Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Marketplace => Topic started by: redrumloa on June 21, 2010, 02:29:37 PM
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12+ year old eBay account with a current feedback score of 3322. This account is a "Top rated seller" and a Power Seller, which provides a 20% discount on eBay fees and buyer confidence. If you are looking to do serious business on eBay, this could be wise investment.
http://myworld.ebay.com/redrumloa/
I am asking for $2,000. The transfer would require eBay approval. eBay user name would be changed to the name of the buyer's choice. If the person buying would be selling Amiga related products, I'd happily sign a multi-year no compete contract.
PM me here if interested.
ACCOUNT IS SOLD
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Hi Jim,
As someone who has done business with you on eBay many times and who would trust you to the end of the Earth, I have to ask...
is this ethical?
To be honest, if eBay allows this sort of thing then I'm actually quite disgusted with them.
Anyway, good luck with the sale and I hope it ends up in the hands of someone who will do it justice and not a Doomy or Merlancia type.
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Hi Jim,
As someone who has done business with you on eBay many times and who would trust you to the end of the Earth, I have to ask...
is this ethical?
To be honest, if eBay allows this sort of thing then I'm actually quite disgusted with them.
Anyway, good luck with the sale and I hope it ends up in the hands of someone who will do it justice and not a Doomy or Merlancia type.
Why wouldn't it be ethical? eBay does allow sale of accounts, with their aproval. If it was sold to someone unethical, they would lose the Top Rated Seller rating very, very fast. It wouldn't make sense for a scamster to buy it to attempt a scam. They would never recoup their investment.
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Why wouldn't it be ethical? eBay does allow sale of accounts, with their aproval. If it was sold to someone unethical, they would lose the Top Rated Seller rating very, very fast. It wouldn't make sense for a scamster to buy it to attempt a scam. They would never recoup their investment.
I'll tell you why. When someone builds up a reputation, I don't expect them to be able to pass that on to some dodgy bastard.
If you display a 99.9% positive reputation then I expect you to have earned it through quality service, not to have bought it from someone else.
Like I said in my first post, how would you like to buy a $2000 item from someone with a 100% rep and then find out that the person had bought teh account for $500 the week before and has now vanished with your $2000?
The whole rating system is meant to protect the buyer and seller, so explain to me how selling a reputation to the highest bidder does that?
A good scammer could sell multiple products in a short period of time and clear off with the cash before the disputes allow money to be reversed or before trusting customers even register a dispute. Granted, your $2000 selling price should limit the appeal to the average con-man, but...
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Yup, another good reason to stay the hell away from ebay ......
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Two things. First off stores change ownership all the time, actually all businesses do. If you have a favorite resturant, chances are it has changed ownership multiple times in your life. Secondly I stated the username would change, so people know they are not buying from "redrumloa".
So you are saying you would rather have me let 12+ years of work whither on the vine rather than get something for it? If the account goes inactive, the account upgrades dissapear.
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Like I said in my first post, how would you like to buy a $2000 item from someone with a 100% rep and then find out that the person had bought teh account for $500 the week before and has now vanished with your $2000?.
It doesn't work that way, eBay would refund your $2,000 if you paid per eBay's TOS. Everything is stacked entirely on the buyer's side these days, none on the seller's side.
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Two things. First off stores change ownership all the time, actually all businesses do. If you have a favorite resturant, chances are it has changed ownership multiple times in your life. Secondly I stated the username would change, so people know they are not buying from "redrumloa".
So you are saying you would rather have me let 12+ years of work whither on the vine rather than get something for it? If the account goes inactive, the account upgrades dissapear.
I know what you're saying, but real stores don't post a "reputation rating" above the door. You don't normally need such a thing because you're paying in the shop and walking away with the goods in your hands.
It isn't the name thing either. I don't care what they call themselves. The problem is that they're buying a reputation they haven't earned which IMHO defrauds the purchaser. I want the rating to reflect the person I'm buying off, not who he bought it off. IMHO this undermines the whole eBay ratings system and reders it useless.
Your 12 years work brought you sales based on YOUR hard-earned reputation as a honest seller. If someone else wants a reputation like yours then they need to EARN it, not BUY it.
I'm a hard working person too. I can't sell my reputation and CV to a new school leaver to pass off as his own.
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It doesn't work that way, eBay would refund your $2,000 if you paid per eBay's TOS. Everything is stacked entirely on the buyer's side these days, none on the seller's side.
And how long does this take? How many hoops have I had to jump through?
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And how long does this take? How many hoops have I had to jump through?
You just need to open a dispute and leave negative feedback. Then ebay will usually side with the buyer. You will in 15 days top, be refunded. It happened to me with a few scammers.
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You just need to open a dispute and leave negative feedback. Then ebay will usually side with the buyer. You will in 15 days top, be refunded. It happened to me with a few scammers.
"usually side with the buyer" isn't good enough, especially if I've had to waste 15 days of my time over a person I wouldn't have purchased from to start with.
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Anyway, I see your point. An ebay account may be available for sale, along with its name and discount features, but their feedback shouldnt.
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Anyway, I see your point. An ebay account may be available for sale, along with its name and discount features, but their feedback shouldnt.
Yeah, that's how I feel.
Anyway, Jim isn't breaking any rules so I wish him the best of luck with the sale. However, this information has really put me off doing business on eBay again.
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I know what you're saying, but real stores don't post a "reputation rating" above the door.
At least in Alabama, restaurants are required to post their inspection reports which grades the cleanliness scores. Then you have websites like Angie's List which rate local businesses..
Trust me, any possible sale won't be funding a European vacation or put rims on some Porsche 911. It would be to pay off my credit card balance so I can keep floating along for a while.
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Anyone who buys a store or a business is paying for the reputation of the business. Otherwise they would be farther ahead just to start the business from scratch. On Ebay your reputation is your feedback rating. This goes on everyday in the business world. EBay is no different.
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At least in Alabama, restaurants are required to post their inspection reports which grades the cleanliness scores. Then you have websites like Angie's List which rate local businesses..
Trust me, any possible sale won't be funding a European vacation or put rims on some Porsche 911. It would be to pay off my credit card balance so I can keep floating along for a while.
I'm just going to miss YOU as a seller. It's always been a pleasure doing business with you.
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Anyone who buys a store or a business is paying for the reputation of the business. Otherwise they would be farther ahead just to start the business from scratch. On Ebay your reputation is your feedback rating. This goes on everyday in the business world. EBay is no different.
Anybody who buys a real store or business is available to punch in the face if they rip you off. ;)
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I'm just going to miss YOU as a seller. It's always been a pleasure doing business with you.
Likewise! I was really very fortunate to have done business with so many great customers such as you. You were a great repeat customer and always a gentleman. I couldn't have asked for more:)
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Why wouldn't it be ethical? eBay does allow sale of accounts, with their aproval. If it was sold to someone unethical, they would lose the Top Rated Seller rating very, very fast. It wouldn't make sense for a scamster to buy it to attempt a scam. They would never recoup their investment.
2000 dollars,the last scam I heard of netted 140,000 dollars in 24 hours
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2000 dollars,the last scam I heard of netted 140,000 dollars in 24 hours
I almost fell for some scammer-- he put up some NIB laptop up for sale on ebay which went for about $1000 and then sent second chance offers to everyone since I was the 10th highest bidder and got a second chance offer. I was a bit suspicious so I bought the second chance offer but told him that I would pick up the item. It looked like he hijacked someone else's account with 100% feedback.
I don't think the feedback means much on ebay the way it is today (except for the discount on ebay fees). I get treated nicely by sellers even with feedback < 10 and harshly by some with high feedback so it's not that big of deal. And some people are around for many years but don't have a big feedback number.
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The way I see it, if someone's gaining, someone else is losing out.
The loser in this situation is the prospective ebay customer thinking they are dealing with an individual with 12 years worth of credibility, but getting who knows what?
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It's no different to me going up the road and buying 'Konsole Korner' for 1000s of bucks and then running the shop. People ringing up to purchase extremely expensive exotic consoles have no idea that the shop has changed hands and they may/may not receive the same quality of service said import business has built up for 3 decades. Ebay is a virtual business and so the same thing will apply as to people who buy real business. Just look at all the fancy restaurant's people buy and cock up on Kitchen Nightmares LOL they buy it for the name and run the business into the ground with shoddy food.
At the same time I am surprised this has been sanctioned by ebay. 3 years ago I had an enviable 100% record on an account selling just expensive hardware, nothing else no parts for a few bucks. Prices for sales ranged from 1000 to 300 bucks and at 1000+ sales that's a lot of respect to purchase. Ebay certainly didn't allow me to sell that 'business' though so I just closed my account.
Good luck to you anyway Red :)
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At first, i was thinking as some kind of "internal joke" or something.
Now, after reading all this...i feel the same way Darrin feels. Im going to miss redrumbloa as a seller. Bought couplf of times from you Jim, and also made all other argentinian amiga enthusiasts buy from you with totally confidence.
You were/are some kind of lighthouse and a truly gentleman, with me, and with all my fellow surrounding me...
Hope you can fix everything Jim. Again, as i said, its always a pleasure dealing with you, and even tough im not that much here, its also a pleasure to read you, your C=128 blog project and your Commodore Bounty project
Hats off to you sir
:)
Sebastian
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Wow, I had no idea you could 'buy your way to the top' on eBay. I guess I will add this to my (long) list of reasons to never do business on eBay.
I'm not saying the OP is doing anything wrong. I find it unethical that eBay allows such a situation to occur.
eBay has allowed the perception that a seller's rating is based on his or her own merit with regard to doing business with many different customers. That rating is then used by the shopper to evaluate the seller since they (the shopper) have very little else to make an informed judgment.
It would appear that I could be a dishonest seller, buy a very high ranking seller account, and then 'screw people over' until eBay steps in or my rating plummets.
Finally, as the person that built up that reputation, I would demand the new owner of the account change the name so that their decisions do not reflect upon me.
-P
BTW: Non-Competes are very, very difficult to uphold in court. In the state I live, its nearly impossible to have them enforced...
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Does anyone know if it is declared anywhere whether a person is operating a bought reputation?
Personally I don not see this as analogous to a real life situation. It is common knowledge that over time a restaurant for example will change hands, and more often or not it will declare in advertising, or its window, that it is under new management.
I doubt very much it is common knowledge that ebay stores/reputations can change hands. In this regard I consider it dubious ethically.
That being said, it appears to be within the rules and I wish red well. I've never been a customer of his, but by all accounts he is a reliable sort.
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I, too, am surprised that accounts are sell able. My wife and I have, over the last several years, sold hundreds of items on Ebay and have 211 feedback responses that are 100% positive.
And I wouldn't worry about buying from Ebay. If the item doesn't match its description or you don't receive it, you're going to get your money back.
In fact, the majority of scams I've dealt with have been buyer scams. The latest was a buyer who bought a TV Tuner from us, then complained that it wouldn't display HD cable signals (it wasn't designed for this, nor did the listing imply that it could).
Not only did Ebay step in and side with the buyer, they paid for the item (probably because I, frankly, was a bit offended) and closed the case in a matter of days.
To be honest, I've gotten great deal via the vast majority of transactions I've made on Ebay and would recommend them without qualification.
BTW - Good luck, Jim. Are you sure you want to give it up? I know its probably actually lost me money, but it is a good way of quickly selling surplus items.