Silk Road forums
Discussion => Silk Road discussion => Topic started by: Bovine Brigadier on June 21, 2012, 12:43 am
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I have been traveling along the road for about 4 months now and thought I would post a little of my experiences to help other SR newbies. I have only just signed up a forum account, but I have been lurking and reading the forums since about 2 weeks before my first purchase. I have found the forums a valuable resource for using SR so thought I would contribute. For the vendors I have already had dealings with I will work my way back through my purchases and write a little thankyou/review in their vendor threads (better late than never).
I am essentially an end user of products I purchase here, rather than someone who resells locally or through other channels; the advice I offer is probably only relevant to people buying end user quantities. I have now hit 15 successful purchases with 0% refund and 0% auto-finalise. In doing this I have only finalised early once and that one time was voluntary because he/she seemed a good guy/girl just starting out from communication with the vendor and I read good reviews here on the forums and on their feedback page. So for all you newbies out there it is possible to hit the magic 10 purchases most established vendors require in order for you to use escrow without early finalisation. I have only really had 2 problem orders so far, firstly one I suspect got lost in transit but vendor sent full reship and provided great customer service. The second problem order that never arrived from a new vendor; SR staff provided a full refund, I am still holding out hope that it will be on my doorstep one day in which case I will happily pay the vendor. For some reason this did not effect my refund % which I am very grateful for as I am an honest person and value my feedback, I suspect the reason this did not effect my feedback was either because the vendor was AWOL when I requested a time extension or because there were many outstanding resolutions and no-arrival feedback when admin came to deal with it.
I will now give some pointers on how I managed to get to the magic 10 purchases in escrow from my experiences of doing it. Firstly a special hat tip to Anarcho47 (I will be back at some point just so much tempting stuff on SR) who at the time of my first purchases put up a special newbie listing that circumvented his usual escrow policy despite being a very well established vendor and not needing to take such a risk. Start small especially with your very first purchases as until you or someone you know in real life has had a successful purchase from here for all you know this is one massive well thought out elaborate scam. Vendors are more willing to take a risk on lower value item and are more likely to be happy dealing in escrow, also once you have had a successful transaction with them they are happier to deal in bigger amounts with you in escrow. It is very tempting to buy several months supply of your chosen poison due to the monetary and effort saving and I would add that this works out fine in the majority of cases however as a newbie you will probably have to risk FE. I however take the attitude that I should make smaller order of say a weekend's worth of product to check that I am happy with the product and packaging before placing a bigger order on top of the escrow reasons. While I advise making smaller purchases at first they need to be for a significant enough amount, you WILL look more like a scammer with 20 0.20 BTC digital or lotto purchases than with 0 purchases. To echo what many have said before don't spend more than you are willing to risk losing.
Always read all of the listing page and the vendor's page before placing and order it is also worth looking them up on the forums. This will give you a good idea of what to expect from the vendor and what they will expect from you. Some vendors like a message or two before doing business however most hate inane messages and you can often tell which category the vendor falls into by reading their page. Remember that vendors want to do smooth efficient business and want your money. You will have to hunt around to find vendors willing to deal with newbies in escrow because of scammers ruining it for us genuine users. Some vendors will circumvent their usual escrow rules for small quantities if you mail them you can often tell if this is the case by reading between the lines on their vendor page. New and not yet established vendors need feedback as much as you do and are often willing to deal in escrow. Now this goes somewhat against the normal newbie advice which usually says deal with established vendors; again by reading their vendor and product page you can often spot a scammer or unprofessional vendor and avoid them. I also take the attitude that if the vender is offering the right product at the right price then I will not be the only one taking a punt on it so if I stay in escrow if it comes to resolution by that time if they are a scammer there will be bad feedback and several open resolutions and in that case who are the SR admins likely to side with?
In my experience despite vendors saying you have to FE unless you x amount (usually the magic 10) of purchases you have to FE. Once you have a few purchases under your belt but have not quite hit x amount if you mail the vendor saying you have had successful purchases maybe with some details and are only happy dealing in escrow is that OK most will say yes if the request is reasonable (it will not work if you have made 5 $20 purchases and want to order $500 worth). Don't send rude or argumentative mails to vendors of your product is taking a few days longer to arrive than you expected chances are it is the fault of the post service. Only mail the vendor that your product hasn't arrived after giving it a reasonable amount of time and have then waited another few days. Most vendors appreciate a polite mail a day or 2 before you put it into resolution if it comes to it explaining your product has not arrived and you will need to put it into resolution to keep your money in escrow. Remember that behind every nick name are human beings who don't appreciate being insulted or people being rude to them and can make mistakes. If mistakes are made it is not the mistake that you should judge someone by but how they fix it.
Hope this helps someone or encourages someone who has been lurking to take the plunge and make their first purchase.
TLDR: probably not worth reading unless you are new
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newbie here, grateful for the article. now i just need tips on dealing with the paranoia.
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newbie here, grateful for the article. now i just need tips on dealing with the paranoia.
Order Xanax.
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newbie here, grateful for the article. now i just need tips on dealing with the paranoia.
Order Xanax.
I smirked out loud -- well played ;)
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More great advice. Thanks Bovine Brigadier! :)
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Cheers for the article; I'm new so it was useful to me.
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Bovine Brigadier
Newbie
Your member status disagrees. :P