So here's the deal.
Getting on scammed on PA is not likely as long as you follow some basic rules. We try to make everything transparent so there are no surprises:
1) Abide by the Secure Delivery Seller Agreement:
http://www.playerauctions.com/help/content/secure-seller-delivery-agreement/
2) Do NOT exchange contact information with the buyer
This is critical for sellers especially. Social engineering, and e-mail masking has made sellers become victims of phishing email scams (i.e. receiving emails that LOOK like they are from PlayerAuctions for delivery, but they are FAKE EMAILS). We've pretty much cleaned up this problem by educating sellers, but if you are new to the platform, then this is the rationale behind why we don't allow personal contact info.
Additionally, any correspondence which takes place off-site will NOT be counted as any kind of evidence during disputes or arbitration. Keep your communication within the PA-onsite message system to protect yourself since
3) Always report a buyer who requests an offsite trade:
Some buyers may complain that:
"
PA won't let me pay with PayPal"
or
"
PA is asking me to send over documents, but I don't feel comfortable doing that"
etc. etc. etc.
REPORT these users. Bear in mind, PA is here to protect you. If a user can't pay with a certain payment method, or if we are requesting additional verification from them... just think...
THERE MUST BE A REASON WHY. Nothing on our platform is arbitrary, and if a user is uncomfortable sending their own verification documents to prove their a legitimate trader... that should automatically raise red flags. Don't trade with people who want to "escape" the safety net of PA. Even if they have solid feedback on the platform, bear in mind that a user's PA account can get hijacked just as much as anyone else's due to key-logging, friendly fraud (i.e. a younger brother using an account), or any number of reasons. This is e-Commerce.
Don't take any chances, let PA take the risk for you.
One special note about fees:
People mention fees on PA fairly often. I have only three comments:
1) PlayerAuctions is the cheapest and most viable option given the value added and unique selling points we provide.
Blizzard hosted their own trading with Diablo 3. Blizzard took 15%, and PayPal took 15%. Sellers lost out on 30% fees there.
By trading on PA, you have the best profit-cost efficiency. Why are we so cheap?
We've been in the business for 15 years (as of tomorrow), and at one point one of our sister companies was one of PayPal's largest merchants in 2004-2006. We have maintained a fraud performance loss rate of under 0.2%. This is unheard of in this industry from a business which transacts with our volume. Our longstanding banking relationships + our fraud performance is what allows us to maintain low payment processing fees (I have no idea why Blizzard got in bed with PayPal at a 15% processing rate).
This means, that PA has had the benefit of a long standing banking relationship in an industry which consider "virtual goods" as "risky".
2) Sacrifice 10% of your margin by trading on PA, or risk a 100% loss + chargeback fees + risk having your own payment source (PayPal account) locked or suspended permanently.
A lot of people feel the latter is not worth the risk.
3) There are a ton of hidden costs, sellers don't see.
The barebones of everything, PlayerAuctions
loses money on all orders under $50 due to associated fixed costs with processing each order. (So, an order at $51, means we make only a few cents in profit. I bet many of you did not expect this).
In addition to our own proprietary risk management system, PlayerAuctions also partners with (currently 3, but used to be 5) global risk management and fraud reputation companies (which we will announce in 2015 who all our partners are). These systems help our own fraud protocols analyze everything from email reputation, phone reputation, device ID reputation, and payment source reputation. Each order undergoes several layers of automatic reviews, which cost money to process.
Some of you may not remember this, but PA's fees used to be 15% + $1.99 for sellers.
In the past 6 years since we re-launched in 2008 PA has barely survived. This will, in fact, be the first year PA will not end in "the red". I know this begs a lot of questions, but I will leave this to some potentially fun speculation for now, and will write a special post about this after the new year to summarize all that we've done in 2014.
I hope you guys find this post helpful, both on the "staying safe" side of things, as well as helping to illuminate the value you guys get from fees that are charged.
Cheers,
Jacob Aldaco
Head of Western Marketplaces - Sr Product Manager
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