Ninja Tip - shipping first, for established members & traders

apsmith21

Operations Director
Staff Member
Aug 6, 2010
28,254
USA
Hi members (and new members)!

I thought it was time for a friendly reminder for our existing members. I believe many of you are now requesting proof of the items required for a trade.

Obviously, this includes photos of the items, tracking numbers if the item was shipped to you internationally, creating a pending / active sales trade thread, asking for references, etc.

This is all very good and I suggest to take any and all of these steps above.

However, for international members - anyone doing an international trade / shipping abroad - specifically, any exisiting member that has a bigger trading score than a new member - I would like to reiterate a suggestion.

If a NEW member approaches you for a trade, and I would define a new member as follows:

1) Has joined the forums in the last few months
2) Has a join date of a while ago, but a very, very low post count.
3) Has a feedback score of lower than FIVE. Do a little investigation here - have they only BOUGHT items? Have they done any trades at all? If so, how did they go?
4) Did the new member keep their buying / trading partner waiting for a long period of time?

Trading moderators and myself are ALWAYS willing to help, but we can only keep track of so many things, and can't double check on EVERY transaction that occurs.

So a simple guideline, that you, ANY trader can use.

When shipping internationally, take your usual precautions of insuring, and tracking your package.

But you can REQUEST the new TRADER ship FIRST - ESPECIALLY in the case of larger trades and sales.

It is not unreasonable to wait to ship their items - after you have verified that they shipped you what you requested.

For any trade with a new member, our existing members should take a moment to also remind the new traders that there are threads here that instruct them how to ship a steelbook, how to handle tracking or insurance and to keep proof of shipping and other things of that sort.

By exercising caution with traders that have not established themselves on this forum, you will help make sure that you are not taken advantage of.

Thank you and feel free to post here or PM with any questions.
 
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bump. It also recommended that both parties prove they have the items that will be part of the trade, or the seller shows the items in their possession.

Pictures may be requested - and an easy way to show that they are recent is to put your trade partner's forum name in the picture with a piece of paper.

Thank you.
 
It has come to my attention, that in many cases, trades are being made for "pre-orders" or items that are not in the trader's possession.

According to rule #3 of our trading guidelines and rules thread, it is required that you do not participate in any trade where you do not have the item in hand. You cannot sell an item or trade an item that you do not possess.

Simply wait until the other trader has the item in hand before agreeing to any trade or shipping to that member first, before verifying that person has your item.

https://www.hidefninja.com/community/threads/7531/

As a result of this rule violation, HDN trade moderators cannot assist in any capacity with dispute resolutions, tracking of lost packages or the like.

Members that are found to repeatedly ignore this rule may see action against their account.

Thanks for your cooperation, and remember that these rules have been created to keep this forum a safe place to trade with members from many different countries, languages, and collections.
 
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Gb hosts go through a vetting process on this forum and there are far fewer of them to keep track of. We do not vet every single trade or pre-order by hundreds of members.

You'll also note that this is the trading forum and the gb forum has its own set of rules.

Sent from my SCH-R530U using Tapatalk 2
 
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I am helping 2 established members with procuring upcoming ES exclusive Steels. I put their name in my thread on the bottom. Of course, I won't be doing any GB as I don't have the capacity to conduct it. Is this fine?

You can take orders or reserve a copy for someone - an ES exclusive, for example, my point being that I don't want the other members sending items to the other trader BEFORE that trader has the item.

Meaning -

Trader A says I'll send you my copy of Underworld Awakening.

Trader B says - that's worth an extra ES store exclusive I have ordered.

Trade is agreed.

The other party doesn't send their item until the ES exclusive is released - and that works, because let's say the item arrives damaged, or your order is cancelled.

No harm done.

But conversely, if I were to pay you $80 for the item (here via the trade forum), and the same thing were to happen, it gets messy as trading moderators can't be expected to police every trade that might happen a long way out and that's what I would like to see happen - no goods or funds change hands until the items are in hand on both sides.

That's why we primarily have the group buy forum - for monetary transactions and pre-orders - from a select few people that the forum can approve and keep track of.

You'll note that according to our condition guide, the seller or trader is responsible for accurately describing the item being traded for, which includes actually having the item in hand.
 
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