What the #%$*&? is up with those #%$*&? people and their no-one outside of NZ or Australia are good enough to join crap?! #%$*&? imbeciles. Y'know, there are a few of us who choose not to live in NZers who aren't fraudsters!
If you're going to ban the rest of the world, you might as well just go back to the Trade & Exchange, you #%$*&? dolts.
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Here here ! I was an active
Here here ! I was an active member of Trade me .. well I brought a bronze statue once, I think she's now called Bruce and sitting in my sisters lounge .. but I got an e-mail telling me they weren't accepting overseas accounts anymore, and that was that .. as you say #%$*&? people, I didn't rip anyone off, and I paid my Bill, what more do they want ??
Yes, do pardon my rant. I
Yes, do pardon my rant. I was rather incredulous at the stupidity of it all. Anyone would think Trade Me are scared of having to deal with the big, bad world.
I guess my point was that there is a whole planet of people out here and, if Trade Me would acknowledge us, we'd be happy to give them our money.
Now then, no internet rant is complete without a sweeping and derogatory generalisation, so I suppose I'd better make one, too. Umm, how about: "Geez, no wonder NZ's still a backwater: one of the country's biggest internet-based companies can't even grasp the basic tenet of the World Wide Web."
Hehehehehehehehehehehehee, Yo
Hehehehehehehehehehehehee,
You want to know what I think is both bogus and sad ?!? Back home, Wells Fargo and Bank Of America both made my parents sign forms stating that they and not the bank will bear responsibility sending money to New Zealand !!! Apparently living in this country means we're living in Cameroon !!! According to those dudes, we're living in third world nation, New Zealand ! Sucks to be you, Kiwi ...
-) harsh bloke .. you read
Oh and Robsta I've been away from NZ for 19 years come this March and I'm still a VERY proud kiwi, just ask anyone who knows me, born a kiwi die a kiwi, never once has it sucked, NZ is a small country miles from anywhere with a population of 4 million, standing on it's own against countries with HUGE economies, massive populations and infrastructure to match, we hold our own, sometimes I feel with a small town mindset :-) but we do it.
Robsta .. I think I owe you
Robsta .. I think I owe you an apology, I mis-read your post and took it as you were saying sucks being kiwi .. my mistake, you were taking the point of view from the Americans, sorry.
I'm doing some work for an
I'm doing some work for an e-commerce site that's had ongoing problems with an overseas "customer" persistently trying to buy merchandise with stolen credit cards. At the moment, the company is small enough to be able to spot the bogus orders before delivery, but obviously they want to reduce that burden on their staff, and are considering blocking an entire country's worth of IP addresses to prevent it. They don't really have the option of cutting off the entire rest of the world, nor would they want to.
In trademe's situation, and I'm purely guessing here, their much larger market would suffer these problems on a more widespread scale, and every dodgy customer directly affects another of their customer base. Not only do they then have a bunch of upset customers, the high activity on the site makes it very difficult to trace bogus accounts until after the damage is done.
Also, the nature of their business has always been vastly more conducive to trading with other people in the same vicinity. That's where the bulk of their market is, and speaking as an occasional trader, I wouldn't consider buying from an overseas trader, nor would I be particularly happy about selling to one. Even where both parties are genuine traders, the scope for error increases significantly, both in payment and delivery.
With all that in mind, I wouldn't be surprised if their percentage of valid overseas trading activity was actually lower than that from bogus overseas accounts. If that's the case, without putting too fine a point on it, it's kind of a no-brainer.
Good post by Heather. I
Good post by Heather.
I think your point is valid. I agree that stolen credit cards and the like are probably TradeMe's reasons for shutting out the rest of the world (although we'll not know unless more details are made available--all I got told was that "in order to make TradeMe safer, we don't allow accounts from overseas"... now what kind of connotations does that message send?)
But doesn't it seem small-minded? Doesn't "let's reject the whole world because there are fraudsters out there" seem defeatist? Wouldn't it be more constructive to focus on the actual bogus users instead (I would imagine TradeMe has the budget to make that effort)?
Yahoo Auctions here in Japan and E-bay in other countries seem to do OK. I'd say they have more problems with fraudsters than TradeMe does, but they appear to be handling it alright, and they leave it up to individual sellers to decide whether they will send overseas or not (you just click the box when posting each item for sale). I reckon that's OK, because it's a personal decision. Same as your...
I wouldn't consider buying from an overseas trader, nor would I be particularly happy about selling to one.
... I take the opposite approach, but the point is that it's a personal decision, whereas TradeMe's policy of telling the world to bugger off seems like an institutionalised village mentality; an us-kiwis-against-the-world-eh sort of thing.
I would dearly love to be wrong, but that's how it looks.
It's not even about stolen
It's not even about stolen credit cards - I don't imagine many traders are actually registered to accept credit cards. No paypal either.
//but the point is that it's a personal decision,
Actually, it's not. I can choose who I buy from, but I don't have much control over who wins my auctions.
Granted, you're right about ebay making it work, & the only response I can think of is that it's probably a matter of scale. I don't know what kind of resources trademe would have/need to expand into a worldwide market. And if they're just catering to a handful of expats, again, I think you're just unfortunate that it's not a big enough market to justify the cost of a world of internet pranksters & 419ers. I also think you're making it unnecessarily personal suggesting that trademe think the rest of the world are "not good enough". I imagine the cold fact is that the overseas market proved not nearly lucrative enough to justify the extra costs of "focussing on bogus users" or perhaps "addressing the complaints of local traders dealing with people overseas". As for "us vs the rest of the world", there's probably an element of truth in that, but I imagine it's more the idea that trademe serves as an alternative to ebay - not a competitor. There's no need to go international because ebay already has it covered. Granted this is all entirely conjecture.
I have to say, my very first reaction to this thread was "...why would you want to?". Trademe's great for flathunting, buying cheap-as cars, & peddling your second-hand furniture & computers, but if you're overseas then .. making a payment that could potentially cost you 20 euros in bank processing fees, waiting a week for a delivery (meaning that it's over a week before you've worked out that there's been a fuckup), not to mention risking the occasional possibility that the merch was broken (in transit or beforehand), or not at all what you ordered? Meh.. I guess you'd have to pay duty & sales tax on merch purchased from any international site, but ebay's "global buying hub" does go into graphic detail about that sort of thing, and has many stern warnings about checking customs regulations.
Also, can I just ask - does trademe screen you by your IP address, or do they just require you supply a NZ-based address & phone number? I could imagine someone merrily trading away on the back of a friend's / their mum's contact details & out of their old university bank account without too much hassle. Is that feasible? That's what I'd do.
Oh, given australia's still
Oh, given australia's still included, and that they've cut off overseas traders like wainuiomata with what I assume are decent track records, I bet they're acting on legal advice.
& FWIW, it is crappy, and I can sympathise. I'm just playing devil's advocate because of the "how DARE trademe not sell to me!" sentiment. ;)
//FWIW, it is crappy, and I
//FWIW, it is crappy, and I can sympathise. I'm just playing devil's advocate because of the "how DARE trademe not sell to me!" sentiment. ;)
Sure thing. I think this is a good discussion (especialy now I'm over the initial rant!)
//Also, can I just ask - does trademe screen you by your IP address, or do they just require you supply a NZ-based address & phone number?
I'm fairly certain they checked my IP address. There's one detail (which will remain unmentioned here) that throws a small shadow of doubt on it, but I'm pretty sure.
//I could imagine someone merrily trading away on the back of a friend's / their mum's contact details & out of their old university bank account without too much hassle. Is that feasible? That's what I'd do.
That's what I did. Everything except for the gmail address was NZ-specific.
// //but the point is that it's a personal decision,
//- Actually, it's not. I can choose who I buy from, but I don't have much control over who wins my auctions.
Hang on. Are we talking about the same thing? (I'm confused now). Just to clarify: I meant to say that if you were able to choose in advance whether or not you would accept overseas buyers (like with eBay or Yahoo! Auctions and their "click the box if you're willing to send the item overseas, otherwise it's just domestic" policy), and you chose not to, that would be a personal decision and not something foisted on you by the auction site (like with TradeMe and their "we don't allow members outside NZ and Australia" policy).
Next question (although this is moving slightly away from the original topic): If we assume that there is some money to be made in opening TradeMe up to the rest of the world, but that...
//it's probably a matter of scale. I don't know what kind of resources trademe would have/need to expand into a worldwide market. And if they're just catering to a handful of expats [snip] it's not a big enough market to justify the cost of a world of internet pranksters & 419ers... the cold fact is that the overseas market proved not nearly lucrative enough to justify the extra costs of "focussing on bogus users" or perhaps "addressing the complaints of local traders dealing with people overseas"
...does that mean TradeMe is, in effect, in the business of protecting/preventing (I s'pose it depends on your point of view) its members from doing business overseas? If so, is that valid? By which I mean, should the members be allowed to make that choice themselves or is TradeMe doing the right thing?
interesting thread.. //it's
interesting thread..
//it's probably a matter of scale. I don't know what kind of resources trademe would have/need to expand into a worldwide market. And if they're just catering to a handful of expats [snip] it's not a big enough market to justify the cost of a world of internet pranksters & 419ers... the cold fact is that the overseas market proved not nearly lucrative enough to justify the extra costs of "focussing on bogus users" or perhaps "addressing the complaints of local traders dealing with people overseas"//
would seem to me from reading this, that despite the government reeling off absolute pearls like the suppression of terrorism, antismacking, anti-tagging, anti-electoral finance. despite these godsends to humanity, they may have neglected to write effective legislation protecting New Zealand businesses and individuals aspiring to use the internet for business transactions with that 5000000000 offshore. naturally it would only be expats who'd want to use trademe.
also harshbloke, gotta consider what the organization who bought out trademe a while back's ulterior motives are...
//organization who bought
//organization who bought out trademe a while back...
That's precisely who I was thinking about when I wrote "I would imagine TradeMe has the budget to make that effort". TradeMe's not exactly small potatoes anymore.
Although, I wonder if the new corporate owners would benefit by restricting TradeMe to NZ and Australia.
It maybe I.P I paid from an
It maybe I.P I paid from an NZ bank account and had it sent to my sisters place in NZ, only give away may have been my e-mail address. But all that said, I'm now the proud owner thanks to EBAY of an olympus om 1 n 35mm camera, well I say owner, I paid for it today so haven't quiet got it in my hands yet. I tried to post a couple of pictures but somehow it didn't work for me. By all acounts it's a great little camera, I typed in best 35mm camera in the world, and this was one that popped up, straight onto ebay .. and just for a look trademe, a few olympus's on there but couldn't bid, their loss not mine. I've tried to post a picture of it but it doesn't seem to work, and yes I know film is a dying format, but I like it all the same.
the most successful
the most successful economies are the the most protectionist.
not exactly clear if this applies here, I just felt it's a little something.
Can you say Ebay? TradeMe is
Can you say Ebay?
TradeMe is a NZ focussed website. Why should they accept foreign accounts... It's not like they need the money
Yeah, I have accounts with
Yeah, I have accounts with eBay and local auction giant Yahoo! Auctions*. It's just that there were two specific items on TradeMe that I wanted.
But that aside...
It's not like they need the money
... You realise that's Fairfax you're talking about, right?
∗Digression: eBay set up a local site here in Japan a few years ago in competition with Yahoo, but Yahoo thrashed the pants off eBay, who packed up and went home after a couple of years. Recently there's been talk of the two entering into a tie-up, which will allow eBay customers easier access to Yahoo! Auctions in Japan and vice-versa. If you can't beat 'em...