too). Seems several would prefer a name and shame thread which tbh only would be of use after something has gone wrong not beforehand. That or the Heatware system, but it doesn't seem many are using it.

Not sure if Google spreadsheets can be limited to only a number of select users but that would also work, rather than making it publicly editable.

[byker]

Hey guys,

I thought about this for a bit then set something up. Maybe we can get some moderator input to see if they are okay with this. Here is my idea:

Several people, moderators, or anyone really, have access to an excel sheet on google drive. I set one up and would be happy to update it. Now that I have made one, you it automatically publishes a link here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PPyzroZp_yhFIEnLpuGdzBNfILCg9dpK0XSyGmvK-8E/pubhtmlso ayou guys can see this sheet by clicking on the link, and I can edit it, and then it automatically updates the published link. So if Seller-A was to PM me saying they had a positive trade, I could update it. Then the next guy can come along and check out the published list to see that Seller-A has positive feedback.

Thoughts on this?

[Coreda]

Thoughts on this?

It's a good start  It would be good to see separate Buyer/Seller columns so one can see what the feedback was for.

Also I suppose it would take a while or only be at the end of a failed GB that buyers would know if something was truly a scam, as from what I've read sometimes complications arise which can at first seem like scammy behavior but end up being legit. For on going or major scams I'd imagine the user would be listed under an 'Untrusted' section. Others could provide better feedback on this.

People might like to check the NeoGAF Buy/Sell/Trade thread and the linked feedback spreadsheet which has been long running and works quite well as a feedback system. The thread itself is where descriptive feedback is left and the spreadsheet a weekly updated summary of the feedback left. The GH classifieds operates with dedicated threads but it's still useful to see how another board has handled this.

[SpAmRaY]

The problem with any of this is getting people to participate.

I know the forum has other issues but if we could get a built in system for leaving buy/sell/trade feedback that required participation to use classifieds in the first place, that might get some traction.

I think its obvious a majority of new users and even a lot of the old timers only come here for the classifieds.

[Signature]

Yeah here is the suggestion I sent to Hoffman, it's a tall order but it will be worth it imo

Got another suggestion to make a sort of heatware system at geekhack. When you want to buy something you request a trade with the seller and afterwards you can leave a rating. If you get enough negative ratings you can be banned from posting in classifieds. You can also make a rule that you have to have atleast 50 positive ratings to start a groub buy. This would increase the safety of groupbuys and would prevent scams etc. I was thinking of something like this:

Show Image

[fohat.digs]

I think that a neutral 3rd party such as Heatware would be best.

The problem is always getting people to respond.

The general understanding in marketing is that happy customers remain silent and that unhappy customers make all the noise.

[jacobolus]

Never ever pay for anything as a “gift”. Just calculate the paypal fee yourself and add it to the total. The total fee is 2.9% + 30¢, so if the amount you want the seller to get is X, you need to pay them an amount Y such that Y * 97.1% - 30¢ = X, or in other words, you need to pay them ~(X + 30¢) * 103%. No biggie. (International fees might be slightly higher, I’m not sure. That could slightly change the calculation.)