RFF Censorship?

[Zathras]

I recently participated in a thread in which a reader had purchased a Leica IIIc on ebay with a lens that turned out to be a fake Elmar. The original poster had posted to the Leica Screwmount forum, wondering if he had been screwed. I chased down the listing on ebay and voiced my opinion that yes, for the amount of money he had paid, he definitely had been screwed. I also stated that I felt that the seller had knowingly passed the hacked Industar off as a genuine Elmar, and when the buyer asked about a discrepancy on the lens, the seller replied that it was a rare factory typo. I also mentioned the seller's ebay ID's and my opinion of said seller.

I recently looked for the thread, wanting to see if the reader was able to resolve this issue with the seller to his satisfaction, and I discovered that the thread had disappeared.

I have also noticed that the forum dealing with scam alerts and bad ebay and other sellers also no longer exists. I find this to be disturbing since we need a forum to alert RFF members to these things and possibly protect other RFF'ers from getting burned by unscrupulous sellers.

Mike Sullivan

 

[CameraQuest]

RFF is not a place to settle buyer/seller disputes

RFF is not a place to settle buyer/seller disputes

I removed the Ebay Scam Alert forum.

I don't believe any useful purpose is done by RFF providing a venue for accusing anyone of mis-deeds, especially when the accused is seldom involved in the discussion to give their side.

The old forum provided for someone complaining about something, and then a lot of people who knew nothing about the situation other than the info accuser is offering, giving their own opinions of something they really know very little about.

I don't want RFF to be involved in such rumor mongering. But there are of course a lot of forums that love that kind of stuff.

IF there really is some sort of scam going on, Ebay is already set up to handle it, as well as the various law enforcement agencies. Real scam problems are for law enforcement to handle, not RFF.

Stephen Gandy

 

[back alley]

and just as a point of information...that thread was deleted by the original poster, rff had nothing to do with it's 'disappearance'.

joe

 

[RayPA]

I removed the Ebay Scam Alert forum.

I don't believe any useful purpose is done by RFF providing a venue for accusing anyone of mis-deeds, especially when the accused is seldom involved in the discussion to give their side.

The old forum provided for someone complaining about something, and then a lot of people who knew nothing about the situation other than the info accuser is offering, giving their own opinions of something they really know very little about.

I don't want RFF to be involved in such rumor mongering. But there are of course a lot of forums that love that kind of stuff.

IF there really is some sort of scam going on, Ebay is already set up to handle it, as well as the various law enforcement agencies. Real scam problems are for law enforcement to handle, not RFF.

Stephen Gandy

I disagree, but that doesn't matter. It's your forum, so delete as many member posts and contributions as you want. I thought that forum served a purpose. Maybe rename the forum and set some new rules regarding posting, but deleting post*s* is in bad form, Stephen.


.

 

[jan normandale]

I don't believe anyone bringing this 'laundry' .. 'he said, she said' stuff to any forum. Courts have a hard enough time sorting this out with people in one room. It's a forum that is easy to misuse and abuse. I end up feeling the poster is just trying to enlist me to their cause which in the end is 'using people'.

Stephen 'removed the Ebay Scam Alert forum.' because Ebay has their own..

Joe noted.. 'as a point of information...that thread was deleted by the original poster, rff had nothing to do with it's 'disappearance'.

My two cents

 

[ChrisN]

There have been non-ebay issues and problems raised in that forum, now lost.

 

[Zathras]

and just as a point of information...that thread was deleted by the original poster, rff had nothing to do with it's 'disappearance'.

joe

If this is the case, I have no problems with the thread being deleted. However, I would like to have known if the original poster was able to resolve his problem satisfactorily. I think that the camera in question was somewhat misrepresented WRT the lens, and since this seller sells things that are very interesting to many people on RFF and other sites, it is important for potential customers to have some kind of idea of the kind of seller they are dealing with. This is why I was concerned when I saw that the thread was gone. The price of the camera was too much to be expected to merely "pay yer money and take yer chances".

I'm not knocking the Industar lens here, but if I was buying a Leica IIIc that was listed for sale as coming with an Elmar, for the same price as paid by the original poster for his camera, then it had better have a REAL Elmar, and one in very good usable condition to boot.

Mike Sullivan

 

[Zathras]

I don't believe anyone bringing this 'laundry' .. 'he said, she said' stuff to any forum. Courts have a hard enough time sorting this out with people in one room. It's a forum that is easy to misuse and abuse. I end up feeling the poster is just trying to enlist me to their cause which in the end is 'using people'.

Stephen 'removed the Ebay Scam Alert forum.' because Ebay has their own..

Joe noted.. 'as a point of information...that thread was deleted by the original poster, rff had nothing to do with it's 'disappearance'.

My two cents

I don't believe that it is so much a question of airing dirty laundry as much as somebody wanting to know if he paid a fair price for his camera or was he somehow cheated. The poster was asking for help from more experienced members because he felt that all was not right with his new purchase. In this case, the camera was not as advertised, and when he asked the seller about the lens, he was told it was a rare factory mistake. This kind of reply, from a person who I feel should know better, gives me the impression that the seller hoped to sell the camera to somebody whose knowledge of the camera was limited.

I think that people should know something about the person that they are sending their hard-earned money to. I do not like to be ripped off, and I want to know if I might have a potential problem with a given seller. Fortunately, most people are good and I haven't been burned too often, but it pisses me off when it does happen to me.

If I were to post a complaint in a forum, I would stick to the facts, and list all the details of what happened in a hopefully non emotional way. Of course, I would first try to resolve my problem with the seller without involving others unless I needed information on how to proceed. If the situation is resolved satisfactorily, I would report back to the forum, to let others know that the seller treated me well. If I felt that I had been screwed, you can bet yer sweet bippy that I would not hesitate to let people know what happened to me if they were asking about a particular seller. I would want to be able to help someone else avoid a bad experience.

Remember, the most powerful form of advertising is still word of mouth, and this truly can make or break any seller or company. This even applies to Cameraquest, of whom I have heard nothing but good. I plan to buy a lens or two from Stephen when the finances allow me to do so, my decision being based on the experiences of his customers.

Just my 2 cents...

Mike Sullivan

 

[RayPA]

I don't believe anyone bringing this 'laundry' .. 'he said, she said' stuff to any forum. Courts have a hard enough time sorting this out with people in one room. It's a forum that is easy to misuse and abuse. I end up feeling the poster is just trying to enlist me to their cause which in the end is 'using people'.

Stephen 'removed the Ebay Scam Alert forum.' because Ebay has their own..

Joe noted.. 'as a point of information...that thread was deleted by the original poster, rff had nothing to do with it's 'disappearance'.

My two cents

Stephen deleted an entire forum, not just one thread or post. You may not have found value in it, Jan but there's something to be said for giving your friends a heads up regarding a place almost all of patronize. Members weren't just b*ing and moaning about bad transactions, they were asking opinions about auctions, before bidding. They were asking for advice on how to handle suspicious or peculiar dealings. Heck even Camera Quest benefited when sellers were using images taken from the CQ website. I learned a lot about cameras from discussions about auctions that were highlighted in that forum.

No one says a thing about the HU: threads that point to directly to auctions. Those threads help members get gear. What's wrong with helping on the other side of the equation.



.

 

[Zathras]

I wanted to say something like ... "spoken like a true retailer!" ... but that would be a bit cheeky I think? :angel:

Don't say it then. We don't approve of cheekiness in a serious forum such as this one!!!

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

I'm with Stephen on this. If he lets people complain about eBay deals gone wrong he could be held responsible for defamation. eBay has a feedback system so use it there, and no need to write anything here.

But, Stephen, can we have the regular 'Gallery Picks' thread back in the General discussion forum and not in some obscure forum that gets so little traffic?

 

[rxmd]

Stephen deleted an entire forum, not just one thread or post. You may not have found value in it, Jan but there's something to be said for giving your friends a heads up regarding a place almost all of patronize. Members weren't just b*ing and moaning about bad transactions, they were asking opinions about auctions, before bidding.

I guess they will continue to do so in the forums associated with the respective cameras. Also, "scam alerts" or whatever will now go in those forums, too. Of course, Stephen can still delete both kinds of posts, but (a) it would be a lot of work and (b) it would be rather bad style IMHO.

I think the main loss here is what Chris has pointed out:

There have been non-ebay issues and problems raised in that forum, now lost.

I tend to agree. That's a pity.

On a completely different note,

The original poster had posted to the Leica Screwmount forum, wondering if he had been screwed.

I wonder if that's the purpose of a Screw-mount forum. (Har, har. I'll be here all week.)

Philipp

 

[back alley]

I'm with Stephen on this. If he lets people complain about eBay deals gone wrong he could be held responsible for defamation. eBay has a feedback system so use it there, and no need to write anything here.

But, Stephen, can we have the regular 'Gallery Picks' thread back in the General discussion forum and not in some obscure forum that gets so little traffic?

jon,
it's me who moves/moved those threads to the rff projects section.
it seems to have become an ongoing project for many here and that section seems more appropriate.
there are so many threads that get started in rf general discussion that do not fit there.
joe

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

back alley:

I understand what you're saying, but I disagree although I know that a lot in General Discussion does not belong there. Gallery Picks does not fall into that cetegory.

The Gallery picks thread each week is not an RFF project as the photos we mention were not submitted for any project.

By sending the thread to a forum not even listed on the front page you are taking away one of the few image-centric parts of RFF.

Already for every one post about photos there must be ten posts about bags and so on. This new policy can only make things worse for folks who want to talk about photos.

I addressed my remark to Stephen in the hope that he would confer with mods and decide to keep Gallery Picks in General Discussion.

 

[FrankS]

By sending the Gallery picks thread to a forum not even listed on the front page you are reducing the exposure of one of the few image-centric parts of RFF.

I agree too.

 

[iml]

By sending the Gallery picks thread to a forum not even listed on the front page you are reducing the exposure of one of the few image-centric parts of RFF.

I agree too.

I agree three. The gallery is my favourite bit of RFF and I like these threads.

Ian

 

[Trius]

I pretty much agree with Aaron that eBay is not really set up to efficiently (not to mention fairly) settle disputes. But I also see Stephen's point. Since RFF is now owned by a retail entity that is both a competitor to and a customer of eBay, one has to be careful not to give even the appearance of conflict and defamation.

And Stephen's point about rumour-mongering is a great one. Here's a little (but long!) story...

On 12/21/06 I placed a small order through a retail website. I won't mention the company, but it's one that a lot of folks here would recognize. Total purchase was $16.49, so not a lot of money. I used PayPal, with funds drawn from my bank account as the source.

By early January I hadn't received my order, so on 1/06 I forwarded my PayPal receipt to the email address of the retailer, and a request for status. No response. I waited and forwarded the receipt again on 1/26. Still no response.

I forgot about it for awhile, then yesterday I tried to register a dispute with PayPal. PayPal's automated online system stated that the dispute wasn't allowed, but there was no explanation as to why.

Next I tried to call the customer service number listed on PayPal for the retailer. I got a "number has been disconnected" recording. Oh crap.

Next I did a reverse phone number look-up, and found the name and address of the person attached to the disconnected number. (Naturally, I won't post that here.) Not that it gave me much information other than an address; and my source (whitepages.com) isn't authoritative anyway.

So, I called PayPal, and went through their IVR hell. I finally said "representative" to the voice response unit, and got an agent on the phone within a few minutes, a woman with a strong Caribbean accent... as if that matters. She stated the reason for the dispute not being allowed was that the transaction was more than 45 days old. However, she stated that she would submit a "courtesy refund" from PayPal. She didn't know if it would be allowed, and that these types of refunds are processed once a week, so I might not know until sometime next week.

Next I went to DNSSTUFF.COM and did a whois lookup for the website. Interesting. The actual business name (the website name is a DBA) matched the PayPal vendor listing, but the name and phone number was different from the PayPal listing and my reverse phone lookup. So, I called the phone number. I asked for the person listed as the contact from Whois. The person who answered identified themselves as the spouse, and that the spouse wasn't there but they could take a message for them.

I explained why I was calling, and was informed that there were a couple of orders in December that were lost. He took my information and stated they would send out the order to me. There are still a couple of questions in my mind ... i.e., why weren't my emails answered, and why didn't the person with whom I spoke ask for any details as to my order?

In any event, I am going to trust this will get resolved. Initially I thought of posting on RFF to see if anyone had any bad experiences lately with this retailer, as they had had a great reputation and so I was puzzled.

But I also remembered some of the previous posts about "scams" here and how more than a couple had been resolved because there were misunderstandigs, simple mistakes, etc., that could be rectified by persistence and patience. The RFF threads had caused more heat than light, and feelings were unnecessarily hurt.

Sorry for the long-winded story, but this is why I agree with Stephen's position.

Oh, and if I get a "courtesy refund" from PayPal, I'll keep it for my trouble or maybe just buy a Gordy strap, soft release or something.

 

[dnk512]

What about a sticky thread/forum with a list of scam types and tips of recognizing fakes (pictures?), what to check for on used and new gear, what to avoid/look for on sellers, buyers, risks of paying and receiving payment etc WHITHOUT seller/buyer names? This is info that exists on the net but in bits and pieces and takes days to find and read.

 

[ray_g]

Over the past years on Ebay, I had gotten scammed twice. Nothing major, but still... On both occasions, Ebay's dispute resolution was next to non-existent, aside from a message to file a claim with Lloyd's, which handled ebay's insurance claims. Of course, I did not even get a response from them. Law-enforcement agencies? Maybe if I bought a Canon 1DSMkII, but not for something much less expensive.

If we are not to post negative feedback or "rumors," then it follows, given the same logic, that positive posts are similarly one-sided and have no place on this forum: heads-up threads, feedback about Youxin Ye, etc. Can we only post feedback about retailers who are RFF members as well, like Luigi, Tony Rose, CQ? Where do you draw the line?

 

[ray_g]

"I became involved with RFF because that I like RFF the way it is! I don’t plan any big changes."

Unilaterally deleting an entire forum with hundreds of member posts is a pretty big change, don't you think, bartender?