Market place ETHICS (not rules) and the lack of!!

Well...for me...people changing their minds...is the reason why I don't want to do layaways anymore. And yes, they usually seem to have a good excuse as to why they want a refund on monies paid and why they 'need' to back out but I usually tend to read their excuses with a good healthy dose of doubt.

 

What I really loathe are all those "desperation" sales. OH PUHLEEZ BUY MY RATTY OLD DOLL DUDS CUZ MY UNCLE DIED AND I CAN'T GET TO HIS FUNERAL UNLESS I SELL THIS THREE DOLLAR SOCK DRESS.

Disgusting.

Raven

 

Having had this happen to me twice. Once where an outfit (for SD Mika) was on layaway and sold to someone else during my layaway---even though I had made regular EARLY payments! I had to PM the seller and question WTF was going on before I was refunded the money I'd already paid to her. The second was where an overseas seller received my payment in full for a Yo-SD Lin and then clearly decided she could get more from someone else than the price we had agreed upon and refunded my payment after nearly 2 weeks of tying several hundred dollars of mine that I could have used to purchase this doll elsewhere. In both cases, I left Feedback, but couldn't really convey the what I feel to be the utter dishonesty of these sellers since both did refund my money.

On the other hand, when I was unable to make my layaway payments as quickly as I hoped to in a transaction last year, I made sure stayed in contact with the seller. She was well aware of the reason for the delays, and was very understanding and patient. While it was embarrasing for me to admit that I couldn't pay her because of unexpected family medical bills, I think the key was that she and I stayed in touch. Honesty and communication on both sides of a transaction are paramount and should be basic polite human behavior. Also I fell that having the ethics to stick to the deal you've made, unless both parties agreed to cancel the sale should be a requirement to maintain good standing in not only the Marketplace, but in the Den of Angels period. JMHO folks.

Juli DC

 

You would not believe how many people seem to have selective vision when you say "Love the item! Please leave feedback?". Now I simply say "Got the item, love it! Please leave me feedback and then I'll do the same." The sellers who care about their feedback generally PM back and say "I left you some!" and then I go run to their thread. Those who don't, well...no time or goodwill wasted!

 

That is a very interesting subject for me. I have done many many transactions here on DoA. I have sold, bought and traded many dolls throught the marketplace. I have also done some layaways. Here is my humble opinion.

Layaways. Sometimes a layaway is successful, sometime it's not. I had one occasion where the buyer placed the non refundable down payment promplty and then after some time she run into some kind of money trouble. While I don't know if it was true or not, I found it very honorable of the buyer to inform me that she won't be able to finish the layaway and that she was sorry. She was also very descent to not ask me back for non refundable down payment. If she had done it however, I would not have refunded it,because that was the deal. The general impression though she left me, was of a very descent buyer, even if the layaway didn't end successfuly.

Questions about an item that you want to buy: Since I am a very over-enthusiastic person, when I see a beautiful doll, I want it. I also have observed that this enthusiasm goes away after some personal thinking. Usually I start asking questions about the shipping, price or something else I might want to know about, but I never ask to put something on hold, if I am not 100% that I want to buy it. I usually declare on my last pm either that I want to buy the item, or that I don't want it and thank the person for the time she/he has devoted to answer my questions. In the worse case scenario that I have asked for something to be put on hold, if I change my mind, I immediately inform the seller and honestly apologise for the trouble I have caused. Since this has happened to me, I truly understand what a huge incovinience this is and I try to avoid it. I realy appreciate it when people do the same thing to me, when I am holding something for them. Even if this is a let down, I have come to a conclusion that this is life and things like that happen all the time. Lately I avoid putting something on hold without a non refundable down payment. I also want to state that I do not judge people who have put something on hold and then change their mind. Money is very important and giving them away for something that you don't want any more, sounds very unreasonable to me, however it's great when the seller is informed of the fact promptly.

Questions about an item that you are selling: Something that irritates me, but still have not found a solution for it, is when someone starts asking questions about something and shows a great deal of interest, wants more pictures etc generally does all kinds of questions and then dissapears without saying: thx but I don't think I am interested anymore. I try to contact him/her just in case they didn't get my last pm or email but still nothing and I am left in the blank... Communication goes a long way in my opinion. Last time I had a person doing that and in her last message she requested extra pictures and some more information and after I have sent all the info she wanted, I never heard back from her again. Not even to say, I am not interested anymore. I think that is rude. I actually enjoy answering questions about my sales, but this expirience is ruined when someone doesn't have the descency to declare that she/he has lost interest.

Sob stories on sales threads: While I am not bothered to read what people have to say and why they are selling their dolls, I sometimes don't feel like giving an explanation, as to why I am selling my doll. I just got a doll and after a week I realise that I don't like it, so I am selling it. What am I supposed to say?? Even worse if I do have a more serious problem, I might not feel like sharing with the public at that time. things happen all the time and yes I got a crappy credit card bill this month, but why should I write it at my sales thread??? The worse thing is that sometimes I get the feeling that people actually require the reason, for which you are selling the doll and if you don't have some serious problem you are a scalper or a flipper or I don't know what.

 

I run a lot of group orders. I love buying stuff, and I have a natural dislike of ordering through other people (I do have exceptions, there are some people that are fantastic to order through). I have been burned where people have paid for the entire order and asked for money once it arrived. I unexpectedly had to pay $80 after fees and shipping for a light weight $40 doll carrier! I have had an order take over 4 months to arrive, one month of which was when my $70 of items were lost in the mail without insurance or tracking.

With the doll carrier, I could have ordered it direct myself for that price and saved money. With the other order it wasn't the person heading up the GO's fault, but it still really sucked.

But now that I'm running orders myself, I'm having other problems. I can't lose money due to fees, and I state that in every order I run. I have a simple break down of how I run things and what I charge. It's simple and I found that this works best after running orders that didn't go as smoothly. It is frustrating when people refuse to pay the fees in a group order. I never charge fees anywhere else, but if I don't want to lose money I'll adjust the price to reflect that.

What is frustrating is when people back out of orders after they already have been placed! I know I did it once when I was new, but not to the tune of $100- $200 worth of items. I have left negative feedback for transactions where someone joined a group order, and left after a date for payment due was set and had passed. I felt I had to do this in my minimee order because the order was dependent on a certain number of participants, having someone drop out after others have paid is devastating. I know life happens, but it is really shoddy to put other people's orders at risk as well when one person leaves. I had already had my fiance pick up one of the extra heads so we would have the full 10, so having to pick up a second extra head was a real burden. I had to put myself at financial risk and I'm still feeling the repercussions of spending outside of my strict budget.

If someone seriously cannot afford to spend the money, they shouldn't be signing up for it. It is common practice, and good money smarts to live on a budget and have money set aside for emergencies and car troubles. If you expect to have $0 left over in your whole budget after paying for a doll, you really shouldn't be signing up to buy it. I know this from experience. I have had bills suddenly come up that I wasn't expecting and I didn't have the money for them, but I didn't spend (or plan to spend) all my money on a doll before hand.

 

That's happened to me. I made an offer to purchase a doll where the seller specifically said in her ad "make me an offer." She accepted my offer. I said I would pay her the next day since I was traveling and I wasn't about to log onto my bank account or paypal from a motel room. She said okay.

When I got online to pay the next day, I had a PM from the seller saying she got a higher offer, really needed the money, and would I like to match the higher offer. After grumbling to myself about how she'd just renegged on our deal, I sent her back a PM saying thanks but no thanks and good luck with the new buyer. Then I went and bought the doll direct from the manufacturer because I was ticked off.

A few days later I heard back from the seller saying that the other deal fell through and would I like to buy the doll at the price I'd originally offered. I told her I'd already found another doll, so no, I wouldn't. Even if I hadn't, I wouldn't have bought the doll from this seller because I wouldn't want the negative experience of the sale clouding how I felt about my new doll.

Since then I've had a bad experience with a flakey group order organizer (luckily solved now). But it's stuff like this that's made me really wary about shopping on the marketplace.

 

For me, a marketplace transaction is a business transaction. Professionalism of a buyer or a seller will be noticed and noted, and I'll be much more likely to make a return purchase or to recommend that buyer/seller to friends if things go smoothly.

I would personally never accept a layaway, but I come from the school that thinks one shouldn't buy something if one doesn't have all the money in hand. It seems to be asking for trouble.

I suspect that when it comes to selling a doll, people may pick and choose between buyers, leaning towards those they know better, and of course the other buyers will feel rather hard done by when they're passed over, often when they've been told they can buy the doll beforehand. I've heard about several such instances, and although I can sympathise with the wish to pass on a doll to a friend, it's no excuse for messing around your buyers. Huge faux pas, huge mistake, and it won't do anything for your reputation as a seller.

(Of course, I might be being generous here, and it might just be plain greed on the part of the seller, but I wouldn't want to tar all flaky sellers with the same brush.)

 

I totally agree with Xi-feng.

 

As a buyer, I have asked for items to be placed on hold. I make sure to request a certain time with reason, and not a sob story. Ex. "I'm interested, but I may not have the funding until x time, would you be willing to hold on to it until then?"

People have been pretty kind about it, so far as I've seen. I've made sure to contact them expressly quick on that given day as well. And so far things have gone smoothly for me.

I wish we had a way of knowing about flaky transaction starters. It'd be a good way for us to learn about who is selling and buying from us. And, if it were allowed for us to post feedback for flaky transactions, I think more people would be inclined to go through with their transactions.

 

I agree! It's so rude when you do a favor for someone by holding something and then they give you some lame excuse when you know they just changed their mind. In the meantime you lose out on someone who might actually have wanted the item

 

I think many people post those for the same reason I usually post why I'm selling, simply because there's often an attitude of, "How can you possibly SELL your doll?" sort of thing. I don't buy dolls on a whim & don't sell them that way either. I really need to consider who to part with when an unexpected financial problem arises & they can, even with the best of budgeting. Perhaps some people consider that too much information but I understand why it's done.

 

There are SO many flakey people who peruse the Marketplace threads. Honestly, if it wasnt the fact that there are no fees for selling and that I can ask for paypal fees to be reimbursed, up front, I would probably not sell on the marketplace. (Buying is different however!)
I've had several people ask for layaways and payment schedules only to renege on the transaction, never to be heard from again. Or they (breathlessly, frantically and insistently) ask for additional pictures with the same result.
But the one transaction I consider the most rude, was one where I wasn't sure of the price I was going to ask, and someone had PMd me requesting a price. I quoted a price and got a terse and fingerpointing diatribe in return - 'I don't play that game...blah blah blah....' Play what game???? She obviously didn't like the price I wanted so decided that I must be one big-time scalper that needed to be told off - I took the high road and did not reply in kind. I just thought she needed to get a life, or check the prices on YJ....

On the buying side, I've PMd people about items and because I didnt reply to their PMs back soon enough they ended up selling to someone else. Now both times that happenend it was late at night after midnight PST and I had actually gone to bed thinking that I'd hear from them in the morning. Even though I'd indicated that I was really interested in the item, and I was disppointed in the outcome, I don't really blame them as so many 'interested' buyers are flakey - so, really, those that have dropped the ball have made transactions more difficult for ALL of us, buyers and sellers alike. - Alex

 

I wasn't saying people shouldn't post why they want to sell their dolls or sock dresses, I object to the excessively slimy obviously stupid ones, like the example I mentioned. Unfortnately it is not much of an exaggeration. There is a thread in the clothing marketplace that uses just this excuse to sell just such shoddy gear.

Sell shoddy gear, give an excuse, but please. Certain people just go way beyond the pale. Using a family tragedy to garner sympathy for SALES? That is what I find disgusting.

Raven

 

I admit there was an occassion or two that I flaked due to poor judgement on my behalf, as much as I dislike the behavior. I can understand the rare occassion where something comes up and you can no longer afford the doll, or if you have a sudden change of heart. It really does suck for the seller, but if you explain reasonably and apologize, that's the most you can do. I cannot fathom, however, people who do this constantly. I certainly agree that it's an effect of no reprocussions for bad behavior, since money has to pass hands for it to be an official transaction and DoA doesn't cover 'almost' sales. It would be a good thing, I believe, if there was a thread for 'flaky sellers' where people could report instances of flaking. While flaking doesn't usually cost anything, it is a great inconveniance, and the flaker could eventually move on to greater injustices such as stealing or fraudulence on a transaction that does happen.

Publically acknowledging flakes would be a wise idea even if it only served to embarrass subconscious flakers into thinking deals over before getting their seller involved. Like I said, I think a thread where flakers could be acknowledged with no penalty other than shame would be greatly helpful to sellers looking for an honest buyer.

 

As a rule, I simply do not buy from any seller who claims that they need to sell something due to ______ tragedy. I don't care if it's a perfectly believable reason. I don't buy from such sellers because garnering business in such a way makes me suspicious.

It's okay to say "price not negotiable because I need the money" or "layaway not possible because I need the payment immediately"; but, don't beg me to buy your stuff out of pity! I have seen too many instances (at least once on this forum, and many times in other online communities) of scammers using this tactic, so it immediately rings alarm bells for me.

Besides, if I buy from a seller with a sob story, what if they also choose to sing me another sob story when they can't ship on time, or if the item is not as described? I suppose I kind of understand how on DoA, which is primarily a community/social site and not oriented around buying/selling, people are generally more casual/intimate... but nonetheless, I think this is also a type of sleaziness/bad market ethics.

I agree, this is how a hold should be! A hold should mean "I don't have the money now, but I know I want this item and I know when I will have money for it," NOT "I don't have the money now but I'm hoping I'll get it together somehow," and certainly NOT "I think I want this item, but I'd like extra time to decide..."

Whoa...until reading this thread, I didn't even know that stuff happened! I don't think it's fair either: a deal is a deal, if you're feeling wishy-washy about who the doll should go to then why not just use a feeler rather than a for sale, or post in your personal blog first?

 

I think I may be going against the grain a bit here, but I don't mind when people change their minds about buying something from me.... but just *please* let me know right away!
I don't consider that flaky.

Raven

 

I agree, ravendolls, as long as you let them know immediately, I don't find it flaky. I know that, being a rather impulsive person, I'll see something I like and PM about the price. But sometimes, I realize that I don't have the funds for it, when I check, or that I actually don't need the item. And if I realize that, no, I don't need it, I politely PM the seller and apologize profusely. Otherwise, I generally pay instantly.

I think this kind of behavior is fine, as long as there is proper communication involved, and it's conducted in a polite and professional manner. I've had the same happen to me, and they were very nice, and apologetic, so I didn't think anything of it, and sold the item to the next person. I've had some great Marketplace transactions, and I've sold very expensive things on layaway ($400 +), and put things on hold without any mishaps. Yes, there are people who change their mind, but as long as they let me know immediately, it's really not a problem. Maybe frustrating if your item isn't in demand, but I'd hardly consider it "flaky." I think the important thing is communication. Without that, especially online, transactions turn questionable.

 

Oh yes!! I should do that too! That's a great idea!

It's unbelievable how people totally ignore the "please leave a comment in my feedback thread too!" part.
And the worst part is I KNOW they read the PM since I add read receipts to all my messages. So they just flat out ignore me, my message and my request.

I'm honestly thinking of blacklisting people that do that, because it's so darn rude!

The world would be a happier place if people let you know when they got the items you sent to them too. This one is also similar to the feedback thing, because I send EVERYTHING with delivery confirmation.
So when I have received no news, I either PM the person asking if they got it (and if they did PLEASE leave feedback), or just go to the tracking site.
But of course I want to hear from the person that they got the item and that everything is fine!! Otherwise I tend to worry.

And then when the person just replies saying, "ah right, I got it, thanks!" and that's it. And again the feedback comment gets mysteriously ignored yet again...

Whatever happened to common courtesy?

 

I think feedback isn't really an "ethics issue" but more that some people think it is very important and other people don't. I try like hell to keep up with feedback and notifying people I got their items, both on here and on eBay, but the truth is that I do a lot of buying of items and I also travel for work a lot and am very, very busy. I don't mean to be rude but sometimes, leaving someone's feedback is not the major event on my mind, and I have to defer it for a while until I can get to it. If they want to wait to leave mine, or even not leave me any, that's OK with me. When I do leave it late, I generally send an apology for being so slow. But the bottom line is that I try to be a good buyer as far as paying quickly and paying layaways on time, and I also get everything tracked that's over about 10 dollars so that both I and the sellers can see that things arrive in the event I get overly busy. To me, feedback is way secondary to good payments and implementing some mechanism to show that item arrived.

I don't mean to make myself out as super-special, but I really do have an insane work schedule compared to many people. Last year, for example, there was one month where I flew or took trains to five different cities for work and family stuff within the course of about 2.5 weeks. Also, most people go home from work every night; I often don't, and sometimes will have to stay at the office which is several hours from my home and my post office for days on end. If I see something I've been seeking on the marketplace while that is going on, I'm going to jump on the item and buy because it won't wait for me, but it might take me a while to leave off the feedback after it arrives. That's just a fact of my life. If it is very crucial to get feedback, then either send me a note saying so and I will make extra efforts to leave it (some people have done this when they don't have many sales and really need to build up the feedback) or else just please don't sell me the item.