Bartertown.com

Hello everyone.

I have a question for those of you who are sellers here. Do you think it is unreasonable for a seller to expect full payment for items first before sending.
I had a situation with a buyer who wanted to buy a dwarf army from me. He had a rating of 38. I have 160+. He was asking me to accept 1/2 payment, then send, then recieve the other half once he had received my items. I was not willing to do this, and he seemed upset by this. Does anyone feel I was in the wrong. It seems pretty standard selling practice to me, take payment, clear payment, then send items. Especially since I had the much higher rating.
I would love to hear any comments on this?

Was this person a deadbeat?
did he sting along your trade, then change his mind at the last minute?
Did he back out of an agreed upon trade with no good reason?

From the Forum header:

Deadbeats & Backouts
They're not Bad Traders per se but they are REALLY annoying. Tell us about them here. READ THE RULES.

This does not belong in this forum.
It should be in the "Have Questions? Need Help?" forum.

I'm sorry if this comes across as rude. It's not intended to be rude. Just direct.
You've been a member since 2003 and your rating, as of my writing this, is 180. You should know better.

Someone who's spent this much time as a Bartertown member has no good reason for not knowing the rules.

I will be requesting that a Moderator move this to the aforementioned forum.

Eric

Very Sorry, I thought since he backed out after a simple and standard request that I should put it in this section. If you feel is should be moved by all means please request that it is.

Sorry for any inconvenience. But please feel free to comment on the question itself as well

Yeah, I agree with Dakkar here:

If someone wants to pay half, maybe you ship half. When they get it, they pay the rest, you ship the rest, but they pay for all the shipping.

You could've done something like that, but you were well within your rights to ask for the money up front. Although, if it was a very large transaction I could see the other members reluctance.

I don't believe there are any hard and fast rules to it. With you having a much higher rating, you SHOULD be able to dictate how you want the transaction to go. It would be up to you.

I won't mention the fact about which forum this is in. Grumpy pants took care of that.

Karl

To me, it depends on trade ratings. With a long time member with a good amount of refs(100+) I wouldnt have a problem.
For 38 vs. 160, forget it.

Its not a trade back-out though. You never came to terms you both agreed on. There was no "deal".

I agree - this isn't a deal, because you hadn't agreed on how much to be paid up front and there wasn't agreement to send payment.

Heck, when I first got on and was selling, I required everyone with a lower rating to pay first.

So given that you're selling and have a much higher rating than he does, you are well within normal trading standards to require him to pay first.

If he had a higher rating, then half and half would be OK.

Sorry, I forgot to ad that a price was reached. It was a $300 deal.

And once again sorry for using the wrong part of the forum

It doesnt matter if you agreed on a price really. You have to have a "meeting of the minds", you both never agreed to solid terms of the deal. If he agreed to send payment (or even part) then changed his mind after you BOTH agreed, then it would be a back-out. You both have to agree to all terms of the deal. That didnt happen here.

You both agreed to a price. You wanted payment upfront, he refused, no deal.
It happens, sometimes alot....

I had a guy PM me & say he defintely wanted some figs I had. My ad had a cash price, no trades were mentioned. He offered 40K in trade. I dont need 40K. Is it a back-out? He said he defintely wanted my figs. No. No solid terms were agreed on, no solid deal was made.

There is a guy on here selling figs. He wanted cash upfront. He has good stuff at good prices, but NO WAY Im sending $200 to a 10 rating. Sorry, not gonna happen. Some people are of the "Buying is Different" camp. Not me.
We negotiated, he agreed to send first. Sometimes it works out, sometimes not. if he refused, I'd just move on.

Fact is, no matter how careful you are- you are going to have people who dont listen, dont read your ad completely & just WASTE YOUR TIME.

Cut your losses & move on.

Since your rating was higher, you of course had the final say in dictating terms of the sale.

On a side note... If I am selling (not trading) something New In Box, I demand payment first, irreguardless of ratings, but I specify that in the original post.

-Anglacon

i think it's really easy for those of us who have been on here for a while. we can say "hey just go by your rating - lowest ships/pays first."

but i remember being the new guy in '05 (i think?), and wondering whether or not it was a safe bet to pay/ship first with a lower rating.

looking back at how things went for me, there are times when i paid or shipped first and i wish i hadn't (kinda like all those times i drove home drunk but never got caught), just because the risk was too high.

i remember buying something for like $80 from a guy with an 8 rating when i was a 4. that was simply stupid. these are the kinds of deals that new members should stay away from.

i think the best advice for newer traders is to scale your transactions appropriately according to the rating of the person you're dealing with. if Peacemystic or Ancientsociety wants to sell you an army for $150, you're in the clear. but if it's some guy with a 10, then forget it. save your bits trades and $15 buys for those guys.

occasionally i get into a transaction with someone that has a much lower rating (like the 38 mentioned above) where i am the buyer, and they absolutely refuse to ship first. in this case i nicely say "good luck" and i will be on my way.

i've also found that there are many people on here that quote their ebay rating and expect that to fly in the face of my tried-and-true, well-mediated bartertown rating. i say that if you want the ability to trade/buy with safety (like i have earned), then you should have to take the time to earn it like the rest of us. i don't think anyone on here will argue with that.

another piece of advice i would give to newer traders (since i'm on my soapbox) is that if they have any doubt whatsoever about the validity of their transaction, or the credibility of the person they're dealing with, then they should just walk away. some people will do a deal simply because it's too good to pass up... and at that i'll throw out the old P.T. Barnum quote "there's a sucker born every minute." (i think that was barnum, right?). it's 10 times better to walk away and wait for a good trade that you are 99% sure of, than to get into an AWESOME deal that you are only 30% sure of, and subsequently get burned by a 0-rated guy with no accountability that is just here to make a quick $50.

...and finally, don't ever (and this should be obvious) give someone an excuse to give you bad feedback. if someone has bad feedback it's for a reason. if it was falsely reported, then something can probably be done about it.

*exhale*

thank you for your support

props to the bartertown watch!

geoff

I had a similar situation recently, a member here was selling some Tallarns. He has a ZERO rating. I noticed he had been advertising them all over the board in the past few weeks, I am seeking some Tallarns so I sent him a PM etc.

We negotiated price and then, I asked him if he would mind shipping first with some type of registration or delivery confirmation. Complicating matters is the fact that he lives in the UK. So I asked him if he minded shipping first and then I would pay when the models arrived provided they are in the condition he stated they were in. I told him I would pay for whatever shipping costs he incurred when I sent payment.

Guess what... he never responded to my question of him shipping before I pay. And I checked my sent box and out boxes and he got the message.

So he obviously is displaying sketchy behavior.

El Jefe, I have had that happen alot. Get near the end of a deal and then when I ask a trader with less than a 10 rating to ship first, they just ignore my requests from then on in.

I have started to tell very low rated traders right off the bat that I am going to ask them to ship first. This way, they ignore me right from the start.

Actually, there have been some very good new traders who understood that the ratings actually meant something.

The thing I am starting to run into more is traders who have great eBay ratings and they think that it makes their standing here higher than mine or any other experienced trader.

I have learned to let it go and move on.

Karl

Adunaphel wrote:The thing I am starting to run into more is traders who have great eBay ratings and they think that it makes their standing here higher than mine or any other experienced trader.

I have learned to let it go and move on.

Karl

I had a guy TELL me: I have a great Ebay rating, it's over 400, you can understand why we should ship at the same time right?

My rating 60.
His... where did it go? oh yeah. ZERO and been on the list a week.

Told my girlfriend and seeing I was noticeably disgusted she said: Screw him. Log off B-Town and go take a walk.

I love this gal.

But on topic, I agree with people having higher rating should dictate the deal and shipping practices at their discretion.

I have traded with A LOT of the BIG traders here. Like in the 200+ range. Some are jerks. Oh well, the rest are great like Adunaphel, MagikalMemories, Porkuslime... etc. People I have had 4-5 trades with each rock!

My 2.5 cents.

Timothy

I'm fairly new here, but I feel that if you're buying, you should pay first; the seller may need the money to ship the stuff in the first place, especially, if he's like me, between jobs and selling stuff he may not want to part with, but has to. My policy is "if you're buying, items ship when the payment clears" as I refuse to deal wth Paypal.

You are going to limit the number of people who want to deal with you. But thats your choice. Personally I wouldnt send you money. No offense. Look at it from an established traders point of view. You have 2 trades. You just joined. Some established members have been here years and have hundreds of trades. If you cant trust someone like that, then how could they trust a new, unprioven member. Who has more to lose?