What is the most you'll make available?

[TrademasterAdam]

Real name has been removed. That way they can not link "Adam" to Wichita, KS and look me up in the phonebook. The best they can do is look up "TrademasterAdam" in the phonebook (which won't get you far).

The post office will ship a package with any name on it to any address. You could send a package to "Seymour Butts" or "Amanda Kiss" and they would send it.

TrademasterAdam

[Linrandir]

Some of us prefer to remain slightly more anonymous than others. For example, there are exactly 5 people with my last name in this country, counting me, and they're all related to me.

I have no trouble making my name and address available to people I trade with, but for general public viewing? No such luck. I'm easy enough to locate as is. I live in a SMALL town, and to have any two pieces of information like last name + ZIP code, for example, is to know where I live. I get enough hate mail that I very much value my privacy (no desire to test the home invasion & firearms law in my state). Paranoid? All it takes is one.

Admittedly, I've got something of a unique situation here - not too many can claim 'admin privilege' insofar as being a trusted trader goes, so maybe I can get away with a smartass answer for location. At least until the site policy changes, anyway.

[orcdom]

you werent really who i was referring to either lin, yours was just one that poped in my head at the time, and thats also part of being admin, you get to put there what you want, but for the rest of us, i can care less.

i would like to see the state/country as minimum, being mandatory with your screen name. esp the country, that stuff is listed with the trade refs and its also a way i can ignore canadian trades and overseas trades so i dont agree to a trade and then find out they are somewhere i dont particularly want to fiddle with.

i have traded with canadians and people abroad and no real problems yet, but i prefer not too.

and those listings will make it easier
Steve

[JohnHwangBT]

Another idea would be to set up some sort of central system where people who were unsure about trades could use a middle man to hold items and then send them when both parties have fullfilled their obligations.

In the real world, this is know as "Escrow", and there are lots of Escrow companies. It is a good choice for "large" deals between unknown parties that cannot be broken down easily.

eBay auctions used to see escrow services listed and offered, before their Feedback system became established.

[JohnHwangBT]

I do like the third party option. I would definitely consider it for a large trade. It would allow, at the cost of some privacy, two relatively new parties to pull off large trades.

For most BT trades, it's not hard to break a large deal down into multiple smaller deals that can be traded, rather than sending everything in one shot. If I were trading $500+ worth of minis unknown to unknown, I might request that we trade 3 blocks of $100, $200, and $200. If he insists that I have to send all of my $500 first, that would raise a warning flag.

[JohnHwangBT]

I like the idea of the "middle man" but I see one flaw. Is the Middle man willing to open and inspect each package that comes through? And after inspection he/she will need to repack in a carefull manner.

That depends on the level of escrow that you agree upon, and pay for.

Some Escrow services simply ensure that boxes of roughly appropriate weight arrive, and hold until both boxes have arrived.

Other Escrow services will verify contents before reshipping.

[JohnHwangBT]

One more thought:

If you want the best security behind a large deal, you can always convert a trade into a pair of single-buyer "penny" auctions on eBay, and then pay via PayPal Credit Card to verified address, insisting that all shipping be done via USPS.

This gives a lot of protection. eBay converts trades into enforcable contracts that under the law.

PayPal and Credit Card tie to real financials, with provable payment, and Credit Card Fraud Teams.

USPS converts any bad shipment into prosecutable Mail Fraud.

IMO, this would be overkill, but you would have a lot of leverage against anybody who tried to pull a fast one.

[ekister]

One more thought:

If you want the best security behind a large deal, you can always convert a trade into a pair of single-buyer "penny" auctions on eBay, and then pay via PayPal Credit Card to verified address, insisting that all shipping be done via USPS.

This gives a lot of protection. eBay converts trades into enforcable contracts that under the law.

PayPal and Credit Card tie to real financials, with provable payment, and Credit Card Fraud Teams.

USPS converts any bad shipment into prosecutable Mail Fraud.

IMO, this would be overkill, but you would have a lot of leverage against anybody who tried to pull a fast one.

Wow, solutions to everyones problems in 30 seconds from a member of 3 months. Where have you been all our lives?

Tell all this stuff to the people who traded with Ticknor or the like. Many protected themselves like this. In the long run, the costs of prosecuting a single individual screwing with 3-10 other trades just isn't enough to warrant any of the above listed agencies from acting.

I recently sent something in an eBay transaction overseas. I mailed it air mail with every possible form of protection possible, including insurance, etc. It got lost. The other end paid via Paypal. It took 60 days before it got resolved. Far longer than eBay rules allowed for feedback and issues, far longer than than Paypal would deal with it (although I think if both of us had agreed, they would have worked with us, maybe). Finally - he left me a one word feedback on eBay without notifying me with an e-mail that it had arrived. I had just gotten the paper work from the USPS.

Oh, by the way he had a 100+ perfect rating on eBay. He threatened me on numerous occasions with retalitory feedback, on Paypal for fraud, etc. Not my fault and he did get his stuff. It was in his office the entire time as he had me send it to his business instead of his house without telling me.

Proof that eBay feedback and rating mean really nothing.

Listen - here it is in a nutshell. If you plan to be here awhile and you aren't a short-timer, make small trades. Buy, sell and trade for small stuff with establish Bartertowners. Build up your rating to at least 50 and you will never have another problem.

I have had one problem here - simultaneous shipping that never reached each other. Weird issue that we both agreed to just take the loss. Otherwise, my trades have been worked out with no problems.

Be careful, get names, addresses, phone numbers. Make a call, spend the $1. Use USPS priority shipping with tracking and insurance. Insist that the other person does as well. If they don't send them a note and leave neutral feedback.

And most important - trade with established traders until you get a reputation that allows you to insist that the other party ships first. Simple and easy.

Ekister

[JohnHwangBT]

Wow, solutions to everyones problems in 30 seconds from a member of 3 months. Where have you been all our lives?

Apparently, I've been living a very pleasant life far away from jerks with attitudes like yours...

I am truly thankful that everybody else that I have dealt with on Bartertown is cool.

Proof that eBay feedback and rating mean really nothing.

You state this as if similar Btown feedback would have magically provided better results. If this had been a Btown trade gone wrong, you would have received his stuff, his would have been lost, and he'd be tarring and feathering you as a Trader gone Bad.

If you plan to be here awhile

After dealing with you, not so much.

Build up your rating to at least 50 and you will never have another problem.

Really? You can *guarantee* this? If you're willing to put your money where your mouth is, I'm willing to do go through the hassle of simply "trading" for Feedbacks. Heck, for this kind of unlimited indemnification, I can simply GIVE away the 20-odd spare models and bitz to 50+ Feedback.

Otherwise, my trades have been worked out with no problems.

In all of my eBay purchases, eBay sales, Pirates trades, and Bartertown trades, I have only had ONE guy try to cheat me. This was on eBay. I paid by PayPal and Credit Card. Interestingly enough, the system worked perfectly. I had saved all of my e-mail and records. I filed Fraud complaints with all 3 COMPANIES. I got my money refunded.

Based on what I see on Btown, I'm not nearly as convinced that a bad trade would have concluded nearly as well for me.

Be careful, get names, addresses, phone numbers. Make a call, spend the $1. Use USPS priority shipping with tracking and insurance. Insist that the other person does as well. If they don't send them a note and leave neutral feedback.

Let me get this straight: If my trading partner does the right thing, ships completely and quickly, but uses First Class instead of Priority for a <1# lot, or doesn't buy Insurance for a <$20 deal, you'd hit them with a Neutral? That's really twisted.

You are just like those guys on eBay with the 2-page legal disclaimer with all sorts of BS conditions and requirements because they got bit once and couldn't make the system work properly. Those guys totally suck, and I refuse to deal with them.

Similarly, I am NEVER trading with you.

[orcdom]

i can see why you dont frequent btown much, attitudes like yours and it wont be you not wanting to deal with people, it will be the other way around.

and anyone with half a brain can figure most of what he said was not matter of fact, but it does go to show that with someone with a rating of 50+ there is 99 % chance there will be no hangups, besides the occasional late package shipping since we dont all do postal work as our day to day job.

and he wasnt being the jerk for your spouting off, all he is doing is pointing out that #1 your a member of 3 whole months and #2 you seem to have the answer to every problem that plagues this forum.

the problems are, even going with the right chanels when you have traders like jones and ticknor to get your money back is easier than getting your stuff back. the police or postal service could care less about the small quantities of items, like most of these trades.

your emails say you shipped it, your reciept shows a package that weighed so many pounds and that is it.

pay pal or whatever money system you use had account numbers, tracking numbers and so on to prove that the money was transferred, not just some code on some supposed box.

of course you got your funds back, its easier to track money with the likes of pay pal, and so on, but can pay pal track figures too?
can western union track it like a money order? or even a check?

Steve

[JohnHwangBT]

Steve, until my "discussion" with "ekister", I was quite impressed with how cool everyone was on BT, and intended to stay for quite a while. If BT is not mutually beneficial for everyone involved, then I'm out of here.

And I'm sorry if I wasted everyone's time by restating the obvious.

I agree that 99% of all trades with reputable people on either forum will go smoothly. The remaining 1% chance of a screwup or cheat is the same as on BT as it is on eBay.

I appreciate that there are differences between Btown and eBay. I just disagree pretty strongly with the notion that BT Feedback is inherently so much superior to eBay Feedback that eBay Feedback is "worthless" in evaluating someone's tradeworthiness.

As for him being a jerk, to me, it's not a measure of what he said, but how he said it. Maybe I read him wrong, but I think he came back at me all pissy and sarcastic.

Anyhow, since we N00Bs aren't supposed to comment on the board, I guess I'll just shut up now.

Sorry.

[Linrandir]

Aaaand here's where I step in again.

All else aside, John, people here take Bartertown ratings more seriously than they do eBay or other website ratings. This is in no small part due to scammers like Jason Ticknor or Steve Jones.
It's a relatively small community, as online communities go, and having people here to verify that one is an honest trader carries more weight than having people elsewhere say the same thing.

Again, that's a generalization - your mileage may vary.

Speaking a little more generally, I'd love to debate the notion of relative feedback value to different online communities. I would say that regardless of the community in question, local feedback is more highly valued than external feedback, though external feedback certainly can be used in establishing local credibility.

This discussion serves as a great example therein, comments about newbies aside.

[ekister]

Apparently, I've been living a very pleasant life far away from jerks with attitudes like yours...

I am truly thankful that everybody else that I have dealt with on Bartertown is cool.

Sorry my dripping sarcasm has offended you. While your solutions are quality in thought, in action they are much more difficult to make reality. Just trying to point out that, as a new member, you have not seen the pages and pages of discussion about how to protect yourself. In action your ideas are truly not going to save you from a bad trade. They happen, UNLESS... you are very careful. You can also keep them from being a problem by .... tada.... building up you feedback rating until you can insist others send first.

You state this as if similar Btown feedback would have magically provided better results. If this had been a Btown trade gone wrong, you would have received his stuff, his would have been lost, and he'd be tarring and feathering you as a Trader gone Bad.

With my reputation and feedback, do you suppose I would have let it get that far. I would have happily sent the other trader money back to save my good reputation so I could continue to insist that those with lower feedback send first.

My current approach is - if you have less feedback you send first, unless you and I have traded before OR you have numerous trades with people I have traded with.

Really? You can *guarantee* this? If you're willing to put your money where your mouth is, I'm willing to do go through the hassle of simply "trading" for Feedbacks. Heck, for this kind of unlimited indemnification, I can simply GIVE away the 20-odd spare models and bitz to 50+ Feedback.

Which someone did for a while and he built up his feedback and can now insist that others send first. Great idea, worked for him and got him to where he needs to be. FYI, it was Blue Table Painting, check out his feedback to verify this. He even stated his intentions up front. Awesome dude with a solid idea to get his feedback up. I too have made bitz trades to enhance my reputation. That is what it is all about.

Let me get this straight: If my trading partner does the right thing, ships completely and quickly, but uses First Class instead of Priority for a <1# lot, or doesn't buy Insurance for a <$20 deal, you'd hit them with a Neutral? That's really twisted.

If the agreement was to send USPS priority with tracking and they failed to do that, but the package arrived. Really depends upon how long, but I typically would leave positive feedback with a note about delayed shipping.

Now, if others had made comments about delayed shipping and I pointed that out in our discussions and they still failed to ship the agreed upon way, perhaps a neutral feedback.

BTW - I have never left negative or neutral feedback. Check my feedback to verify if you wish.

You are just like those guys on eBay with the 2-page legal disclaimer with all sorts of BS conditions and requirements because they got bit once and couldn't make the system work properly. Those guys totally suck, and I refuse to deal with them.

And look at their reputations. Most of them are perfect and they get what they want without all the BS.

Similarly, I am NEVER trading with you.

I used to say the same thing when I first arrived here and people wouldn't use my perfect rating on eBay and the Imperial Auction Block (L5R card game - over 1000 perfect trade rating). And then someone I pissed off really had something I wanted for my army. Then what? Luckily someone like myself to you, pointed out that my attituded needed readjustment and that Bartertown is a community. Sometimes that community is invaded by arseholes who are trying to rip and scam people. They pointed out that they way to get things done in the community, just like the real world, is to get to know people. How do you do that on Bartertown? You make trades with reputable traders and you work hard to build your rep. You send first, but knowing who you are trading with by getting names, addresses and phone numbers. You work out 50-50 trades with people a little better than you. You do 50-100-50 trades once you have a rating of 20ish. Etc.

Anyway, enough. Good luck!!!

Ekister

[orcdom]

john noobs are fine here, input is always welcome, but remember the one with the higher ratings typically have been here for a long time, but also post count matters as a first impression on the discussion areas as well. this is a good community, but the ones who visit the discussion area are typically more opinionated as well, but all intentions are mostly directed to further Bartertown itself. We typically dont try to start flamewars for the sake of some places i have been like R.G.M.W. and i think your the same John Hwang from there (no offence intended) and you know what i mean about the hostilities there. but here we also speak our mind and it usually dont get invilved in a measuring match.
just dont be to offensive to posts, most of the time they arent meant to be too sarcastic.


Bartertown is at no cost to the traders, just the online stores that operate here. and yes like Lin said it is a tighter community because the typically high ratings here are those that have been members for more than the join date reccomends as well since bartertown has been around for quite a few years and alot of us are still here and support it with whatever way we can.

Bartertown is a wonderfull place and has been for many years, there has been alot of good trades made here and hope to be alot in the future as well.

but with bartertown keeping track of the bad traders and getting involved with other sites like the Privateer press site, Warseer and a few others, we are getting those names spread across the gaming community as much as possible to protect the traders.

and for a lil FYI,

as for the ebay mention there has been some noobs in the past (not referring to anyone on this thread) but they say well i have this rating and you ought to ship first when i have a over 15 rating here and they have 0. well ratings from Ebay, Warseer and the like dont mean sh!t. this is bartertown and it has a good rating system, it follows now your screen name where before your address and name.

other ratings like anything else made in an agreement only works here if both parties agree to the terms, but my reccomendation is that it dont mean squat, because on ebay your either a seller or a buyer, not a trader.

Steve

[JohnHwangBT]

john noobs are fine here, input is always welcome, but remember the one with the higher ratings typically have been here for a long time, but also post count matters as a first impression on the discussion areas as well.

Hi Steve, I guess I'll just need to inflate my post count with more "PM sent" messages if I want to post more...

Seriously tho, I spent quite a while reading and watching Btown. Eventually, my pile of "never gonna start it" got to the point that I decided to register and trade.

this is a good community,

I agree. Btown is a great service, and I appreciate it.

but the ones who visit the discussion area are typically more opinionated as well,

I hardly noticed.

i have been like R.G.M.W. and i think your the same John Hwang from there (no offence intended)

I am, and none taken. I register under my name pretty much everywhere, mostly because I think people who deal with me are entitlted to know who they're dealing with.

usually dont get invilved in a measuring match.

Yeah, that's why I figured it'd be best for me to step back.

it dont mean squat, because on ebay your either a seller or a buyer, not a trader.

Understood. Tho lately, I've been trying to sell as well as trade, so it's a little bit more relevant that people see my buying / selling history while I develop my trade history. But I agree that external ratings are valuable as corraborating, secondary information for larger deals.