posted on January 27, 2001 03:20:07 PM
AMAZING this "Reliable" saga. You have a 17-year old kid who has committed one violation after the other by his own admission, spinning these violations (kid might have a career in politics) with "gees I didn't know that" and playing ignorant, or saying "it's legal," a few times quite incorrectly, a kid who is the "COO" of a business that (apparently) has been funded with venture capital. His feedback padding at 14 was just a game with his buddies; his "About Me" page was just a goof; he hasn't sold BOGUS weight control products on eBay DESPITE his About Me curriculum vitae which as we have established was just a goof, the weight loss products he sold were genuine; his participation on eBay as a minor is no violation because his mother registered him despite eBay's TOS; the email spam he sent out by the thousands is not really spam because he offered "free participation" on his site (are his "lawyers" 17 also, giving him that patently false bit of information?), and it was no violation of anyone's privacy because it was "good" and desired spam (that's proven by the supposed 5% who signed up for his service on the supposed bsais of that definitely NOT-supposed spam email); he had no idea that his repeated spam would upset anyone (but he was smart enough to start his own company, and the first thing you see on the first page of his Website is an anti-spam message directing people NOT to buy/participate in ANYTHING offered by spam); there was nothing wrong with his asking for credit card numbers to register at his site; he would NEVER sell people's personal information to anyone (here's a person/company who obviously has great respect for people's information based on his addy harvest and spam spewage); he was NARU'd from eBay unfairly (I'm extrapolating his response to this new development); his harvesting of email addresses was not a violation of eBay's TOS (it's none of anyone's business how he got those addys anyway)... and so on and so forth...
SOOO, he gets invited to AuctionWatch chat, and with all the above FACTS in mind, he actually gets people to register for his "service," and gets many talking about their perception that the people who strongly question AND CONDEMN the above CRAP and the legitimacy of his "business" are being "rude" to this poor child, with these people calling for Moderators..
Is it me, or is this almost too surreal to believe??????
There's a line from a Jackson Browne song that precisely describes a part of this situation-
"There's a world of illusion and fantasy in the place where the real world belongs."
posted on January 27, 2001 03:52:48 PM
<<<
bitofagrump
posted on January 27, 2001 03:46:50 PM new
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I prefer the Simon & Garfunkle version...
"A man believes what he wants to believe and disregards the rest."
>>>
HAHAHAHA you had to insert that melody into my head?
"In the clearing stands a seller, a merchant by his trade, and he carries the reminders, of every fraud that laid him out or cracked him 'til he cried out, in his anger and his shame, I AN LEAVIN' I AM LEAVIN' but the (you fill in the blank) still remainnnns..."
posted on January 27, 2001 04:07:11 PM
<<< gravid
posted on January 27, 2001 03:55:56 PM new
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kid is doing the best he can until he is free to run for congress.
>>>
posted on January 27, 2001 05:33:53 PM
I was one of those "Rude" posters who was told I was Waaay out of line. It amazes me to see supposedly intelligent people fall for this scheme! Just give him your credit card info and money, hes a nice kid! Sheesh! It seems they are out there waiting for people like this to take advantage of them. PT Barnum was right, there is one born every minute
posted on January 27, 2001 05:50:00 PM
The plot sickens. Here's my end of an email exchange I'm having with one of Stevie's defenders. I suppose my conclusions could be incorrect, but (hahaha) I can say with a 99% confidence level that they're NOT.
<<
I have no eBay ID. >>
I'll tell you what I think, guy. You register to post at AuctionWatch what, today? You immediately post 3 things in defense of Little Steven. When someone asks you whether Steven asked you to come to the Board, you say no, you were asking some "ebaysian" about the service, and they sent you there. Um, WHAT "eBaysian," why would you be asking some "eBaysian" about the service if you are not a registered eBay user, much less a Seller inquiring about the service for his own use? THEN, EVEN THOUGH IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU, AND YOU SAY YOU HAD NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE OF EITHER STEVE OR THE COMPANY, you see fit to come post on eBay's board in strenuous defense of both the person and the organization you just heard about in the past 24 hours. THEN, you answer my emails with all this information that you "KNOW" about what Steve is and Steve isn't...THEN, you ask me to let you know about the "other founders." Why should you care? YOU, SIR, are selling the same kind of load of **** that Little Stevie is, and I'll wager 20 to anyone's 1 that you are associated with him in some way.
Shame on the two of you. Further shame to characterize people on the Board trying to prevent fraud as "disgusting." Total shame if this is a get rich quick scam, and you are part of it.
posted on January 27, 2001 05:53:59 PM
tentwentytwo:
Your correspondent has a number at the end of his email address. Assuming that it's the year of his birth, he should be only slightly older than the COO he is defending.
Of course, it could simply be another significant date, such as a marriage.
posted on January 27, 2001 05:57:27 PM
I realized that when I saw his first post. Obviously, there's a strong likelihood that the eBay community is being played by a bunch of kids....
posted on January 27, 2001 05:59:10 PM
When we took a look at the reliablemerch site the other day, we thought it was pretty worthless, offered nothing of any value to the OAI/OTI, and was not worth reporting on. My assessment of the PRODUCT has not changed. Though it is definitely now firmly on my do not recommend list based on the research disclosed in the previous thread. I guess the biggest problem is that all this talk about reliable IS free advertising, and good or bad any publicity is good. Usually, the best thing to do in situations like this, is ignore it, and it WILL quickly disappear.
TAG's assessment on RM for any who care is three thumbs down - and avoid.
-Rosalinda
TAGnotes - daily email synopsis about the Online Auction Industry http://www.topica.com/lists/tagnotes
posted on January 27, 2001 06:14:53 PM
<<<mrgroup wrote-
I guess the biggest problem is that all this talk about reliable IS free advertising, and good or bad any publicity is good. Usually, the best thing to do in situations like this, is ignore it, and it WILL quickly disappear. >>>
Tough call, Rosalinda. Ignore it, let them quietly do whatever "business" they DO do, and risk having people who possibly aren't in possession of all the information that they can be in possession of make uninformed decisions, or bring everything (whatever that is) out into the open where more eBayers will hear about it, concurrently giving Reliable more publicity... I tend to think the more exposure the better in this situation, but who knows, you might be right...
posted on January 27, 2001 07:01:56 PM
Yes, I agree with you tentwentytwo - it is hard to say which is best - and I for one am never sure, besides, it gets to be like a little scab, somehow it is hard to not pick at it
So, being guilty of going against my own advice ..... (at least I can blush)
I wonder if rms suffers from the same inflation hype that seems so prevalent .... you know - 7 mil = 22 mi and all that stuff. We were told 1300 registered rms merchants - hmmmm there are currently 44 items with the rms logo listed on ebaY - by 8 unique sellers. Of those 8 sellers the logo is actually WORKING on the auctions of 3 of them. Prevarication is not a trait I admire, and how we get from 8 to 1300 REALLY puzzles me.
And the domain reliablemerchant.com is still available for registration. There is also no evidence that a Trademark has been applied for either for reliable merchants (in any combination) or ANY trademark by the NY based parent company who registered the domain in June.
Interesting ..... -Rosalinda
(edited cause druther MUST have sneaked in here)
posted on January 27, 2001 07:12:32 PM
And Little Stevie's defender who "doesn't know him" is a "businessman from New York" who claims to never have heard of Reliable before a "fellow eBaysian" told him about it.
"Fellow eBaysian"? The guy's not registered, what would make anyone his "fellow eBaysian"? Despite the fact that this may be against AW TOS, he (incredibly) told me in an email that his "line of work is buying little companies and expanding them." YEAH, this guy doesn't know Steve, and YEAH, the eBay Community isn't being played by a bunch of people (probably kids) who appear ro be unable to tell the truth, and don't even tell UNTRUTHS that well. All the people who called us rude, are you listening?
posted on January 27, 2001 07:21:32 PM
The ReliableMerchants.com logo is 100 X 89 pixels- and violates eBay's policy regarding advertising credits. But, heck- don't sweat the small stuff, right?
Please confine your remarks to the company itself, not to the person. This is with the exception that you may discuss specific comments he himself made.
Remember, he is afforded the same courtesy any other member of AW.
You are talking about a person/kid who has admittedly violated ALL SORTS OF TOS AT ALL SORTS OF PLACES, ***INCLUDING*** HERE. eBay has NARU'd him. AuctionWatch should too. He is an ADMITTED, UNABASHED, and (despite his statement to the contrary) UNREPENTANT SPAMMER, AT LEAST, and in one post that made me want to gag, he actually had the GALL to state that he is doing what he does to IMPROVE EBAY. RIGHT. And I'm Mother Teresa in drag. He is being treated on this thread with MORE respect than he deserves, as is his protege, whose comments to me are
contradictory IN THE EXTREME.
posted on January 27, 2001 07:53:20 PM
ROFLOL M_G - that too (I didn't call you Steve cause just think of all the confusion THAT would cause) -Rosalinda
TAGnotes - almost daily email synopsis about the Online Auction Industry
http://www.topica.com/lists/tagnotes
posted on January 27, 2001 09:17:05 PM
Over and over again people are warned to ask questions or to read the contract before signing up for a service. But time and time again you hear about all the scams that happen. Many of these could be prevented if people did their homework first.
So it is a bit disconcerting to see how many people get upset when the questions start flying. The age of the person is a big factor in this as you are dealing with a minor. He may be very intelligent and articulate but he is still a minor. And I have no idea who his associates are.
People are so quick to judge rudeness but they have no idea what the person on the other side of the computer screen looks like and it may sound different to them on a message board than the way the person is actually trying to convey the message. When messages are posted one after the other with replies in between it is hard to judge who is being accused of rudeness if no names are mentioned with the accusation.
When you are in business for any length of time you learn very quickly to ask questions. Some of the most intelligent young people have been involved in scams. I am not saying that ReliableMerchants is a scam. It may be the beginning of a good program that will work for some but at the moment it has raised a few questions for some of us.
posted on January 27, 2001 11:30:49 PM
I may be wrong but I was also a little puzzled to see the mods lock the thread at his request as he was not the originator.
posted on January 27, 2001 11:49:00 PM
When I was reading the "reliable" thread I came to the conclusion that maybe the request to lock the thread did come from the "originator". Maybe it just didn't appear that way...
posted on January 28, 2001 12:07:38 AM
I went back and re-read it as well as the mod forum and no where did she request it to be locked. The only person requesting it to be locked was the one under the heat.
So - mods - why was it locked - and does the originator have to lock threads rule no longer apply?
posted on January 28, 2001 12:24:30 AM
Hi everyone,
I wasn't on duty at the time but I've gone in and had a look at the original thread.
The originator mauimoods stated on Pg 7 that she would not request the thread be locked because she believed she would be criticised for it, but instead asked that the Moderators use their discretion and decide if and when the thread should be closed.
While the Rep from Reliablemerchants did request the thread be locked, several Users expressed concern that the thread was commercial spam and should be closed. I believe that this was probably the reason Linda chose to lock the thread when she did.
posted on January 28, 2001 03:05:52 AM
Since the originator did not request it and you say you closed it for spam reasons - then you should close the morgantown thread also as he has popped back up there with more of the same.
..... (at least I can blush)