PlayerAuction Trouble (continued)

[PlayerAuctions]

@OP

Sent you a PM. I took a step back and merely watched the outcome of this order, as I wanted to believe they could resolve the issue intelligently and without my interference, and it seems they were able to do so. From what I had seen, the dispute had entered manual arbitration, and there were no outstanding issues that would have required me to interfere.

I think in the future, it would be best for you to reach out to me with issues you may have.

You can report on the issue, as I imagine some people might be interested to know.

@PlayerAuctionsPR --
The people you employ to look at these disputes are, at best, as knowledgeable as people on Sythe.org in these disputes. However, there is the added fact that you have a financial incentive to deny the dispute. If you accept the OP's story, you have to give him a full refund, and you will likely not recover any of the commission from the seller (although you'd damn sure try). If you deny the OP's dispute, you keep your commission and the deal goes through. So, in the case where it's one party's word against another, your company is naturally directed towards one side (that which provides a profit).

Hi R2,

I'd like to correct the notion that we have a financial incentive towards a certain degree (i.e. siding with the seller, so we don't lose the commission). While, I think that may work for thieves and brigands, if people made deductions on our business model, they'd see that that isn't the case for us.

In fact, it is the opposite for us to do that. The main premise of our site, is to promote safe trade for users. Nothing more, and nothing less.

So let's look at the financials.

Let's say someone buys a game account for $100. PlayerAuctions gets $10. Out of one hundred singles, we only get ten of them. Now, is this pure profit? No. It's revenue. Take this a step further by removing what we lose from returns, and refunds, and we're looking at maybe $8. This is our gross profit. Now, is that what we call profit? No, that's not measure of a successful company. So if you take away all of the overhead (salaries, office rental, supplies, milk for people's breakfasts, all the third party costs associated with our platform), then we walk away with a cool $1.50 in our pocket. (these figures are for demonstration purposes only, but if you followed these figures to their logical extreme, then it means that PA actually losses money on orders below $100 due to fixed costs).

So yes, we could automatically side with the sellers all the time, as it would provide "immediate" returns, but this is what I call "bad profits", i.e. it doesn't translate into long term growth. Doing business this way might make sense for a den of thieves, or for people with zero business acumen....

But that is not financially beneficial for us. Our business depends, not on that $2, but rather it depends on parties being satisfied with the service, and returning to make more trades. That is how we survive. Not by automatically siding with the party that could generate immediate returns. Our business would not be sustainable that way (and I wouldn't want to work for a company like that anyway).

Hope this clarifies.

 

[IRL Seller]

@PlayerAuctionsPR -- The OP has a really difficult situation that he put forward. Anyone with experience dealing with Runescape accounts can see his predicament. As much as you claim your company can mediate these disputes fairly 100% of the time, the fact is, they can't. This is a dispute which comes down to hearsay. How can the OP prove that the seller has regained access to the account? How can anyone know who truly has control?

The people you employ to look at these disputes are, at best, as knowledgeable as people on Sythe.org in these disputes. However, there is the added fact that you have a financial incentive to deny the dispute. If you accept the OP's story, you have to give him a full refund, and you will likely not recover any of the commission from the seller (although you'd damn sure try). If you deny the OP's dispute, you keep your commission and the deal goes through. So, in the case where it's one party's word against another, your company is naturally directed towards one side (that which provides a profit).

It's not really your fault that Runescape accounts are always recoverable by the seller. It is your fault for providing false hope to the buyers, and acting as if these transactions are safe. You do ask for a lot of info from the seller, but that even with photo ID, you'd never be able to pursue them legally. Therefore, the only protection you have is that it would be difficult for a seller to pull the same scam twice.

You guys should really be ashamed of the way you advertise account sales. Are you just ignorant? You do realize that the seller, 2 months from now, or 2 years from now, can easily steal the account back from the buyer, right? Where do you outline this risk?

This ^^.

@PlayerAuctions
that was a bit harsh. The buyer here has MAJOR CONCERNS. Like he is going to LOSE HIS MONEY that he spent on the account. He has NO redeeming to do. I think it was folly of PA to NOT check the bank in the first place.

@OP
Only deal with people who you can be fully assured will not recover the account. You have to accept that EVERY account is recoverable and EVERY account WILL be recovered if the seller decides that they can make more money on it (unless it is from someone 100% trusted, i.e. Snow Patrol ect.).

Try to get PlayerAuctions to refund in under one week, if not, call your credit card/debit card company or paypal (if you used PayPal) and say something like the following:
"I have placed an order on PlayerAuctions.com using ____________ payment method and the online site and seller have been uncooperative and I have not received what I payed for. I wish for you, the financial institution, to charge back the payment as the website support is NOT helping me. I have tried numerous times and IT HAS NOT worked and they are not refunding the money and I HAVE NOT and WILL NOT be receiving any goods. Thank you"

You WILL be perm banned from PA, but WHO CARES!

1) Their fees are ridiculous
2) Their "verification" is ridiculous and you cannot pursue someone legally if you have purchased someone else's intellectual property (RWT).
3) THEY FALSELY ADVERTISE ACCOUNT SECURITY. This is false, all they do is threaten to release the seller's information if they scam (which is damn hard to do anything legally on, just phone complaints and letters really).

PLEASE buy an account from someone trusted ON SYTHE.
1) no fees
2) if they are trusted then they will not recover
3) if they are SVU you have all the same info that PA has on verification.


@PlayerAuctionsPR: If you reply to me, I will not read it so you can consider anything else you typed to be tl;dr..... Go pound sand.

 

[PlayerAuctions]

You WILL be perm banned from PA, but WHO CARES!

A lot of people would care.

A) You're financial institution will care, and will put your purchasing account on notice and likely will raise internal "risk" status.

B) Our own fraud prevention & risk management systems are tied to larger cyber security networks, which report & analyze your consumer profile. A chargeback against any company is not something to be taken lightly as this gentleman suggests. It becomes part of your "buyer report". Third party security companies record this, and attach a "risky" notice to all of your associated information, and other eCommerce businesses who use fraud prevention systems will see this.

C) I believe that people who have had the patience to read & understand this thread's history, would also care about your own credibility. How could they trust someone who launches "advise" to people without even having read the contents of the thread? This member's issue was resolved.

tl;dr: Your advise is misguided, and can be extremely harmful to individuals. And in the future, read the actual thread before jumping in with a response, yea? ^_^

 

[SexayMistahBee]

Apologies for of being no help but I just couldn't help asking;
how's the situation going?

 

[IRL Seller]

A lot of people would care.

A) You're financial institution will care, and will put your purchasing account on notice and likely will raise internal "risk" status.

B) Our own fraud prevention & risk management systems are tied to larger cyber security networks, which report & analyze your consumer profile. A chargeback against any company is not something to be taken lightly as this gentleman suggests. It becomes part of your "buyer report". Third party security companies record this, and attach a "risky" notice to all of your associated information, and other eCommerce businesses who use fraud prevention systems will see this.

C) I believe that people who have had the patience to read & understand this thread's history, would also care about your own credibility. How could they trust someone who launches "advise" to people without even having read the contents of the thread? This member's issue was resolved.

tl;dr: Your advise is misguided, and can be extremely harmful to individuals. And in the future, read the actual thread before jumping in with a response, yea? ^_^

I have read the whole thread, twice now. As for the "risk status" of a buyers profile, for having ONE charge back due to your companies noncompliance for refunds and false advertising, the buyer will 100% be fine.