New Member Issues

[SKH616]

Thank you for asking this question. I too struggle with selling through the forum and all of the complexities. The responses have been very educational.

 

[JONVHERBERT]

We would all appreciate you letting us know who the members are who asked you this nonsense. That is flat out garbage, and it's clear to me that they're probably trying to play you, with the excuse that you're new. I'd like to know who they are so I can add those clowns to my "Do Not Do Business With" list.

The worst one BY FAR has been “Davemo96”, or David Parker. He made an offer on my Pheasant Tail, I accepted. Per our agreement, I revised the post to reflect “sold, pending funds”. He asked to speak on the phone instead of text, fine; whatever. Then he wants me to send him a bunch of photos via email - sure, I do it. I told him repeatedly that I was spending time with my fiancé/family, but he continued to need more and more and more - all while reassuring me several times that he was “definitely buying it”. We agreed to PayPal, and I even went as far as sending him photos of my state issued drivers license, OSHA 30 card, and business card to give him additional sense of security for the transaction. I also agreed to do G&S, if he would cover the 3.5% fee. All of my stuff matches - my name here, name on ID, email, OSHA, even caller ID. So he promises he’s buying it. Repeatly. But the more we spoke, the more he was constantly asking the same questions over and over; either old or drunk I assumed. He contacts me later that night, begs me to sell him my Wilson Combat small logo Zaan. After repeatedly telling him it wasn’t really for sale and that it probably meant more to me than it was actually worth; I gave in. I told him to send me some pictures of some Shiros he dangled infront of me. He offered a cash desk for both knives as well. I explained to him why I was needing cash with life’s current situations. I clearly explained the deal repeatedly but he again, he kept saying the same stuff over and over. Finally, my fiancé was getting really upset because Sunday’s are “our days”. So I told him I’d message him when I woke up, and that if he was awake - he could call me. He called me at 7am or so, wanting me to either send the knife first and then he pay upon receiving it, or accept $400 less than the figure we agreed to SEVERAL times. In my eyes, this guy is completely lacking a spine and was trying to take advantage of a new member. Despicable. I have all of the emails and texts and phone history to back up every claim made as well. This is how I ended our conversation this evening.

 

[Pete1977]

The worst one BY FAR has been “Davemo96”, or David Parker. He made an offer on my Pheasant Tail, I accepted. Per our agreement, I revised the post to reflect “sold, pending funds”. He asked to speak on the phone instead of text, fine; whatever. Then he wants me to send him a bunch of photos via email - sure, I do it. I told him repeatedly that I was spending time with my fiancé/family, but he continued to need more and more and more - all while reassuring me several times that he was “definitely buying it”. We agreed to PayPal, and I even went as far as sending him photos of my state issued drivers license, OSHA 30 card, and business card to give him additional sense of security for the transaction. I also agreed to do G&S, if he would cover the 3.5% fee. All of my stuff matches - my name here, name on ID, email, OSHA, even caller ID. So he promises he’s buying it. Repeatly. But the more we spoke, the more he was constantly asking the same questions over and over; either old or drunk I assumed. He contacts me later that night, begs me to sell him my Wilson Combat small logo Zaan. After repeatedly telling him it wasn’t really for sale and that it probably meant more to me than it was actually worth; I gave in. I told him to send me some pictures of some Shiros he dangled infront of me. He offered a cash desk for both knives as well. I explained to him why I was needing cash with life’s current situations. I clearly explained the deal repeatedly but he again, he kept saying the same stuff over and over. Finally, my fiancé was getting really upset because Sunday’s are “our days”. So I told him I’d message him when I woke up, and that if he was awake - he could call me. He called me at 7am or so, wanting me to either send the knife first and then he pay upon receiving it, or accept $400 less than the figure we agreed to SEVERAL times. In my eyes, this guy is completely lacking a spine and was trying to take advantage of a new member. Despicable. I have all of the emails and texts and phone history to back up every claim made as well. This is how I ended our conversation this evening.

You dodged a bullet with that knucklehead.
FYI just add the 3.5% and shipping into the selling price and accept G&S.
You will always get window shoppers with high end knives, keep in mind that they are considering giving thousands of dollars to a stranger for something realistically sight unseen.
While this Davemo96 seems like a flake and i agree wasted your time, i wouldn’t ship a $2200 knife before having money in hand even if this was my first day on the forum. If you remove the risk of dealing with a stranger by giving your buyers the ability to recover their money in the event of a lost in transit knife and insure it so that you can recover your loss, you should be given the same chances as a long time member.
If you participate in other forums and people get to know you, they will be willing to pay F&F- i have with long time members that have a forum presence outside of the for sale forums. There are hundreds of thousands of members of bladeforums, you will indeed encounter a few jerks, but on the whole this is a pretty tight community and buying and selling here is safer than facebook, instagram, reddit or some of the other knife social media platforms. BFC has been around since the late 1990s and had continued to thrive for several reasons and members looking out for other members is one of those.
I have been a member for 21 years in April and while i don’t participate as much as i have in the past, all of my buying and selling experiences here have been positive. I take precautions, don’t rely solely on i-trader feedback scores and do my due diligence vetting potential sellers in the GBU forum.
This subforum is excellent for weeding out the scammers, lowballers, flippers and other undesirables or problematic sellers/buyers/traders simply by putting those who are problematic on ignore.

 

[JONVHERBERT]

You dodged a bullet with that knucklehead.
FYI just add the 3.5% and shipping into the selling price and accept G&S.
You will always get window shoppers with high end knives, keep in mind that they are considering giving thousands of dollars to a stranger for something realistically sight unseen.
While this Davemo96 seems like a flake and i agree wasted your time, i wouldn’t ship a $2200 knife before having money in hand even if this was my first day on the forum. If you remove the risk of dealing with a stranger by giving your buyers the ability to recover their money in the event of a lost in transit knife and insure it so that you can recover your loss, you should be given the same chances as a long time member.
If you participate in other forums and people get to know you, they will be willing to pay F&F- i have with long time members that have a forum presence outside of the for sale forums. There are hundreds of thousands of members of bladeforums, you will indeed encounter a few jerks, but on the whole this is a pretty tight community and buying and selling here is safer than facebook, instagram, reddit or some of the other knife social media platforms. BFC has been around since the late 1990s and had continued to thrive for several reasons and members looking out for other members is one of those.
I have been a member for 21 years in April and while i don’t participate as much as i have in the past, all of my buying and selling experiences here have been positive. I take precautions, don’t rely solely on i-trader feedback scores and do my due diligence vetting potential sellers in the GBU forum.
This subforum is excellent for weeding out the scammers, lowballers, flippers and other undesirables or problematic sellers/buyers/traders simply by putting those who are problematic on ignore.

I would’ve gladly done g&s - but he wanted shipping and the g&s fees to be eaten by me. A real POS, that guy. when I have Time I’ll be posting an extensive feedback post with all of the supporting documents I have and make sure anytime someone searches his name, that my post is seen. Someone willing to take away family time from a man and then be spineless enough to do what he did the following morning deserves the boot in my opinion. I’d never treat someone like that.

 

[uxo2]

New or old.
Never ship without receiving payment.

If you are requesting payment as PPF&F.
There will be many who will be leery because of your lack of feedback
and you might offer to take funds as G&S till you develop a decent amount of feedback

 

[JONVHERBERT]

New or old.
Never ship without receiving payment.

If you are requesting payment as PPF&F.
There will be many who will be leery because of your lack of feedback
and you might offer to take funds as G&S till you develop a decent amount of feedback

I’m fine with g&s as long as buyer covers the 3.5%

 

[uxo2]

I’m fine with g&s as long as buyer covers the 3.5%

I dont recommend doing that... "Buyer covers fees"

You will get more bites if you list your item where the
G&S fees and shipping is already included in your sale price

 

[JONVHERBERT]

I dont recommend doing that... "Buyer covers fees"

You will get more bites if you list your item where the
G&S fees and shipping is already included in your sale price

Good call, I definitely should do that. Really appreciate your input sir!

 

[Pete1977]

I’m fine with g&s as long as buyer covers the 3.5%

I will say it again- Just price your knife accordingly with the 3.5% included.

 

[Pete1977]

I would’ve gladly done g&s - but he wanted shipping and the g&s fees to be eaten by me. A real POS, that guy. when I have Time I’ll be posting an extensive feedback post with all of the supporting documents I have and make sure anytime someone searches his name, that my post is seen. Someone willing to take away family time from a man and then be spineless enough to do what he did the following morning deserves the boot in my opinion. I’d never treat someone like that.

When some clown shows up in the GBU, i put them on ignore and eliminate the risk of dealing with them with the added benefit of not seeing their BS in the other forums as well.

 

[Sharp & Fiery]

I would’ve gladly done g&s - but he wanted shipping and the g&s fees to be eaten by me. A real POS, that guy. when I have Time I’ll be posting an extensive feedback post with all of the supporting documents I have and make sure anytime someone searches his name, that my post is seen. Someone willing to take away family time from a man and then be spineless enough to do what he did the following morning deserves the boot in my opinion. I’d never treat someone like that.

These posts always rub me the wrong way.

So you posted a knife you would like to sell. Therefore shipping and fees are on you. No question about it. It sounds like you think you are “doing someone a favor” by posting your knife for sale. You are the one that has it for sale.

I will not pay the fees to send F&F either. And especially because it would give me no protection as the buyer.

I’m not defending the “potential buyer,” but he did not take your family time away. You chose to text him during family time because you wanted to sell your knife. You could have easily contacted him the next day.

I’ll give you kudo’s on the way you package your sales, but this whole post has an immense amount of entitlement in it.

Also, you can’t leave feedback if a deal didn’t go down. Just an FYI.

 

[JONVHERBERT]

These posts always rub me the wrong way.

So you posted a knife you would like to sell. Therefore shipping and fees are on you. No question about it. It sounds like you think you are “doing someone a favor” by posting your knife for sale. You are the one that has it for sale.

I will not pay the fees to send F&F either. And especially because it would give me no protection as the buyer.

I’m not defending the “potential buyer,” but he did not take your family time away. You chose to text him during family time because you wanted to sell your knife. You could have easily contacted him the next day.

I’ll give you kudo’s on the way you package your sales, but this whole post has an immense amount of entitlement in it.

Also, you can’t leave feedback if a deal didn’t go down. Just an FYI.

You know, I understand what you mean and I will admit that it does come off as entitlement. It’s not intentful. But I’ll take that feedback and move forward more thoughtfully with it in mind. I know I gave the time up - but I also explained to him that it was family time and I’d have to keep it short, but that due to the value of the knife and the fact I’m a new member, I wasn’t feeling good about rejecting to talk to a man verbally on the phone, where you tend to get a much better look into who someone is. The phone call was made up of a zillion off topic stories, and I couldn’t get a word out without being interrupted, nor could i find a way to end the conversation. As a new member here I didn’t think that hanging up on someone wanting to buy from me was proper form. I could’ve rejected; I didn’t. That’s on me. And honestly, I’m ok with people backing out of sales because of X, Y, or Z. Life happens. I’ve had to back out of sales myself. But I did so with as much respect and courtesy to the other person and their time as I could. I’ve just never had someone call/text me so much, wanting assurance that they were absolutely going to be receiving the knife, making sure that my posts were revised to mark sale pending, and me promising to send it out the next day. Then the next morning it’s like I’m talking to a totally different person - completely different deal terms referenced, I was asked to ship my knife and he pay after receiving it, tone of voice was different, much calmer demeanor, but was asking a ton of questions that I had already answered multiple times. So it definitely bothered me more than it should have. Regardless, I accept my fault in the situation and appreciate the feedback.

 

[Sharp & Fiery]

You know, I understand what you mean and I will admit that it does come off as entitlement. It’s not intentful. But I’ll take that feedback and move forward more thoughtfully with it in mind. I know I gave the time up - but I also explained to him that it was family time and I’d have to keep it short, but that due to the value of the knife and the fact I’m a new member, I wasn’t feeling good about rejecting to talk to a man verbally on the phone, where you tend to get a much better look into who someone is. The phone call was made up of a zillion off topic stories, and I couldn’t get a word out without being interrupted, nor could i find a way to end the conversation. As a new member here I didn’t think that hanging up on someone wanting to buy from me was proper form. I could’ve rejected; I didn’t. That’s on me. And honestly, I’m ok with people backing out of sales because of X, Y, or Z. Life happens. I’ve had to back out of sales myself. But I did so with as much respect and courtesy to the other person and their time as I could. I’ve just never had someone call/text me so much, wanting assurance that they were absolutely going to be receiving the knife, making sure that my posts were revised to mark sale pending, and me promising to send it out the next day. Then the next morning it’s like I’m talking to a totally different person - completely different deal terms referenced, I was asked to ship my knife and he pay after receiving it, tone of voice was different, much calmer demeanor, but was asking a ton of questions that I had already answered multiple times. So it definitely bothered me more than it should have. Regardless, I accept my fault in the situation and appreciate the feedback.

I respect this response greatly. Thank you.

I’d do a deal with you just based on this honest reply. Plus, you sound like a CRK fan as well.

 

[bikerector]

As a new member of Blade Forums, I certainly understand that it takes time and past deals / feedback to become a trusted member. I’ve only have had 3 deals done here - one was a trade with a member who left me positive feedback, one was selling a knife to a member who’s package is arriving Thursday, and one was buying a knife from a member of which the knife has not arrived yet. So only 1 of those is really applicable for feedback at the moment.

I’ve never been big on social media and the accompanying drama that seems to come with it, so I transitioned from the Facebook EDC community to here. But am now being posed with other BF members requesting me to ship my knives to them and upon receipt, they pay. Rather than paying & me shipping and providing tracking. I’ve never been asked to do this before, but it’s happened 5 times now on here. Is this something that is typically done with new members here? I feel as a new member, I definitely have to offer some additional measures of comfort - maybe a photo of my drivers license, business card, and OSHA 30 card?

If it is a sale, DO NOT SHIP UNTIL PAID. That sounds like a scam and a deal breaker to me. For trades, yes that is more common practice for the less senior BF member to ship 1st but I've never heard of that for a sale.

What are you using for payment methods? If not paypal or some other protected method, that's the only case. However, I wouldn't send a knife until it's paid for.

The only other thing really to do, IMO, is use the forum for a while as a member before digging too far into just selling stuff. New members going straight to selling is a red flag for a potential scammer and it has happened exactly like that many times. Even so, I would not expect a seller to ship me something unpaid unless it was biz to biz and a terms of sale or contract was made and signed.

 

[bikerector]

Do not send anything before payment. Participate outside of the exchange. The various picture threads are a great way to do this. Only use goods and services payments.

This guy said it much more concise than I did. Do this.

 

[10after10]

D davemo96 It's only fair since his name is being brought up.

 

[JONVHERBERT]

I respect this response greatly. Thank you.

I’d do a deal with you just based on this honest reply. Plus, you sound like a CRK fan as well.

I genuinely appreciate that; sounds like we are cut from the same cloth. I am younger than a lot of other CRK fans/collectors (28), but I’ve always been into knives and gadgets so once I got to a certain place in my career and had the funds to treat myself, I began doing so. I’d say CRK makes up 90% of my collection. I’m an embarrassingly big CRK fan. I just have a long ways to go with educating myself on some of the older are more rare knives. People here have been very helpful, and I’ve been told there’s a phenomenal YouTube documentary on the production and whatnot of them but haven’t had the chance to watch it yet.

 

[JONVHERBERT]

This thread seems to have blown up way more than was intended. I was going to lock it, but saw another member tag the individual in subject (I didn’t know this could be done) and agree that person should have the option to respond. Regardless, there are two sides to every coin and frankly, this post was pulled from another thread and put here - it started as a comment. I know I could’ve left negative feedback, but as a new member who’s still learning myself, I don’t feel the situation warranted tarnishing someone’s feedback score. Yes, I was guaranteed the deal was closed, and woke up to an attempt to sell for a significantly lower offer than was agreed on, and to send first with payment coming after. I also went as far as sending said individual copies of my drivers license, business card, and OSHA 30 card. However, in my opinion, a negative review isn’t warranted because no funds were sent, and no knife was sent. It was just a big waste of time and effort; but no true harm came from it.

ANYWAYS - I don’t want this to be a witch hunt. I’ve moved on, the knife is sold to another person, and think I’ve learned a lot from the experience. While I personally won’t deal with the individual again; I wouldn’t go as far as saying that others shouldn’t. I get people change their minds, it was just handled with zero class or consideration of the other party. Do with that info as you see fit but I guess I’m just glad I didn’t get scammed or something - “it could always be worse”

 

[Sharp & Fiery]

I genuinely appreciate that; sounds like we are cut from the same cloth. I am younger than a lot of other CRK fans/collectors (28), but I’ve always been into knives and gadgets so once I got to a certain place in my career and had the funds to treat myself, I began doing so. I’d say CRK makes up 90% of my collection. I’m an embarrassingly big CRK fan. I just have a long ways to go with educating myself on some of the older are more rare knives. People here have been very helpful, and I’ve been told there’s a phenomenal YouTube documentary on the production and whatnot of them but haven’t had the chance to watch it yet.

We should have a CRK chat sometime!

 

[JONVHERBERT]

We should have a CRK chat sometime!

My cell is removed, call or text anytime!