Silk Road forums

Discussion => Silk Road discussion => Topic started by: rekline on February 28, 2012, 03:11 pm

Title: Finalizing early for new buyers
Post by: rekline on February 28, 2012, 03:11 pm
Hi, I was wondering what the general opinion is (and especially the opinion of the SR creators) of sellers requesting new buyers to finalize early, curtailing the escrow system.  It seems to me that the creators of silk road want the escrow system to apply to everyone.  Whereas some sellers see escrow as a privilege for buyers with established feedback. I understand the rationale behind it, new buyers are more likely to scam and refuse payment than established buyers with a good reputation.  When buying from a reputable vendor I'm not too worried about finalizing early if its requested.  However, I recently made my third purchase and the seller asked me to finalize early, unfortunately the seller was new as well.  Had it been a common product with many sellers I would have found a well established seller.  However, this product was only being sold by one seller.  Pleasure seeking and drug use often over rule logic and I decided to finalize early anyway.  Although I trust the guy, I am a bit worried.  How do you all feel about the idea that "new sellers must finalize early/escrow is a privilege for established buyers only"?  What if the seller requesting you to finalize early is new himself?
Title: Re: Finalizing early for new buyers
Post by: cache on February 28, 2012, 03:14 pm
I wont, for anything.

It depends on how willing you are to risk losing that money. It's your choice ultimately but if everybody stops agreeing to do it then the vendors will stop requiring it.
Title: Re: Finalizing early for new buyers
Post by: BenJesuit on February 28, 2012, 03:39 pm
Exactly as cache said.

Consider that a seller who is well financed and is serious about being a vendor won't require you to finalize early. But do finalize on receipt and not after you have sampled the product days later.

If a new seller requires people to finalize early, it could mean that it's a scam, or he doesn't have the product on hand and is using your money to go get it, or he worried about being scammed (listed in order of likelihood).
Title: Re: Finalizing early for new buyers
Post by: rekline on February 28, 2012, 06:17 pm
Good point cache.  Resistance through non compliance.  Works for governments on a large scale, should work for SR too.
Title: Re: Finalizing early for new buyers
Post by: BenJesuit on February 28, 2012, 06:28 pm
Only problem is, there are far too many who finalize early. Even with trusted sellers. You even see it in the feedback as "finalized early for a trusted vendor." They seem to do it out of respect. Though they don't realize that anything can happen to a trusted vendor at anytime. The best thing to do is to finalize on delivery.

About once a week or so you see buyers regretting finalizing early.
Title: Re: Finalizing early for new buyers
Post by: jiggihigig on February 28, 2012, 08:45 pm
I literally created this account to ask this question, being a new buyer and all. Glad to see it's been answered.
Title: Re: Finalizing early for new buyers
Post by: watertiger on February 28, 2012, 11:04 pm
Buyers should not purchase "out of escrow" or "finalize early" under any circumstances. Agreeing to send cash upfront in the hope the seller will follow through is just asking for trouble.

The powers that be here have tried vigorously to crack down on the first practice (out of escrow), because it's not only risky for buyers, but because it costs the site money (in lost commissions). They haven't yet cracked down hard on the second practice (finalizing early), even though it is just as risky for buyers, because they don't have any financial incentive to do so.

Title: Re: Finalizing early for new buyers
Post by: sonic on February 28, 2012, 11:43 pm
Finalizing is your only real leverage against bad vendors.  If you've already finalized you have no cards left to play if the seller starts to fuck you around.  What are you going to do, go find the jerk?  Good luck, if it were that easy the police would have done it already.

There is a certain top seller (within the top 10) that seems as if they could not care less about you after the order has been finalized.  They don't even respond to messages, because why should they try to impress you?  You've already sealed the deal, you are useless to them now: just a burden on their time.  To add insult to injury, they also insist upon running more finalize early sales than every scam vendor combined.

The only thing that truly talks around here is money.  If you don't have a way to control the money (like being able to finalize an escrow order) you are going to be in somebody else's control.  Feedback means nothing, especially since SR said "go ahead, fuck over every small order it won't hurt your feedback."  As long as a vendor does their large dollar orders correctly they can scam every single small order and have their feedback change negligibly.

There needs to be a specific and independent rating for early finalization that awards no more than 3/5 until the order has actually been filled.  Will this change anything since feedback has been rigged?  No.  Will it at least create the precedent that a 5/5 early finalization feedback IS NOT EQUIVALENT to an EARNED 5/5 for an order filled successfully?  Maybe.  It would also prevent terrible scammers from having an inflated ranking due only to 5/5 feedback from FE, even though they haven't delivered a single package yet.

In reality, I'm not so sure we should propose any change to this market.  We all on some level are aware that this is the temporary market until it finally is shut down or ruined (more likely) slowly by asinine policies and cheap gimmicks.  We should focus on how to construct a new marketplace that won't suffer the same pitfalls as SR.  Having one person get rich off of the work of others and having one person with access to all of the critical and damning data (which we've seen isn't deleted from the switch in the accidental DB error message shown) doesn't help to remove beliefs that maybe SR has been in the hands of LE from the jump.

We all knew it was too good to be true, and it has proven itself to be.  If you are lucky enough not to get scammed, you're still overpaying for product and being taxed by SR for the privilege of possibly being scammed.  The same aspect of ourselves that made SR come to be will cause the death of SR: greed.
Title: Re: Finalizing early for new buyers
Post by: BenJesuit on February 29, 2012, 12:51 am
Dang Sonic, them some pretty strong words there. Gives one pause to consider.
Title: Re: Finalizing early for new buyers
Post by: blackend646 on February 29, 2012, 04:03 am
We all knew it was too good to be true, and it has proven itself to be.  If you are lucky enough not to get scammed, you're still overpaying for product and being taxed by SR for the privilege of possibly being scammed.  The same aspect of ourselves that made SR come to be will cause the death of SR: greed.


Totally disagree on this, maybe prices are just inflated around here but a typical e pill is 15$ on the street and more like 11$ here, and pills on the street have about half the MDMA content and are likely cut with all kinds of nasty shit.


That said after being boned for 80 bucks on a moneypak trade (Not by one of the highly rated moneypak vendors on here, it was my fault really) I learned my lesson and will never make a purchase out of escrow for any reason. Nor will I try to attain bitcoins with moneypaks but to each his own.
Title: Re: Finalizing early for new buyers
Post by: rekline on March 01, 2012, 03:00 am
There is a certain top seller (within the top 10) that seems as if they could not care less about you after the order has been finalized.  They don't even respond to messages, because why should they try to impress you?  You've already sealed the deal, you are useless to them now: just a burden on their time.  To add insult to injury, they also insist upon running more finalize early sales than every scam vendor combined.

Can you say who this is?

-----

In reality, I'm not so sure we should propose any change to this market.  We all on some level are aware that this is the temporary market until it finally is shut down or ruined (more likely) slowly by asinine policies and cheap gimmicks.  We should focus on how to construct a new marketplace that won't suffer the same pitfalls as SR.  Having one person get rich off of the work of others and having one person with access to all of the critical and damning data (which we've seen isn't deleted from the switch in the accidental DB error message shown) doesn't help to remove beliefs that maybe SR has been in the hands of LE from the jump.

Very interesting post, can you please expand on it?

Silkroad is run by one person?  I thought it was run by a team.  So one guy makes all the commission fees? 
All personal info is saved>  One person has access to all the incriminating information?  Its not deleted?  What was the accidental DB error? 
And most importantly, this is the first Ive heard that "SR has been in the hands of LE from the jump"  Is this a common belief? No way is this actually tue, could it actually be?  People would be getting busted left and right
Title: Re: Finalizing early for new buyers
Post by: mushitup on March 01, 2012, 06:30 am
I've finalized early in my buying days and I went 50/50 for getting burned.  Funny thing is I only made 2 purchases.  After getting burned I decided to start a vendor account and make up for the POS vendors out there as much as I could which is basically impossible due to the scammers that pop up here and there.

But I embrace new buyers at this point.  There's no reason to finalize early for a vendor, if they can't afford the miniscule amount they're willing to send for a first purchase as a loss then they probably shouldn't be offering.  Besides, the SR system should protect us from scammers for the most part.
Title: Re: Finalizing early for new buyers
Post by: czxtvr on March 01, 2012, 05:09 pm
I'm with you on that mush...SR should offer some level of protection ...
Title: Re: Finalizing early for new buyers
Post by: cacoethes on March 02, 2012, 05:30 am
I finalized early my first few buys, but I chose vendors with solid reputation and never got "scammed".  Some required it, some didn't.

Silk Road is a "seller's market" much more so than it is a "buyer's market", and for that reason, I'll take the quality goods purchased here over the shit on the street every time.

Start off small, not more than you can afford to lose, and build up your buyer stats.  But the most important thing to consider is this: Solid vendors list their terms on their main page.  If you don't agree with the terms, then don't order from them, simple as that.

Credibility and reputation carry a lot of weight here.  New vendors have to prove themselves to the community, but so should new buyers.  The community polices itself, and new buyers and vendors alike go through a thorough vetting process in order to gain "road cred".  This market is as dynamic as the people who comprise it.


Choose your vendors wisely, communicate effectively with them, and you won't get fucked.  The community is what makes this whole thing work.