This isn't directed at anyone as I have had a slew of BST without error.

Just a reminder for Newbs:

If you say you are going to ship by XXX, ship by XXX
If not, no biggie, BUT send a polite update. Takes minutes to send the email.

When you receive something, send a brief polite email to the seller that all is okay.
Just a common courtesy. Otherwise, sellers have this vague sense that a deal is done.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming already in progress...

I couldn't agree with you more. Communication is a key especially with private sales. If someone buys something from you never ever ignore a pm. It only leads to suspicion, you know you got it and certainly the person sending it knows you read it. I might add that when shipping US to US ALWAYS get a delivery confirmation number. It costs an additional 50 cents and saves many a headache on both ends of the transaction. More helpful tips: When paying the seller via paypal, don't send a e-cheque. In this day an age if you're buying via the internet you should have a cc or debit card already connected to your paypal account for instant payment. E Cheques take over a week to clear in most cases and hold the entire process up. If you can't buy right away and don't want to miss out ,contact the seller and he agrees to take payment by such an such a day (payday perhaps) make payment immediately then. Also sellers should ship as soon as payment is made, none of this had to wait two weeks till I made it to the post office stuff. I might add that 99.9% of my transactions here have gone successful.

Chris

Same goes for trades . . . over 3 months since I sent out my side of the deal and still no sign of the reciprocal trade from ikkashinju . . . good work fella! Anyone see or hear from him please feel free to pass on my disdain and general lack of benevolence . . .

I couldn't agree more. I have had zero problems on the board selling stuff or buying things but I always try to ship things the next day and always try to communicate and ask them to let me know when they get the items...even if I get a delivery confirmation.
communication is really important especially when you haven't met many of the people face to face.

Everything you wrote seems to be common sense, but the above seems to be the most overlooked. I always make a point of letting the seller know when I receive something just so they have closure.
I hardly ever sell anything, but the last time I did two or three buyers never verified that they received their items - and I was shipping internationally to newbs! I think that if I ever sell items that get interest from multiple parties I will bump established board members ahead of newbs regardless of when PMs were receieved.

From what I know, Paypal does not cover any personal sales done outside of eBay or web stores so buyers are at a serious disadvantage when buying on the board. Sellers should try to provide more assurance by communicating and just being honest if shit does happen.

+1 to everything.

cool.

bump and all that.

As a newb here this is all good to know. Although as was mentioned it's mostly common sense, I'm inconsistent with the one below. But knowing now that it's appreciated by sellers, I'm gonna try to be better at it.

For both buyers and sellers, just little e-mails re: updates go a REALLY long way. As a buyer, I like to know when something was sent, and as a seller I like to know that the buyer got their item. It's amazing how little things can quickly blow up into a clusterfudge, just because people don't communicate.

Just a follow up . . . apparently I ain't the only one! . . . . either on SkullBrain or elsewhere . . . .

http://board.vivalavinyl.org/?func=topic&id=55656&r=99

The guys officially been moved up to Douchebag status!

sorry to hear this andy.
i really hope there's a way to deal with scammers, they shouldn't be let off lightly.
you should post this on BST instead and bring to the attention of more people.

ikkashinju = richard ramos = pusfreak? really?

diddnt pusfreak post here as well as ikkashinju?

add: or am I getting pusfreak confused w/ pusfan?

there is no pusfreak here. only pusfan and that's not Richard.

bummer about Richard. He does seem to have slipped off the grid.....

wonder if he's still planning on going to SDDC?

As people are adjusting to selling online—instead of opening stores thanks to higher rents and such—sellers will really have to learn how to do basic customer service. It's that simple.

What is frustrating nowadays is how many ways there are to communicate with others, but people still get it wrong. Or have no clue what to do or how to deal with someone.

Taking less than a minute to send an update to a buyer/seller will save tons of time in the long run.

Maybe someone needs to make an updated version of Jerry McGuire with an Internet spin.

As a new person here this has really helped me out alot in a deal I just worked out. Thanks to your information I used my credit card as payment so I am protected either way. Very stand up postings in here.

Oh shit - another LOCO!!!!!!!!

In my transactions I try to let the person know when I receive the payment and then again when it is sent out in the mail. I have been very fortunate that most of the buyers send me a message when it arrives (but not all of them). It is common sense really.

The thing that bugs the shit out of me (well besides most things) is when someone asks if something is still available and then you don't hear anything back from them. If your not interested - let the person know! I find the HK contingent to be the most annoying and abusive in this fashion...... you know who your are.

He is also the organizer of the SDCC party we are all supposed to attend.

Does anyone know the venue? We should probably double check on this before too long.

There has to be another nerdquake-type party again this year!

I'm new to the board and just made a couple of purchases. So far the communication has been GREAT!

Hoping to receive a couple of packages this week.

I was a little nervous at first, but so far everything has went smoothly!

Thanks to everyone!

buyer 101:

when you paypal someone, you should say what it is you are paying for in the message thru paypal. it makes it much easier when the seller is printing out all the labels!

So true.

Josh at S7 schooled me into this:

I cut/paste the description of the item into the subject line and the comment line.
From what I understand , sellers lose one or the other.

It's not even that technical. Some folks literally will send a payment that just says "As promised..." or "Here's teh pay. Thx! Dude!" or "I don't know what money is. Do something with it for me!"

Some things are just common sense. Unfortunately, that's something an increasing amount of folks seem to be lacking.

So when I totally get stiffed on a sale and never get the toy I paid for, should I post on here calling that cat out? Like say if it's been 5 weeks, and I filed a paypal complaint etc etc. Or is that bad form?

Another useful tip:

If you are going to be selling a bunch of stuff, get it all organized with matching boxes and packaging and header cards etc.
Then post it for sale. It just makes it easier on yourself. Paypal comes in, slap a mailing label on the box, mail it, done.

Otherwise a paypal can come in and then maybe you thought you knew where it was or it was missing a header card. You spend nights, after work, searching for stuff or maybe you decide to blow it off till the weekend. Then the weekend is busy and you blow it off till the next weekend. etc etc.

This happened to me once with one item a long time ago. Sold or did a trade (I forget) and then could never find the promised header card.
It was an embarrassing headache that I learned from. If it was multiple items, it would have been a complete nightmare.

Having stuff arranged up front, also gives you the time to look over what you are selling for scratches or chips versus selling something as "new" and then later pulling it off a shelf and finding defects in it. Obviously selling something as "new" with defects isn't cool with some people.

I try and do the same thing. If I post up a sale, I put the figures somewhere else...usually with the headers and bagged up already. Then if someone buys it, I just put a Post It note and throw it in my bag before going to work. I sometimes get delayed a day because of my incredible filing system for headers (they're all in the 08 Gargamel Lucky Bag and unmarked so I'm forced to read the katakana). I usually get delayed on Tues caues that's my hockey night and I don't get home til midnight or sometimes 1am.