Quote:
Originally Posted by 79transam
Eventually though, I did experience the darker side of trading online. A recent example is a trade I got involved in where I had a box full of BAF parts and a guy offered me 3 Legends and duplicate BAF figure in trade. We agreed to both send in the morning and by about noon he had a pic of the reciept and tracking # in his DM from me on IG. Later that day he messaged me and said something came up and it would be sent out the next day. That's fine. I said no rush. It'll get here when it gets here.
A month later, several changing reasons and a life story about addiction and job losses later I finally posted a thread about my experience warning the community this guy shouldn't be traded with. It was what it took for this guy to come to terms with how rediculous it was not to spend the 17 dollars to ship my stuff. He eventually just gave me 5 bucks per BAF piece and I washed my hands of it.
|
But wouldn't having a receipt and a tracking # mean that he sent it? Wouldn't showing that "proof" then saying he didn't send it yet show he was a liar? Weird.
Quote:
|
Now the climate of this part of the hobby, of buy/sell/trade, is not how it was when I began. It's a climate of distrust, protectionism. I never even considered a few years ago that trading used plastic toys would resemble isolationist fear based foreign policy of regressive world powers. How sad is it that trading plastic toys has evolved into a bitter side glance of every individual, because 1 in 20 (estimate based on my personal experiece) screw it up or scam the other person.
|
I'm not quite sure what this is supposed to mean.
Quote:
So my statement is this- I am questioning who is actually responsible for the negative climate of the buy/sell/trade part of the collecting community. Is it the 1 in 20 scammer? Or is it the people who treat the 19 in 20 like the scammer?
Food for thought.
|
This paranoia doesn't just extend to trading, I think the whole "buyer pays fees" and stuff is also a symptom of paranoid sellers.
The first time I ever traded something through the mail, I was a little apprehensive. What guarantee did I have that the other person was going to hold up their end of the bargain? So far I've only done it a handful of times, but each time was a pleasant experience. One of them even got me a shout out on Radio Free Cybertron!
I suppose when it comes to trading, all you can do is hope for the best, and if you get screwed, do your level best to slag the other guy's reputation all over the internet so they don't have the opportunity to do it again!
