posted on January 1, 2001 12:14:09 PM new
I claimed it couldn't be done, so I was surely attracted to the ad for WebTradeInsure at the top of this forum today.
Big "fraud" with crossed line.
I still say it can't be done.
What sellers want is a way to have someone accept the risk of fraud. So let's see if WTI has anything to offer. From seller's point of view, the big 2 of fraud:
1. bad credit card used to pay payment service
2. stuff delivered in good shape, but buyer claimes it never came, arrived damaged or wasn't what was bought.
Near as I can tell, WTI offers no insurance from fraudulent credit card usage. Scratch the big one. But they do claim something regarding shipments.
But what they claim is vague.
For example, "credibility insurance" covers such things as seller sending a brick (or the other side of the coin, seller sending stuff and buyer "receiving" a brick). WTI credibility insurance "protects buyer against misrepresentation", but it doesn't say what happens to seller. At all. Or how buyer verifies that a brick was received. Any of that stuff.
We can wait and see, I guess, but it would be dead interesting to see how WTI handles a case where buyer claims to have received a brick and seller claims to have shipped $10,000 worth of stuff. Would they call buyer a liar? Seller?
Here's my bet: whatever they would do, it would not include giving buyer $10,000.
Consider the story from the perspective of buyer and seller being cousins, and seller really did ship a brick.
Interesting business, in any case, and I wish them well, and I hope they drop by to interact with us.
