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6,768 Posts
There seems to have been a rash of bad transactions lately. On numerous occasions, people have contacted me privately and asked my opinion on sellers, buyers and just the value of deals in general, I guess because I've been in this community a long time. I appreciate that people value my opinion and laude them for doing their homework. Recently, based on my own positive dealings with sellers and my observation of thier behaviour and how long they've been around, I "endorsed" a couple of "deals". However, in the future, I am going to be quite leary of giving any such recommendations because these two friends wound up terribly disappointed and I feel partly responsible.
Instead, here is some generic advice....
Customer service consultants would explain that statistically across all consumers and markets, for every one customer who complains, there are 26 customers that had a similar problem but said nothing, and at least 6 of those were actually more severe than the one who complained. Take this section as a statistic and nothing more. Don't try to read into who, what or why and try to villify either party. A transaction took place, buyer or seller was unhappy. Statistically you are going to be somewhere between number 2 and 26.
Since almost nobody here is actually trying to make a "business" of selling supra parts, then assume that "all sales are final". Most of these parts are barely worth the cost of shipping one-way, let alone shipping them back, especially if they are defective. That means unless you are able to physically inspect the parts, don't send any individual any more money than you can afford to put down on the Craps table at the Luxor.
Remember that photos are not comprehensive and can be deceiving. Its not necessarily that the seller is intentionally hiding something, but rather, you may be so excited about the new performance part that you "see" what you "want to see" in some dark and grainy photo. Descriptions are not always good either and you may "hear" what you "want to hear".
If a deal goes south, and reasonable efforts to resolve fall short, then post a quick "Parts not as represented. Unable to resolve. Seller not recommended." There's really no sense in posting a whole discourse in this section. If I read that somebody got a bad deal from you, I don't give a shit what the circumstances were, you're "Walmart" to me now, buddy.
Likewise if a buyer gives you shit, you can feel free to post a response. Just realize that a buyer is negotiating with money. It really doesn't matter if he sends you a twenty dollar bill that that he left in the pocket of his jeans and it went through the washing machine, its still a twenty dollar bill regardless what condition its in. Unless I see posted a "no pay" situation or a pattern of negativity, if I've got something to sell, I'm likely to go ahead and take the guy's money. Now if I've got two buyers, then I might take the one with positive feedback regardless he wasn't first to respond, but thats about the weight of it.
Don't try to use posts in this section as "leverage" to try to weasel your money back. It always turns into a long, drawn-out, he-said, she-said. God how I hate to see these things always right at the top of the "recent posts". It really gives a negative impression of our forum. To me, anything that comes after sounds like "whining" and I will likely strike BOTH of you off my "approved buyers/sellers" list.
And importantly, particularly for sellers, if you get a GOOD deal, post positive feedback. I've been around the mk2 community long enough to have seen where somebody in particular had some problems once upon a time and got a bad rep, stuck it out here, gradually got back in good graces through just posting friendly, helpful and informative posts, eventually somebody took a chance on him again, posted positive feedback, eventually more positive feedback. Now he sells lots of stuff and most of you are too new to even know who I'm talking about it was so long ago and don't need to know because its irrelevant now.
Mods, please move if you'd rather this be in the suggestions or chat sections.
Instead, here is some generic advice....
Customer service consultants would explain that statistically across all consumers and markets, for every one customer who complains, there are 26 customers that had a similar problem but said nothing, and at least 6 of those were actually more severe than the one who complained. Take this section as a statistic and nothing more. Don't try to read into who, what or why and try to villify either party. A transaction took place, buyer or seller was unhappy. Statistically you are going to be somewhere between number 2 and 26.
Since almost nobody here is actually trying to make a "business" of selling supra parts, then assume that "all sales are final". Most of these parts are barely worth the cost of shipping one-way, let alone shipping them back, especially if they are defective. That means unless you are able to physically inspect the parts, don't send any individual any more money than you can afford to put down on the Craps table at the Luxor.
Remember that photos are not comprehensive and can be deceiving. Its not necessarily that the seller is intentionally hiding something, but rather, you may be so excited about the new performance part that you "see" what you "want to see" in some dark and grainy photo. Descriptions are not always good either and you may "hear" what you "want to hear".
If a deal goes south, and reasonable efforts to resolve fall short, then post a quick "Parts not as represented. Unable to resolve. Seller not recommended." There's really no sense in posting a whole discourse in this section. If I read that somebody got a bad deal from you, I don't give a shit what the circumstances were, you're "Walmart" to me now, buddy.
Likewise if a buyer gives you shit, you can feel free to post a response. Just realize that a buyer is negotiating with money. It really doesn't matter if he sends you a twenty dollar bill that that he left in the pocket of his jeans and it went through the washing machine, its still a twenty dollar bill regardless what condition its in. Unless I see posted a "no pay" situation or a pattern of negativity, if I've got something to sell, I'm likely to go ahead and take the guy's money. Now if I've got two buyers, then I might take the one with positive feedback regardless he wasn't first to respond, but thats about the weight of it.
Don't try to use posts in this section as "leverage" to try to weasel your money back. It always turns into a long, drawn-out, he-said, she-said. God how I hate to see these things always right at the top of the "recent posts". It really gives a negative impression of our forum. To me, anything that comes after sounds like "whining" and I will likely strike BOTH of you off my "approved buyers/sellers" list.
And importantly, particularly for sellers, if you get a GOOD deal, post positive feedback. I've been around the mk2 community long enough to have seen where somebody in particular had some problems once upon a time and got a bad rep, stuck it out here, gradually got back in good graces through just posting friendly, helpful and informative posts, eventually somebody took a chance on him again, posted positive feedback, eventually more positive feedback. Now he sells lots of stuff and most of you are too new to even know who I'm talking about it was so long ago and don't need to know because its irrelevant now.
Mods, please move if you'd rather this be in the suggestions or chat sections.
