Iffy vendors

[Aiken Drum]

I'm kind of curious about something. Given that certain vendors have a pretty consistent reputation of screwing a certain percentage of their customers (see my post about Dali in the vendor review forum), shouldn't there come a point at which they're not allowed to advertise here anymore?

I mean, this forum is the for the good of the NSX community, and I have a hard time understanding how allowing a vendor that routinely produces disputes is in keeping with that. It's not like Joe Forum Guy who ships a part to Joe Forum Guy 2 and they don't agree on the terms and results. That's hard to pin down and it's usually isolated. Rather, it's Joe Vendor who is infamous for the fact that, once there's any issue with an order, he puts his hands over his ears and goes "LA LA LA".

Does Prime have any sort of policy about this?

 

[Aiken Drum]

In fact, I just remembered I could look at a person's trader score/history, and went to look at Dali's. Get this...

He has about 100 positive ratings from one person on one day. These make up about half of his rating history. Gee, I wonder how that happened. I reported them as fake.

NSXPrime, shouldn't those fake ratings be removed so Mark's trader score/history will look the way it really is?

 

[GreyHoundSteve]

When i first came here i wondered the same thing as you. Luckily i happened across the great guys at Science of Speed and have had nothing but good things to report about my dealings with Chris and Jeff at SOS.

I have seen allot of discussions about Mark at Dali, some good, some bad. I like to error on the side of caution and therefore have not tried to purchase anything from him.

From what i have seen from the posts ive read: Everyone is real happy with Dali and Mark until they finally get screwed and then its the same story "he wont return my calls or emails". To me, its simply not worth the risk when we have a perfectly trustworthy vendor here on the board who does answer the phone and respond to emails.

Maybe some people just like the gamble of it. Will i get my part or will this be the time i dont?

 

[UnhuZ]

(...) To me, its simply not worth the risk when we have a perfectly trustworthy vendor here on the board who does answer the phone and respond to emails.
(...)

Don't hold your breath on that one :wink: :wink:

 

[NSX Prime]

I'm kind of curious about something. Given that certain vendors have a pretty consistent reputation of screwing a certain percentage of their customers (see my post about Dali in the vendor review forum), shouldn't there come a point at which they're not allowed to advertise here anymore?

Maybe. What point do you suggest? It has been my experience that most of these situations are unique enough that any attempt to create a written set of rules with specific metrics is futile.

Does Prime have any sort of policy about this?

The policy can be summed up as "Caveat Emptor" and is the very first thing you see when you read the Marketplace rules section: http://www.nsxprime.com/market/submit_an_ad.htm

He has about 100 positive ratings from one person on one day. These make up about half of his rating history. Gee, I wonder how that happened. I reported them as fake.

They are not fake.

NSXPrime, shouldn't those fake ratings be removed so Mark's trader score/history will look the way it really is?

As I explained privately, multiple ratings from the same person do not further increase someone's itrader score. This has been discussed in depth here before - please do a search if you have more questions about it.

 

[Aiken Drum]

Maybe. What point do you suggest? It has been my experience that most of these situations are unique enough that any attempt to create a written set of rules with specific metrics is futile.

Well, it your forum, so you can pick whatever point you want.

I'd like to think that someone who himself says he takes 5-7 orders a day, and is therefore quite experienced in how to ship items, and yet still has only a 63% itrader rating based largely on failure to ship, would not qualify to continue advertising here.

Really, it's not isolated and unique. If you look at the links I posted ... er, in the posts you've now deleted ... it's pretty consistent in nature. Any time something goes wrong with an order, e.g. not in stock, need to return a defective item, that sort of thing, there's a huge chance that Mark will stop responding to you and keep your money. It's that straightforward. Yes, there are a few other ways he screws up, but from reading posts to make up the set of links I posted, that's the primary issue, and it's a pretty damned big one as well. Taking money and not providing the requested item is about as bad as one can do.

I really do suggest you search based on "dali" and read a bunch of the negative posts all in one go. I think you'll find that it's not as spotty and varied as you remember it.

 

[NSX Prime]

Well, it your forum, so you can pick whatever point you want.

You are the one who brought it up so I am asking for your proposed solution.

I'd like to think that someone who himself says he takes 5-7 orders a day, and is therefore quite experienced in how to ship items, and yet still has only a 63% itrader rating based largely on failure to ship, would not qualify to continue advertising here.

Are suggesting a threshold based on itrader feedback? I think any vendor (or any kind of sales experience) will tell you that people are much more likely to take the time to complain when upset than to praise when satisfied. So what threshold do you suggest?

Is itrader feedback an appropriate thing to measure on? 5 - 7 orders a day times... what, 10+ years? Even if he only works 200 days a year that's 10,000+ orders. There are a total of 21 negative feedback. That is somewhere around 0.2% of orders where the customer knew about the itrader system and was upset enough to leave a negative feedback. Even if you limit it to the 4 years this site has had trader ratings, 21 negatives still reflects less than a 1% dissatisfied customer rate based on the 5 - 7 orders a day number you gave.

Yet there is another vendor here who seems to have a much worse satisfied customer ratio yet has a much better itrader rating.

And there is another high volume vendor who has had people post lengthy complaints in the Buyer/Seller experiences forum, yet nobody has ever left that vendor a negative itrader rating.

So maybe number of negative itrader ratings is not such a good metric to build such a system around after all?

 

[Coz]

Well said Lud...

 

[Aiken Drum]

So maybe number of negative itrader ratings is not such a good metric to build such a system around after all?

I think it would be more accurate to say that the number of positive itrader ratings is not a good metric to forgive a bad vendor.

However, negative ratings are useful. Kind of like... a guy who kills just one person in his life has a good rating, percentage-wise, but is nevertheless not someone you want your friends to hang out with, because you don't want one of them to be the one who doubles the negative rating. To a less-over-the-top extent, you can apply a similar concept to negative vendor ratings and reviews.

I think the current ratings for Mark show that, in the past 12 months, six people have been happy with their transactions, and nine have had major issues generally involving monetary losses. However, that's just in the iTrader ratings. When I was browsing threads about Mark, some of the negative ones were from people who did not leave him a rating. They should have, but the point I'm making is that not everyone knows of, or will remember to use, the itrader ratings. Even I, bloodyminded bastard that I can be, didn't think of it immediately. Many of his customers probably aren't even nsxprime members who can contribute to the ratings here. Thus you have to assume there's some multiplier greater than 1 on the number of people whose dealings with Mark went bad in the last year. But even if were exactly 1x, that would still mean Mark's screwed 9 nsxprime members in the last year. Isn't 9 a bit high for a bare minimum? Go further back and even more members got raw deals... 35 different members have given Mark bad reviews, while 21 said they had a good experience. That's a lot. Even if there's someone worse, it's still a lot.

For extreme contrast, look at Chris@SOS's ratings. Zero negative ratings. Zero in the last year, zero in the last two years, zero in the last four years. Zero, ever. Sure, he's probably had actual issues here or there, but they've been sufficiently small in number, or minimal in form, or he's resolved them well enough, that nobody's EVER given Chris a bad mark. SOS' iTrader score isn't the usual sum of negative and positive that happens to come out positive, it's just pure positive. Dali and SOS even have similar numbers of reviewers, with Dali receiving marks from 56 people in the last four years, and SOS receiving marks from 50 people in the last four years. The difference is that all 50 of SOS's were positive and 4/10 of Dali's were negative.

So, yeah, to some degree, you can absolutely read something into long-term iTrader ratings when deciding whether someone merits their posting privileges. But, like I said, whether you do or not is obviously your call, because it's your forum. Functionally, all I can do from my end is have an opinion, for all the good that does.

 

[Aiken Drum]

35 different members have given Mark bad reviews, while 21 said they had a good experience.

Whoops, got the numbers backwards and can't edit. Should have read:

21 different members have given Mark bad reviews, while 35 said they had a good experience.

Still a miserable ratio.

 

[HYPERTUNE]

Basically, the powers that be don't care about your opinion, and don't see your input as being in any way beneficial. If I were you, I'd apologise now and never try to give further comments on how the forum could be made better.

Oh, you do know you aren't allowed to suggest there might be a better way of doing something unless you have a 100% undisputable solution that is agreable to everyone, don't you? :biggrin:

 

[NSX Prime]

Functionally, all I can do from my end is have an opinion, for all the good that does.

You could also outline the details of your proposed solution, which I've asked you to do a couple times now.

Or you could also work constructively towards a write-up on how members can research vendors and protect themselves as much as possible in their transactions, as I requested people do here: http://www.nsxprime.com/forums/showpost.php?p=976176&postcount=29

 

[NSX Prime]

Basically, the powers that be don't care about your opinion, and don't see your input as being in any way beneficial. If I were you, I'd apologise now and never try to give further comments on how the forum could be made better.

Oh, you do know you aren't allowed to suggest there might be a better way of doing something unless you have a 100% undisputable solution that is agreable to everyone, don't you? :biggrin:

People who complain without suggesting a solution usually just want a platform to hear themselves complain.

It's not my responsibility to figure out what is best for the community at large or solve other people's problems. If nobody else cares enough to put forth some sort of useful proposal to solve what they perceive as a problem, why should I take it upon myself to do so?

So, do you have an idea for a solution or are you just here to complain?

 

[Aiken Drum]

I've already given you my proposed solution a couple of times.

My proposed solution is for you to take a good look at the history of complaints about infamous vendors and use common sense when deciding whether or not said vendors should continue advertising here.

However, instead, you just keep being sarcastic with me, trying to get me to make some hard-and-fast rule you can ridicule because hard-and-fast rules never work--that's what we have to have judges and juries and can't just go by written laws. You seem perfectly able to judge my posts as undesirable; I don't see why you're not equally qualified to judge Mark's.

Also, I already wrote up a fairly lengthy buyer-beware post regarding the one vendor I personally have knowledge of. You deleted it. Go undelete it if you want input on a policy document.

I'm wasting my time here. I honestly don't think you're even reading the majority of what I write. If you're not interested in personally helping to protect your fellow NSX owners from bad vendors, then be that way.

I'm done.

 

[NSX Prime]

Very well. Basically you are asking me to research something I am already aware of and make a judgment call which I have already made. Do you really think I am unaware of major vendor issues? I personally approve all the complaints in the Buyer/Seller/Vendor Experiences forum. If you search this NSX Prime Discussion forum you will see vendor discussions have come up several times over the years in here as well. I have been to the last 9 NSXPOs and a number of other NSX owner meetings for the past 11 years and met / talked to many owners in person about all kinds of things including vendor experiences. Add to that a large volume of e-mail, PM, etc. communication from people about various vendor issues. I don't mean this in a condescending way, but I have a pretty good basis of understanding about vendors in the NSX community. I'm sure many others do as well - it's not a big community so it's not very hard.

So really you just disagree with the fact that I have not banned this vendor and are mad at me. I haven't been ridiculing or sarcastic with you at all, and I'm not sure how you are reading that into my replies other than because you are angry and reading what I write in a negative light. You came here asking about a "policy." I don't think "look at it and make a call" is what most people think of when they hear the word "policy," so I was trying to get you to outline what you had in mind. That is all.

If you want to provide further constructive input you are always welcome to do so as I outlined above But understand that while everyone has an opinion and can provide input it is simply not possible to run the site the way every individual would like. Ultimately I have to make some decisions and not everyone is going to agree with all of them. In fact there are probably few if any decisions that everybody in a group this large and diverse agrees with.

 

[Aiken Drum]

I've already said I was done, so I would appreciate it if you didn't put any words in my mouth at this point (e.g. "So really you just disagree . . . and are mad at me."). I intend to continue reading this thread, but do not believe there's any point in continuing to contribute to it, and so I don't want to be drawn back in to make corrections.

Thank you, though, for adjusting the originally-posted version of the post above. I did see the original just after you posted it, and the revised version is more informative and less off-putting. Perhaps something similar happened when I first read your earlier posts as well.

 

[NSX Prime]

I've already said I was done, so I would appreciate it if you didn't put any words in my mouth at this point (e.g. "So really you just disagree . . . and are mad at me.").

I feel the same way about you claiming I was ridiculing and sarcastic with you.

 

[NSXGMS]

I'm kind of curious about something. Given that certain vendors have a pretty consistent reputation of screwing a certain percentage of their customers (see my post about Dali in the vendor review forum), shouldn't there come a point at which they're not allowed to advertise here anymore?

I mean, this forum is the for the good of the NSX community, and I have a hard time understanding how allowing a vendor that routinely produces disputes is in keeping with that. It's not like Joe Forum Guy who ships a part to Joe Forum Guy 2 and they don't agree on the terms and results. That's hard to pin down and it's usually isolated. Rather, it's Joe Vendor who is infamous for the fact that, once there's any issue with an order, he puts his hands over his ears and goes "LA LA LA".

Does Prime have any sort of policy about this?

I completely see where you're coming from but I think the point Lud is trying to make is that he is already aware of everything vendor related and his decision as of now is to do nothing.

Furthermore he believes situations like this are best dealt with on a case-by-case basis which is why he is resisting setting any "rules" regarding complaints, feedback etc. He makes the point that these vendor complaints most likely are not representative of the experiences of the whole public. He points out that while complaints about this vendor are disturbingly abundant it's still quite a bit less than it seems. (Too many for me, I confess.) But not enough to warrant any further action by Lud. And that's totally his call.

In Lud's estimation doing nothing at this point is the in the best interest of the community. That's his position. Agree or disagree, it's his playground. He rejected the suggestion that he create rules and metrics and put to rest any speculation he would be banning any vendors. The case has been closed since Lud's 2nd post. Perhaps that's why he was feeling a bit annoyed.

 

[Coz]

Can you blame him ?
How long does one beat a dead horse...?

Perhaps that's why he was feeling a bit annoyed.

 

[Coz]

In 3 different seperate topic's I might add.

Can you blame him ?
How long does one beat a dead horse...?

 

[Aiken Drum]

Can you blame him ?
How long does one beat a dead horse...?

Hm, I think I can respond to this without getting pulled into the other line of discussion.

As Dali still has my money and still has not sent me my item, the horse is not yet dead, and it won't be dead until that changes. When I'm wronged and it's not made right, I don't let go of the grudge. After a couple of years, I might get bored and dedicate my efforts to something more timely, but I won't forget about it. If it happens to come up again, I'll be just as heated as day one. It makes me particularly incensed when the offender has done the same thing to others.

Me, I'd post my now-deleted caution to every single thread on the entire forum if I thought it would either fix Mark's policies or put him out of business before I got banned. The momentary inconvenience to readers would be balanced by the eventual avoidance of further monetary losses to the community. I could live with being banned if I accomplished that. But I don't think I would, and so I'd get banned for no reason. I'm not going to give up a tool in vain when I might figure out a better use for it in the future.

Now, if you guys just give up when someone takes your money and doesn't send you the item you paid for, that's your business. But, the thing is, I bet if someone did that to you, you'd probably start wanting to tell everyone about the vendor, too. All of a sudden, the fight would be a lot more important to you. That's what I'd bet.

 

[NSXGMS]

Hm, I think I can respond to this without getting pulled into the other line of discussion.

As Dali still has my money and still has not sent me my item, the horse is not yet dead, and it won't be dead until that changes. When I'm wronged and it's not made right, I don't let go of the grudge. After a couple of years, I might get bored and dedicate my efforts to something more timely, but I won't forget about it. If it happens to come up again, I'll be just as heated as day one. It makes me particularly incensed when the offender has done the same thing to others.

Me, I'd post my now-deleted caution to every single thread on the entire forum if I thought it would either fix Mark's policies or put him out of business before I got banned. The momentary inconvenience to readers would be balanced by the eventual avoidance of further monetary losses to the community. I could live with being banned if I accomplished that. But I don't think I would, and so I'd get banned for no reason. I'm not going to give up a tool in vain when I might figure out a better use for it in the future.

Now, if you guys just give up when someone takes your money and doesn't send you the item you paid for, that's your business. But, the thing is, I bet if someone did that to you, you'd probably start wanting to tell everyone about the vendor, too. All of a sudden, the fight would be a lot more important to you. That's what I'd bet.

I don't suggest for one second that you give up doing everything you can to alert the public to your experiences and point out others' similar experiences. Personally, I feel that the amount of info already on Prime surrounding this vendor has reached a point that would convince me to never do business with this vendor if I had never ordered from them before and/or lived out of their area. This is thanks to you and people like you who have shared their experiences. I think we all should thank you for caring enough to alert the community and I encourage you to continue.

But the point here in this thread is that your appeal to Lud did not result in the results you had hoped for and you seemed a bit combative and angry with Lud about his decision. I think we all know Lud's a very thoughtful guy who always tries to put the community's interests first. There is no doubt in my mind that his decision was an informed and intelligent one.

 

[Aiken Drum]

NSXGMS--

First, though I don't think you took it as such, I do want to be sure you know that when I was referring to "you guys," I was referring to the two posts above mine, which were referring to me as beating a dead horse. In fact, now that I glance over the thread again, I see it's Coz responding to his own post, so it's actually just one guy. I wasn't referring to all present and should have been more specific.

Anyway, I took a "combative" tone when my attempts to caution others in Dali-related threads were deleted. It was not just a response to a simple decision that Dali would not be sanctioned. A decision is one thing, but having my cautions against a vendor censored while the vendor himself remained unfettered was a bit much to swallow. Honestly, I was jaw-to-the-floor in surprise and dismay.

I'm allowed to picket a bad vendor's B&M store in real life; I would have hoped this concept would transfer to Prime. However, here I'm restricted to the equivalent of reporting the store to the BBB, and we all know how much good that does. Being unable to picket the seller where the buyers actually are, while the seller is still allowed to advertise where the buyers actually are, seemed rather unbalanced to me, and that's what raised/raises my ire. It was especially off-putting to have it pointed out that it was I who was in danger of losing access to Prime, and not the other way around.

 

[NSXGMS]

NSXGMS--

First, though I don't think you took it as such, I do want to be sure you know that when I was referring to "you guys," I was referring to the two posts above mine, which were referring to me as beating a dead horse. In fact, now that I glance over the thread again, I see it's Coz responding to his own post, so it's actually just one guy. I wasn't referring to all present and should have been more specific.

Anyway, I took a "combative" tone when my attempts to caution others in Dali-related threads were deleted. It was not just a response to a simple decision that Dali would not be sanctioned. A decision is one thing, but having my cautions against a vendor censored while the vendor himself remained unfettered was a bit much to swallow. Honestly, I was jaw-to-the-floor in surprise and dismay.

I'm allowed to picket a bad vendor's B&M store in real life; I would have hoped this concept would transfer to Prime. However, here I'm restricted to the equivalent of reporting the store to the BBB, and we all know how much good that does. Being unable to picket the seller where the buyers actually are, while the seller is still allowed to advertise where the buyers actually are, seemed rather unbalanced to me, and that's what raised/raises my ire. It was especially off-putting to have it pointed out that it was I who was in danger of losing access to Prime, and not the other way around.

I hear you. My posts were deleted also and I for the most part agreed and acknowledged the issues the vendor has had while attempting to clarify the actual facts surrounding those "issues".

But the vendor's issues were somewhat off topic in that thread and I understand why the posts were deleted even though I agree with your argument. I've seen Lud do the same regarding other off-topic tangents and that's how he does things.

Lud has expressed many times he'd like any posts such as the ones deleted to be started fresh in the appropriate forum. Right, wrong--that's how he wants it and while those posts might have been "helpful" in terms of informing the public he had a basis for deleting them that he's made clear.

 

[UnhuZ]

Guys,

saying what i'm about to say, i'm putting myself on the front of your guns, but as i love this community, i share my experiences with you all.

i read all over your bad experiences with Dali/Mark... and as it's the issue on the table here...here it goes.

I came across Dali by a friend, not by Prime...at the time i even didn't had a NSX, which i purchased in 09/2005.

I started to buy from Mark/Dali (way back in time) before i was a Prime member, ence, before i read any post here about businesses that went south.
My experience with him has been the best one... he always goes over his head to fullfill my requests (sometimes crazy ones).

Facts:
- over $10000 in parts for over 3 years
- a few orders were shipped before i pay
- refund of old credit relative to a part not beeing available anymore
- answers my emails so promptly that sometimes it seems MSN chat (dozens a night)

about the refund, he told me that he couldn't get the part i ordered and payed for, and i told them to keep the money and discount it later...i asked him to discount it about 6 months later which he did without a second request from me.

i don't know all business that Mark does, so i don't know in any given business who's right or wrong, but i know for sure that if the vendor isn't always right, the customer also isn't always right for sure ....

i say this against myself as i am a customer and i am a vendor for a living (computer related) ... but through my whole life i saw pretty stupid amazing things a customer can do to a clerk, sometimes the customer goes to such a irrational non sense level of argument that makes me want to step in and slap them in the face to see if they wake up from their dementia... on the other end, i had to put some vendors (clerks) in their place for a very bad customer service attending me ... some vendors feel that buying stuff from them is a favor that they are doing to me..when i think it's the other way arround...i'm giving my money to them...i don't expect, heck...don't want @$$ kissing from them but don't want bad attendance either.

with this, what i mean is... if we are reasonable and use good common sense and respect, we are more close to get the same treatment from the other side...either as a customer, a vendor, a friend, a wife, a husband, a son, a father...etc...you get my point..

so now...i just have to apologize for the long post...

PS - i don't expect hard feelings from anyone by getting against the tide here. Everyone have their experiences..some have bad ones..i have good ones.