Safeguard your trade

i'm definitely a newbie seeing as how i just signed up yesterday, but i saw this thread and read a lot (not all) of the various suggestions about how to trade with people who are new.

i guess some of you don't like ebay, but i used to do a little selling of jewelry and gemstones on there and my feedback rating was of utmost importance. so my suggestion is that if someone (like me) is new and unknown, perhaps viewing their ebay feedback rating (if they have one) will give a real good idea of just how honest and trustworthy they are.

i also think the payment should be received before the product is shipped. that's how we do it on ebay. so at least the seller never gets screwed.

i've never had a problem buying/selling on ebay, but that's probably because i won't do business with someone who has less that a 99% positive feedback.
i would suggest anyone else considering ebay feedback to do the same. there's no excuse for having feedback below 99% (even tho that sounds high). and if you're still not sure you can always go and read the actual comments left about the individual's transactions - did they ship quickly, did they pay promptly, was the merchandise as described, etc.

ok, i've rambled on enough. time to go eat anyway

lenette (clowder)

What about a feedback section similar to what Ebay and Yahoo have with a rating system. Maybe penalties for too many negative feedbacks or to high a percentage of negative feedbacks.

Feedback would provide a history on them for all to reference when dealing with them. I would also help any newbies who dont know the people or their history

Hello All, New member here. As an alternative to putting the items up on ebay and then paying by pay pal, Why not just pay privately through pay pal, no need to involve ebay and take a chance of someone else hitting the buy it now trigger first, not to mention having to pay the ebay fees. Just make sure You pay with the credit card option and You can do a charge back if the deal goes bad. Just My 2 cents worth. Rick

I have done some horsetrading on this forum,so far so good. Yes I will post online the names of people that burn me,even the EBay members!
As said,so far so good...........Some people say I trust to much....I'm pretty good on judging people.........As my Grandma said,be honest,and nice things happen to you........

I know this is an older post and yet as a new member here and having read all of this posting, I can say this to all members here whether you have been burned or not.......

Use Pay Pal.com for any transactions involving money as they can issue refunds if merchandise does not arrive and they will go after the people you paid in good faith.
You can send invoices thru Pay Pal to people you do not know to collect money before shipping and use tracking thru the post office to insure your package arrived at its destination. a regular package shipped parcel post or first class costs 85 cents and up for a tracking number which you can then PM to the person buying the rock/merchandise... priority mail has it's own tracking built in.

I am now in a transaction with a member here and my first question to him was ..."do you take Pay Pal?" I would hope that they will use a tracking number for the package as they do not know me and want to cover themselves against me saying the package never arrived... until they got to know me better then they wouldn't have to worry.

so I am ready to pull out the soap box and preach which means its time for me to stop talking.... just my thoughts on this matter.

tracking is the same as delivery confirmation but cheaper... they give you a paper with the tracking number, if there is a problem you go to usps.com enter number and it will tell you if the box made it to the address or not. The difference is that no sig is needed, they will leave it at the address for the person to get.
i usually send the tracking number in a email to the buyer so they can track it too.

tracking costs about 85 cents I think.

Hey, ya'll! You're scaring me into even thinking about buying or trading. I want some Jasper but I sure don't want to pay for something that I will not receive.

While I haven't bought from everyone, I've bought and traded with a LOT of the members, and never ever had a problem. Also, if you look at the dates of these posts, any problems occurred a long time ago, can't see where a problem was, but top of this page is from 2009, and there have been no negatives since 2009.

Use paypal like everyone suggests. I can't think of a regular here who would rip anyone off, so post count matters too.

Finally, if you feel ripped off, scream your head off about it, then go file a complaint with Paypal. Whatever you bought will not be worth the future loss of business, or reputation, for any regular here. You have very little to worry about.