A pro-active approach to the BOI

Originally Posted by W.Wedeking

I like this idea. It is a more possitive approach and a good one, especially if used in conjunction with the original BOI.

The only downside I see to this is that someone can give you a negative rating without the situation being explained. I think we have seen a few "Bad Guy" threads started on the BOI where it turned out that the person complaining was either jumping the gun, had unreasonable expectations or just thought they could make someone look bad and get away with it.

The polls, just as it is in the Traders Ratings, lists the members logon name with every vote placed. This is going to be a "short form" BOI. Anyone wanting the long version would necessarily go off and check out the BOI itself for more details. And no, the threads in this area are not enabled for replies. All a paid member can do is to vote on the poll or the Traders Ratings.

Will abuse take place? Most certainly. But if anyone can come up with some way to prevent it beyond what I am trying to do, then please let me know. Or if down the road it becomes apparent that it is not working, or causing more trouble then it is worth, then it will simply end.

Someone brought up the issue about known bad guys getting the certificate. First off, if the current Traders Rating they have legitimately appears to be indicative of them being a bonafide bad guy (yeah, judgement call on my part, which I am REALLY going to hate), then their application will be denied until such time as they have a positive rating. Secondly, anyone who is an unknown will be given the benefit of the doubt. In other words, you are innocent until proven guilty.

Yeah, this could turn out to be one huge bucket of crap. And it will likely be a lot more work for me. Which is why, although I have had this thought for a couple of years, I was not willing to implement it until I could also implement a paid membership program in conjunction with it.

I'm willing to give it a try if you all are......

The address thing is a tough question, and I can easily see both sides on this one. When I did this out of my house only, I did not give my address out prior to payment. Once you became a paying customer you were privy to that information, but no it wasnt posted on my site. Now that I have a shop, Im more then happy to give out the address, as any established retail location would be.

I guess one way around this for someone who is paranoid of giving the address of where there collection is would be a post office box. Im sure not everyone is going to run out and do that, but it would be a quick fix.

As to buying from someone unwilling to give an address on a public forum, that I honestly have no problem with. I have been robbed before, and have to agree giving as little info as is truely needed prior to a sale is likely a smart move.

I too am not to fond of giving out my address, I wouldn't mind giving out a little info such as my state and perhaps even the city I live in. Sure, I could get a P.O. Box, but I'm afraid I would not check it as much as I need to, and thus it might prove rather worthless.

I guess maybe I am just a bit more cautious then some people about who I send my money to in transactions over the net. I don't often get burned, though, so maybe it is warranted.

When I commit to buy something from someone, I try to find out as much information as possible about them. I have gotten a number of things from Ebay, GunBroker and GunsAmerica and each time I made sure I had physical addresses and landline phone numbers for them. Then I cross checked everything via online phone and address lookup sites. If I found discrepancies, I asked about them. So far, everything jived, but I felt a lot better when I sent off the money to someone.

But as I said earlier, you all can decide if you want to provide an address or not. I'm not making it a requirement.

Sounds good Rich, I've just been freaked out about people knowing where I live since I now have a few projects that are worth quite a bit. Right now I don't have a landline phone number (listed cell phone though) and I'm trying to keep my address out of the reach of the public (except to a select few). With all the theifs going on these days you can never be too cautious.

Originally Posted by WebSlave

I guess maybe I am just a bit more cautious then some people about who I send my money to in transactions over the net. I don't often get burned, though, so maybe it is warranted.

When I commit to buy something from someone, I try to find out as much information as possible about them. I have gotten a number of things from Ebay, GunBroker and GunsAmerica and each time I made sure I had physical addresses and landline phone numbers for them. Then I cross checked everything via online phone and address lookup sites. If I found discrepancies, I asked about them. So far, everything jived, but I felt a lot better when I sent off the money to someone.

But as I said earlier, you all can decide if you want to provide an address or not. I'm not making it a requirement.

Originally Posted by Golden Gate Geckos

I have no problem providing my physical address on the shipping labels for my customers, or if someone has an appointment to come look at geckos. I just don't want the curious general population knowing my address. I am here by myself all day, and would like the peace of mind to know that folks don't think that I am a retail business, or set myself up for intrusion. Also, it could leave all of us wide open for theft... something that happens far too often these days.

Why not do something like... leave out the street address on your website, but have it to where we can be contacted by potential customers to provide our address? This way, it would be at our personal discretion who knows where we live.

I totally agree with Marcia and Cody. I don't have any problem giving my address out to potential buyers, but I don't want it out for the general public to see. If I had a Store that I worked out of I would have no problem advertising the address, but I don't want EVERYBODY to know where I live. Especially since I live with my sister and her 10 year old son.

Yeah I agree with them also. That is exactly the reason we only post our PO Box on our website. I don't want some strange, stoned herper camping out on my front lawn waiting for me to get home so he can get the grand tour.
(*Note: That really happened to my husband once.)

I would like to sign up for this project ASAP. Like I said I am going to get contributer level membership anyways, so why not do this. So where should I start after I get that paid subscription, webslave?