How can we stop all the Bad Business Practices and Transactions on this forum!!!!!!!

[manwon]

I know for certain that everyone is totally tired of all the Bashing threads. I also know that everyone must be getting tired of all the bad transactions and shady business practices that we are reading about every day.

DISCLAIMER THIS IS NOT A BASHING THREAD, PLEASE DO NOT BRING THAT $HIT HERE. THIS THREAD IS DESIGNED TO BRAIN STORM THESE PROBLEMS AND FIND A SOLUTION THAT IS FAIR, AND SERVES THE ENTIRE COMMUNITY.

Here is my plan, elect a group of trusted members at least three, maybe more. These individuals would decide and make decisions concerning buyer and seller transactions here on the forum that have gone bad. The rules would be very simple two bad transactions and your buyer and seller privileges would be revoked for a year. After that year if the individual has additional problems that are deemed their fault concerning buying and selling they would permanently lose their privileges on this forum.

My solution would need the support or the forum Moderator's, and at least three trusted members of this community. If they agreed they could be voted in a position as a judge, by simply starting a pole thread and allowing the forum members to elect them to this position.

The following are offenses that could make a person lose their privilege to buy and sell here on AZ Billiards, if approved by the site leaders, and if the membership think this would help over all.

1) Failure to ship items after payment has been made, within a reasonable time frame of one week.

2) Failure to intentionally disclose problems with items sold, and not allowing items to be inspected by the buyer. Buyers should have the opportunity to inspect any items bought and to return the item to the seller if not satisfied. This must be done within one week of the items arrival to the buyer.

3) Failure to meet the agreements that are set between the buyer and the seller. These agreements must be through the PM system here on the forum. In addition it is the buyers and sellers responsibility to produce this agreement through Pm if the obligations are not met by the buyer or seller.
This would also cover agreements between cue makers and their customers. If items promised are not delivered with a reasonable time (1 month of the delivery date) or communication has not been made, or a new agreement has been made that the buyer and seller agree to, a full refund of any money paid in advance must be returned without question.

I think this system would solve a number of problems that have been occurring on this forum. Please feel free to add additional information to the above. Something needs to be done, the above is only a suggestion, however, it would work and I think it would solve many of the problems we are having.

Please vote in the pole above whether you post in this thread or not.

Thanks for your comments in advance!!

 

[JB Cases]

That would make AZ a responsible party to transactions. When there is a dispute as to terms and who said what and AZ restricts a person's ability to conduct business while allowing others then they are effectively putting them selves in a position to incur some liability for their actions.

Basically the RULE is is CYA - Cover Your Ass. If you don't KNOW someone then ask. If you don't like the terms of the deal then change them to suit you or walk away from the purchase.

AZ is like Craig's list or the classifieds in the newspaper - except BETTER because you can ASK the community about ANY seller and any ITEM up for sale. Neither Craigslist nor the newspaper takes ANY responsibility or administration of who can list items for sale.

And who is going to be on this committee? Who will volunteer so much time to adminstering and deciding who is right and who is not? And what happens if you ban someone and it turns out that they were in the right?

Not that this is likely to happen but it could.

It's caveat emptor in situations like this. Buyer beware. There is a reason that 95% of the world's commerce is done IN PERSON. When the deal is not done in person then both the buyer and the seller have to take extra measures to protect their end.

Having an AZ tribunal is not a good solution in my opinion. Having a community rating system with automatic bans might however be a method - a'la Ebay's.

I am all for someething on the order of red rep equaling banning. If rep is to mean anything at all then it should incur a penalty if you get red repped. enough. Of course there needs to be protection against idiots but something along these lines is more what I'd like to see.

 

[MasterClass]

If a committee with a approval of the owners of this forum could be formed here, i think it would be great.

Committee formed by people who are knowledgeable in cues, well respected. And spends much of their time here without needing much encouragement. Like me! except i am lacking in the first 2 virtues.

What these people can do for the community would be, Set up an official escrow service. Service that carries a modest fee. But if someone insist on doing a deal without going through this service would forfeit the right to post any ranting thread about it should the deal go sour.

Offer comments and appraisal for cues.

Officiate raffle or maybe set rules for them? I am really not a fan or supporter of raffles but it seems to be becoming a popular way to sell a cue.

That all i can think of for now.

 

[cigjonser]

People could always use an escrow service.

 

[MattS]

If sombody is planning on steeling from the members, they can continualy do so by making new accounts. I am guessing if they were computer savy they could do it easily? Contrary to Amercas stupidist criminals, con men are generaly NOT stupid. In my first post here at AZ I suggested the Mods do a third party service. Since they have not done that I assume they are not interested in it. Thats fine and none of my buisiness anyways. However a 3rd party is the only answer. Its just like posting up the $ before you play. Manwon gave his opinion on it and said it would take sombody with the proper eqiupment and knowelege to to accuratley do this. I partly disagree. Yes it would be helpfull but at a minimum a 3rd party would make sure the seller gets his $ and the buyer gets his cue. I have another suggestion. If the 3rd party was to hold the $ for a couple of days for the buyer to inspect the cue and then send the $, both parties would be happy. What this would accomplish is the buyer would have to be perfecty honest and upfront with the condition of the cue or else he/she would not get paid. If you want to form a comitee then form one and make them all 3rd party guys. Manwon could be the comitee chair person. Everything would be insurred and have tracking and costs could be nagotiated by the buyer and seller and the 3rd party guy could charge a small fee. If this service was formed here at AZB and a seller didnt agree to it then he would have bad intetions and nobody should buy from that seller. It could be a mandatory rule that any product sold here at AZB that cost $250 or more be required to use a 3rd party or they may not sell it here.

 

[MattS]

Ok now here is my idea for the cue makers. Any cue that has been ordered from a cuemaker could be posted in a sticky for each cue maker. The post would show when the cue was ordered and when it is to be completed. If desired they could add the cost and description of the cue.
That way if sombody wanted to order a cue from Joe cuemaker they could look on his personal sticky and see how many pending AZB orders he has and if the have been delivered or at least check the status. A potential buyer could also PM the se buyere that are on the sticky as refrences. Any unsuspecting customer could just look on the sticky and have a real good idea what they are getting into. THIS WOULD MAKE THE CUEMAKER ACCOUNTABLE and it would be documented.

 

[NateSchoepf]

It would be nice for something like what is mentioned above but I feel that myself and some or many others feel that a 3rd party would slow down many honest transactions as well as add a little cost. I know on higher dollar amount deals I do worry a little, but it would be nice to see some kind of way to get rid of the many bad transactions that are occuring.

 

[Fast Lenny]

It would be cool to see a middleman on some of the transactions where someone is new and you dont want to send them money.For the guys with lots of greenies and iTrader I feel there is less worry. :smile:

 

[stikapos]

2) Failure to intentionally disclose problems with items sold, and not allowing items to be inspected by the buyer. Buyers should have the opportunity to inspect any items bought and to return the item to the seller if not satisfied. This must be done within one week of the items arrival to the buyer.

Gee, sounds eerily familar to me! These policies make a lot of sense. There are just too many here that do not observe these common sense policies at a minimum.

tim

 

[Gregg]

Manwon, will YOU be one of these three people be to take on this thankless job to decide and make decisions concerning buyer and seller transactions here on the forum that have gone bad. The rules would be very simple two bad transactions and your buyer and seller privileges would be revoked for a year. After that year if the individual has additional problems that are deemed their fault concerning buying and selling they would permanently lose their privileges on this forum.

If not you, then who do you propose? Furthermore, will you be banning, third party, people who have disutes about cue straightness, dings in cue butts, reasonable shipping time frames, etc?

All I'm saying is...these are nice thoughts, but good luck.

 

[Hierovision]

I definitely believe it COULD work. I don't believe it will ever get started for two big reasons.
1. If I had to bet, I would say the mods will not enforce this.
2. I'm 99% sure you will NOT get 3 or even 1 person willing to act as judge who would be worthy of the position. Those who are worthy have the values and common sense to realize all the grief that comes with such a position. It would take a convincing speach about the common good of the forum to get even 1 person to agree.

As others have said, good luck.

 

[CocoboloCowboy]

Question was: "How can we stop all the Bad Business Practices and Transactions on this forum!!!!!!! "

IMPOSSIBLE like stoping all Crime in the USA.

Good NEWS is most on this Forum are honorable to deal with... AKA good People like the world.

Just a few BAD APPLES.

 

[stikapos]

The real deal is that if these standards are established, there will be no argument over the rating system resulting from transactions. You either follow the practices, or you get a negative. No more, oh gee whiz, I can dance to it so I'll give it a seven....

tim

 

[BRKNRUN]

Nice try at an idea, but I stopped reading after this line.

Here is my plan, elect a group of trusted members at least three, maybe more. These individuals would decide and make decisions concerning buyer and seller transactions here on the forum that have gone bad.

It did not make any sense to continue... I am going to allow pool players I don't know elect a pool player I don't know to a position that allows them make decisions about my buying and selling transactions???

NOT!!!

It seems it would be much easier to have some sort of transaction feedback where a buyer/seller can add notes about a transaction that gets attached so that other can review for reference before deciding if they want to enter into a transaction... (just like ebay)

I am sure that is not perfect, but I doubt anything is 100%....If someone is going to try and rip you off, they are going to find a way to do it.

Just out of sheer curiosity....Once elected...who controls this board from running a muck and damaging who they want just for the sake of damaging???

For some reason......not right away maybe...but down the road...I see this ending up being morphed into....We control the buying and selling...If you want good rep to be able to sell your crap...you gotta pay us off...if you don't we will "virtually" bury your nick in the desert somewhere...


EDIT: I also am a member of a different type of forum that also does buying and selling of all kinds of various related items. They never seem to have any of these types of problems...

They only have a few rules:

You must be a member in good standing
You must have a minumum of 50 posts before you are allowed to buy/sell
You must clearly list a item and value ($$) for that item

If the above is not met the post gets edited by a mod for notification that they do not meet the above requirements.

This forum regularly has over 2000 visitors. at any given time.
There are currently 1542 members and 553 guests on the boards. | Most users ever online was 3106 on 03/10/2008 at 07:21 PM

They don't seem to have problems.

 

[cueandcushion]

I just believe that no one wants to get involved "after the fact" in some transaction that went bad. For no money. Either its so bad we move all the sale transactions to EBAY ( they have PayPal insurance for all the nonsense) and let AZB stay out of it, or leave it as it is. Too many guys on here WANT to avoid Ebay just to not pay seller fees or % to PayPal. Get over it. It's business. There are always expenses. I don't LIKE paying 25 permit fees just on my candy machines/ jukebox/ billiard tables/ etc to my local city but I do it. I don't LIKE paying the the Firefighters Fund/ local Aldermans fundraiser....but I do it. If I don't, it means trouble. If you are selling cues for a living or just as a hobby there will be expenses, there will be problems, there will be arguments, there will be drama. Your customers are POOL PLAYERS! Of course there is going to be arguments over cues. Of course YOU are in the right 100% of the time and the other guys is *7%$3)@$%&*. We all know that. AZB has lost some of it luster to me because of this juvenile direction some member are taking with public bashing and arguing. Wish it went back to the old days. :frown:


EDIT: All this rambling and I forgot to add MY idea. Craigslist has a [report this posting] button on every listing. After a "X" number of violations depending on the category a posting gets deleted. I wonder if its possible to do that to threads and have them locked or deleted after 15 members (or some random number) click on the [report] button??

 

[manwon]

That would make AZ a responsible party to transactions. When there is a dispute as to terms and who said what and AZ restricts a person's ability to conduct business while allowing others then they are effectively putting them selves in a position to incur some liability for their actions.

Basically the RULE is is CYA - Cover Your Ass. If you don't KNOW someone then ask. If you don't like the terms of the deal then change them to suit you or walk away from the purchase.

AZ is like Craig's list or the classifieds in the newspaper - except BETTER because you can ASK the community about ANY seller and any ITEM up for sale. Neither Craigslist nor the newspaper takes ANY responsibility or administration of who can list items for sale.

And who is going to be on this committee? Who will volunteer so much time to adminstering and deciding who is right and who is not? And what happens if you ban someone and it turns out that they were in the right?

Not that this is likely to happen but it could.

It's caveat emptor in situations like this. Buyer beware. There is a reason that 95% of the world's commerce is done IN PERSON. When the deal is not done in person then both the buyer and the seller have to take extra measures to protect their end.

Having an AZ tribunal is not a good solution in my opinion. Having a community rating system with automatic bans might however be a method - a'la Ebay's.

I am all for someething on the order of red rep equaling banning. If rep is to mean anything at all then it should incur a penalty if you get red repped. enough. Of course there needs to be protection against idiots but something along these lines is more what I'd like to see.

Thanks for your comments John, but Caveat Emptor is not the answer either, it fact it is the problem. The new members are the one's who are preyed upon the most, and do to the current systems that are in place they have no real protection.

Oh and by the way, I like your Avatar!!!:smile:

 

[JoeW]

How about:
1. You must register with the Forum including, name address, phone, SSN, bank account or something that police can trace such as photo ID on your license
2. You must have 50+ posts before selling.
3. You must offer 30 day return on anything not made to specs. PayPal or something similar can be required.
4. You are banned from the forum and info is turned over to the police when a serious complaint is made.
5. All sellers are rated by consumers in a separate thread that can be viewed by all users. Consumer's forum ID is part of the post for potential PMs by any new user.

Some set of rules known to all that will involve police referral for fraudulent behavior and / or release of personal information to a consumer who feels that a legal redress is needed. A user sub-forum that requests all users to rate all sellers with whom they have had a transaction. All sellers agree to this policy before offerring anything for sale.


Applications to sell can be submitted and may or not be accepted at the Operator's discretion. Seller and all cosumers agree that AZB is not liable for anything and only attempts to offer moderate assistance with problems. Of course this needs to be run by a lawyer first.

All sellers must have Photo ID as their avatar and full contact information in the User panel.

 

[manwon]

If sombody is planning on steeling from the members, they can continualy do so by making new accounts. I am guessing if they were computer savy they could do it easily? Contrary to Amercas stupidist criminals, con men are generaly NOT stupid. In my first post here at AZ I suggested the Mods do a third party service. Since they have not done that I assume they are not interested in it. Thats fine and none of my buisiness anyways. However a 3rd party is the only answer. Its just like posting up the $ before you play. Manwon gave his opinion on it and said it would take sombody with the proper eqiupment and knowelege to to accuratley do this. I partly disagree. Yes it would be helpfull but at a minimum a 3rd party would make sure the seller gets his $ and the buyer gets his cue. I have another suggestion. If the 3rd party was to hold the $ for a couple of days for the buyer to inspect the cue and then send the $, both parties would be happy. What this would accomplish is the buyer would have to be perfecty honest and upfront with the condition of the cue or else he/she would not get paid. If you want to form a comitee then form one and make them all 3rd party guys. Manwon could be the comitee chair person. Everything would be insurred and have tracking and costs could be nagotiated by the buyer and seller and the 3rd party guy could charge a small fee. If this service was formed here at AZB and a seller didnt agree to it then he would have bad intetions and nobody should buy from that seller. It could be a mandatory rule that any product sold here at AZB that cost $250 or more be required to use a 3rd party or they may not sell it here.

Thanks for your thoughts on this subject. But, the fix that I proposed is suppose to be a simple one, by adding the responsibility of control funds it would not work. By simply taking someone ability to buy and sell away many would act differently in their dealings with others. In any event this would not create any additional problems or work for the forum leadership / the forum owner.

Simple is best from all angles and for all forms of perception!!!!

 

[ratnip]

How can we stop all the Bad Business Practices and Transactions on this forum!!!!!!!

Quit engaging in transactions on Az...use sources other than Az that have a "judicial" system for bad transactions set up already!

Just a thought

 

[manwon]

Manwon, will YOU be one of these three people be to take on this thankless job to decide and make decisions concerning buyer and seller transactions here on the forum that have gone bad. The rules would be very simple two bad transactions and your buyer and seller privileges would be revoked for a year. After that year if the individual has additional problems that are deemed their fault concerning buying and selling they would permanently lose their privileges on this forum.

If not you, then who do you propose? Furthermore, will you be banning, third party, people who have disutes about cue straightness, dings in cue butts, reasonable shipping time frames, etc?

All I'm saying is...these are nice thoughts, but good luck.

For picking the individuals to over see this we could have a nomination thread. This way the entire forum could nominate people that they thought were trust worthy. Then members who were nominated could agree or decline their nomination. For those who agree a poll thread could be started with up to 10 names and the entire forum could again vote for those they feel are trust worthy. Then 3 or 4 of the members selected with the most votes could serve in that position for a 1 year term. Then after a single year a new selection process would begin all over again, to select new people for the position or to keep the current members active if all agree.