Skilling service regulations reformation

I believe guidelines need to be imposed for how particular circumstances are handled when pertaining to skilling/questing services. As of right now, there is no definitive ruling concerning this and it leaves buyers very susceptible to mistreatment. Below, I will provide a few of my suggestions along with the reasoning behind each.

1. Buyers are highly encouraged to establish a deadline with the skiller prior to their beginning the project.

**This is to prevent skillers from suspending their services indefinitely without repercussions. Key word, encouraged, this is not a rule.**

2. Skillers must remain in contact with their customers throughout the completion of an order. This means responding to questions/concerns in a timely manner. (I believe 24 hours is ample time to respond to any inquiries. Contact beyond this is not required.)

**Obvious reasons.**

3. Skillers may never terminate a service without a refund on their own accord. This decision should always be left to a member of staff after reviewing both sides of the story.

** This is to ensure buyers and sellers alike are treated fairly and without bias.**

4. If no deadline is established on a particular order and attempts to contact the seller have been unsuccessful for a period of more than 36 hours then the buyer should have the right to log into their account to check its status. If no deadline is established and attempts to make contact with the seller are unsuccessful for a period of more than 48 hours and no progress has been made on the account, then the buyer should have the right to apply for termination of the agreement and a partial refund. If a deadline is established, the buyer may not file a claim until that deadline has been reached and the agreed progress has not been made to the account. If a deadline is reached without successful completion, the buyer should be entitled to a partial refund and the right to terminate the agreement should he so choose.***


*** This may call for the addition of a claims section in which the canceling party will be required to state their request for termination of their agreement along with evidence of their entitlement to payment or a partial refund. This would include how much of the order was completed before the claim was filed along with proof the opposite party failed to adhere to policy. Moderators would then make the final decision as to whether or not the individual is entitled to a refund/compensation as well as the amount they are to be awarded.

One major point I would like to stress here is that sellers should never have the freedom to take someone's money and not complete the order for any reason whatsoever. Any attempt to do so is simply scamming at its finest.

Thanks for reading and feel free to amend and add to this proposal.

Amended with input from:

Dunworry
Hattez
Dave

 

I believe a Skilling Serviceman can do things his own way as it's his own Company if you'd like to compare it to that. But i wouldn't be disappointed if anything like this came into the rules.

 

Here's my reply to # 1,2,3,4,5

Sythe.org is a Free Market, Restrictions will never be put on users when trying to use the market(in this case skilling services)

From what I can tell all your suggesting is 5 different forms of restrictions to be put on people doing skilling services, thus this will likely never happen unless I'm wrong or sythe decides otherwise.

No support.


Also #5 is putting a restriction on them still because most skilling service owners state in their TOS refunds wont be given once work starts, thats really the only one I might see having any chance.

 

The entire point of this post is to address the fact that skillers have too much freedom to take advantage of their clients. These rules impose no restrictions upon them other than disallowing them to do exactly that. Allow me to paint you a picture. Customer, A, orders services from Seller, B. Customer pays up front and in full for all services. Seller decides to go on vacation that day and ceases all work as well as contact with the buyer for a week. The buyer, after numerous failed attempts to make contact with the seller, logs into his account to check its status and see if the order is being fulfilled. Not to his surprise, it is not. Seller returns and claims the buyer breached their agreement because his TOS says you aren't allowed to log into your own account throughout the duration of the order. Seller keeps money, never trains account and his decision is held in favor by the mods. Does that sound fair to you, or do you think the buyer, who held up his end from the beginning should be given a bit fairer deal? Does this sound reasonable and righteous to you. Or is it just shady business practice disguised as TOS? I pick the latter.

 

Okay to be frank this seems like a little salt trip over your recent report on Barton.

There's a difference between suspending indefinitely and not working on a job 24\7 which you seem to believe would happen, in your report you even said that you understand real life takes priority.

This isn't needed to be a rule, that's just turning the customer into an annoying little prick wanting to get updates every 20 minutes, to ease a customer's mind, a skiller should give daily updates, this doesn't mean they should be forced to.

Reasons why it does affect the skillers:
1. Training location
2. Inv\Gear Set-up
3.You might feel you're just logging in, but maybe you've logged in just as they've taken a 5 minute break.
and finally, all the skillers that I know of state you may log in to the account with prior warning to the skiller

If they cannot pay back and cannot come to an agreement with the customer, the skiller is banned until a refund can be given, this is already a rule and has no need to create a secondary clause.

No support on any counts.

Edit: Just adding to what Bus said, the quote he used was directly from sythe.org, Richard (Sythe) have stated numerous times that he wants the market to be free from as many restrictions as possible, all of these suggestions goes against what the owner's wishes are.

 

This thread is a direct result of my experience with bartons, yes. You can try and write this off, but every statement I made in my op is factual and evident. I won't discuss my experience with Barton here with you because frankly it is personal and I don't wish for this thread to be turned into the "salt trip" you want it to be. Go harass someone else buddy, you've contributed nothing here.

 

I have the spam forum to harass people on, what I've provided to you is logical reasons why there is no reason to include your suggestions to sythe.org

 

I haven't read deeply into it and I will in an hour or so when I have time but some of these are too restrictive and redundant. For instance some of these would automatically lead to a ban, so there's no point in further stating them as a stickied rule

 

Assuming #1 is based off the recent bartonsvodka incident. I completely agree. Should they agree to say 2 days, but the skiller is not done 3 days past the deadline, the customer should be able to cancel their order and request a refund. That's basic business common sense.

#2, yeah.

#3, makes sense. Only instance where this should be in place would be like a Jad service, where if the customer does log in, it could very easily affect the service being performed.

#4 Hard to enforce, kind of a pointless rule. Should they spend it, they can always buy gp to refund, or refund through another method.

#5 Nope. I agree, a time limit should be set. Once that is done, the customer should not be able to terminate their agreement. They agreed to it, it's binding. As for the skiller, should they decide to cancel and work out a refund percentage based on the work they've done, that's up to them. Only time a customer should be able to cancel a service is if the skiller has yet to start and is willing to agree to a cancel, or if a deadline has passed.

 

#1) You can just request a deadline from the person you buy from and they will have to stick to it. There's no need to enforce it for every single service, but making that more visible to buyers might be something to consider.

2) It's good service to keep in touch with customers once in a while but I'm not up for answering EVERY question someone asks me. If you start talking to me more than my own family then I'll stop reading your messages so I can concentrate on what you're paying me to do.

Where are you drawing the line for all these? Do I as the manager of my team have to handle all of it personally? Can I let my workers handle it themselves?

3) I'm pretty sure that one would be overturned by Sythe rules anyway unless you're selling fire capes.

4) Far from practical so I can't see this one passing. "This is too much work" is why a lot of the suggestions on Sythe are turned down...

5) No. I don't want people stopping me half way through a service because they found someone cheaper. Unless part of an agreement was broken I see no reason why a buyer should be able to cancel an order.

 

I don't support this.

If you want a concrete deadline, then you negotiate that with a seller before the service starts. Other buyers might not care about having a concrete deadline. Similar logic can be applied to the other suggestions.

Point is, all of these suggestions seem more like things that you negotiate individually before the service starts (basically part of a Terms of Service), rather than global rules that everyone must follow.

 

I agree, some of these need to be refined but the issues they aim to address are still important. I'm at work now but I'll try to clarify these later to be more reasonable.

 

Rekface i am currently in the same position as you are with Bartons skilling service. I asked for a timeline before the service ever started, I pay for xp and time. Anyone who provides a service on sythe will never voluntarily give themselves a time line. You have to ask for it buddy. Sythe is a free market, unfortunately most have to learn the hard way. As it stands i could report Bartons and request a refund. I am giving Bartons the benefit of the doubt. He's had some issues and im not desperately in a time crunch. Its annoying but fuck it.

 

The only real thing I'm seeing from this is the timelime issue

Let me say that I personally see it as follows:

If two users agree on a timeline, then if EITHER person backs out without some type of valid reason (to staff discretion) then the other party is entitled to some type of refund or compensation - usually this should be handled beforehand though, as in you should agree on what happens. You should just practice smart trading habits

For instance as Hattez said above - if he wanted to, he could very well request a refund, and staff would calculate the XP percentage rate to the overall payment and make Barton pay the rest back, but hattez has agreed to let barton continue.

If you on the otherhand don't want your skiller to continue, then you simply say that and it's done with, report them and we'll get the refund settled.

#1 and #5 are pretty much handled by what I said above, putting it any stricter just causes confusion

#2 is a dead given, if that doesn't happen it usually ends in a ban

#3 as dunworry said above it's with certain things like jad or even some skilling services, but honestly just stay off the account, if you want to get on just ask the skiller. if you can't get in contact with him to ask then just be patient till they reply, or again, ASK about this beforehand - for instance I have a user doing a skilling service for me - he warned me that while he skills he won't be on Skype much but if I need him then to PM him on Sythe. He asked if I'll ever need to log onto the accs I said absolutely not don't worry. We worked all this out beforehand, and I recommend everyone else does too

#4 This isn't a good idea, RWT bans and such could occur and it's not fair to the skiller

Hope this answers the questions - if anyone wants to refute my points feel free but this is the best way for staff to handle cases related to skilling, though I'll leave this open for any discussion / questions about what I said

 

Yeah I understand I should have entered the agreement with a smarter approach but I do also want to clarify that the incident inspired me to create this thread and it isn't at all a rant. I feel we can create some concrete guidelines that would make it easier for staff to make decisions when these types of problems arise. I'm going to edit and remove a few of my suggestions in the op so take another look and tell me what you think!

 

I agree with everything you said except for #3. The circumstance I found myself in was one in which I was unable to make contact for a period of 48 hours. Curious as to the status of my account, I was compelled to log in as I had no other way of finding out. I'm going to amend all of my suggestions and remove #4, so tell me what you think.

#1 - I am amending to be more realistic.

#3 - I agree completely about certain services such as Jad but these take a few hours tops and should be completed in under a day so that should never be an issue.

#4 - I am removing

#5 - You are right. As long as the skiller maintains contact with the buyer and doesn't go prolonged periods without progress (days not hours) the buyer should not be allowed to terminate.


Updating, so tell me what you think

 

After no contact for 48 hours, I would say log into your account and draft a report. Should the skiller take the stance that you broke their T.O.S., the staff will more than likely side with you, saying that the lack of contact led you to do so. But if you message them asking, and they respond in a reasonable time manner, then you're set. If not, the staff will usually favor you as they didn't respond. I feel the way that the staff handles this is, for the large majority, fair and works fine.

 

Upon PM request, reviewing the changes made to #4:

Not too sure about implementing an "application" to be able to terminate the service. Based on Dave's response, it seems that if two can't come to an agreement due to one party wanting to terminate and the other party not agreeing, just posting a report will suffice. The staff will then calculate the amount to be refunded, should they see termination being agreed. They seem to handle those situations well, and I don't think they come up enough to have a protocol for them.

As for the 48 hour rule, I think that's very reasonable. Could extend to pretty much all services, not just skilling. Want to see Dave's opinion on something like that.

 

Yeah the only reason I feel the need for a claims section is that I feel it is unfair to group these types of reports along with those of scam artists. If you hire someone to skill your account and they steal all your bank, yeah scam report. But if they fail to complete your order, I do not feel they deserve to be in the same category. A simple subsection would make this very easy.

 

What you're saying is pretty much the way we handle these cases anyways, you're pretty much just displaying how staff handles skilling disputes, what do you want to make of it though?

A sticky? An addition to the rules? Tbh there's no need to because if you as a user are afraid after 12 hours of no contact, feel free to make a report and staff will jump in and try to help moderate/dispute the situation, anyone can make a rpeort when they want it doesn't mean the skiller will be banned or anything. This just doesn't really apply because nothing on this site is black and white, it's not like "welp it's been 48 hours fuck the skiller" or "hahah it's been 47.5 hours the guy who ordered my skilling isn't allowed to report me"

It just doesn't make sense to put such firm guidelines on this, does that kind of make sense? Sorry I know it's a bit of a jumble