WilliamC
spending too much on rocks
Member since August 2003
Posts: 416
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Post by WilliamC on Jan 11, 2004 9:38:21 GMT -5
Greetings All,
Well guys and girls, I really hate to do it, but I'm going to have something negative to say about one of the members of this board. As many of you may know, I've been lucky enough to sell a couple of parcels to a few people who post here, and have traded with a couple more. Unfortunately, I've had a bad experience with one of my trading partners. In late November he and I agreed to swap 10 lbs of rock, with each of us paying the postage of the rock we sent. I sent mine out, Fed Ex with a tracking number 11/25/2003, knowing that he hadn't already sent his yet. They were received by him 11/28/2003. He emailed me on 12/2/2003 to say he had sent his out, but with no tracking number. A couple of weeks go by, no rocks. On 11/17/2003 he emailed me saying the rocks had been returned to him and that he would ship them out again. No big deal, the post office does make mistakes. Two more weeks go by, still no rocks, no tracking number. I email back and forth with him, and on 01/02/2004 he tells me he is sending out a second package in case the first is lost, but still no tracking number. On 01/08/2004 I emailed him that I was starting to get a bit frustrated and would mention something on the message board if I didn't get the rocks or at least a tracking number to prove they have been shipped. Well here it is the 11th, more than five weeks since I know he received the rocks I sent, and I still have not gotten any rocks or a tracking number. Hey, I understand packages get lost, but what I'm not understanding is the refusal on his part to ship the rocks with a tracking number so they can be verified. I do have a hard time believing they haven't been sent, but if they are being sent regular mail and are getting lost that's sort of irresponsible on his part. Either way, I'm starting to feel like I've been taken advantage of.
I'll give it a couple of more days to see if I get the rocks early next week, or at least if he will email me a tracking number to prove he has sent them. I am obviously not even saying who it is yet because I really do not want to tarnish someones reputation without very good reason. But at the same time I feel a certain responsibility to everyone else on the board to make sure they don't also get taken advantage of if it turns out this person really isn't sending the rocks. Hopefully he is just the victim of really bad luck with the post office, but even so there is always FedEx and UPS ground service, which does provide tracking numbers, and is for me at least actually cheaper than US postal.
I'll post a follow up by Wednesday or so. But for now, I hope everyone is having fun tumbling. Me, I just got a mixed batch of green and blue quartz aventurine, red aventurine or sunstone, and leopardskin jasper out of the 1st polish stage with Aluminum oxide yesterday, they aren't perfect by any means, I might send the entire batch back through a second polish with cerium oxide to see what that does, or I might take them up to work with me tomorrow and see if someone wants to buy them. They are polished, and they are quite pretty, but I haven't made the "perfect" batch yet so I still have lots o' tumbling to do. ;D
William C
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James
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since October 2003
Posts: 876
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Post by James on Jan 11, 2004 14:13:52 GMT -5
I'm sorry to hear about that William. Hopefully this measage will get things resolved. And I hope this doesn't discourage others from trading. Keep us posted. -James
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Post by docone31 on Jan 11, 2004 21:16:19 GMT -5
William, I was really impressed when you sent me the aventurine as quickly as you did. I really hope this turns out to be a shipping snafu. I am very fortunate, I have never been burned. I tend to trust too easily. In my shop however, half the townspeople owe me something. The worst was when I did some custom work for a person crying poverty. He found I used to be a recording artist and promptly purchased an expensive CD, a remake I recieve no royalties from. He had paid for the work with about 15 cents worth of dunnage stone, and that day came back with the new CD and asked me to sign the cover. It just saddened me. I was speechless. I hope it all works out for you and the individual. I never recieved such a thoroughly meticulusly packaged box of rocks before. I have faceted some of the aventurine in trillion cuts and have designed some pendants for it. The opaque property of the stone with the setting really makes for some interesting jewelery. I am going to try after we sell the house and get re-set up to cut an emerald cut for you to play with. My wife and I have been accepted in a GIA program for advanced pearl grading and master goldsmithing and fabricating. Have peace, things have a way of working out. If not, the individual will have to live with it. Meantime, I have been honoured by your blind trust in me.
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WilliamC
spending too much on rocks
Member since August 2003
Posts: 416
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Post by WilliamC on Jan 13, 2004 10:27:04 GMT -5
Greetings All,
Thank you very much for the kind words Doc, I appreciate the positive feedback and the fact that you are putting the stones to such good use. My friend with the store is strongly suggesting I get a drill so I can make simple pendants and earrings and such, he could sell those, and I know if I spent some time wire wrapping I could make something nice. As with so many things, I just say someday, someday.
Still no sign about the rocks, and no response to the last two emails I sent. I'll wait a couple more days, but if by the end of the week I haven't seen any evidence of his shipping the rocks I'll post his name here so no one else will be taken advantage off.
WilliamC
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WilliamC
spending too much on rocks
Member since August 2003
Posts: 416
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Post by WilliamC on Jan 16, 2004 14:49:18 GMT -5
Greetings All,
I've let Andy know the name of the person who has apparently ripped me off on a 10-lb rock swap, and he is looking into it a bit so I'm not posting their name quite yet. As I will be getting a huge shipment of rocks soon I still want to trade and possibly sell some to members of this site, but now that I've had a bad experience I'll have to be more cautious. We'll have to work out some sort of ranking system, based on other peoples feedback, so that as the site grows we will know who is trustworthy to send rocks/money. I really like the idea of trading but unfortunately I'll now be hesitant to send rocks to someone that I don't know or who hasn't gotten positive feedback from others. Any ideas on how to incorporate a ranking feature into the website, not just based on the number of posts but based on the number of posts by others who have had successful experiences?
WilliamC
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blueangele
noticing nice landscape pebbles
Member since December 2003
Posts: 86
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Post by blueangele on Jan 16, 2004 17:11:03 GMT -5
I don't know about how on this site, but most of us have ebay feedback that could probably be used, and we could just start a thread called feedback that could grow as needed, chances are it would be several pages long, but that could work
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Post by sandsman1 on Jan 16, 2004 18:21:17 GMT -5
how about making a page with everyones ebay name that wants to trade or buy and the seller / trader could just got to ebay and look up the name this way its not a hassel for andy to keep up with another page let ebay doit for us hahahaha ---- john
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WilliamC
spending too much on rocks
Member since August 2003
Posts: 416
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Post by WilliamC on Jan 21, 2004 14:57:23 GMT -5
Greetings All,
Well folks after another week of waiting and several more unanswered emails, I am now posting the name of the person who did not send me the rocks. Obviously I don't know the details of his situation, so I can't comment on any motivations, it just seems strange to me that he would jeapordize his reputation here for a mere 10 lbs of rough.
It was Noah, with the email address mahdibaric@aol.com and 102 posts on the board. Interestingly, check out the members list and see how many other names have been registered on this board with the exact same email address mahdibaric@aol.com, although they haven't been used to post messages (note to Andy, anyway to flag someone who registers under multiple names?). Also, I notice that Noah hasn't posted anything here since 01/02/2004, which is about the time I started emailing him that I was thinking of posting negative feedback about him on the board. So take it for what it's worth, I was burned on a 10lb rock trade with Noah. Hey, maybe there is a perfectly legitimate reason for this and if so then I will happily aplogize publically and in full.
At any rate, I'm still interested in trading with others here, as I really want to build up a collection of many different kinds of rocks, so don't go thinking this one bad experience will make me change my mind about that! I'm thinking that, as a public service, anytime two members here arrange a trade or sale, they allow a post to be made recording that fact. No need to give details of the trade if you don't want to, just a simple positive, negative, or neutral rating on the experience. Maybe even start a seperate thread like "Trading with WilliamC" for feedback about me from others. That way each of us who is interested in trading will start to build up a reputation that is public knowledge. So with that in mind I will email the three or four other folk with whom I've traded with here and ask their permission to post a positive feedback thread about them. Of course I give my permission for anyone who has traded with me to post their feedback.
I notice we are close to 150 members now, and hopefully the site will continue to grow and recruit more rockhounds. I honestly believe the vast majority of folks out there are honest and trustworthy, so please don't let my bad experience turn anyone off on tumbling or trading. It's just too much fun not to share it ;D
Talk to ya'll later...
WilliamC
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James
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since October 2003
Posts: 876
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Post by James on Jan 21, 2004 17:50:37 GMT -5
I knew it was him... I've been keeping an eye on activities around here and he was the only one I could think of. What a shame. And the fact that he has muliple user names makes me even more suspicious of this guy.
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Post by docone31 on Jan 21, 2004 17:52:49 GMT -5
William. That was hard for you. It is such a shame, for thirty pieces of silver to lose so much. I have had it happen to me also, I have a pendant I made for someone, not in this forum, and on good faith I sent it out. If it had not been for what I learned from it, all would have been lost. You did the right thing. It is sad.
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James
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since October 2003
Posts: 876
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Post by James on Jan 21, 2004 18:03:47 GMT -5
I knew it was him... I've been keeping an eye on activities around here and he was the only one I could think of. What a shame. And the fact that he has muliple user names makes me even more suspicious of this guy.
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Post by sandsman1 on Jan 21, 2004 18:56:22 GMT -5
william i welcome the info cause im like you i trust everybody to a fault and from time to time i get burned but like you said not every body is that way and its worth sorting through the bad ones to find acouple good ones well seeya and maybe something good will happen from this maybe on your next rock buy they will send you something special -- seeya john
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blueangele
noticing nice landscape pebbles
Member since December 2003
Posts: 86
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Post by blueangele on Jan 21, 2004 19:48:24 GMT -5
you know I'm not sure his name was even noah, I emailed him a couple of times and at first he got back to me and then just disappeared, but the name he signed with wasn't Noah, I don't remember now what it was and I deleted the mail, but it wasn't noah, it was the same email address though, William I am glad you are not letting this ruin your general faith in people, I like the idea of a public 'notice'
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Post by rockyraccoon on Jan 21, 2004 22:12:50 GMT -5
i had to go look and see what you meant by all the names he has here and i see what you mean.
i am sorry that happened to you.
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SirRoxalot
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since October 2003
Posts: 790
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Post by SirRoxalot on Mar 2, 2004 13:35:33 GMT -5
Wow, so "Noah" isn't just a fruitcake who likes to talk to his rocks and soak up their mysterious energy, he's a thief!
What a surprise.
I think he's the same guy flogging a half inch Arkansas quartz crystal on eBay (described as "unique, extremely rare healing crystal") with a $250 reserve.
Buyer beware, folks, buyer beware. At least you only lost ten pounds of rocks - the crystal power scam has netted millions of dollars.
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shorty
spending too much on rocks
Member since December 2003
Posts: 392
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Post by shorty on Mar 2, 2004 20:58:47 GMT -5
hi all its to bad people has to be like that. it sure makes it hard for honest people to do deals like me sometimes i dont have the money. till the therd of the month. S S ONLEY PAYS ONCE A MONTH. if people dont trust you that makes it rough. maby hele change when he sees this thread an do something. good luck shorty
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WilliamC
spending too much on rocks
Member since August 2003
Posts: 416
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Post by WilliamC on Mar 2, 2004 21:17:31 GMT -5
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