8 ms·

Your story really resonates with me, as I also was trying to start a side hustle of my own. The original plan was to sell certain retro items on Amazon's Marke

Your story really resonates with me, as I also was trying to start a side hustle of my own. The original plan was to sell certain retro items on Amazon's Marketplace and possibly Ebay. I figured that the fees and taxation requirements were a logical expense in exchange for increased traffic and ease of payment. While I wasn't concerned about getting hit with accusations of money laundering, I was extremely concerned about chargebacks and Amazon siding with the buyer instead of the seller for pretty much any reason. Which got me thinking-- how and when did it get this bad? A wad of cash or a check in envelopes isn't the most scalable or amazingly convenient payment solution on Earth, but it is more equitable and irreversible than the current system. In fact, I was surprised to learn that Venmo doesn't do chargebacks. Aside from Venmo's strict and arbitrary laws about money laundering ("ISIS beer funds" is a fun googleable term here), it is an infinitely more ideal way to pay than Paypal or etc. "Want to buy something? Venmo me the money and I will send you the item. If you don't trust me as a seller, then find someone you trust who is also selling this item, because by default I do not trust any buyer."

joecool1029 9y ago
Guess you'll be even more surprised to learn that Venmo absolutely does chargebacks! Go read their user agreement: https://venmo.com/legal/us-user-agreement/ https://venmo.com/legal/us-user-agreement/
- anoncoward111 9y ago
  Ahhh, interesting! I literally only googled the problem earlier today. It seems venmo's site lied to me then. It quite literally said "It is not possible to cancel a payment without the consent of the payee". Aka, if i give you money and you say you don't want it, you can cancel the payment. But on Amazon or Ebay, you pay me for an Xbox, I ship it, and 3 days later "IT'S BROKEN" and I lose all my profit + shipping fees
  - bigcostooge 9y ago
    When I was selling hundreds of items per month, I would hold any Spanish name for 48 hours. The majority of Spanish named buyers were committing fraud.
    - Amygaz 9y ago
      Funny story is the first time my credit card number was stolen following the Target hack, it was used in a grocery store and a convenience store near Madrid.
jdietrich 9y ago
>A wad of cash or a check in envelopes isn't the most scalable or amazingly convenient payment solution on Earth, but it is more equitable and irreversible than the current system. Cash gets counterfeited. Checks bounce. Invoices go unpaid. Debtors go bankrupt. Packages get pilfered. The world is full of shoplifters, skimmers, change raisers, rip dealers, embezzlers, commercial burglars and opportunists. It didn't "get this bad" - it used to be much worse. Shrinkage is a cost of doing business and it's priced in to margins. If your business venture can't withstand a normal level of shrinkage that all your competitors deal with, then you didn't have a business to begin with.
- user5994461 9y ago
  Agreed. It was much worse before. Items were sold on craiglist or gumtree. They are completely filled with scams, send cash by mail and never receive the item. Noone sane would buy an item online.
  - jstanley 9y ago
    > Noone sane would buy an item online. I buy almost everything online (normally eBay, because I like the convenient price comparison between different vendors, and the consistent search and checkout interfaces). I almost never have any issue.
    - Naga 9y ago
      I believe he was saying that it used to be much worse, not that it is like that now.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    I, along with many thousands, regularly buy stuff on OLX (local equivalent of those sites) and pay by bank transfer (which is not reversible) or even cash-equivalents.
- anoncoward111 9y ago
  You place an order for an item from me. If you send me counterfeit cash or a bounced check, I'm not sending you the item. I don't do invoices. I don't do credit. And if the package is stolen from the mailing service I choose, then hopefully I purchased some type of tracking service for it to fulfill an insurance claim from the post office. There is no justification for the new "chargeback culture" that exists in our society. Only the most centralized sellers can eat these costs. This is a temporary win for consumers-- just wait until friendly indie sellers are pinched out of existence.
emodendroket 9y ago
I don't see why it would be fairer to put the burden of potential fraud on the buyer.
- anoncoward111 9y ago
  My identity as a seller is a business asset. If you don't trust my reputation, you are free to search for an item/service elsewhere from a seller you trust more. However, I am not able to trust you as a buyer on Ebay or Amazon. No matter what I do to cover my bases, there is a risk that Amazon and Ebay will reverse the transaction, and I will lose my money, time, and even my item. Conversely, when you send me cash or a cash equivalent by mail, I am now 100% fulfilled, and any failure to deliver on my end should become public knowledge quite quickly. However, caveat emptor.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    I don't buy into the libertarian idea that your reputation is a sufficient substitute for proper regulation of commercial activities.
    - robotrout 9y ago
      I'm sure you have used reputation a thousand times in your life to decide whether or not to dine in a restaurant, take a class from a professor, or stay in a hotel.
      - tacomonstrous 9y ago
        In my college experience, many courses that came highly recommended by the student population were garbage. Students don't have the experience to judge the worth of all courses, and the same information and knowledge asymmetry extends to many other fields of human activity.
        emodendroket 9y ago
        Mostly highly rated classes tend to be blow-off classes, rather than informative and engaging ones.
tim333 9y ago
The "trust the buyer" thing seems to work reasonably well in practice, especially if on say eBay you limit buyers to ones with positive feedback and not living in iffy countries. Trust the seller is vulnerable to people offering say bargain laptops, selling 100s then running off.

joecool1029 9y ago

Guess you'll be even more surprised to learn that Venmo absolutely does chargebacks! Go read their user agreement: https://venmo.com/legal/us-user-agreement/ https://venmo.com/legal/us-user-agreement/

anoncoward111 9y ago
Ahhh, interesting! I literally only googled the problem earlier today. It seems venmo's site lied to me then. It quite literally said "It is not possible to cancel a payment without the consent of the payee". Aka, if i give you money and you say you don't want it, you can cancel the payment. But on Amazon or Ebay, you pay me for an Xbox, I ship it, and 3 days later "IT'S BROKEN" and I lose all my profit + shipping fees
- bigcostooge 9y ago
  When I was selling hundreds of items per month, I would hold any Spanish name for 48 hours. The majority of Spanish named buyers were committing fraud.
  - Amygaz 9y ago
    Funny story is the first time my credit card number was stolen following the Target hack, it was used in a grocery store and a convenience store near Madrid.

jdietrich 9y ago

>A wad of cash or a check in envelopes isn't the most scalable or amazingly convenient payment solution on Earth, but it is more equitable and irreversible than the current system. Cash gets counterfeited. Checks bounce. Invoices go unpaid. Debtors go bankrupt. Packages get pilfered. The world is full of shoplifters, skimmers, change raisers, rip dealers, embezzlers, commercial burglars and opportunists. It didn't "get this bad" - it used to be much worse. Shrinkage is a cost of doing business and it's priced in to margins. If your business venture can't withstand a normal level of shrinkage that all your competitors deal with, then you didn't have a business to begin with.

user5994461 9y ago
Agreed. It was much worse before. Items were sold on craiglist or gumtree. They are completely filled with scams, send cash by mail and never receive the item. Noone sane would buy an item online.
- jstanley 9y ago
  > Noone sane would buy an item online. I buy almost everything online (normally eBay, because I like the convenient price comparison between different vendors, and the consistent search and checkout interfaces). I almost never have any issue.
  - Naga 9y ago
    I believe he was saying that it used to be much worse, not that it is like that now.
- icebraining 9y ago
  I, along with many thousands, regularly buy stuff on OLX (local equivalent of those sites) and pay by bank transfer (which is not reversible) or even cash-equivalents.
anoncoward111 9y ago
You place an order for an item from me. If you send me counterfeit cash or a bounced check, I'm not sending you the item. I don't do invoices. I don't do credit. And if the package is stolen from the mailing service I choose, then hopefully I purchased some type of tracking service for it to fulfill an insurance claim from the post office. There is no justification for the new "chargeback culture" that exists in our society. Only the most centralized sellers can eat these costs. This is a temporary win for consumers-- just wait until friendly indie sellers are pinched out of existence.

emodendroket 9y ago

I don't see why it would be fairer to put the burden of potential fraud on the buyer.

anoncoward111 9y ago
My identity as a seller is a business asset. If you don't trust my reputation, you are free to search for an item/service elsewhere from a seller you trust more. However, I am not able to trust you as a buyer on Ebay or Amazon. No matter what I do to cover my bases, there is a risk that Amazon and Ebay will reverse the transaction, and I will lose my money, time, and even my item. Conversely, when you send me cash or a cash equivalent by mail, I am now 100% fulfilled, and any failure to deliver on my end should become public knowledge quite quickly. However, caveat emptor.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  I don't buy into the libertarian idea that your reputation is a sufficient substitute for proper regulation of commercial activities.
  - robotrout 9y ago
    I'm sure you have used reputation a thousand times in your life to decide whether or not to dine in a restaurant, take a class from a professor, or stay in a hotel.
    - tacomonstrous 9y ago
      In my college experience, many courses that came highly recommended by the student population were garbage. Students don't have the experience to judge the worth of all courses, and the same information and knowledge asymmetry extends to many other fields of human activity.
      - emodendroket 9y ago
        Mostly highly rated classes tend to be blow-off classes, rather than informative and engaging ones.

tim333 9y ago

The "trust the buyer" thing seems to work reasonably well in practice, especially if on say eBay you limit buyers to ones with positive feedback and not living in iffy countries. Trust the seller is vulnerable to people offering say bargain laptops, selling 100s then running off.