Anti consumer practices from vendors

[CaithLynnSayes]

6 hours ago, Rolig Loon said:

The policy against naming and shaming in the forums is there to protect each of us against public defamation by idiot hotheads (and well-meaning but misinformed people). Without it, every malcontent with a grudge against you or me would be free to post questionable claims against us. Threads already occasionally become shouting matches, but it would be significantly worse if any discontented customer (or rival merchant) could shame a merchant publicly with exaggerated stories or outright falsehoods.  We all know that there are clumsy, inept, shady and outright deceitful merchants in SL, but it would be patently unfair to allow you or me to damage reputations with incomplete, unfounded or potentially biased posts.

I can see your point but i don't fully agree. I still (maybe naively) believe in open discourse where you raise a point and let anyone take part in it. If i for example make an outrageous claim of someone or something that clearly isn't true, i would get a lot of backlash and people would be able to disprove the claims I've made. Seems obvious one would think. No?

[Miguel Rowley]

6 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Where if you buy in-world, some merchants required you to buy "credits" and use those in their store, instead of buying directly with L$.

That's weird, all the stores that I buy and have a store credit system they use it so they can give you a discount by store credit ( For example, you buy a 300L product, and you get 30L of store credit in return), which helps me a lot in my future purchases.

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

2 hours ago, CaithLynnSayes said:

I can see your point but i don't fully agree. I still (maybe naively) believe in open discourse where you raise a point and let anyone take part in it. If i for example make an outrageous claim of someone or something that clearly isn't true, i would get a lot of backlash and people would be able to disprove the claims I've made. Seems obvious one would think. No?

You're right in principle but the problem is that evidence can be easily fabricated.  We're at a point where even RL images, audio and video can be easily generated and it would take a digital forensics expert to spot any discrepancy and, by comparison, faking "SL evidence" like chat logs and screenshots, etc. is childsplay.

When presented with two conflicting sets of evidence and no way to ascertain the validity of any of it (short of LL getting involved and officially verifying the contents of chat logs, etc. which will never happen) the verdict will undoubtedly rest on which of the two parties garners more sympathy, in other words it will be a popularity contest with no prize for the winner and a witch hunt for the runner up.

Edited January 14, 2023 by Fluffy Sharkfin
typo

[belindacarson]

9 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

There is a difference between posting about an individual and a brand's product.

We can't even post a critical review here.

"The brand X fancy pants fit ok on my brand Y body, but the ass kept glitching and there wasn't an alpha layer included"

It would only be patently unfair if one persons opinions we're allowed to stand in isolation, this is a forum, that's not what would happen.

As an aside, If I had a bad experience with a merchant, I would like to share that experience. But you will never know which one stalked me from a meh SLM review, spent 2 hours (H O U R S) threatening me personally in IM and saying I would be banned from his store and everything I had purchased remotely bricked. I had easily spent 20K at his store by that point and was entirely unaware half the stuff was actually lifted from online mesh libraries. If only .... 

Only one side of the story here 🤔

[Scylla Rhiadra]

45 minutes ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

You're right in principle but the problem is that evidence can be easily fabricated.  We're at a point where even RL images, audio and video can be easily generated and it would take a digital forensics expert to spot any discrepancy and, by comparison, faking "SL evidence" like chat logs and screenshots, etc. is childsplay.

When presented with two conflicting sets of evidence and no way to ascertain the validity of any of it (short of LL getting involved and officially verifying the contents of chat logs, etc. which will never happen) the verdict will undoubtedly rest on which of the two parties garners more sympathy, in other words it will be a popularity contest with no prize for the winner and a witch hunt for the runner up.

An additional point of some importance is that the merchants themselves are highly unlikely to know that they are being castigated here unless someone tells them.

In fact, this is generally a problem: the percentage of residents who actually read (yet alone actively participate) in this forum is pretty tiny. Who exactly would this be serving? Not the vast majority of consumers.

[PekeNL]

Conclusion: We need a database/website where we can shun creators. And not in the VirtualSecret kind of way, a proper site which lists their anti-consumer practices.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

Just now, PekeNL said:

Conclusion: We need a database/website where we can shun creators. And not in the VirtualSecret kind of way, a proper site which lists their anti-consumer practices.

And which, at the very least, provides mechanisms and space for creators to respond.

[Love Zhaoying]

1 hour ago, belindacarson said:

Only one side of the story here 🤔

That is always, always the case. So what? I'd rather believe Coffee did her due diligence. Should we not believe YOU if you complain?

[Maitimo]

1 hour ago, PekeNL said:

Conclusion: We need a database/website where we can shun creators. And not in the VirtualSecret kind of way, a proper site which lists their anti-consumer practices.

There are a few problems with that too.

First, hardly anyone would know it exists. You can't advertise it here. Where/how would you tell people about it? Spam fashion groups? Flickr? I'd block and mute anyone who did that.

Second, trust.  How could you assure other readers that reviews posted on the site are genuine? Or is it going to be like Amazon, where 90% of them are fake? It'll end up as bad as the Marketplace, where customers with a grudge post fake negative reviews and sellers with no morals pay for positive ones. When the seller responds to a bad review that happens to be genuine, how can you know they're not the ones telling porkies? 

The only way I could see it working fairly is that customers submit an issue to the website admins, the admins purchase the offending article for themselves and they post an independent, unbiased review of it. That is rapidly going to get very expensive.

[Love Zhaoying]

1 hour ago, PekeNL said:

Conclusion: We need a database/website where we can shun creators. And not in the VirtualSecret kind of way, a proper site which lists their anti-consumer practices.

I think this is interesting in part, because according to the various posts - merchants can and do ban ("shun") US (customers). Why shouldn't banning / shunning go both ways?

[Love Zhaoying]

Some of the posts imply "naming and shaming", but since there isn't any in this thread, those mentions are obviously out of context.

[Sid Nagy]

I've read my share of consumer complaining and naming on the SLU forums back in the day.
It never ended very well. A good mud wrestling fight between the costumer and the merchant at best, with lots of popcorn time.

And as a merchant, over a decade in business in SL, I had my share of unreasonable customers over the time too.
Latest example: Last week, someone complaining in a review that I sold them a no mod product on the marketplace, while it is advertised as no mod since the day I launched the product two years ago.
In the end we sorted things out and had a nice conversation. They had a general peeve build up over time about no mod objects and I got the full load for that in a review.
But why buy a no mod object, if you don't want a no mod object?

A dispute has always two sided, and it is really up to the merchant and the customer to so sort that out, without an audience taking side for the one or the other. So IMHO LL is just doing fine by not to interfere and not allowing this kind of naming (and always shaming as a result) on their forums.

Tip for merchants handling customer care: Never forget the argument is about maybe 1 or 2 USD or less.
Not really worth to make a fuzz about IMHO.

Edited January 14, 2023 by Sid Nagy

[Rowan Amore]

4 hours ago, Miguel Rowley said:

That's weird, all the stores that I buy and have a store credit system they use it so they can give you a discount by store credit ( For example, you buy a 300L product, and you get 30L of store credit in return), which helps me a lot in my future purchases.

TMP used the system where you purchased store credits with Ls first and used those to purchase their products.  There wasn't a Lindens to item purchase option.  If you purchased 1000 store credits for 1000L but only spent 750 store credits, there was no way to get your 250 unspent credits back in Lindens.

I think I may still have some credits left over.  😕

[Ceka Cianci]

I just have my own little note card that i keep pretty much to myself of names that get added so that I can remove them from searches, as well as something to look at as a reminder if I ever forget  a name in the future..I put a little note as to why..

I don't share it because I can be pretty picky for myself,  where  other people probably have more tolerance for things.. But if it is something pretty bad or careless or shifty or just plain bad business, I'll speak up if their name comes up as a recommendation..

I know darn well if one tailgates me all stalky like they did you. I'm shoving that puffed up ego right back up their exit hole.. They won't impact my SL like i will any time their name comes up in future recommendations that are in my eye or ear shot.. It will take me a lot less effort than it took them to follow me around.. There isn't a thing in SL worth it to me to let someone try to get all up on me like that.. I'll go all super biotch evil on them so fast they'll think they were standing in my shoes.. they're nothing but just another user like any of us.

 

 

 

[Qie Niangao]

(Just in passing, in my experience, Modify permission is a nearly infallible proxy for the merchant not being a dick. That's not to say that all vendors of no-Mod stuff are uniformly dicks… but on the other hand, whenever they come to the forums to justify their sales of no-Mod objects, they're pretty universally dickish about it.)

To the actual problem, I blame events, especially the huge ones with so many vendors they need cam sims for like a week. They're absolutely raking in the cash, would it kill them to be just the tiniest bit selective about accepting merchants with reputations for sleaze?

Has anyone ever reported a sleazy merchant to the event where the sleaze was on exhibit? I haven't, I admit, because I've never seen an event promote itself as sleaze-resistant. Would that not be a market advantage? If not, wouldn't that imply consumers aren't sensitive enough to the issue to make it matter? (Or maybe high-end events aren't the thin edge of the wedge I think they could be, for some practical reason I haven't considered?)

(Maybe somebody can figure out a way Marketplace could help with the sleazy merchant problem, but the site is at least 90% garbage anyway—even worse than paging through the weekend sale galleries—so finding a pearl in all that pig-slop is beyond me.)

[Ceka Cianci]

9 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

(Just in passing, in my experience, Modify permission is a nearly infallible proxy for the merchant not being a dick. That's not to say that all vendors of no-Mod stuff are uniformly dicks… but on the other hand, whenever they come to the forums to justify their sales of no-Mod objects, they're pretty universally dickish about it.)

To the actual problem, I blame events, especially the huge ones with so many vendors they need cam sims for like a week. They're absolutely raking in the cash, would it kill them to be just the tiniest bit selective about accepting merchants with reputations for sleaze?

Has anyone ever reported a sleazy merchant to the event where the sleaze was on exhibit? I haven't, I admit, because I've never seen an event promote itself as sleaze-resistant. Would that not be a market advantage? If not, wouldn't that imply consumers aren't sensitive enough to the issue to make it matter? (Or maybe high-end events aren't the thin edge of the wedge I think they could be, for some practical reason I haven't considered?)

(Maybe somebody can figure out a way Marketplace could help with the sleazy merchant problem, but the site is at least 90% garbage anyway—even worse than paging through the weekend sale galleries—so finding a pearl in all that pig-slop is beyond me.)

I see events as the new malls like the old malls that we used to have all over the grid..

You have someone build a mall, then get a couple of the really good top tier stores in there.. Most times at no charge because they draw in the tailgaters that know those big stores are going to draw them close to their store..

The mall owner or land owner was most times only concerned with filling the spots the best they could..

Really these are the same thing, but  now all those junk stores that were in those malls have the best advertisement than they ever had back then..

The only difference from then and now is more people see them than before.. What is the worst part is, now they don't even have to have a store on the MP or in world.. They can just jump in an event for a month.. the content they sold is now gone and so is any redeliver chance.. they don't even have to have customer support.. just Fly by night and Ghosty as it gets..

 

[pizza7]

12 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Where if you buy in-world, some merchants required you to buy "credits" and use those in their store, instead of buying directly with L$.

wow, never seen such sellers so far, but then i am not a big buyer. i also have never had much complaints about sellers

myself. i just demo extensively.

[Qie Niangao]

1 minute ago, Ceka Cianci said:

I see events as the new malls like the old malls that we used to have all over the grid..

Yeah, I can understand that, but it seems to me some events are like the high-end RL malls: they have mostly high-end retailers. I assume that's because they charge a lot. And so I suppose some disreputable vendors get in just by paying the price. It's absolutely true that the events do not "police" their vendors in the way I'm suggesting, but I'm wondering if some could—and make good business from it.

[steeljane42]

38 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

Has anyone ever reported a sleazy merchant to the event where the sleaze was on exhibit? I haven't, I admit, because I've never seen an event promote itself as sleaze-resistant. Would that not be a market advantage? If not, wouldn't that imply consumers aren't sensitive enough to the issue to make it matter? (Or maybe high-end events aren't the thin edge of the wedge I think they could be, for some practical reason I haven't considered?)

It's no use. As long as a merchant has some connections to the owners they will get a pass. C88 used to be more strict about their themes in the past than they are now, so if it was a "Spring themed round" you could expect majority of the stuff to be in that theme. And yet one particular sci-fi clothing creator was always there, always out of theme with her sci-fi releases that don't fit the round the slighest. And still is to this day, still with random sci-fi outfits.

Or another example, a side/sub brand of one clothing creator that is well known to copycat others designs up to the HUD level, and I believe she was caught buying models from 3D sites as well. It's known it's her other brand, yet a couple of "original mesh only" events still invite her after it was brought to their attention.

[Sid Nagy]

It is so easy to suggest to others to do things different or extra when standing at the side line.
But reality is often completely different and it is so easy to deny or forget that as a bystander.

Over 90% of merchants, and other entrepreneurs, make next to nothing when they start to calculate how much they make on every invested hour that they have put into SL to do what they do for the platform. Or even work at a loss, for instance most club owners.
Most work mainly for the platform as a hobby and so for the fun of it.

Most businesses in SL are one person driven from design, texturing, boxing, writing the descriptions for the marketplace, fill the vendors, build or find and maintain a store, customer service, get into sale events, cater bloggers and and and what not.

It can be fun, yes, but one needs a skin as thick as an elephant and do only what one is comfortable with.
Example: I sell most stuff I make with copy/mod/no trans permissions. But when I expect that giving mod rights means that I will have to do a lot more customer care (for whatever reasons) I will cancel the mod rights on that given product.
Do I sell less of that item because of that? Probably yes.
Do I care? Certainly no.

I'm willing to do a lot of customer service if needed. But jumping trough every thinkable hoop a potential customer thinks they should hold before my nose is not part of that.
If I don't like the presented hoop, I only think: win some - lose some and move on.
That is not self importance, but self protection.

100 USD is something different that 100 L$.

Edited January 14, 2023 by Sid Nagy

[Love Zhaoying]

7 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

It is so easy to suggest to others to do things different or extra when standing at the side line.
But reality is often completely different and it is so easy to deny or forget that as a bystander.

I dun gedit!

People should do what I say, all the time, because I said so!

[Ags Falconer]

I would love to see a list of merchants with ratings from SL account holders. Not from avis.

[Maitimo]

1 hour ago, Qie Niangao said:

(Just in passing, in my experience, Modify permission is a nearly infallible proxy for the merchant not being a dick. That's not to say that all vendors of no-Mod stuff are uniformly dicks… but on the other hand, whenever they come to the forums to justify their sales of no-Mod objects, they're pretty universally dickish about it.)

The only time I ever sold anything no-mod (aside from free gifts) was for my paintings.They're my original RL art, and I made them no-copy/transfer so they could be passed on to others. The only reason I made them no-mod was because I didn't want anyone editing the name or description of the item, which contained the title of the piece, and my name as artist, and I could think of no way to make the item modifyable whilst at the same time preventing that from happening. I included a resize script to allow for shrinking/enlarging the piece to fit the buyer's space.

 

[EliseAnne85]

9 hours ago, CaithLynnSayes said:

I know of countless examples as well, but as @Coffee Pancake said in the opening posts, we can't name and shame, so... yeah...

Noooooo, I was trying to understand why she couldn't tell a single item from a fatpack item.  It had to do with huds and whether one would be able to change anything on the single item, and she answered me before you wrote this reply and I responded.  Read the before posts to the one you wrote here. 

p.s.  I was NOT asking for names but WHY.

Edited January 14, 2023 by EliseAnne85

[Ceka Cianci]

51 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

It is so easy to suggest to others to do things different or extra when standing at the side line.
But reality is often completely different and it is so easy to deny or forget that as a bystander.

Over 90% of merchants, and other entrepreneurs, make next to nothing when they start to calculate how much they make on every invested hour that they have put into SL to do what they do for the platform. Or even work at a loss, for instance most club owners.
Most work mainly for the platform as a hobby and so for the fun of it.

Most businesses in SL are one person driven from design, texturing, boxing, writing the descriptions for the marketplace, fill the vendors, build or find and maintain a store, customer service, get into sale events, cater bloggers and and and what not.

It can be fun, yes, but one needs a skin as thick as an elephant and do only what one is comfortable with.
Example: I sell most stuff I make with copy/mod/no trans permissions. But when I expect that giving mod rights means that I will have to do a lot more customer care (for whatever reasons) I will cancel the mod rights on that given product.
Do I sell less of that item because of that? Probably yes.
Do I care? Certainly no.

I'm willing to do a lot of customer service if needed. But jumping trough every thinkable hoop a potential customer thinks they should hold before my nose is not part of that.
If I don't like the presented hoop, I only think: win some - lose some and move on.
That is not self importance, but self protection.

100 USD is something different that 100 L$.

A lot of sellers at events don't even have those things.. They have high prices, no customer service, no store, no presence other than showing up, putting their stuff up for a little bit and then removing it, leaving all their adds for those things lingering around cluttering up things..

4k for a pair of panties and a top with no sellers foundation present other than the booth they rented for the event..

My main concern is that this kind of way of doing business becomes the norm, rather than having some sort of foundation on the grid or at least the MP.. The only thing  those types of fly by night businesses have invested is maybe 5k  to get a booth and the cost of the full perm they bought that week..

I much rather shop at stores.. I use events as kind of a way to find  new stores..  It's how my concern even started.. Seeing more and more of them not having any presence of any kind on the grid.. Just coming here to hit and run their content.