to armoured shell, i asked everything i needed to, and my item was never shipped.

i have faith in the honesty of people, and i got burned for it, its not because im a girl, or because im nieve. its because the seller lied to me and chose fraud over the right thing.

i am taking your post personally, but only because i would like to see more inforcment, and more information on those that have been burnt, and those holding the torch

I've had only good deals with ASC but I am very careful, always check the seller's rating, and prefer reputable sellers or people with some post count or existing threads.
always ask for pictures.
Shitty cellphone pics+excuse give a good insight on how the seller cares for his business: to be avoided.
a propension to give excuses and too much information should be a warning.On the seller side, buyers with a slow cash flow will most probably waste your time.

Deal Locally, deal in person to avoid any "miscommunications"

Kaylyn And all others who have been burnt or mislead by a deal

Chose a pay method that protects the buyer, not the seller
Paypal use to be the the leader in this but in past years has, well has sucked
As stated buy local if you can, I can quote a name or two, but that's edmonton area, I myself have have purchased over 800.00 dollars worth of parts and aegs in the last couple months
Research and ask , buy ? , if in question ask others

No stupid questions,
The smart talk the wise listen, in the end we all learn

yes i agree with what you are saying armoredshell, and everyone else. but paypal will not help in a "trade" situation. and that is what i was thinking of with the "airsoft officer" type idea. for example, i pay a reputible member in the area of the trade issue to pick up my item from the said seller. i then pay him to ship the item to me. that is the "plan" with stocko. now if it doesnt work out for him to pick up, i guess i will have to press charges. but if it does work, i now have my said item, stocko will have a little extra cash, and the "seller" will have realized that he gave me his address, phone number, and name so he cant hide from his problems.

I'm in the middle of a transaction involving Paypal, haven't used them in years, and I can't recall if they used this idea back then, but it could be something worth thinking about here:

Using an escrow. (is that the right word?)

Paypal has taken the money from the purchasers account and is holding it in escrow until I provide them with a tracking number to verify that I have in fact shipped the item in question, once I do that they will release the funds to me. According to Paypal the buyer has no access to the money, and cannot cancel the payment.

I'm not sure what exactly is involved in setting something like that up here, nor how popular an idea it would be (personally I don't like it, unless I know the buyer I never ship before I confirm receipt of funds, I generally ballpark the shipping cost, or just add 10/20 bucks to the price of what I'm selling, or take the cost myself if it's a small thing) but it could be worth thinking about, at least.

Or the proverbial 'two of you' could invite a third party to act as such for your transaction yourself, if you'd like.

trader rating and how long they've been with asc says alot with what ive learned. like hell if the guys AV'd just a month ago and is selling some "high end upgraded" aeg at a "reasonable price" red flags start popping up in my eyes.

a HUGE problem is this sport has gained popularity in leaps and bounds over the past couple years that yes more and more issues will arise. it never helps with new stores that dont follow age guidelines that ASC and other retailers in canada have made into stone to sell airsoft guns to (ie crappy tire and the new cabelas in edmonton selling to people less then 18). I dont blame anyone but the guilty parties for this.

When what i call 'illegitimate' people start playing the sport issues always come into play. its something we either we have to deal with now and immediately as it arises or itll push loyal players from the game.

That's an escrow service. At the very least it adds costs for the second shipping wave, plus what ever handling fee since there would have to be tests to figure out the true condition.

Personally I would be willing to do this but with the new wave of penny pinching players adding more money to the price tag would probably not make it work on a wide scale.

if you are collecting threads, heres another one made by my friend
http://www.airsoftcanada.com/showthread.php?t=127207

searching ripped off or scammed might bring up a few more.

I was gonna get AVed before, was gonna go out of my way and go to the Toronto Airsoft store to do it. But now, with alll this, and it happening to my friend, im not gonna bother. Just gonna wait for a time and place that is convenient for me or not get AVed at all since retailers dont need AV.

It's still the beast way to get gear. I don't want to start a panic with all this, I think Kokanee is on to something that might explain the spike here.

I'll include the terms in the second pass, thanks!

If you don't want to get scammed do the deal locally, after escaping the propscam Canada unscathed (As a few lucky ones did) I always made it rule 1 that I prefer on dealing face to face if it's not possible, then I make sure I have the contact name number and address and made sure they are a legit info before I send them anything.

I've only been burned once on ASC, half of it was due to the fact that I was too eager to buy. Two guys took a while to send me their shit, but I got it eventually. I've bought, but mostly sold online, probably over 300-400 transactions. Guys just need to learn to walk away if it feels wrong. I usually buy from friends anyways.

I mostly always buy locally on things that can "break" or are mechanical. You can't really break load bearing gear and not make it obvious.

Also, I am confident that no one has ever had a bad transaction with me.

personally, I would like to know the age of these people filing the complaints, as kokanee said, sometimes the seller is just unavailable for a day or two and buyers freak out because transaction and communication was not instantaneous.

A lot of young people are very demanding and require you to hold their insecure little hands through an entire transaction every minute of the way.

I'm not saying all people are like this, but I notice this in other hobby communities too where young people are buying into. The new wave of people want it now, not a couple weeks from now.

Hell I can't even get standard shipping anymore to save money, everyone ships express which is like 3x the cost.

There's actually quite a few more which got PM'd to me directly and its a safe bet other admins (and mods) get PMs too.




THIS is a big part of what's going on. Not entirely, there's some real problems with trades happening, but some people freak out the second things don't happen instantly. You don't have to sit on a deal for months, but give people a couple of days to ship stuff; understand people have lives and may not be sitting in front of their computer 24/7, etc.

Another problem is some people a fucking cheap. They'll haggle over $5 (for $500+ worth of stuff being shipped) and take the slowest (cheapest) shipping method with no insurance and no tracking... THEN play the victim when something goes wrong. It should almost be mandatory that shipping include a tracking number and if sub-forum did end up being created I think I'd want to see that rule added.

There's also some ambiguity with feedback, since bad trades which do get resolved rarely end with negative feedback being left: in fact if the seller adds a little "extra" to compensate for the problem, the buying will usually end up leaving Positive. Sometimes its an honest mistake on the seller's end and "making up for it" is the right thing to do -- and that deserves positive feedback. But in other cases it only masks the problem. Sure you'll get your stuff in the end, maybe with a little extra something, but you'll have to wait and fight for it. So maybe more detailed feedback is in order.

I know I've also been a lot quicker to pull AV status for repeat offenders and particularly troublesome users (HINT: if I PM you about a trade dispute, ignoring my PM is a fantastic way to guarantee you'll lose your AV status permanently. Fucking idiot.)

I know this may seem like a stupid question but can you get law enforcement involved? Say for fraud or theft of such and such over 500$ or under 500$?