Silk Road forums

Discussion => Shipping => Topic started by: imprint on April 28, 2012, 03:45 pm

Title: escrow, scams, refund and other stuff
Post by: imprint on April 28, 2012, 03:45 pm
hi there, i guess some of my questions has been already answered a couple of times...

i'm a seller on sr market place and really need some serious help how to handle things...

1) escrow seems to be pretty fine, especially for the "buyers" side, because the customer can "release" the funds when he has received his order... BUT... what about the "vendor"? the vendor possibly have to wait for ~ 1-2 weeks to get the cash? i don't think that's fair... - e.g. i've 8-10x sales/ week and i always ship out the orders within 24h, i've lots of my stock to send out, but i don't get cash in for a very long time... i mean, i've achieved in the meantime a 99,6% positive feedback score and i'm under the 31% top seller on sr-market place, should i really keep this system going on like that? i mean with escrow? i've seen that a lot of vendors here on sr (especially top-vendors) don't use "escrow" anymore and request ALL BUYERS to FE and they do, because of their reputation... should i change that too? i mean, i've almost 100 sales finished and an excellent feedback, so.... ?!

2) maybe a very stupid question, but is it possible to "scam" a "vendor" when using "escrow"? if yes, how? ... i'm asking this, because i sometimes request "customers" (especially new ones, with very low or non existing stats) to FE... is this really necessary when i use "escrow"?

3) question especially to sr-vendors: "how do u handle the thing with a refund?" personally, i'm "sticking" to all professional "shipping rules" i've read on the web and i'm actually pretty good in "my job", but sometimes orders are getting lost/ seized or whatever... until now, i've usually re-shipped 50% of the order... but actually this is also very "expensive" for me, especially i'm not a "nl-vendor" who gets his supplies straight from "the source"... so, what would you recommend to me, about "the refund policy"?

... probably i've forgotten a question now, but the above mentioned points, are actually currently the most important ones, i need to "set some rules"...

i'm looking forward to some helpful replies...

thanx, imprint
Title: Re: escrow, scams, refund and other stuff
Post by: BenJesuit on April 28, 2012, 05:35 pm
Most buyers like myself, finalize on day of delivery. I'm not going to make the vendor who shipped out quickly have to wait a moment longer for his money. If for some reason I'm not satisfied with what I ordered, I would bring it up with the vendor. But so far, I've never had a single issue with quality.

If you make all your buyers FE, you're going to lose business. Why? Even "trusted vendors" have skipped out with people's money using the "trust" factor as a confidence game. This has happened recently in a few prominent cases. So more and more buyers are staying in escrow unless it's a very small order. They are tired of losing money when they didn't really have to.

I wouldn't finalize early for any seller for any reason. There's a growing community of buyers who feel the same. Escrow is what makes this place safe.

As for how you can get scammed by buyers in escrow... those asshats reverse scammers can claim that they never received their order. So what I would do as a seller is for certain orders, say over a certain amount or quantity, enforce that they pay for Priority Mail or some other kind of mail with DCN. That prevents them from claiming it never arrived and you can submit that as proof to SR support should one of these dickhead scammers try to pull that crap on you.  The other scam is the claim of bunk product. SR support team is wise to this tactic and it only works if a lot of people claim it over a short period of time - indicating that a batch of some drug was bad.

The best sellers on here, stay in escrow. Unless it's a bulk order or new buyer with less than 5 transactions. They manage their cash flow to account for those late finalizers. 
Title: Re: escrow, scams, refund and other stuff
Post by: dkmonk on April 28, 2012, 05:44 pm
If I were a vendor with less than 35 transactions then clearly write up in your vendor page about how you will handle new buyer's and that your criteria that they agree to if they purchase.

like..

New buyers with less than 10 purchases get no refund if package doesn't arrive.

That way you can minimize the risk and scammers won't target you since they know they aren't going to get anything out of it.
Title: Re: escrow, scams, refund and other stuff
Post by: Cpt. Meow on April 28, 2012, 06:41 pm
If I were a vendor with less than 35 transactions then clearly write up in your vendor page about how you will handle new buyer's and that your criteria that they agree to if they purchase.

like..

New buyers with less than 10 purchases get no refund if package doesn't arrive.

That way you can minimize the risk and scammers won't target you since they know they aren't going to get anything out of it.

The new policy set in place simply keeps customers from releasing the funds for 3 days after the order is marked in transit. what is this going to achieve when you, as a vendor, - having couragiously shipped the order the very day it was placed -  essentially never get hold of the money since it sits in escrow the whole time? The scam buyer just cancels the order after two days and au revoir with you coins. You can of course wait 3 days and see if they finalize, but whats the point of the whole policy then?
Title: Re: escrow, scams, refund and other stuff
Post by: Cpt. Meow on April 28, 2012, 06:54 pm
I essentially agree with BenJesuits advice, one addition, what most established vendors do is to request FE from buyers with <5 successful transactions or a high refund rate, I'd specifically state that on my vendor page.

Have a good one
Title: Re: escrow, scams, refund and other stuff
Post by: dkmonk on April 28, 2012, 07:39 pm
Well, wouldn't it Auto Finalize and you get your coins, but just at a slower rate, and not have to worry about a refund.

Also, maybe only us DCN and once it is attained and proven to be shipped the buyer is required to finalize, but I guess there is no way to make them other than never letting them order from you again and warning people of the bad buyer.
Title: Re: escrow, scams, refund and other stuff
Post by: Cpt. Meow on April 28, 2012, 07:55 pm
The process used to be like this:

1. customer places an order
2. vendor then has the option to cancel it or to mark it as in transit. The coins however, stay in escrow until
3. the buyer finalizes the order. Before the change in policy, the buyer could finalize right after the order was marked as in transit and the vendor could ship the item straight away. Now, the customer has to wait for 3 days before the finalize (that is, releasing the funds to the vendor) option becomes available.

Ok, I've had enough with complaining about the flaws associated with this new policy.

I wish you all a happy night :)

Ps. Sorry, if I misunderstood you and didnd't get your question, gettin sleepy
Title: Re: escrow, scams, refund and other stuff
Post by: davidd on April 28, 2012, 08:52 pm
First off 100 sales is NOTHING. If you don't understand why vendors ask buyers to FE, then you obviously don't need to ask buyers to FE. Just because you want your $$ faster isn't a legitimate reason.

If someone asks for a refund and it is against my policies to give this particular person a refund (like if they can't prove they didn't get their order), then they will not be receiving a refund, period. I stick to my posted policies. They are there for a reason, not just to fill up space. If someone still wants to give me a bad review, I don't give a fuck. They will be shit listed, and I move on. I have NEVER had a confirmed non-receipt of an order, domestic or international. I have, however, had confirmation of people trying to scam me for a refund or reship (gotta love DCNs).

Someone just straight up not receiving something is very weird, and usually due to something THEY did wrong, like tried to use a fake name/bad address/vacant house. That is not a legit reason for me to give a refund.

For me to put MY security at risk for anyone, and then not respect my policies.... well that is just not going to happen. As you progress here, you will learn what policies you need to make. You will also learn that you need to stick to them. I'm not saying there is never a reason for a reship, but you're losing money on your bottom line whenever you do a reship/refund, so you cant just do them willy nilly. You will not last very long that way.

Hope this helps :)