I have a radical firm stance on Paypal Gift payments:

- I will 'gift' a friend or acquaintance, no questions asked, almost no matter the price. These are people I have met, or speak to via email / SMS / Facebook / Flickr-Mail / PM on a pretty good basis.
- If you're a "newer" member who I'm not terribly familiar with (or fond of) and you request or expect gift payments, I will not buy from you. I do not support your ethics of forcing a fee upon the buyer, and I also do not trust you. This has cost me much-wanted toys in the past, but it's a toy - I would rather miss out on it than pay a person whom I do not like/trust, much less take a risk with them via "gift."
- If you're a long-time, well known member with a good reputation, and you prefer gift payments, I am open to it under $100. More than this and I pass, or offer to cover a 2% fee (let's meet in the middle!).

As a seller I do not prefer gift payments, but I also do not sell toys on a regular basis, nor do I sell anything so valuable that the fees are noticeable or hurtful. It sure makes it tougher to ensure the right toy is paired with the right address, which I do not like. I'm active on many types of hobby forums, and hardy see "gift payments" requested on others from people who are totally legit & trustworthy. Elsewhere, it's usually the newer people, or those with a lower post count / sketchier FS posts that demand it

Depends on how much said toy means to you, and inversely how much risk you're comfortable with undertaking if the seller bails.

Whether or not to enact a feedback system in the bst is an argument that has been raised and debated ad nauseum. The bottom line is skullbrain is a community, not a store, and the bst is self-policed, for better and for worse.

Once again, your best bet is to familiarize yourself with the community and arm yourself with as much information as possible before conducting transactions with anyone. After years and years of hanging out here, I rarely buy any toy from someone I don't know intimately, and on the off chance I do, I expect the worse and pray for the best.

And I'm in no way condoning "lazy shipping," on the contrary I despise it!!! I'm just stressing the fact that all that glitters in the bst is not necessarily Japanese soft vinyl.

This. There's a one-year ban on the topic that's running until sometime this fall. Do a search in the whatever forum and you'll find 5-6 threads covering the topic (ie roughly every time someone rips someone off, ie very rarely).

I too can only get to teh PO on a Saturday, so I let folk know that. If somene pays me on A Friday they've been known to get it by Monday, but if they paid me the Monday before they'll wait atleast a week. ANyones whos dealt with me generally gets stuff in a timely manner.

But - I have a dirty secret....I did once take 8 weeks to send something. The box was in storage and every weekend I'd go down on my own and look for it in that mountain of boxes. Finally I found it. The buyer wasnt thrilled - and I cant blame him - BUT i did advise him up front I needed to hunt storage AND I kept him in the loop during this time. I think I offered to mail without box, and if I didnt I shouldve done. I still feel bad about the wait teh buyer had, but at least he knew where he was and it all worked out.

The key is communication. And thats not happening here.

I'm sad everyone is waiting on Glenn - its not cool. I'll see if I can raise him via other comms methods.

As to why we dont have a feedback thread? We never needed one before, the scene was smaller and more stable. Time to re-consider? For some reason, it just feels weird....like the end of an era. Over to you guys.

That's just it. The forum is growing and it seems like more people are getting ripped-off each year. However, having a good-guy/bad-guy thread will not stop people getting ripped-off (someone always manages to slip by) but hopefully, lessen the amount.
People will still buy from slow shippers, then complain like others did last time, then we start another thread like this all over again. Never fails.

Maybe whenever someone has a sale they can put a list of references at the bottom of their post if they are newer

Maybe we could use the S7 thread on KR just for that

Refunding money....slow shipping, two separate topics.

Good god, I hope to never see "GREAT TRANSACTIONS WITH:" signatures on anyone here besides the fresh meat KR forum jumpers.

Not that I hope to see it theirs either, but you know what I'm saying.

How about people stop gifting, just to save 4%. After I've dealt with someone, or if it's a person I know personally, than sure I'll gift it. If your a first time seller, I'd rather give you an extra 4 dollars. Beyond the large numbers of forum members, the backbiting, and in-fighting, we're a pretty small group pf regulars here, it's usually pretty easy to tell if someone is trustworthy.

'Have you ever heard someone complain that Andy ripped them off? No? How many sales has he had? Lot's? There's your answer. If common knowledge of a person being a good seller isn't enough for you add 4%, and if your item hasn't arrived in 42 make sure and make a complaint, before day 45 roles around. We're adults, we should act accordingly.

I'm not trying to belittle anyone's plight here, every once in awhile you have a fluke occurrence. I remember wanting something from Pouge, I'm glad I'm not in the waiting game right now.

Yeah - it just seems weird, right? Like seeing b u m p on a sale thread here - not nice.

Fabulous Glittery transactions with: Porkforger, Crapptoyz, Nerdgargler and Butt.

To everyone talking about not sending as a gift, it wouldn't matter. It has been 3 months, long past the 45 day buyer protection.

I never gift anyone any money unless you live somewhere close enough for me to get in a car and punch you.

Ole Porkforger... never trusted him

The seller in question is wrong for neglecting his transactions.
I'm not understading this slow shipper thing. What's slow ? weeks, months, years.
This seems to be pretty serious since several people are taking sides with the offender.
So it's less of a new vs old and people will always complain than a someone was uncool let's help resolve the problem and see what's wrong with this friend who's gone missing?
For the rest.
All you can really do is provide more information.
Maybe we can cut and paste off another site.

If some of the buyers file claims on paypal that might give him some incentive to get his affairs in order.

fluke occurrence - when I first started coming here, I bought 2 toys from 2 separate people (oddly enough they are both British but one doesn't live in England). One was coming from England the other SoCal. Neither package arrived. I pm'd both and got a reply from one. He sent me something in exchange. The SoCal guy...never really replied back but after asking around, people were shocked to find out that I never got my package. I let it slide...and still buy from them and haven't lost a package since (of course now I just jinxed myself).

Can't say fairer than that

Sounds like it is a bit too late for that.

Which is why it would be great if everyone adopted a zero-gift policy. That would give sellers a 45 day window to get stuff into someone's hands or they run the risk of the buyer filing a claim. At least, then, most people would have their situations resolved within 45 days. And let's be honest, if someone is in constant contact with you and they run close to the cut-off you would most likely decide to hold off on filing a claim.




I know most sellers offer both options, that's my point - it's pretty much acceptable practice on here to list your goods and throw in a "paypal as gift or add 4%" disclaimer. I've always thought that this is pretty annoying. Why not factor in the 4 % and just list your prices accordingly. It also throws all the fees on the responsible buyer, which I also think is pretty lame considering they are putting their money up front.

...and yes i'm aware that this is a tangent.

AMEN to that. Those are lame...

I hate having to figure out 4%.

Dollar amount x .04 = amount owed.

I said I hate having to figure it out...I didn't say I don't know how to figure it out.