I am going to ramble for a few minutes, but I hope that you will stay with
me.
I do a substantial amount of my purchasing over the net. And until last
year, I had my own Internet business with custom woodworking. I have
purchased many (100+) items from ebay ranging from a few dollars to over
$100. I have been burned twice on small ticket items. I have purchased
used tools from $100-$300 from individuals that ran classified ads on my
favorite woodworking site: Woodmagazine.com without a problem.
This brings me to my Dak and the DML. I have upgraded and added accessories
that I have purchased through ebay and online businesses. Without problem.
I have traded trinkets and advice with many of you - without a catch.
Unfortunately, when it comes to a business deal with "some" fellow DML'ers I
cannot say the same thing. Why is this? In no particular order, consider:
1. The number of people "unhappy" with QuickD recently due to a lack of
communication and no parts being shipped and the DML messages.
2. The number of people "unhappy" with R&D Performance for past (and
recent) transactions.
3. I recall 1 or 2 other incidents with folks on the DML having a tough
time getting parts ordered from other DML'ers.
Generally, I believe that we are talking about items over $100 here. A
throttle body, an intake, shift kit, core charge or whatever.
I have an idea to throw out. Patterned after ebay's "Tradenable". If you
want to do business with someone (be it Tony, Patrick or anyone else) but
you are uncomfortable because of reputation or simply because of the amount
of money involved - we establish the following: A third party to act as an
escrow agent. If you are unfamiliar with this type of process, it would
work like this:
1. You place your order with (for illustration - R&D) for the part and
notify R&D and our escrow agent that payment will be placed in escrow.
2. You send payment to the escrow agent, depending upon payment type, the
escrow agent will then:
a. with a personal check, wait a given number of days (Tradenable uses
10 days) for the check to clear and then notify R&D that payment has been
received.
b. with certified funds, immediately notify R&D that payment was
received.
3. R&D ships the product, upon receipt,
4. You notify the escrow agent to issue payment to R&D, or
5. If you are unhappy you send the product back and notify the escrow agent
to refund your money.
You can immediately see the advantages. The escrow agent is a disinterested
third party. If you get your product you are happy and the seller is happy.
If you don't get your product, you can at least be assured that you will get
your money back. If you are interested to see the info at ebay, check this
link: http://pages.ebay.com/help/community/escrow.html
You will note that there is a fee for this, depending upon the amount of the
transaction. We would also have to pay for this. The escrow agent would be
devoting time, postage, and a bank account (which are not cheap in this
area) to the process. This would be a totally optional service, but for a
fee to the buyer. Also, the seller would have to agree.
The only downside that I can see is that it might slow up a transaction, but
then it may not.
What do you all think? Would you use it if it was available? Our vendor
choice for good accessories is a very small pool. This may help us to get,
and keep, more.
Please give me some feedback!
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 11:59:55 EDT