Silk Road forums
Discussion => Security => Topic started by: Schrady on February 13, 2012, 04:50 pm
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What do you do if you place an order and the seller then says he wont ship your product till you release/finalize it? (Its happened to me and I have over 10 transactions and no returns. do you let your bitcoins just sit for a week till you cancel the order then start over?
Silk road needs to establish some kind of policy for sellers who require finalizing early. On a random check of the latest reviews, almost 70% of people finalize early. They should still be susceptible to the complaint process or SR should make finalizing early A. Cost more or B. be insured where the seller puts up collateral till buyer says its ok.
Look at how many people finalize early. Its a big problem no one is addressing:
seller rating feedback
Larghetto(97) 5 of 5 finalziing early item
LexiSadie(100) 5 of 5 finalizing early cause Lexisadie is awsome.. will return.. item
Larghetto(97) 5 of 5 finalizing early item
RickyRango(100) 5 of 5 Its for free, dude! item
b19meech(100) 5 of 5 Finalized early due to so much positive feedback..will update upon receipt.. item
Planta(97) 5 of 5 Finalized early. item
DopeyDwarf(97) 3 of 5 Leave feedback here item
freedompeople(98) 5 of 5 very goo product, fast shipping and good packaging item
Baroso(97) 5 of 5 Very good weed, very good price, good packaging, overweight, what else to say... just awsome, i'll be back to you guy ;) item
DRamsterdam(97) 5 of 5 finalizing early for trusted seller item
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Most vendors just require you to have at least 5 successful transactions and to be honest, once I achieve higher then 5 I would most likely never finalize early, I don't do big orders at all and won't be doing any so I don't see how this is necessary. I would just cancel my order and move along to a new vendor.
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There's really nothing wrong with finalizing early if the vendor is so trusted. You're just helping the vendor get their money earlier so they can restock. There's a vendor I use regularly that I always finalize early before and there's never been a problem. But do your research on the vendor before finalizing early.
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I guess I would finalize early for a small amount of vendors, I would just do a combination of the months they have been active for and based on the feedback they have received, communication would also be another thing.
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There's really nothing wrong with finalizing early if the vendor is so trusted. You're just helping the vendor get their money earlier so they can restock. There's a vendor I use regularly that I always finalize early before and there's never been a problem. But do your research on the vendor before finalizing early.
I completely agree with you. I do whatever I can to help the vendors, that I trust, it's the least I can do for them really.
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Well keep in mind to not only depend on the feedback. Take for example the recent gummystar incident, he had %100 positive feedback because he got a lot of people to finalize early, turns out that he ended up scamming them all.
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And that is what I'm talking about. Even a trusted vendor could go rogue, take 50 orders finalized early, then be done. I too have finalized w/o incident, but now I face a situation where I did finalize early and its being claimed as lost. I have nothing to fall back on and I can;t seem to get a DCN from the seller. He has a 100 rating too.
Well keep in mind to not only depend on the feedback. Take for example the recent gummystar incident, he had %100 positive feedback because he got a lot of people to finalize early, turns out that he ended up scamming them all.
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Hello,
In regard to my personal finalization policy, it depends completely on the buyers history. However, we are talking about finalization in general so let me talk about that.
In regard to buying such things online, I think you forget that almost all transaction are done in a one way situation without any chance of refund anyway. It is only a place such as Silk Road which gives you the opportunity *at the sellers discretion" for you to use escrow.
If we look at the item on here, most would be done via Western Union if not done via Bitcoin. Which of course would be a transaction that once done, you could no go back on. I doubt that there are ANY sellers on here, except maybe for a few cannabis vendors, who would let you use Paypal, which is pretty much the only situation in which you might have a chance at disputing a sale.
What we are talking about is buying illegal good online. Thank yourself lucky that you have the chance once you have enough successful buys to actually use an escrow (once again at the seller's discretion). When I buy from my suppliers large amounts of goods, there is no "escrow system" in case they don't send it.
The idea of course that a seller could go rogue and take a lot of orders when finalized is a risk you will have to take, and frankly, the risk is far less than in the situation regularly online, in which there is no "feedback system", and will likely result in far less money being scammed than in the latter.
To ask sellers to in any way change their *own policy which you agree with when buying from THEM illegal items* is insane. Sellers have their own policies, which they can change at any time, and should be able to. If you don't want to buy from them, that is of course your choice.
Anyway, that is my opinion. Feel free to argue with it of course.
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I would make a bunch of small purchases to build up feedback, that way you don't risk much to start. If you order 1g of bud, the odds of a well-established seller taking off with your $20 are small. If he does, you report his ass and oh well, you lost $20 while his feedback page takes a hit. I still can't believe a place like this even exists, let alone has an escrow system and runs off of reasonably anonymous e-currency. Earning your connect's trust is all part of the game IMO.
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Actually, there's even a better way. There are a lot of free items listed on here. Just buy a bunch of those.
I would make a bunch of small purchases to build up feedback, that way you don't risk much to start. If you order 1g of bud, the odds of a well-established seller taking off with your $20 are small. If he does, you report his ass and oh well, you lost $20 while his feedback page takes a hit. I still can't believe a place like this even exists, let alone has an escrow system and runs off of reasonably anonymous e-currency. Earning your connect's trust is all part of the game IMO.
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Oh no doubt, that's even better. I thought vendors only counted feedback from things you actually had to receive. So now I have 1 valid feedback from entering a lotto.. nice :)
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And that is what I'm talking about. Even a trusted vendor could go rogue, take 50 orders finalized early, then be done. I too have finalized w/o incident, but now I face a situation where I did finalize early and its being claimed as lost. I have nothing to fall back on and I can;t seem to get a DCN from the seller. He has a 100 rating too.
Even so, most vendors high on ratings would not do that, they would loose a lot more money in the long run. Does the vendor you bought this item from have any refund policy at all? Also, there is a resolution button you could use if you want to really see what happened and the mods should do a quick investigation of it.
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Personally I simply won't do business with any vendor that requires FE (key word requires). I may do it for vendors I have worked with in the past that I have established a level of trust with but other than that. I just wont use them. Once you finalize your btc is gone, period so if they perhaps list more than they have on hand, or decide to walk with your btc then you have no recourse. This isn't to say with some vendors it's probably safe, but unless I've done business with a vendor before or otherwise have some kind of established trust with them I won't just FE because a vendor requires it.
@Larghetto I'm not sure where you are getting this idea anywhere about escrow being at the 'sellers discretion' because last I checked SR actually encourages all buyers to stay within the escrow system.
Also IRL specifically f2f transactions you certainly have the right to refuse to purchase goods in the event you see them and are displeased with them, I've done this myself a couple times (albeit rare) when someone told me they were getting one item at a particular quality level and it turned out to clearly NOT be that quality level. With SR you don't have that option, whatever you get, is simply whatever you get.
Some vendors may feel that they have earned the right to demand that users FE and that's fine, that's their prerogative but that doesn't mean that you have to purchase from them.
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DON'T! There's your choice. DO NOT FINALIZE EARLY!! END of discussion. Don't use that vendor!!!
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Silk road needs to establish some kind of policy for sellers who require finalizing early.
As a vendor here, when we get an order the only option we have right now is to click "confirm shipment" or to cancel your order. If we confirm shipment, the order and message are removed for security.
There was recent talk about an "Accept" button, so we can then view the order, and if it meets our criteria for fulfillment we can immediately hit Accept and then your coins aren't tied up for a week while the vendor catches up and starts making the rounds for early finalize requests.
It's weird about the early finalize though, I've never asked a SR customer to finalize yet a whole bunch of them do it on their own. It's class, and it really helps us out.