How secure is buying on this forum?

[Hennypenny]

How does this forum ensure members are protected when trading on this website? Is there a feedback system like ebay?

I've noticed that members are requesting bank transfers or PayPal friends and family as prefered methods of payment. These payment methods do not offer any security if anything went wrong.

Please advise.

[KitboyE17]

You’ll see that we all have a rating on out profile name which includes feedback. We encourage each other to leave feedback on our transactions- both buying and selling. This helps us build up a good strong community. It’s also based on trust, respect and friendship. Read the feedback and you will see what I mean. 

[ChrisSilver]

taken from the forum rules: 

Quote

Disclaimer: The following applies to all Members/Sellers on the forum. Members trade at their own risk. The Silver Forum does not vet any members/sellers on the forum and neither myself nor the forum is liable for any loss(es) that may result from trades. I also can not mediate any trades, this is between the two parties to discuss and resolve any issues that they might have.

Members may wish to use PayPal for added PayPal buyer protection. Note that PayPal gift payments are not covered under the PayPal buyer protection.

You will have to do your own due diligence, but generally speaking, if a member has been very active on the forum (you can check this by looking at their reputation points) and has been a long standing established member for many years (you can check the date they joined the forum), and also has good extensive trading history, chances are that you are dealing with a reputable, honest and trustworthy member and you likely will not experience any problems. We have to however have the disclaimer above. 

In terms of security, login pages are encrypted and the admin area requires two factor authentication. 

If you are worried, @BackyardBullion also offers an intermediary service, at a charge, to reduce your risk. You could always use this for the first few trades providing the seller agrees.

 

[5huggy]

8 minutes ago, KitboyE17 said:

You’ll see that we all have a rating on out profile name which includes feedback. We encourage each other to leave feedback on our transactions- both buying and selling. This helps us build up a good strong community. It’s also based on trust, respect and friendship. Read the feedback and you will see what I mean. 

Seconded @KitboyE17- and I personally have been shown and also given a monstrous amount of "TRUST" and "INTEGRITY" with members through this forum

The REAL: answer is - - if you are around the SILVER FORUM - -  long enough you get to "SENSE" who is and who is not!  😉

The "ethos" throught the FORUM is "TRUST and INTEGRITY" and I find that AWESOMELY REFRESHING"!

 

[Pete]

There are many buyers and sellers on this forum with 100% feedback and having purchased & sold a lot of coins, bars, silver, gold and platinum the transactions have gone quickly and without any problems. I would however be cautious with someone who suddenly appears on the forum with an item for sale with little to no history. If buying then you would perhaps request the goods before paying but equally so if you had no history then as a buyer I personally would require upfront payment.

[Hennypenny]

How do you leave feedback? The deals all seem to be privately agreed. Does the seller have to inform the forum that a sale was made? Can the buyer inform the forum of a transaction and leave feedback?

[RiverbankSilver]

Never had a problem myself on purchasing items on this forum.

As for the feedback.. I have only ever received 1 positive feedback back as a buyer. even though I’ve always paid straight away and made a handful of purchases. I don’t leave feedback personally anymore unless I receive it myself.

 

[trp]

15 minutes ago, grongla said:

Never had a problem myself on purchasing items on this forum.

As for the feedback.. I have only ever received 1 positive feedback back as a buyer. even though I’ve always paid straight away and made a handful of purchases. I don’t leave feedback personally anymore unless I receive it myself.

 

People I’ve dealt with have always been very helpful and kept me in the loop with what I’ve bought. In the same boat as @grongla though, bought plenty of brilliant stuff but many people don’t give feedback for buyers. 

[Spanishsilver]

1 hour ago, Hennypenny said:

How does this forum ensure members are protected when trading on this website? Is there a feedback system like ebay?

I've noticed that members are requesting bank transfers or PayPal friends and family as prefered methods of payment. These payment methods do not offer any security if anything went wrong.

Please advise.

@Hennypenny I am guessing you are asking this question because of the 5 ounce silver dragon bars you have ordered from me which are currently at Langley waiting for delivery. I am not sure if this is this your first purchase on this forum but please take a look at my feedback as I have told you to do in a message, I have bought and sold many times. I have already told you that if this item is lost then I will refund you the money, I am a man of my word. Please just have some patience like I have already asked you. If anyone I have already done business with could reassure @Hennypenny it would be greatly appreciated as he doesn’t have much faith in me. As much as I am a great person, unfortunately I do not have any control over the postal system, especially on a weekend 😊  

[Hennypenny]

The problem may not be with the buyer, but with the courier. However, it's important how the seller deals with an issue. Why wouldn't the forum introduce a feedback system like ebay. This way, we can have a good idea of the member's reputation.

[Rat]

Hi @Hennypenny

I have purchased from @Spanishsilver previously and I had an excellent experience and found him a man of his word from start to finish. I am sure you will be ok 👌

[Rat]

13 minutes ago, Hennypenny said:

The problem may not be with the buyer, but with the courier. However, it's important how the seller deals with an issue. Why wouldn't the forum introduce a feedback system like ebay. This way, we can have a good idea of the member's reputation.

The forum already have a ebayish feedback system - you can find a members feedback on their profile page which you can access by clicking on their avatar. You can also see their feedback in numbers of positive / neutral and negative received. Here is my feedback in the profile page. Hope this helps.

 

[Roy]

I would say the forum has a better feedback system than ebay. To my knowledge, there has never been a bad deal.

FYI, I will never buy from a standard member unless they post before payment or from a Premium Member without good feedback.

[ilovesilverireallydo]

1 hour ago, grongla said:

Never had a problem myself on purchasing items on this forum.

As for the feedback.. I have only ever received 1 positive feedback back as a buyer. even though I’ve always paid straight away and made a handful of purchases. I don’t leave feedback personally anymore unless I receive it myself.

 

You should always ask for feedback if you want to build it up. Many ask me, I dont automatically leave it as do too many trades. 

[Derv]

7 minutes ago, ilovesilverireallydo said:

You should always ask for feedback if you want to build it up. Many ask me, I dont automatically leave it as do too many trades. 

Could you leave me feedback 😉

[sixgun]

1 hour ago, Hennypenny said:

How do you leave feedback? The deals all seem to be privately agreed. Does the seller have to inform the forum that a sale was made? Can the buyer inform the forum of a transaction and leave feedback?

All sales are private sales. The forum is not responsible for sales, it is simply a free advertising platform for members. 
The seller does not have to inform the forum of sales but clearly if an item is sold it is wise to reconfigure the for sale thread to show the item has been sold or else other members may continue to contact the seller. 
Very often sellers and buyers leave feedback through the profile page. 
There are some very experienced forum members. If there is something not right, it will usually be spotted. 
The longer established members are very trustworthy - we value our membership and reputation of the forum over a small profit cheating other members. 
From time-to-time we see new sellers who are scam artists - we had one the other day - this person put sovereigns up for sale - that this was a scam was spotted immediately - after a short time the for sale thread was removed and this person was probably banned. 

If you buy from a member here who is well known you can be sure you are dealing with an honourable seller. 

[AurumArgenti]

The few trades I've had have been very smooth and professional.

I had one problem which was swiftly and fairly dealt with no hesitation which was very much appreciated. I'd definitely do business again with the person.

The silver forum is a great place and that's why I believe people value their membership.

[RiverbankSilver]

17 minutes ago, ilovesilverireallydo said:

You should always ask for feedback if you want to build it up. Many ask me, I dont automatically leave it as do too many trades. 

Thanks for the tip. I’m still new to this forum so I shall in the future 👍

[DarkChameleon]

1 hour ago, Spanishsilver said:

@Hennypenny I am guessing you are asking this question because of the 5 ounce silver dragon bars you have ordered from me which are currently at Langley waiting for delivery. I am not sure if this is this your first purchase on this forum but please take a look at my feedback as I have told you to do in a message, I have bought and sold many times. I have already told you that if this item is lost then I will refund you the money, I am a man of my word. Please just have some patience like I have already asked you. If anyone I have already done business with could reassure @Hennypenny it would be greatly appreciated as he doesn’t have much faith in me. As much as I am a great person, unfortunately I do not have any control over the postal system, especially on a weekend 😊  

I've had slow moving stuff when I bought from Alun and everyone knows he's good but sometimes the post is slow to say theleast, especially when leaving one country into the next....I buy from all over the world and shipping it to america can be an extra week to get here.

[KitboyE17]

You really can’t hold the Seller responsible for poor post/delivery services. If you pay the postage for tracking then you can track your package and keep an eye on things. If you pay 1st class or 2nd class or even courier then you should know roughly when it will arrive. Keeping in good communication with your seller/buyer goes a long way to help, reassure and even solve problems if they arise. I have only ever had one issue with postage where the package didn’t arrive on time as expected and the seller put things right immediately. That goes a long way in showing how good a community we are.  

[kneehow2018]

1 hour ago, grongla said:

Never had a problem myself on purchasing items on this forum.

As for the feedback.. I have only ever received 1 positive feedback back as a buyer. even though I’ve always paid straight away and made a handful of purchases. I don’t leave feedback personally anymore unless I receive it myself.

 

Really unfortunate. I've left positive FB, and only on a handful of occasions I've been ignored when requesting reciprocation, (selling & buying). Then found that the individuals do leave feedback to others - so just settled for: a few members are prejudiced (for whatever reason). Freedom trumps etiquette!

May I ask as to why the ebay FB system (twice mentioned by the Author), might be better than TSF?

(Good post - shows how relevant FB is)

[Draconicus]

On 08/12/2019 at 13:26, Hennypenny said:

How do you leave feedback? The deals all seem to be privately agreed. Does the seller have to inform the forum that a sale was made? Can the buyer inform the forum of a transaction and leave feedback?

When you create a FB you are requested to tell the topic name where the deal was done. That tells Forum admin that it was a real one. Otherwise ppl could start giving fake FB just to rise it's reputation!

If it was a particular deal, after done you can create a topic about the object sold with all the info, and say it was created just for the FB.

This was in the Forum rules anyway.

[sixgun]

32 minutes ago, kneehow2018 said:

Then found that the individuals do leave feedback to others - so just settled for: a few members are prejudiced (for whatever reason). 

If these members aren't leaving feedback to others isn't it more likely they  can't be bothered, lazy or selfish types rather than prejudiced?
i like to leave feedback - then the other side are likely to leave me feedback.
i have always left you feedback b/c you deserve good feedback - you are one of the best sellers on the forum and that's a fact.

[5huggy]

2 hours ago, Spanishsilver said:

@Hennypenny I am guessing you are asking this question because of the 5 ounce silver dragon bars you have ordered from me which are currently at Langley waiting for delivery. I am not sure if this is this your first purchase on this forum but please take a look at my feedback as I have told you to do in a message, I have bought and sold many times. I have already told you that if this item is lost then I will refund you the money, I am a man of my word. Please just have some patience like I have already asked you. If anyone I have already done business with could reassure @Hennypenny it would be greatly appreciated as he doesn’t have much faith in me. As much as I am a great person, unfortunately I do not have any control over the postal system, especially on a weekend 😊  

ABSOLUTELY NO PROBLEM - - "VOUCHING" for the "Integrity" of @Spanishsilver

Done some excellent deals with each other

[kneehow2018]

9 minutes ago, sixgun said:

If these members aren't leaving feedback to others isn't it more likely they  can't be bothered, lazy or selfish types rather than prejudiced?
i like to leave feedback - then the other side are likely to leave me feedback.
i have always left you feedback b/c you deserve good feedback - you are one of the best sellers on the forum and that's a fact.

Apologies for using the term "prejudiced" as it may come with a certain connotation - perahps selfish is better as they do leave FB to others.

(Apart from being generous with your comments, You are amongst the most courteous and knowledgeable to trade with - that's pure fact!)