Hi everyone. I am still trying to ease into this all new look DP and make a sense of it... I looked into a lot of threads and discussions to know how to go about general BST section trades now when we don't have iTraders. Suppose a DP users starts a thread... "BUYING" wordpress Expert. I work with him and then: - Either he paid me as was discussed and agreed upon, or - He doesn't Earlier with iTraders, we used to exchange feedback and it was done. Now, what am I ought to do if he doesn't pay??? There is a mention of Instant Pay in a lot of threads, but isn't that for Marketplace trades only (I haven't been able to find even that anyway, even after linking my paypal!) and if it is in BST as well... is it for threads starting for "Buying"? Explanations... Clarification... Suggestions...
You can earn buyer rating by paying for something from a seller with Instant Pay, but you don't get anything by starting a Buying thread.
Well... Actually the case is I am a seller here but in response to the Buying thread created by someone else.
Exactly what I thought would be a huge negative point of this shift. In case I am seller in response to someone's buying thread who is not payed ... I can't do anything. Can't give even a negative feedback now.
The removal of iTrader was explained and prewarned to all members for over a year, perhaps even longer. There's a thread here in Suggestions & Feedback with all the information you could need. It's not something that's been decided on a whim. WebDev
I am not saying that it was surprise. It was indeed informed well in advance. What I am saying is that the new system that we have in place now do not help in this particular case that I have mentioned above. Trades of this kind will be a scam hot spot, now when there is no fear of negative feedback and we don't have to go far to see this... In the last 10 or so days I have already had one trade where I am not paid in full. This almost never happened before, because in the very starting I provided my services for minimal charges, built up a reputation and then my positive feedback score was good to keep things in check. Two days back... DP user "jcv1972" paid one third for a trade that we had and I have nothing to do and no where to go.
The situation isn't that different to before, really. Do your due diligence and if satisfied by that, do business with the person. iTrader wasn't reliable (anyone could make an iTrader report and leave fake negative feedback) and it's silly to base a business decision on some numbers rather than hard facts. By due diligence, I mean check the person's posting history (not just BST threads, but how they generally conduct themselves), search their name (or the company name) in Google/Bing/whatever. (Those are just some examples and not an exhaustive list of the checks you could do.)
Now that we have a reliable rating system, it is definitely good for the community. I am not saying the earlier iTrader system was better, but now there is an open end that's been left unchecked. This is all about reducing scams in the end.. isn't it. Talking about escrow and other things, if that would have been the preferred way, all such tasks/jobs/projects would have been conducted on Freelancing sites like elance, odesk and 100s other. The issue is - the BST section is full of "Buying" threads which in the end come down to anything between $5.01 to $100. First of all going to register a lot of things for such a smallish thing is too much or imagine someone spending 1 to 2 hour to check someone's record by reading his posts on the forum, then send a message, wait for the response and arrive upon a final trade in a couple of hour and then get paid at $5 per hour for 3 hours! ($15 for almost 7 to 8 hours of time spent on it...) Can't there be something to check this... if something like escrow... well why not... every buying thread should have some link to such a service and that will be GREAT.
That's why you need to do your due diligence, to reduce the risk of being scammed. This was the same before and is the same now. In fact, it's a bit easier now, as before it was easy to get fake iTrader if people wanted to. Now it would take more effort to fake trades. Would you hand over your cash to someone on the street with a promise of a 100" 8K LED TV? No, you wouldn't even do that when walking into a shop... you'd do your research (of product and trader).
@ryan_uk I got your point sir... Please try to implement this thing in the situation that we have on our hand. Person A posts a thread saying I need service for WordPress for 5 hours at $5 per hour (A buying thread). Person B does that for Person A and then A pays B only $10. A is all positive before this but now the fear of negative feedback is not there so he is scamming... he knows that because his "legacy" iTrader is all positive (50 iTradrs) he will keep getting people to work for him and no negative feedback!! Now what?
The question is ... If there is no such check... Should the "Buying" threads be allowed? Can't we subject the "Buying" threads to something that is reliable and for once "sellers" do have some right to fall back on? (Seller who are providing services have nothing on their side.... )
It's not down to me to implement anything (that's down to diglitapoint). All I'm trying to do is encourage you to do due diligence and you have a higher chance of avoiding someone like person A if you do your due diligence. If a scam does happen, you can leave a post in the thread stating this so that other people can learn about it in the future when doing their due diligence.
Indeed it's up to Admin and staff here... and so we are trying to bring to there attention a possible pit fall. Again one can hardly go and check each thread that someone has posted for a $20 job! The time and money involved is not worth it...
That would be down to the admins. I'm just trying to encourage you to do due diligence, rather than relying upon numbers, to evaluate if someone's trustworthy. Good luck with your business ventures and hope you stay safe, mate.
Well, that's really down to the individual then if they don't want to do some basic checks. When you do a search of posts for someone, a snippet is presented. It doesn't take long to get an overview, even just from that and view a few random threads they started (or BST ones they posted in). It's down to the individual how they value their money. Like Shawn said, Escrow as this is one of the safest ways. If you don't want to do that, then basic checks. If you don't value your time/money that much, then roll the dice and take a chance. Imagine iTrader was still here. You could do business with someone who has about 100 positive feedback and still get scammed (and it has happened - I think he was called Igorus or something like that). I recently did business before the change over (someone PM'd me about it after seeing one of my posts in a thread), made a script for $20 but spent the time reviewing their posts before agreeing to it. But that's just me... I felt it was worth the effort.