Silk Road forums
Discussion => Security => Topic started by: hooooouse on September 14, 2012, 01:23 am
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"EARLY RELEASE/FINALIZE EARLY
Early Release is MANDATORY if you have less than 10 purchases on SR, greater than a 10% refund/auto-finalize rate, have been a member for less than 1 month on SR or have spent less than $1000. NO EXCEPTIONS!
We expect all buyers to leave a 5/5 feedback rating for finalize early purchases. Leaving anything less is unacceptable. If you have an issue with your order, PM us immediately so we can attempt to resolve the issue."
I am ordering from MarijuanaIsMyMuse (have ordered) and i'm wondering if this guy is legit or if this is suspicious? apparently i have to finalize early because i am a new member but everyone including "the Dread Pirate Roberts" says NOT to do this and to report it.
what to do..???
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I'm in the same boat.
I've noticed a lot of the higher ranked sellers almost want nothing to do with those new to SR; higher priced orders, FE, etc... It makes me wonder if it's worth the effort. I just keep wondering if my first order is going to be "lost in transit."
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Yea exactly. I feel like i will "happen" to be the one shipment that gets "lost". and then i won't be able to do anything about it because i finalized early..... anyone else have opinions to help us out??
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find a different vendor NEVER FINALIZE EARLY it is your only safety line and usually VS will give 50/50 unless you try to scam them and the vendors have proof you will lose every time so just be honest and pay your vendors but NEVER FINALIZE EARLY for anyone including me
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Simple. Make a couple small transactions with sellers who don't require anyone to FE. Once you get a couple transactions you can order pretty much anything without having to finalize early. I don't finalize early ever unless its an international order where there is no refund anyways and guess what? I've never been scammed!. Just cause you are new doesn't mean you should FE. Just means there isn't as much available to you yet.
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TBH, I didn't read your post, but I ike to pop into thread titled finalizing early to say
DON'T DO IT! :)
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I have already purchased the product and the status is processing atm. what should i do? it is only 2 BTC so should i just resume anyway while FEing?
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Thanks guys, I appreciate the advice.
I'll make sure to use vendors that do not require FE.
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In "feeling out" the whole SR thing, I decided (for godd or bad) to buy small purchases, and be willing to FE - but only for small amounts. Trust works both ways, but again, do small purchases. For me, it is taking some practice ordering these sort of things online anyway, so there is always a small benefit.
:)
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I do not request that anyone finalizes early... It's the only fair thing to do. I like escrow and can stand price flucuation.
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thats how it starts people buy 5-8 small orders from 1 vendor and say hey he is a great vendor then you make a very large order can BAM it never arrives and you now have no guarantee of even a 50/50 split
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thats how it starts people buy 5-8 small orders from 1 vendor and say hey he is a great vendor then you make a very large order can BAM it never arrives and you now have no guarantee of even a 50/50 split
This is what is giving me pause at the moment.
I have everything ready to go, just need to find the right vendor. I'm still worried, as I have no purchase history.
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what are you looking for
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"EARLY RELEASE/FINALIZE EARLY
Early Release is MANDATORY if you have less than 10 purchases on SR, greater than a 10% refund/auto-finalize rate, have been a member for less than 1 month on SR or have spent less than $1000. NO EXCEPTIONS!
We expect all buyers to leave a 5/5 feedback rating for finalize early purchases. Leaving anything less is unacceptable. If you have an issue with your order, PM us immediately so we can attempt to resolve the issue."
I am ordering from MarijuanaIsMyMuse (have ordered) and i'm wondering if this guy is legit or if this is suspicious? apparently i have to finalize early because i am a new member but everyone including "the Dread Pirate Roberts" says NOT to do this and to report it.
what to do..???
I just want to clear something up about the above post that may cause confusion for new users.
The above was taken directly from MarijuanaIsMyMuse's thread here: http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=32308.0
They are NOT the rules of Silk Road, they are MIMM's personal requirements.
Once a vendor has 35+ transactions and has been a member on Silk Road for more than a month they are allowed to ask buyers to FE (Finalize Early).
MarijuanaIsMyMuse meets those requirements.
There is no point in reporting it to SR Support as MarijuanaIsMyMuse is allowed to do this. New vendors with less than 35 transactions and less than a month on the road are not allowed to ask for FE.
The majority of us would recommend that all buyers stay within the safety of the escrow system; never go outside the escrow system unless you're willing to lose your money as you will have no recourse in the event of a problem with your order.
- grahamgreene
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OK as a new buyer I understood the risks of FE. I do like the escrow system and do think it is the safest way for a buyer to protect them selves. But as I start out I can see why some sellers would want me to FE as alot of new buyers have to prove them selves as well. The products that I wanted were for sale from trusted vendors( and I mean vendors selling for over 6 months with 95%+ feedback). So i placed orders after researching the forums to make sure that they feedback was still current and nobody seemed to have any current problems with them.During my vendor search i did come across different vendors that would allow me to stay within the escrow system and I had also made some purchases thru them. There were others that would allow me to stay in escrow but didn't use PGP so I passed on using them.To me it is all about risk/reward. As a buyer I understand that we are using shipping methods that are not 100% if I failed to get a shipment( which I have not so far) I would feel confidant that my research of the vendor was solid and that I just got unlucky. My system makes it very hard to purchase from new vendors as they would not meet my high standards. If they wanted to attract my business they would have to have something very special for a fairly good savings. If a newer Vendor asked me to FE early I would hesitate as trust goes both ways.
I consider
Price, Quality, Communication, Stealth of shipping, Forum activity (direct or indirect), Escrow,feedback,transaction history, size of transactions time as vendor.PGP usage
If asked to FE I look at all of the above factor(even for escrow purchases)and then make up my mind because I can`t be forced to FE just asked
If I were a seller I would want to protect my feedback from some noob that just opened an account wants bitcoins instantly and there product in 2-3 days
Hope this makes sense as i am just typing from personal experience and am Grateful to have a place like SR to come to and discuss and make these purchases!
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OK as a new buyer I understood the risks of FE. I do like the escrow system and do think it is the safest way for a buyer to protect them selves. But as I start out I can see why some sellers would want me to FE as alot of new buyers have to prove them selves as well. The products that I wanted were for sale from trusted vendors( and I mean vendors selling for over 6 months with 95%+ feedback). So i placed orders after researching the forums to make sure that they feedback was still current and nobody seemed to have any current problems with them.During my vendor search i did come across different vendors that would allow me to stay within the escrow system and I had also made some purchases thru them. There were others that would allow me to stay in escrow but didn't use PGP so I passed on using them.To me it is all about risk/reward. As a buyer I understand that we are using shipping methods that are not 100% if I failed to get a shipment( which I have not so far) I would feel confidant that my research of the vendor was solid and that I just got unlucky. My system makes it very hard to purchase from new vendors as they would not meet my high standards. If they wanted to attract my business they would have to have something very special for a fairly good savings. If a newer Vendor asked me to FE early I would hesitate as trust goes both ways.
I consider
Price, Quality, Communication, Stealth of shipping, Forum activity (direct or indirect), Escrow,feedback,transaction history, size of transactions time as vendor.PGP usage
If asked to FE I look at all of the above factor(even for escrow purchases)and then make up my mind because I can`t be forced to FE just asked
If I were a seller I would want to protect my feedback from some noob that just opened an account wants bitcoins instantly and there product in 2-3 days
Hope this makes sense as i am just typing from personal experience and am Grateful to have a place like SR to come to and discuss and make these purchases!
You're coming at this in exactly the right way, wsg! +1 for you!
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"EARLY RELEASE/FINALIZE EARLY
Early Release is MANDATORY if you have less than 10 purchases on SR, greater than a 10% refund/auto-finalize rate, have been a member for less than 1 month on SR or have spent less than $1000. NO EXCEPTIONS!
We expect all buyers to leave a 5/5 feedback rating for finalize early purchases. Leaving anything less is unacceptable. If you have an issue with your order, PM us immediately so we can attempt to resolve the issue."
I am ordering from MarijuanaIsMyMuse (have ordered) and i'm wondering if this guy is legit or if this is suspicious? apparently i have to finalize early because i am a new member but everyone including "the Dread Pirate Roberts" says NOT to do this and to report it.
what to do..???
I just want to clear something up about the above post that may cause confusion for new users.
The above was taken directly from MarijuanaIsMyMuse's thread here: http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=32308.0
They are NOT the rules of Silk Road, they are MIMM's personal requirements.
Once a vendor has 35+ transactions and has been a member on Silk Road for more than a month they are allowed to ask buyers to FE (Finalize Early).
MarijuanaIsMyMuse meets those requirements.
There is no point in reporting it to SR Support as MarijuanaIsMyMuse is allowed to do this. New vendors with less than 35 transactions and less than a month on the road are not allowed to ask for FE.
The majority of us would recommend that all buyers stay within the safety of the escrow system; never go outside the escrow system unless you're willing to lose your money as you will have no recourse in the event of a problem with your order.
- grahamgreene
Sorry to bump an old thread, but I just came across this. For the record, I don't like using FE and when I use my buyer account I will never order from a vendor that requires it. When I started a year ago I had no FE requirements, but sometime around February (while still having a full fe policy) my sales were increasing drastically, yet I was losing money. I started looking into why that was the case. As I was searching through my transaction history, resolution center filings and refunds, I started noticing something interesting. The orders being sent to buyers I'd worked with before continued to receive the packages, though the odd one would not make it. But the bulk of the refunds were from brand new buyers who had signed up after the media blitz at the beginning of the year and I was one of their first purchases. I believe that I am a trustworthy person and unfortunately I believe that everyone else is just as trustworthy, until I'm proven otherwise. It was pretty obvious where the problem was coming from and I'm not in the business of providing free drugs, getting scammed and losing money. Not a very profitable business model if you want to last.
So I implemented an FE policy that if you had less than 3 purchases, you had to FE. Then the lotteries came along and suddenly any new buyer can easily get a half dozen purchases and perfect stats and start scamming all over again. So I had to adjust it again. It's now been through a few different tweaks and the current policy works quite well. If you've been here a while (1 month), spent some cash ($1000), made some purchases (10+) and maintained your stats (<10% Refunds/AF) then I don't expect you to FE. You have proven yourself trustworthy to me and I hope you choose to trust me too. This is not to say that new buyers are untrustworthy. The majority of them will, in time, become trusted buyers in my eyes. Unfortunately, not all of them will, and I'm going to what I must to protect myself from them and their scamming ways. It sucks for the honest newbies out there, but with a total lack of buyer feedback on the site and the surge of new users looking for free this, that and the other thing, claiming orders didn't arrive, vendors need a way to protect themselves. And the top vendors are especially easy targets as they typically have great product, selection or both and people figure what's the big deal, 1 order out of the 500 they did this month. Unfortunately too many new buyers thing this way and suddenly it's not 1 out of 500, it's 10, or 20, or 30 or more. That starts to add up fast, especially if you consider the vendor is now out product, cash, material costs, shipping cost and many others. They get a fraction of the sale value back, less 4% for hedging, another 3-4.5% for laundering, .5-3% for cashing out bitcoins and additional charges for sending the money (4-6%) and possibly converting it to the local currency (2.5%). So from whatever rinky dink amount the vendor recieves, which probably doesn't even cover your costs, you lose another 20% or so on top of that. I've had 16 out of my last 500 orders not arrive, that 96% success, and only 4% seized (1 buyer in the last 10 months has received a love letter), misdelivered (bad/wrong address, shitty postal system), stolen or scammed. Personally I suspect over half of them were still from scammers, but I'm done dealing with buyers who threaten me, my feedback or best of all start troll posts with a new account and a single post. If you have a problem, take it up with me first. That would be the courteous way of doing business. If you decide to air it in public where I'm totally unaware of it and have no way of defending myself, I will do everything I can to make sure your actions are know to other vendors on the site so that they are protected from these scourges of our community
So, if you don't meet those requirements you need to FE. If you are an honest buyer and do your research you should be able to find reliable top vendors that will ship to you. True, most will probably require FE, but if you play by the rules and act accordingly, it won't be for long and you too can part of the trusted community and will not have to FE anymore. If you get to that point and vendors still require you to FE, I'd stay away from them.
Some vendors require FE for international orders. There is a bigger risk crossing borders and shipping times can relay delay your ability to get funds. For some vendors to keep operating and vend international, they need those buyers to FE too. It's usually to protect the vendor from customs seizure risks and keep escrow manageable. For a time I myself required FE for international buyers. I didn't want to make it my policy, but if I didn't before long I'd have no inventory and at one point over $70000 in escrow, In my case it was a cash flow thing and that makes it pretty hard to operate as a vendor. Ultimately, I made some adjustment to my operating model and was able to drop the FE requirement for international buyers.
Now it is true that I do request my international buyers to FE so I can free up the cash and keep up my inventory, but I am very clear that this is an FE request and not a requirement. Some do and some don't. I ship regardless. More often than not once they've made a few orders that have successfully arrived, and we've established a level of trust, FE is no longer an issue. So as a buyer, I want the protection of FE for my order and my money and as a vendor I want to protect myself from unscrupulous buyers. So for me, it's either new buyers must FE or I stop selling to new buyers and only take orders from established buyers. I don't see that as a good way of welcoming new members to this site.
I should also point out that I have been wrong in the past, and when that's been pointed out to me and I've been able to verify that yes, it was my fault, I have taken responsibility for the matter, worked hard to rectify the situation with the buyer, whatever it took, no matter the cost to myself. Yes, I'm here to make money, but I'm not here to screw people over. You may see some posts about me that say otherwise. I say use your head and be careful. Who are you going to believe the guy with the newb account and a bare handful of posts, all flaming the same vendor and making an ass of themselves or the vendor that acts reasonably, states the facts and lets the community decide for yourself. Of course their are scam vendors. FE scams are a big one and I'd keep my eye on vendors that shoot to the top in a matter of weeks or a few short months. It's taken me 10 months to reach the top 2%, and it's all been built slowly and methodically, learning what works first in one area (weed), then expanding into meth, ecstasy pills, mdma and a few others I have on hand to get listed up once I get caught up on orders and messages (Hint: 2 new types of pills, and some breaKfast cereal). I've made mistakes along the way, they've cost me time and money, I've lost 1000's to scammers, and had my vendor feedback plunge for a while. But each time I learned a little something more, persevered and gotten a leaner running efficient operation. If you doubt my integrity, check the meth review thread and search MiMM's mystery meth. Got a bad batch, had no idea and started shipping it out. Tons of poor feedback, refunds galore and a terrible rep. What did I do about it? Sourced a new supplier, implemented a testing program, the results of which are posted with pretty much every listing I have and reshipped in full to all buyers affected, even if they had already received a refund. Cost me about 4 oz of product and a ton of shipping costs. I've heard many vendors make promises like that, only to disappear shortly thereafter. I know of only 2 vendors (myself included) that have said they will do this and followed through. We're both top vendors now. As for the demand for 5/5 feedback, I feel it's deserved. Also, did you know you don't have to leave feedback when you finalize? When you finalize just hit the "Silk Road" symbol in the upper left and it will exit you without requiring feedback. When you get the package, click (on SR) "account" then "view feedback" and EDIT your feedback to reflect your experience with the shipping, communication with the vendor, and the quality of the product. So if you don't like leaving 5/5 when you FE, simply leave nothing. Vendor get's their coins, feedback isn't affected and when the order does or does not) arrive, then contact the vendor and if they are unwilling to do anything about it, go ahead and change the feedback. Just be sure to contact the vendor first and give them time to respond, most are very busy. If that doesn't work, then by all means change the feedback. But changing feedback before contacting the vendor and giving them a chance to address the issue is poor form. I, like many other reputable vendors work extremely hard to keep our feedback ratings as high as possible as that is something that any serious buyer is going to consider. And a poor feedback score has an immediate impact on a vendors rating. And many buyers show up, make a purchase and never show up again. How is a vendor to address that and resolve it to the buyers satisfaction? And the feedback formula is not a simple average of all feedback scores receives. It's weighted on many points. New transactions are weighted more than older transactions, transaction size/dollar value is factored in (5/5 on a $2 item is a lot different than 5/5 on a $2000 item. The number of purchases and amount spent by a buyer factors in as well. New buyers with no transactions leaving a 5.5 for their first purchase means far less than a 5/5 left by someone with hundreds of purchases and thousands of dollars spent, Lastly the feedback score you leave for a vendor is compared against the feedback scores you leave for other vendors. If you usually leave a 5/5 rating and suddenly leave a 3/5, it will be weighed more heavily. It's a complex calculation (see SR Wiki - http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/wiki/index.php/Feedback_Score).
Also something that this post fails to mention is that along with my Early Release/Finalize Early policy, I also have a refund policy. And guess what? It covers buyers who have finalized early and don't have the option of using the Resolution Center. For new buyers, if they don't receive their order, and that they are also new and unknown to the community, I still like giving them the benefit of the doubt and provide a 25% refund. It's better than nothing, I don;t know if they are trying to scam me or not, but if they're not at least they get something back and not left with absolutely nothing for their efforts. And I can mitigate my losses and break even. And if an established buyer FE's for me and their order doesn't show, I'll refund them 50%. They trusted me enough to FE, I'll trust them that it didn't arrive, based on their past history on the site. Of course I won't refund right away, they must wait until at least 30 days from when I shipped (same as my buyers in the Resolution Center). If it's not their after 30 days and they can provide a copy of their transaction record (found under account history on the account page), I'll give them a refund. If they don't have their transaction record, they can contact Vendor Support to get a copy. Of course if it becomes an ongoing thing, I just won't sell to them anymore, their too high risk.
Keep in mind that SR is a dynamic community that's evolving at the speed of thought. There have been a ton of changes and hoards of new buyers and vendors. Things will change again and when they do, you need to adapt with it or it will cost you. Maybe it will be money, maybe it will be product, or maybe you'll just give up.
Myself, I'm not a quitter. I love this site, I love what I can do on it and hope to stay until it's no longer advisable to do so.
Anyways, that's enough for now, I must have some orders to process. That's they way I operate, that's the way I run my shop and I expect buyers to respect that and do the same. If you don't like it there are hundreds of other vendors on the site who may operate more to your way of liking.
Be careful, do your research before purchasing and if it's too good to be true, be especially careful.
MJMuse