How to warn others?

[wranga]

there could even be legal implications if the site had a negitive feedback and it was proved that the site posted untruths about a seller. the site has no way of checking all feedback left. in the past the site has removed people that they recieved complaints about. one was even an advertiser that built enclosures. so i do think the site dose what it can. people will allways think more can be done, but its not allways as easy as it may seem. best way to find the trusted sellers is to use the positive feedback or ask in chat or post a thread asking for others to pm you trusted sellers

 

[Blondie84]

I know its only a small minority that is an issue but I'm just looking at it from a newbies perspective and also only for this site itself. How can you "trust" someone if you have never dealt with them before? Buying local and therefore picking up in person isnt always an option either like for me there is only 1 or 2 breeders close and they all charge like wounded bulls coz they can. I wish i could pack up interstate to go pick up an animal but that really isnt practical.

I think what I'm saying is that if someone has a HORRID experience with a seller, that is, money paid, no animal, no contact, and it has been going on for months, so you can pretty much kiss your money and all chance of getting the animal goodbye, then the injured party SHOULD be able to come on here and warn other prospective buyers.

Now I know as with any system that it could and most likely would be abused but I'm just thinking of the rare and extreme cases. Not just, oh this animal didnt look like it's picture, the colour is different etc, because we all know how difficult it is to get accurate colour representations in photos.

No one on this thread is having a whinge, I just see it as people discussing how something could possibly be improved. Rules can be changed, they arent set in stone. Im not saying that that is going to happen but I dont think discussion and debate should be quashed simply because there are already rules in place.

 

[Snake_Whisperer]

When I was a newbie, (a few weeks ago), I got off my *** and asked the few people I knew in the hobby, what they thought of so and so. To date, I have never had a bad experience with buying animals from within or interstate using this system. There is always a risk to any purchase over the intraweb but if you've made even one friend on this site or in good old fashioned real life, add that to the positive feedback forum on this site (obviously only applicable to APS purchases) and you should be able to deduce fairly accurately whether you are looking at a high risk purchase. Seems folks are just lazy and want everything sitting there waiting for them to find as opposed to being willing to put in the hard yards of research themselves. Funny thing is though, the research is not that hard. Best part about doing that real-time, actual research, is you will meet and make many more new friends and contacts along the way!

P.S. (I am not the enclosure builder in earlier posts, however, he is the reason I am in this business now!)

 

[pythonmum]

Remember - this site has a lot of members, but certainly does not include the whole world of reptile breeders and keepers. I just sold my first two snakes and neither buyer was a member of APS. This means no feedback for me, even if the buyers are incredibly happy. The local sale was the easiest, as the buyer had a chance to inspect the animal thoroughly and I didn't have to go through the hassle of permits and shipping. Having had this experience, I'm strongly inclined to stick with local sales so the buyer and I can size up each other and they know exactly what they are getting. This makes it hard for people not near a major metropolitan area with a lot of breeders to choose from. However, it may be worth making the trip because snakes live more than 20 years, so you are making a long-term commitment. If you can't travel, develop some online friends you trust and can ask for advice. I would not trust an online rating system, as it would be covered in flames!

 

[ShadowDragon]

You know, I'm actually happy to see that there are some people with enough naivete and trust in the human race as a whole that they think feedback systems would be used with complete honesty. I just wish that's how it was.

Amie, I can see what you're saying and where you're coming from. But there have been people in the past who have claimed to have had such terrible dealings with breeders and they've been lying, this has had disastrous consequences for reputations and in some cases has lead to the euthenasing of healthy animals based solely on the word of axe grinders and shonky vets. Ho do you prove you're telling the truth? Or if you're the wronged breeder, that you didn't do what's been said? It's nowhere near as simple as some seem to think.

On the other side of the spectrum, there are a number of people I've had bad dealings with over the years who are touted as total legends on this site and others, this had led to the loss of a great deal of money for myself personally. I'd asked around before purhcase and been told that these folk were trustworthy. I also know of people who've had dealings with these fine upstanding citizens that can only be described as mind boggling. Everything from animals turning up so sick they could barely move, to constant "mis-sexing" of animals (always incorrectly sending males as chance would have it), to one case of a semi frozen animal being sent. But there's no way to get the message across about these people due to their being surrounded by yes men, and as long as you can only see the good feedback that won't change.

Really, there is no workable option, anything is open to corruption and personal agendas. Sorry to sound like the harbringer of doom, it's just life I'm afraid.

 

[Waterrat]

I have several friends, good, reliable and honest breeders who wouldn't touch this or any other reptile forum with a 6' pole for the very reason - they could be graded and/or easily discredited by few idiots. As CodeRed said, this site and the deals conducted through it is a tiny fraction of what goes on in the outer circle.

 

[FAY]

You're all assuming that reptile sales revolve around APS. The vast majority of animals are sold either through other web sites or by word of mouth. This season I sold only 5-10% of my animals through APS.

Nearly everything myself and Garth have sold has been 'word of mouth' only....as we hardly ever advertise.

We have also experienced a nutter that has tried to destroy us on a few websites....just because he has taken a dislike to us.....luckily most saw through the garbage that was written.Trying to make our reputation as bad as his!

 

[Choco]

Obviously, as some mentioned, if you do 5 mins of homework on the seller you can get an idea. The net is your friend.

I like the idea of the sellers having their own thread in feedback. Some asked what about those starting out? Well in your 1st post you can describe this and let people know this is your 1st season. If you hatch and sell 10 reptiles with 8 people willing to give feedback, you can update your thread saying so. I don't know, I'm just throwing ideas but there is a way to inform your potential customers your new to breeding.
So if there were guidelines to leaving a "No Comment" post in the feedback thread after certain criteria was met could it work. Eg could be;
*Buyer PM's a mod explaining situation and all attempts to contact/resolve with Seller and will PM Seller
*Buyer PM's seller. This PM would somehow notify seller this is "Final Resolution Contact" (or something) meaning they must reply to avoid "NO Comment" in their feedback. Now not all sellers might regularly be on here so buyer can't action any further until the seller signs in again. Any good seller should action PM when they receive them.
*If PM not actioned mods PM seller to encourage a response to buyer.
*After the seller signs in again and still no comments on the PM...
*Mods contact buyer and inform seller is not responding.
*Buyer can now post "no comment" in the thread

This may be naive but looking at how many animal sell on APS, how many actually go wrong...would it be minimal hence the mods are rarely involved in this process.

I think there is a way and it's just a matter of getting all the ideas together. There will always be comments of people cheating the system so we need to minimise the ability to lie about a seller. That's why I chose the "No Comment" posted in the thread after certain procedures are met.

Cheers,
Allan

 

[eitak]

If people are worried about loosing money they could pay through paypal. It doesn't cost to set up an account and you don't have to have an account as the seller to recieve payment, I understand there is a small fee for the seller but they could add this to the total cost.

Paypal comes with a buyer proctect scheme I'm not exactly sure how it works but its better than direct deposit.

 

[wokka]

Surely the same risks exist in getting bodgey feedback as does in doing a bodgey deal since you are dealing with the same people. If you pick up the phone and talk to people you can normally make a fairly reliable assessment of people. A lot of problems seem to arise when there is only written ( texts, pm and email) contact so people tend to be breif and leave a lot of information our of the enquiries.
Are there really that many bad deals happening?. Over 5 years i can recall maybe a few dozen publicised on aps and I would estimate there have been thousands of deals done in that same time.

 

[spongebob]

Are there really that many bad deals happening?. Over 5 years i can recall maybe a few dozen publicised on aps and I would estimate there have been thousands of deals done in that same time.

Fortunately they are rare, but we all know they do occur.

When the advertising and arrangements are made through a site such as APS (to which most herpers are members, although they might not like admitting it!!) then I think it is reasonable to have a process whereby such incidents can be 'put out there'. Tthe current system is currently being abused by the unscrupulous. For me the main issue is how to redress this imbalance. Is there was way to notify and identify without such a system being abused?

PS Wokka do you need help with attaching files? Happy to advise.

 

[Boney]

why do people feel they need to protect others . ? what happened to making and being responsible for your own mistakes ? how does it make you feel when you have been referring others to someone ,latter to find out they are dodgy ?. simplify the process and just look after your own affairs . let others mess there own lives up .

 

[matt86]

every single time you go through with a deal and hand cash over you are taking a risk . and with any deal things can go wrong .. eg dont turn up seller never sends them , are not what you expected , in bad health ect . and if you dont prepare yourself for this or the worst your going to get burnt or let down sooner or later .. so what i do for a sugestion is just do a bit of research on the person your dealing with , and get all the details off them. address, home phone, then type it into google earth and make sure the address is not for a vacant block for example . find there house on google earth then ask them what there house looks like . and then say to yourself if everything is adding up put cash in there bank . then if they still rip you off ..you say to yourself am i prepared to get in my car with a few of my mates and go make a house call even if its on the otherside of the country to take care of bussiness . and if so , do the deal . and if not but still want to take a risk make sure you can cop the loss ... dont worry about the rest of the world just look after yourself and your mates before i hand over any cash i let a few of my friends know the deal and also ask if they know who im dealing with and if they have had any problems . i dont feel that APS is a good place to get the accurate truth on a deal that may or may not of gone wrong .things get very twisted ive noticed in wake of a even better story, it is funny but does not help the cause ..

This makes no sense at all - when you go to the shopping centre and hand over cash in exchange for goods, you don't take any of the above mentioned risks. People should have the right to buy a product with minimal/no risk - and holding people accountable for the way they sell is a perfectly reasonable way to help achieve this. Not to mention, sitting at home scanning google earth like some kind of vigilante, and being prepared to make a 'house call' is no way to maturely deal with the sales process.

 

[Boney]

yeh sorry about that Matt , glad all your dealings are going well and your making them all risk free

 

[matt86]

yeh sorry about that Matt , glad all your dealings are going well and your making them all risk free

ANTARESIA1 - At no point did I say that all my dealings are 'risk free.'

You are sitting there suggesting that 'whenever you hand over cash there is risk involved,' as if it's an acceptable state of affairs. I was simply suggesting that people have the right to a safe sales process, and holding sellers accountable for their actions (be way of a ratings system - which gives them an incentive to make the process speedy and pleasant for all buyers) is a good way to achieve this.

For the record - sarcasm is a great smokescreen when you have no valid point to make.

 

[mysnakesau]

I haven't read all replies yet, but perhaps a ratings by percentage can be added here, somehow, similar to what Ebay has. Allow for positive feedback but only allow negative rating so it can't turn into an argument. If one wants to know why someone has a high negative rating, then that person can PM ppl and find out behind the scenes.

 

[Boney]

ANTARESIA1 - At no point did I say that all my dealings are 'risk free.'

You are sitting there suggesting that 'whenever you hand over cash there is risk involved,' as if it's an acceptable state of affairs. I was simply suggesting that people have the right to a safe sales process, and holding sellers accountable for their actions (be way of a ratings system - which gives them an incentive to make the process speedy and pleasant for all buyers) is a good way to achieve this.

For the record - sarcasm is a great smokescreen when you have no valid point to make.

Smokescreen you say for no valid points yeh man your right !

there should be no feedback at all because .. to much bull crap gets spread in the negative , the whole truth never gets told . and postive feedback is very misleading even the so called dodgy cage builder everyone still talks about, had heaps of positive feedback left for him . what thats not a valid point? . are you in the real word or living with the brady bunch ? . get your own crap together and deal with your own problems that was my point . no smokescreen here . p.s.... Matt i can see your other points but ..we should not feel like we are taking a risk ... far from the truth but . and maybe if we see some dodgy herpers washing up on the beach this could fix the problem . just kidding

 

[siouxie]

We have also experienced a nutter that has tried to destroy us on a few websites....just because he has taken a dislike to us.....luckily most saw through the garbage that was written.Trying to make our reputation as bad as his!

i've got no idea who you are referring to, but,as you say, there's always three sides to every story.

the problem with considering people to have a good reputation, is that their mate's or their pseudonyms can just as easily give a person a great rap to give him/her credibility as someone with a vendetta can do the opposite.

friends often join overseas websites, just to give their mate's a pat on the back, even though they have already done it on the same thread with the same photos on every website in australia.

a lot of people set up a web-site for credibility, they promote themselves only to new people to the industry ( who aren't aware of their past ), or are self-proclaimed gurus who have a dozen of their mates vouch for their greatness. this would subsequently intimidate people aggrieved by their dealings from coming forward.

the lesson really should be suss someone out first, if you have a bad experience, be more careful next time, and if you join a club, get to know the breeders. it's pretty easy to pick out those doing shonky deals over in the corner, and those that always have something under the table to move.

take responsibility for your own deals and vouching for people inevitably causes regrets as other people can let you down.

 

[Ships]

I'm not sure what the answer is but there does need to be some sort of anonomous grievance system in place to inform mods and then mods take what action might be appropriate, ie; selling bans for period of time or something. Sorry I dont see that it is aything like placing an add in a paper. This forum is run to a small selective part of the community, more like a society and as such there should be some sort of system in place to disrupt dodgy sellers using the site to peddle their goods. Just my opiion. There are rules oif ettiquete that have raifications it seems ludicrous that you can be a dodgy seller without penalty.

 

[Ramsayi]

Another section would also be good where dodgey buyers (tyre kickers) using the site to waste peoples time could be rated.