I'm now a ReliableMerchant with a 100+ score! Not planning on using the logo, though. Or the bio page. Just wanted to take a walk through the application process to see what was asked. Surprisingly, no personal information at all was required, other than an eBay ID.
posted on January 28, 2001 05:42:51 PM new
Does it really matter if the accredited psychic can contact the dead or not if the agency granting the accreditation assumes no liability?
If an agency is going to "certify" that a merchant is "reliable" then I would also expect that the agency would back up their certification with an insurance policy. If I lose my money after making a purchase from a "reliable" merchant then I expect that the agency would do more than simply remove their name from the merchant's advertisements...
If they have nothing to lose if they make a mistake, why should I have any confidence in their certification process? Stuffing a bunch of numbers into a "black box" and turning the wheel to grind out the results means nothing...
posted on January 28, 2001 05:46:07 PM new
I still don't see the point of adding the RM seal to your auctions. If a customer can't read your feedback and figure it out for themselves if you are an honest seller, do you think this same buyer will be able to figure out a percentage rating?
posted on January 28, 2001 05:59:02 PM new
DURN you guys, you're such a bunch of KILLJOYS... Excuuuse me, I have to go out to umm the umm neighborhood liquor store for a minute...
posted on January 28, 2001 06:06:45 PM new
No one is holding guns to anyone's heads here. If a merchant or buyer wants to use the logo they can, if they don't wish to it is their choice.
I really don't understand the problem here. One group, two groups or twenty groups. There are a lot of people who shop and sale on Ebay and I really do not think a label on your auctions will make or break you. just do what your comfortable with as a seller or buyer.
Some people look at feedback before they buy some don't. Some will look at a seal some won't.
posted on January 28, 2001 06:14:58 PM new
Magazine_guy...thank you, you have articulated what has been bugging me about this whole logo thing. From different statements Stevenebin has made, plus statements on the RM site, it is obvious the alledged desired result is to convey to the buying public that those using the seal are "honest" and those who do not display the seal are "not to be trusted" and thus weeding out all those "crooked" sellers.
Then there is a flip side to what he has been saying (and something that is insinuated on the RM site)....the real point of the seal is to increase sales of the sellers using the seal. This would seem a very self-serving reason for a seller to use said logo, and one that has me wondering if those sellers who would use it for this reason really have the "integrity" the seal is claiming to portray.
The fact that one can't search ebay to find sellers who have this logo on their auctions seems to fly in the face of the stated desired consequences RM claims will occur with the seal...ie, buyers will want to buy from the "sealed" sellers and thus force the "bad" guys out into the cold and off ebay. If RM has this alturistic goal as a foundaion for their "business venture" then it would only seem logical they would make the logo searchable so buyers LOOK for those "sealed" nerchants...this would help hasten the departure from ebay of the undesireable "bad guys" and would encourage the other sellers to clamor to use the seal...increasing the possibility of the success of the RM business venture.
I don't know why...but there is this dang feeling I have that what we have here is someone who may or may not be a 17 year old business prodigy...but who has spent a lot of time trying to find a way to "FLEECE" those of us who sell on ebay.
It just FEELS like a clever scam...it just FEELS bad.
posted on January 28, 2001 06:30:23 PM new
surfsworth >>
I basically agree with you. However, it seems to me that what is really needed is certification process that comes with some sort of insurance policy. It would make more sense to me, if a group of sellers got together and each paid a small fee to guarantee buyers against fraud...
Obviously the logistics of such a guarantee would be very difficult but I wonder if it would be possible for sellers to come together with such a policy. If the group became large enough it could eventually provide an insurance policy to guarantee items lost and damaged during shipping, replacing conventional insurance. What I'm suggesting is that it might be possible for sellers to underwrite themselves on a fee per transaction basis. Premiums could be based on a system of feedback assessment similar to the one offered by reliablemerchants.com...
posted on January 28, 2001 06:30:47 PM new
Since somebody else brought it up again-
Here's my previous post about the searchable logo issue, and I will complete what I left out to begin with-
<<<And if you didn't undrestand Rosalinda's point, Stevie, I'll expand on it- there are 2 and only 2 reasons that you would use HTML which is "immune" to text searches (it can be MADE NON-immune to text searches by adding searchable text characters before or after)- either you didn't have the FORESIGHT or the umm engineering/software TALENT to
formulate a logo which would allow users to search for other users with the Relaible "seal of approval" on their auctions (Why? since it would seem obvious that if the seal was of ANY value, you'd WANT people to be able to search for sellers using it), OR you and your cadre made a conscious decision to make it immune to eBay search such as it is now, in which case, anyone with any sense would ask the same question Rosalinda did- WHY? I have my own ideas about that...
>>>
And one of my own ideas about that-
It must have been known that eBay would have a problem with the whole concept before it started because Steven obviously and unquestionably violated all sorts of eBay TOS stemming from his now-NARU'd participation on the site, SOOO... WHAT IF (I'm not saying it's true) but just WHAT IF the idea was to make it as hard as possible to find these logos for everyone concerned (including eBay staff) so that the process of registering sellers could be extended as long as possible until eBay acted against the Company, if they decided to, and the Company could sign up as many sellers as possible? Like you said, Amy, otherwise (unless possibility #1 in my above post is true, and these people are so incompetent that they overlooked the fact that finding the logo would be one of the most IMPORTANT things that eBay users could do if Reliable's stated goals were true) making the logo and hence anyone's participation in the program unsearchable makes not only no sense, but NEGATIVE sense.
posted on January 28, 2001 06:45:16 PM new
Not that RM has been concerned about following eBay's rules....
but another explanation might be in eBay's advertising credits policy itself. For this type of credit, they allow either a small graphics logo, OR a max 10 word text credit, not both. So you either go with the snazzy logo, or the searchable text.
Not planning on using the logo, though. Or the bio page. Just wanted to take a walk through the application process to see what was asked. Surprisingly, no personal information at all was required, other than an eBay ID.