Silk Road forums
Discussion => Silk Road discussion => Topic started by: Lofentanil on December 12, 2012, 11:13 am
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So, I had an ampheatmine-induced idea about Silk Road whilst trying to take a nap today. I came up with it because I'm pretty sure I just got screwed on some gear. Just thought I'd post it, maybe someone can turn it into something useful.
What if Silk Road charged vendors a refundable account deposit, that the vendors would get back when they decided to quit selling on the road. Unless of course, they decided to go out a dishonorable scammer.
For example, a new vendor must pay $1150 for their vending account. $150 non-refundable to the road and a $1000 deposit to insure that they don't become a scammer. If the vendor gets reasonably good feed backs from most buyers, they wont lose the deposit. Once a vendor decides to stop selling or take a break, they must take down all of their listings, ship all outstanding orders and wait two weeks or so before Silk Road refunds them the $1000 deposit and closes (or temporarily deactivates) the vendor account. Should the vendor decide to start selling again in the future, they must repay the deposit to Silk Road first. Now, if the vendor decided to screw all of his or her last customers, SR would ban the account and the vendor would forfeit their $1000 deposit and lose their $150 vending account.
Now I realize this would be putting a lot more trust in DPR and the SR staff, but they have earned much more loyalty than the countless number of "great" vendors I've seen turn into scammers in the couple of months I've been lurking around here.
This may be too harsh on new vendors, another way it could be done: the Silk Road could take say 30% of the vendor's new sales when they first open their new account (at the cost of $150). SR would quit taking the higher than normal percentage when they have reached $1000 or so deposit. From here it would work the same way as above, but the vendor wouldn't have to fork over a lot of cash anonymously over the internet to SR. This would work because most vendors that go sour need to first build up a good reputation to trick new buyers. But in this scenario, the vendor would lose more money to scam their customers than to just serve them honestly.
Scamming vendors piss me the hell off. I mean come on guys... yes this is crime we are doing illegal activity, but you can't you show some fucking respect for your own fucking kind? We're all in the same boat here... if you want to rip people off, why don't you go steal from LE?
Well... enough of my rant... I think my amphetamines are starting to kick in... time to get to work.
Let me know what you guys think of my idea.
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+1 totally agree
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http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=33818.0
I've got an idea, too.
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It's a reasonable enough idea but I don't think $1000 is going to be much of a dissuasion against the closing-down scam because you are going to make an incredible amount of money from it. The $1000 is nothing compared to how much the scam can net you if done properly.
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Lofentanil - picked a great name there! Probably THE most potent opioid there is! - Not even approved for usage. Only for dopamine receptor research.
Anyway, I just wanted to applaud your idea. My adjustment would be to make the deposit grow to that amount as sales grow.
I wanted to start Vending next month, only because I know I'll have the extra $150 (USD) it takes to get an account.
I hope to be one of the "new wave" of vendors that are popping up here and there, giving excellent service, and shipping times that run circles around even the best and oldest, trusted ones.
I plan to start a thread for them. Look for "New Vendors showing promise, by out-doing the old dogs" - Or something to that effect.
Gotta go turn my friend on to the excellent speed I just got.
10:45am on east coast of US, figured it would be a nice "wake up" call.
Great idea! - Keep 'em coming!
+1 Karma for you my friend ! ! !
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Its a good concept, but Melonballer hit the nail on the head. Pulling off a scam like tony76 did supposedly made him hundreds of thousands of dollars. A 1000$ loss compared to that is nothing.
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Its a good concept, but Melonballer hit the nail on the head. Pulling off a scam like tony76 did supposedly made him hundreds of thousands of dollars. A 1000$ loss compared to that is nothing.
This exactly, unless it was a sliding scale that increased percentage wise with volume of sales it wouldn't be worth it. Only other problem is that you would most likely have vendors cycling through accounts faster so they don't have as much deposit money just sitting there.
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Anything to help stop the scamming I am in favor of. Good post, OP.
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The idea is already in place and it is called escrow.
Also to verify, someone taking your FE is NOT scamming. What that is, is you giving your money to someone and hoping for the best. It is rare you can get scammer without FEing, so jsut use escrow, it doesn't need to be that complicated.
Don't FE, the solution to "scamming" (lol). Imagine that.
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30% money off product ? so how one is supposed to make profit ? its a pain with all these exchange rates already only prices would rise and someone who has some rare product and wants to sell it from a 3rd world country won't be able to get 1k usd.
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Lofentanil - picked a great name there! Probably THE most potent opioid there is! - Not even approved for usage. Only for dopamine receptor research.
Anyway, I just wanted to applaud your idea. My adjustment would be to make the deposit grow to that amount as sales grow.
I wanted to start Vending next month, only because I know I'll have the extra $150 (USD) it takes to get an account.
I hope to be one of the "new wave" of vendors that are popping up here and there, giving excellent service, and shipping times that run circles around even the best and oldest, trusted ones.
I plan to start a thread for them. Look for "New Vendors showing promise, by out-doing the old dogs" - Or something to that effect.
Gotta go turn my friend on to the excellent speed I just got.
10:45am on east coast of US, figured it would be a nice "wake up" call.
Great idea! - Keep 'em coming!
+1 Karma for you my friend ! ! !
Hate to burst your bubble. but vendor accounts are 500 bones now.
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I have been back 3 days from Vacation and already have made $1200 so this is a waste of time and incentive since 90% of the vendors have larger Prices & merchandise than I do so some people make $2000-$5000 a day
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Stop FE'ing en masse. If those with over 5 transactions don;t FE, the incentive to scam diminishes as business will suffer and the FE clause will be removed. Or maybe I am underestimating the number of new users who conduct transactions.
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This is a great idea. Except for this reason:
If it were me and I was planning to run a scam from what used to be a good Vendor account, I would be planning to scam more than 1000 dollars in the first place. 1000 dollars is nothing. A viable vendor overcomes that amount in 2 days. That's only 10 orders for 100 dollars. When I was dealing on the street, just pot, I would rack up 1500 on Friday night.
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The entire SR site is setup to stop scamming. Its called ESCROW.
This reminds me of the NHL lockout in my country right now. The owners sign the checks, then cry that they need devices in place to save them from themselves LOL.
Dont FE if you cant afford to lose it or even better, dont FE at all !!