In view of the "new rules", I have to ask a question about a recent purchase of content from a member with a set of morals that differs from my own. I bought 15 articles. They are quite well written, and I want to use them because they are entirely appropriate for my purpose - except that they are littered with foreign characters, the "cyrillic sprinkle" has been applied to four of five articles I have examined so far. The vendor said the articles are original and pass Copyscape. Those statements are apparently true. As far as he's concerned, he's delivered material without telling any lies. I sent him a PM asking for cyrillic-free versions - no reply, but he's been on the forum twice since I sent it. So now I have to de-cyrillify these articles before use. He thinks he didn't break the rules - but in my view, he's broken the spirit of the rules. Reminds me of stories about the cooks at Wormwood Scrubs prison piddling in the mashed potatoes before serving them to the other prisoners ...
These are the sort of issues that we deal with in Copywriting forum. There you will find members who have experienced issues such as you've described in your thread. I hope that a mod will move your thread there and you will then receive all the advice you need on how to proceed. Good luck to you.
I don't want the thread moved. I'm trying to improve the rules with this thread. They don't cover this sort of situation, but they should cover this sort of situation. That is my suggestion.
Well, Sorry for interruption but if you are discussing about the DP rules then yes there is a rule for this short kind of situation and even for every purchase that you are doing here. In this same section (Suggestion and Feedback) Shawn has written very clearly (in many threads) that for every purchase use Instant Pay option, If you are paying the seller using instant pay then DP admin and mods will have information that you have done a deal with seller in this forum. Using that PayPal transaction ID you can dispute against the seller. Senior Member and Mods can improve my answer, if mistaken something.... Regards Mark
http://newyork.mashke.org/Conv/ Seriously, this is a non issue across the board. Don't like the comp some guy is using? don't hire folks from Russia to write your articles. That issue could not possibly be any more trivial to resolve. Nigel
You guys are not getting the hang of this. This thread is not for my personal benefit. The replies suggest that you really do not care about sharing this forum with someone who will metaphorically "piss in your coffee before he serves it to you". Avoiding this guy does not help anyone but me. @Mark - you are talking like an accountant. I did use instant pay, but I don't want to open a dispute. Apart from the usual Paypal argument about the goods being non-physical, they were as described. The fact that they are not usable is not relevant. @Nigel - . If you'd suggested running OCR on a screenshot of an article you might have helped -that is how to get around the problem without tech knowledge. your cynicism doesn't help, neither does your link, that tool is for another purpose. And he's not Russian. Nigel thinks this is trivial to resolve, but as a mere Greenhorn/grunt/whatever all I can do IN DP FORUM TERMS is refuse to give him any feedback. If I badmouth him, I'm just trying to take the law into my own hands. Since I bought that package, he's put another bundle of articles up for sale. They look like good value, and somebody will buy them. At least if they read this, they will know they can get the metaphorical urine out of the copy by taking a screenshot of the text and running it through the Google Docs OCR.
You can leave feedback (and a post in the thread where the business was conducted) to state the work was inadequate, what problems there were with it. Don't be afraid to do that, or you've letting them win over you completely. I'm not saying badmouth, but just to be honest. They weren't really as described - do they pass Copyscape once the Cyrillic characters have been removed? It's a common trick scammers use to get articles through Copyscape (non-standard characters or character codes). It would probably fail, but make a dispute anyway. You have nothing to lose by not doing so, other than a few minutes of your time.
Yes! Strange, isn't it? That's why I want to use them. Methinks the motive is that he wants a second chance to sell them somewhere else as well.
While still quite trivial to resolve I do find my comment a bit snarky. Sorry for being an ass, Nigel
Yes, something like that makes sense. It sucks when you end up being scammed, but when it happens you've just got to step back, evaluate the situation and see what you can learn from it in order to avoid similar in the future. Whenever doing business, there are always risks. I learnt a lesson recently when putting down money on a place to rent, then realising the contract was full of unfair (in the eyes of the law) terms. I was disappointed at myself for not doing due diligence before handing over any cash (I normally do). Lesson learnt, cash retrieval under way. Good luck with your future business, mate.
What is needed has finally crystallised in my mind. "Don't lie, don't cheat, don't steal, don't spam" is not enough to protect people. Anyone selling should be obliged to provide stuff that is fit for its intended use - we need a "fit for use" rule.
How would you enforce this? (fit for use rule) What criteria would you use? Can you even begin to imagine the belly aching and whining that would come out of that rule? You would need a whole set of standards and what do you base them on? "Fit for it's intended use" is largely subjective so really it's up to the buyer to determine that and shouldn't be up to the site staff to determine.
@Spoiltdiva -this is content we are talking about. Nobody is going to let someone look at content without paying. You can't go to a newsboy and say "lend me a newspaper, I'll come back in an hour and tell you if I want to buy it". So how can the buyer determine if it is fit for use before purchase? And it is not up to me to say how the rule would be enforced. I don't run the place, I can only make suggestions and ask for such a rule. Why are YOU whining about it? It is no skin off your nose unless you are scamming people too. Next thing, you'll be telling me "it's only 30 bucks, forget it". For a lot of members here, that's a week's wage - and you can bet that guy would take the money from anyone. That's probably why you wouldn't be suited to being a moderator. I bet you'd take a different stance if it happened to you. WTH the admin are the people who have to make decisions about this matter. They can check who I'm talking about, they know he's sold half a dozen bundles of content, and they are in a position to check with other purchasers to see if he's done it before. I'm not in that position. Look, this isn't like you bought a sealed packet of sugar with rat droppings as an added ingredient. That could be an unfortunate incident, but there might be nothing deliberate about it. This is more like you bought the sugar and the packet had been tampered with, to deliberately add rat droppings. When you take it back to the shop, the shop man says "show me the evidence, you could have done the tampering and added that stuff yourself". At which point you complain to a government agency - but there isn't one to help in this case.