Silk Road forums
Discussion => Silk Road discussion => Topic started by: QuarterStaff on July 03, 2011, 06:27 pm
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Ok so in the past when seller accounts were free escrow was developed to protect the buyers from seller scammers right? Well now seller accounts are not free and it is the sellers who are being scammed. So with seller accounts costing quite a few bucks now, why is escrow needed, it only protects scammers. My advice would be this.
Keep charging for seller accounts, leave buyer accounts as free but limit the first 10 sales of a seller to amounts lower than 40 dollars each. This means a seller would have to build up a ton of good feedback before she/he could get a return on their investment. At the same time the need for escrow is eliminated, defeating the buyers who scam sellers.
Also include buyer feedback along with seller feedback.
This is i think the best way forward.
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Delivery confirmation. 70 cents. Use it.
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Not all countries have it, many only have a signed for service which buyers don't like to use.
Read what i put, there is no logical reason to keep escrow anymore. Why would you support a system that only protects scammers?
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I am a seller myself and because of escrow I always have to pay in advance for anything people want to buy. Being unemployed, it is a big financial risk
for me, sending out mostly expensive stuff, which could leave me broke when all the buyer needs to do is to click on some button that says the ship-
ment never arrived.
Escrow is a nuisance for me, because I have to pay with the little money I have and I need to wait several days for the payment to arrive, always in fear
that maybe it will never come. Of course it has its benefits, but I think it should be optional, so buyers are able to protect themselves from sellers, who
don't have a lot of positive feedback, but forcing it on honest people, who may be ruined financially is not the right way to do it.
kamui
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a regulated black market? uh. no. we all accept risks in the transaction.
you're free to sell elsewhere.
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Huh?
The market is already being regulated by selling the seller accounts. I am simply suggesting a solution to the scamming that is now going on, if this isn't resolved many of us will indeed go elsewhere. I am talking about less regulation by elimiting the escrow feature as it is no longer required.
Buyers don't need protection anymore as any seller has to spend a lot of money outright to sell goods. It is now the sellers who need protection and redtide if you don't realize that i'm going to assume that you're either one of the buyers who scams sellers, or a seller who hasn't been scammed yet.
Believe me, scamming buyers are on the increase.
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don't confuse monetization for regulation. ;)
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I'm not confusing anything, i'm afraid you are. Escrow is itself a form of regulation.
Escrow is designed to protect buyers from scamming sellers, this was at a time when seller accounts were free. As seller accounts are not free anymore and buyers can scam sellers with impunity then it seems there is no longer a reason to keep it. I could make 10 accounts tomorrow, order a ton of goods and then claim they didn't arrive to get my money back. Even if the seller had proof of them arriving i can claim it wasn't my address, package was empty etc.
If you can think up a genuine reason to keep escrow i would be interested.
Only scamming buyers want escrow now, and ignorant sellers who haven't been burned yet.
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Imho it would only work if there's a trust system in place as well, eg. all sellers start out as "new" with mandatory escrow, and as they work up their way they can become "trusted" where escrow would be optional. Thoughts?
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"Only scamming buyers want escrow now, and ignorant sellers who haven't been burned yet."
Your absolutist statements undermine your credibility.
You don't have to be a scammer to want escrow.
Go to OVDB, and be well.
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sd4sd4:
That's what I thought about. Make it mandatory for people with a number of sales that is below a reasonable number and/or feedback ratio.
When the seller proved he is honest in this way, it should be optional imo.
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"Only scamming buyers want escrow now, and ignorant sellers who haven't been burned yet."
Your absolutist statements undermine your credibility.
You don't have to be a scammer to want escrow.
Go to OVDB, and be well.
Absolutist statements are appropriate for a situation where they are true and i invited you to share a reason for keeping escrow, as you failed to grace us with your thoughts i can only assume i was right. Unless you wish to provide me with a logical argument that corrects my absolutist statements?
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sd4sd4:
That's what I thought about. Make it mandatory for people with a number of sales that is below a reasonable number and/or feedback ratio.
When the seller proved he is honest in this way, it should be optional imo.
The only problem is that scammers will just target the sellers who do have escrow, give it a few months and i have a feeling certain people will be changing their tune as buyers scamming sellers are on the increase.
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Can I ask something. How escrow works? If buyer have complain, what then. He start resolve and what are rules in that - protocol.
How can anybody esublish credibility. Is escrow grant buyer who lie that he did not receive package refund?
I think resolution rules and guide must be written.
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QuarterStaff: Maybe it would be best if we could rate the buyers as well.
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QuarterStaff: Maybe it would be best if we could rate the buyers as well.
That's something lots of people want but as buyers can make new accounts anytime it wouldn't stop the scammers.
I'm tempted to start 20 accounts and scam all the sellers i can to prove my point. Ok i won't but you get me.
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sd4sd4:
That's what I thought about. Make it mandatory for people with a number of sales that is below a reasonable number and/or feedback ratio.
When the seller proved he is honest in this way, it should be optional imo.
The only problem is that scammers will just target the sellers who do have escrow, give it a few months and i have a feeling certain people will be changing their tune as buyers scamming sellers are on the increase.
I think you're best left with your assumptions. :-X
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Hey,
As I mentioned in a previous thread, I had noticed a rise in those reporting not receiving orders so I am now using a tracked mail with confirmation which will add about 0.5BTC to the cost of my goods.
The escrow can also cause cash flow issues. It was take a week or more for the customer to confirm then another week to sell coins and get cash. This means that It's nearly three weeks before I can order my stock to sell.
It's a tricky issue though.
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I've noticed that everyone has assumed that escrow favors the buyer at all times. That is not entirely correct. If a shipment does not arrive from an established seller, it is more than likely that the buyer is not going to get all their money back. Considering that most orders are taking a week or more to finalize it is difficult to establish whether there is an increase in scamming activity or not. There maybe more threads with newbies complaining that packages haven't arrived but a, there is more transactions on the site than two months ago and b, there are more new sellers than two months ago.
Personally I think everyone should take a chill pill (Heh you all know where to find em!) and wait for a couple of weeks to see how things are tracking.
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I think mandatory escrow for the first ten sales is a good idea. Although a buyer feedback system would be by far the fastest way to deal with this. Either that or as i suggested earlier just put up a dispute monitor on buyer accounts - i.e. how many attempts at dispute has a buyer made in the last 6 months. If you have a buyer wanting something and they have had 5 disputes over the past 6 months, walk away. This will at least keep scammer accounts small-time and extremely low volume.
I haven't had a buyer dispute yet (thankfully) but what is the process for dispute mediation here? Has anybody used SR arbitration yet?
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I think this is an interesting misinformation campaign.
I am a seller, and have not had any issues what so ever. In fact, I would be tempted to pack up if the escrow system left.
For one, I have bought less things then I have sold. Had quite a few people try to scam but fail thanks to escrow. Would only spend money on completely well known vendors otherwise, creating stagnation of market. Huge step backwards.
P.S. Anyone else think QS post are weird considering we have yet to see him sell anything, or that his only post are about this (minus one in one other thread)
I see through this,
DigitalAlch
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I'm missing the reason that accounts being for sale makes escrow obsolete. Just one example: A seller who wants to scam shells out the 250USD it costs for an account, and racks up a number of sales (enough to at least make back the 250) before the bad reviews begin. Seller walks with balance and no escrow service exists to stop him. Now add escrow to this example and that seller seems a lot less likely to walk away with at leas the 250 he put in.
Scammer sellers exist either way; escrow protected buyers before and escrow protects buyers now.
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Keep escrow. If a buyer does you wrong post on here...I had three different purrchases *not* show up this week...because of escrow I don't worry...I'm glad you are convinced all buyers on here are now legit...I've yet to have to even post bad feedback, and my sellers always communicate, and let me know when things are bad or dicey...I havn't heard of that many cases of buyers going to all the trouble to set up btc accounts, and then pay a sller, and then go thru all that bs, just to get his btc back...I hear it complained about a lot, but it always seems to be 'somebody else'...
Escrow works, and so do forums where we all can read what everybody says...if people are ripping you off, post their names on here, same as we do....
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Keep escrow!!! Its a good thing!
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Interesting that people go for character assassination instead of debating the point Digitalalch, this isn't misinformation it's happened to sellers and btw i don't use the same name on the forums as i do on silk road. Well i've said what i was going to, lets see how it pans out.
1-6 months and maybe i'll be proven right.
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I find it disturbing that people don't seem to think their is a real chance these packages are actually not arriving. It seems to me that many buyers are using suspect recipient information that is going to increase the chances of non-delivery, not to mention packages do sometimes just disappear in the mail stream. Just because recipients are reporting non-delivery doesn't mean they're scamming. Perhaps your packaging methods need to be worked on.
Having worked in the transportation industry I know first hand that drug packages are sometimes just seized with no notification sent to the recipient. The police don't have the time or resources to bust every joe schmoe getting a quarter oz of weed in the post.
With that said, I'm sure there are buyers scamming for free/discounted drugs...
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... and btw i don't use the same name on the forums as i do on silk road.
That's a surefire way to get a bad reputation. Because we cannot confirm that you are actually a seller, anything you say will be taken with a grain of salt.
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I have to buys who are ignoring me for the last 2 days after they receive the package. I slapped on delivery confirmation and it shows the package are delivered. Now my coins are being held for the next 18 days. What is going to happen after that 18 days are over? The buyer wins and I'm out of luck? This is not fair for honest sellers like me. About 25% buyers are dishonest and will do anything to get free stuff.
I think it would be best if the funds are release immediately! After seller shows proof of delivery confirmation. There are just some gay ass scammers out there!
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I have to buys who are ignoring me for the last 2 days after they receive the package. I slapped on delivery confirmation and it shows the package are delivered. Now my coins are being held for the next 18 days. What is going to happen after that 18 days are over? The buyer wins and I'm out of luck? This is not fair for honest sellers like me. About 25% buyers are dishonest and will do anything to get free stuff.
I think it would be best if the funds are release immediately! After seller shows proof of delivery confirmation. There are just some gay ass scammers out there!
Only problem with that is if you post delivery confirmation you leave an address trail where all data should have been destroyed. The only time to use a delivery confirmation is if you are going through arbitration and have to submit info to SR. Otherwise that's just leaving a lot of vulnerable information lying around. You are unfortunately held hostage by the buyer at this point as far as time is concerned. If they don't do anything until the time expires, the funds auto-release to you - they've had their chance for a dispute, 24 days or whatever it is. It's hard for cashflow management unless you are working with a pretty significant float and have adjusted to the situation on here. But if there is no dispute the money goes to you - I had this happen with a couple of transactions just because the Canada Post strike held everything up for a few weeks. Thankfully I had some positive transactions already so my buyers held out and their feedback is just starting to roll in. But it's a bit of a nail-biting wait, especially if you have a large quantity out there.
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This delivery confirmation is not as good as it sounds IMO.
If the seller sends an empty package with filler in it, the buyer is fucked, it happened to me once.
Just because a seller has some rep, it doesn't mean he's always be correct, especially with new buyers with no rep (if there were a rep system for buyers but there is none), where the seller can say the buyer is the scammer while in reality the seller scammed.
Just picture a seller who has his usual buyers building up rep with them, while scamming all the new buyers with 0 rep. and saying "hey here is the proof you received the package so the money is mine, if you have a problem with it I have your address".
I guess there will be a lot more new buyers than recurring ones.
If a seller gets a relative big order (for 1 pound of weed or so) from a new buyer, he might think it's better to scams the buyer and send an empty package than the buyer scams him with the help of the ESCROW system.
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There is a lot of what if's on this thread at the moment. Any system will not be perfect and will certainly not appeal to every single person. The current system has been in place for some time and has shown that it works in the majority of cases.
@420Med4u. I feel for you however your two days you mention are over the 4th July weekend so it's understandable that they haven't responded. Personally I don't check my drop points everyday so if I was your customer it would take me a day to recover the shipment and then possibly a day to test and verify. Auto-finalize is a way of ensuring buyers don't get slack but maybe sellers should also get a resolve option to start a dispute after 10 days just like buyers.
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Getting rid of the escrow system is an absolutely god-awfully terrible idea.
Yeah, sellers can get scammed under the escrow system and buyers cannot.
But assuming this is unfair makes the assumption that BOTH buyers and sellers have the same incentive to scam. They do not.
What's a seller potentially able to get if he scams someone? Hundreds, maybe thousands, of dollars if he pulls a really slick one and does it again and again. Cash. MONEY.
What's a buyer potentially able to get if he scams someone? Some free drugs. And he'll have a hell of a time scamming multiple times when word gets around and even if he changes accounts he'll eventually run out of vendors who don't know his zip code. Besides that, the buyer will be giving a potential way of tracking him down by providing a shipping address, leaving them open for retaliation and less likely to scam a seller for that reason if nothing else.
Nope, this is a terrible idea and it shouldn't and won't happen.
I'm a seller, too. If getting ripped off by a buyer is going to hurt your bottom line, raise your prices accordingly to account for that potentially happening. This what retail stores do--it's called shrinkage, and they account for it in the price of their products.
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Wow. Most of my customers place an order on July 2 and because of the escrow service, I was unable to cash out the coins. I believe the coins was around 15.40 when they made the purchased. The current price is at 12.70. This is absurd! We seller takes alot of high risk and we are working for free! I believe it is best if escrow service release 50% of the funds immediately and the other 50% is release when the buyer confirms delivery. I had one purchased at 17 per btc and now when he finally released the coins it is now 12.7. WTF? are you serious? This is very bad business practice but hey!, there are no rules and regulation when it comes to these type of business right?
I apologize to all the buyers over the weekend and that I will be issuing a refund to everyone. If you are still interested in the product, I will put them up again and please repeat the purchase with the correct amount of bitcoin. Thank you.
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This site's strength and reputation is based on two things: tor and the escrow system. All these 'bad buyers' where are they? I'm not reading about them: the reputable sellers, and there are plenty, haven't been complaining about this system. It sucks for us buyers, because one bad seller and we can either go to prison, or loose a lot of money...bad buyers can go to a lot of trouble, and get some free dope.
I wish the system were perfect, but it's not...escrow is the reason I'm here, and the reason when my package *doesn't* show, as three of them did last week, for three different reason--then I don't panic and think i"ve been ripped...
Its a gnarly imperfect setup we got here, but it's what makes SR beat all the competiton...why do you think Black Market went down within days? No escrow...and why are they bouncing back? Not only escrow, but also mandatory use of GPG by sellers ....
Most sellers seem alright with system...I'd get used to it, or refuse to sell to these ripoffs you are getting...mostly what I hear of is *possible* ripoffs...too much trouble to get btc and to get it all set up, just to rip off one or two sellers before word gets out...
If sellers had anymore power than they already do, buyers would be too scared to post bad feedback, as then you all could nail us bigtime: not sell anymore to us, or worse, get is in trouble with LE...if lots of ripoffs actually *were* happening, this site would go under quick enough, same as BM did...fact is, you don't change rules just on 'maybes'...
The system works, leave it be. You quit escrow, us legit buyers would start taking another look at BM, no kidding...
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Still more transactions cleared and not a single problem yet. Like rake says so far it's just a "what if". I am now adding delivery confirmation to my orders to so I have some ammo for SR mediation, and yes it is a good idea to build some kind of a margin to account for shrinkage. This is a fact of life, there are asshole chicken-shits everywhere, whether you are selling shoes, tools, or MDMA. Just accomodate for them.
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Benzo addiction can be pretty motivating as far as scams go. But, thats acceptable risk I think. After all, you could be sending a package to LE. They probably finalize pretty quick though. ;D
The real problem with escrow right now, is losing 30% of your money while BTC plummets.
Escrow is great with stable currency.
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Escrow is the #1 reason I feel so comfortable using SR. I've purchased from two brand new sellers and both came through fine. I've also dealt with 6-7 vendors total and was pretty satisfied with all of them.
I think we should keep escrow, but add buyer feedback. If you see someone has multiple "did not recieve" ratings then you don't sell to them. Or if you have over a certain number your account will automatically be suspended from buying.
On the issue of not being able to cash out and reup for a long time as a seller. Maybe for vendors with some reputation will receive some percentage of the btc as soon as the order is made, while the other half or whatever waits in escrow for completion. I think there are many ways the system could be improved, but escrow is one of SR's main selling points IMO and shouldn't be removed.
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On the issue of not being able to cash out and reup for a long time as a seller. Maybe for vendors with some reputation will receive some percentage of the btc as soon as the order is made, while the other half or whatever waits in escrow for completion. I think there are many ways the system could be improved, but escrow is one of SR's main selling points IMO and shouldn't be removed.
I agree, it shouldn't be removed completely. Positive feedback accumulated over X amount of time should be used to give proven vendors a break on the escrow system. X should be long enough to discourage short cons. It needs to be as streamlined as possible without linking buyer to vendor in a database.
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I agree, it shouldn't be removed completely. Positive feedback accumulated over X amount of time should be used to give proven vendors a break on the escrow system. X should be long enough to discourage short cons. It needs to be as streamlined as possible without linking buyer to vendor in a database.
That makes more sense. I was trying to round up more btc, and saw value had dropped again, and that is unfair to vendors who have to wait while their money looses value. I kind of like the idea of--if you've been here awhile--you could cut the escrow way down...or have a way where, if both parties are in agreement, drop it altogether...just because package doesn't arrive, doesn't always mean it's vendor, either...the setup I got, is kind of dicey at the moment, and if the vendors I deal with say they shipped it, I believe'em, and figure maybe it got nailed in route, or got ripped by one of my aces on location ;-)
I think if they came up with a plan where new vendors had to use the escrow until they'd gained a certain amount of points, and that new buyers should bid on memberships, or at least pay a certain fee, say one btc to join, that this would pretty much eliminate scammers. I'd have paid 1 btc in a hearbeat...same as if you're new to any scene, you got to play to pay...usual scene in neighborhoods I've been in...not sure why it was just aimed at new vendors...
Lately, after the downtime, and the publicity and all, and the serious ripoffs at BlackMarket, I think we're all a little nervey, and hopefully after a period of time, things will calm down again.
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I apologize to all the buyers over the weekend and that I will be issuing a refund to everyone. If you are still interested in the product, I will put them up again and please repeat the purchase with the correct amount of bitcoin. Thank you.
So you're the one. You cancelled all your orders because the BTC dropped?
That is scumbag move, bro. You should be ashamed.
And you should've been smart enough to figure potential fluctuations into your pricing if you can't afford it rising and falling.
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If the Seller cancels an order, and the USD value of BTC has changed by 10% or more from the original order, then the Buyer should be allowed to leave feedback.
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You know what I say ... Skip escrow all together and only ship when you get your money ! MONEY FIRST ! If you are legit then word will get around . -peace-
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I apologize to all the buyers over the weekend and that I will be issuing a refund to everyone. If you are still interested in the product, I will put them up again and please repeat the purchase with the correct amount of bitcoin. Thank you.
So you're the one. You cancelled all your orders because the BTC dropped?
That is scumbag move, bro. You should be ashamed.
And you should've been smart enough to figure potential fluctuations into your pricing if you can't afford it rising and falling.
Scumbag? This is business bro.....I'll make you a deal. How about you go buy a 700 bucks laptop and then sell it to me for 500 bucks. Do we have a deal? Thats what I thought! I do a good job taking care of my customers, professional pack the package and I actually went out and bought a thermal printer to make labels instead of hand written. Who the hell are you to call me a scumbag when you dont even want to go out there buy something and sell it at a lost. Welcome to the business world noob.
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Seller canceled my order. Dont see what the big deal is. No one wants to hustle for free. I could see a problem with canceling if there was only a small drop in btc value, but there was a sizable drop and seller would've lost a pretty penny.
BTW, is SR Market down for anyone else or is it just me ?
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That's nothing.
I got in at 30 BTC. If you are aware of the chart it didn't stay at that price long. Still went through with it though and didn't cancel. I am dollar cost averaging into this bitch regardless. Next time I trade hopefully the price will be this low still.
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Guys, we are trading drugs here, not PS3 games. Of course there is scam. The vendors should be prepared, and the buyers alert. Escrow make me calm and zen, since I know I have a failsafe device.
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Scumbag? This is business bro.....I'll make you a deal. How about you go buy a 700 bucks laptop and then sell it to me for 500 bucks. Do we have a deal? Thats what I thought! I do a good job taking care of my customers, professional pack the package and I actually went out and bought a thermal printer to make labels instead of hand written. Who the hell are you to call me a scumbag when you dont even want to go out there buy something and sell it at a lost. Welcome to the business world noob.
I'm a seller here, stupid, and my seller account # is in the 1100s. What's yours again? Who's the noob?
And my prices are set high enough to give me a buffer in case the BTC drops.
You should've been smart enough to do that as well, and taking out your lack of foresight on your customers is--YES--a scumbag move.
I hope everyone sees the shitty way you screwed your customers and takes their business elsewhere to vendors who have enough sense to set the prices right the first time.
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I let you win. I don't want to fight with Internet gangster. I rest my case.
Scumbag? This is business bro.....I'll make you a deal. How about you go buy a 700 bucks laptop and then sell it to me for 500 bucks. Do we have a deal? Thats what I thought! I do a good job taking care of my customers, professional pack the package and I actually went out and bought a thermal printer to make labels instead of hand written. Who the hell are you to call me a scumbag when you dont even want to go out there buy something and sell it at a lost. Welcome to the business world noob.
I'm a seller here, stupid, and my seller account # is in the 1100s. What's yours again? Who's the noob?
And my prices are set high enough to give me a buffer in case the BTC drops.
You should've been smart enough to do that as well, and taking out your lack of foresight on your customers is--YES--a scumbag move.
I hope everyone sees the shitty way you screwed your customers and takes their business elsewhere to vendors who have enough sense to set the prices right the first time.
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Wow. Most of my customers place an order on July 2 and because of the escrow service, I was unable to cash out the coins. I believe the coins was around 15.40 when they made the purchased. The current price is at 12.70. This is absurd! We seller takes alot of high risk and we are working for free! I believe it is best if escrow service release 50% of the funds immediately and the other 50% is release when the buyer confirms delivery. I had one purchased at 17 per btc and now when he finally released the coins it is now 12.7. WTF? are you serious? This is very bad business practice but hey!, there are no rules and regulation when it comes to these type of business right?
I apologize to all the buyers over the weekend and that I will be issuing a refund to everyone. If you are still interested in the product, I will put them up again and please repeat the purchase with the correct amount of bitcoin. Thank you.
And two days later after you posted this message they are OVER 15.4 so perhaps you were a little to quick on the trigger
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Those who think what he did was legit can buy through him and those who don't like it don't have to. That's the free market right there and this discussion has done a great job of illuminating the different opinions people have of this practice and this seller. I personally think that he absolutely has a right to cancel an order for that or any other reason while its processing. He's got the cancel button for a reason and that's if the sale cannot be made for any reason. That said, its not a move I like and if I knew that was going to happen to me, it would make me significantly less likely to buy.
I also think sellers shouldn't be scared of escrow. For the most part, BTC bounces back. As rake pointed out, its bounced back already. If you study the market charts, you find that a lot of the time big the dips occur when giant BTC transfer occur... as in, sellers cashing out.
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^ Seconded.
Also I have previously mentioned there are some mammoth miners from the old days sitting on literally 100,000's of USDs in BTC right now and they are looking for a chance to unload whenever they can. If the bid depth builds up enough you can bet they are moving large chunks of BTC into it, which is why the price seems to drop off pretty quickly when it happens.
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On other threads, we've been talking about a couple of ideas. I'm a buyer. I'd be o.k. with a couple of ideas:
One: You have an xtra button, next to finalize, you could click, 'lift escrow'. If you know seller, or he asks, and you trust him, you'd be doing him a solid, and he'd get paid immediate. If you have problems, you work them out. We seem to be doing pretty good with the opiate sellers, by having threads in these forums...most of'em come out looking pretty good, and when we buyers get panicky, as we did last week, talking to each other in open forums lets us know seller is coming thru, or going to make missing packages all right.
<or>
Two: Sellers who've been here a while, have a certain amount of points or something, would have recourse to having escrow lifted altogether. That way they wouldn't have to worry about btc fluctuation. It would be optional. Let the seller--and market--decide. On larger purchases, I'd still prefer escrow, but I"d have the choice of buying, from somebody else. It would also give new sellers an angle: they still have escrow, so it might be worthwhile to try them out...