The Energon Pub

zemper wrote:

Bonger wrote:

Toyotus Superion wrote:

AlienQuiksilver wrote:I like the (X amount of months) membership requirement most of all.

Any decent post whore can get up to 100 rather quickly.

2 or 3 months of commitment, that's pretty solid.

Mate that with a post amount requirement, and those scalpers who know jack and **** about TF's would be revealed to those paying attention to their posts.

Thats exactly what i was thinking! Now if we can get someone to listen to us!

I sent Ryan a PM with the idea a little earlier. Hopefully he finds some merit in it.

thanks for telling Seibs about this. i agree with you that TF Trading is an essential part of a TF online community; heck, here in our country, one of the most active (and at times, the most active part) of the local TF forums are the trading threads.

trading builds up a certain bond with collectors you know; though a certain toy is loose, knowing that it came from the hands of a TF collector, you have the assurance that at least this toy has been well-taken care of. it's also a fun way to make new friends.

i don't know why, but even with simple rules, we Pinoy collectors thrive and build lots of camaraderie over this practice. based on my experience, i still have not had a scam/bad/lousy trade over here. neither have the other members. ok, maybe there were some little spat over extensive haggling and such, but never have most of us experienced being scammed.

maybe Seibs could bring it back, but a set of moderators would be the ones enforcing the rules on the new Carbombya; take all the suggestions here, tweak it a little, probably add some more to make it work like it should. in such a short time, many of us have come up with simple but good ideas to prevent such shortcomings in the future.

Exactly. I have had nothing but great experiences trading here, and would much rather have a piece in my collection come from one of you, rather than some anonymous ebayer. Also, I'm sure as people read this news, others will come up with many more ideas to make Carbomya a safer place to trade.

If it is Mods that are needed to make this work, I would be more than happy to volunteer my time.

oh for the l-o-ls...

Bonger wrote:

zemper wrote:

Bonger wrote:

Toyotus Superion wrote:

AlienQuiksilver wrote:I like the (X amount of months) membership requirement most of all.

Any decent post whore can get up to 100 rather quickly.

2 or 3 months of commitment, that's pretty solid.

Mate that with a post amount requirement, and those scalpers who know jack and **** about TF's would be revealed to those paying attention to their posts.

Thats exactly what i was thinking! Now if we can get someone to listen to us!

I sent Ryan a PM with the idea a little earlier. Hopefully he finds some merit in it.

thanks for telling Seibs about this. i agree with you that TF Trading is an essential part of a TF online community; heck, here in our country, one of the most active (and at times, the most active part) of the local TF forums are the trading threads.

trading builds up a certain bond with collectors you know; though a certain toy is loose, knowing that it came from the hands of a TF collector, you have the assurance that at least this toy has been well-taken care of. it's also a fun way to make new friends.

i don't know why, but even with simple rules, we Pinoy collectors thrive and build lots of camaraderie over this practice. based on my experience, i still have not had a scam/bad/lousy trade over here. neither have the other members. ok, maybe there were some little spat over extensive haggling and such, but never have most of us experienced being scammed.

maybe Seibs could bring it back, but a set of moderators would be the ones enforcing the rules on the new Carbombya; take all the suggestions here, tweak it a little, probably add some more to make it work like it should. in such a short time, many of us have come up with simple but good ideas to prevent such shortcomings in the future.

Exactly. I have had nothing but great experiences trading here, and would much rather have a piece in my collection come from one of you, rather than some anonymous ebayer. Also, I'm sure as people read this news, others will come up with many more ideas to make Carbomya a safer place to trade.

If it is Mods that are needed to make this work, I would be more than happy to volunteer my time.

yeah, extra-vigilant Mods really ARE needed for a new Carbombya to work. i remember browsing through some threads where the seller actually is breaking a lot of rules (i.e. not posting prices, bidding items, etc.) and it takes a sharp-eyed member to remind the seller about forum rules. with Mods that actually patrol the different threads, it would only take a short time to spot a con or a fraud; a PM here, a post history check there, an I.P. check all over would keep scammers away.

Couple of points:

1) Moderators won't prevent the problems people are complaining about.

2) People who volunteer or want to be moderators are generally very bad at it.

Sledge wrote:Couple of points:

1) Moderators won't prevent the problems people are complaining about.

2) People who volunteer or want to be moderators are generally very bad at it.

true on both parts, but with Mods, at least you have a measure of vigilance and its safe to say that they're better than nothing at all. at least, until a much better idea pops up. and with the second, well i don't know about that but the existing Mods (Cyb. Getter. etc.) seem to do and excellent job moderating the threads, so maybe these guys could have some referrals for the Mods for the new Carbombya.

these are all just ideas, but with the hope and intention of bringing back a much better trading experience here at Seibertron.com.

I understand what you're saying, and agree to some extent. But the ultimate issue is that there are always going to be scammers and gullible people, no matter how many and how good the moderators are. That by itself isn't the problem, the problem is the site owner is getting more complaints than he's prepared to deal with. Unless every single person using Carbomya is prepared to accept that the site has no control over deals, those complaints will continue.

Bottom line, it's Ryan Yzquierdo's site. If he want's to discontinue a feature, he can.

Toyotus Superion wrote:

AlienQuiksilver wrote:I like the (X amount of months) membership requirement most of all.

Any decent post whore can get up to 100 rather quickly.

2 or 3 months of commitment, that's pretty solid.

Mate that with a post amount requirement, and those scalpers who know jack and **** about TF's would be revealed to those paying attention to their posts.

Thats exactly what i was thinking! Now if we can get someone to listen to us!

I agree totally. Also, it may be a good idea to do an age-limit as well. 18+ only. I'm not saying anything negative against out teen population, but, hopefully an adult can handle something in an adult fashion.

(now my rant) Killing off the bst forum is pretty heart-breaking. Moreso than seeing Jazz torn asunder, but I digress. I've never had any negative transactions on there, either buying or selling. It's a great place to tell the fan community about stuff you're wanting to sell to a good home, before breaking down and eBaying it.

Sad to see it go. Hope and a prayer it'll come back....

Autobot032 wrote:I can understand his frustration.
I can understand his closing of the thread.
I can understand his being tired of emails, PMs, etc.

I cannot understand why he'd attack the "gullible" in the same line as he attacks those who would exploit such a weakness in others.

It's like punishing all the kids, because the middle kid broke the neighbor's window while playing backyard baseball.

I think the "gullible" thing needs to be dropped, and is quite rude. But I'll give Seibs credit for being balls to the wall in your face about it.

I use that term because when people tell me the situation in which they got ripped off ... the phrase "if it sounds too good to be true, it most likely is" always comes to mind. I'm sure there were some legitimate deals that went sour, but I'm just tired of dealing with the whole situation and having people complain to myself or the staff about it. All I can really do at the end of the day is say (and I'm sorry this sounds so cold, but it's true) "Well, what do you want me to do about it?" I don't like the idea of people getting ripped off via a buy/sell/trade forum on this site. The frequency with which it was happening is what made me use a few of those choice words. I'm sorry if I offended anyone ... I'm doing this for everyone's own good.

FracturedKoi wrote:

Toyotus Superion wrote:

AlienQuiksilver wrote:I like the (X amount of months) membership requirement most of all.

Any decent post whore can get up to 100 rather quickly.

2 or 3 months of commitment, that's pretty solid.

Mate that with a post amount requirement, and those scalpers who know jack and **** about TF's would be revealed to those paying attention to their posts.

Thats exactly what i was thinking! Now if we can get someone to listen to us!

I agree totally. Also, it may be a good idea to do an age-limit as well. 18+ only. I'm not saying anything negative against out teen population, but, hopefully an adult can handle something in an adult fashion.

(now my rant) Killing off the bst forum is pretty heart-breaking. Moreso than seeing Jazz torn asunder, but I digress. I've never had any negative transactions on there, either buying or selling. It's a great place to tell the fan community about stuff you're wanting to sell to a good home, before breaking down and eBaying it.

Sad to see it go. Hope and a prayer it'll come back....

This is something I would like to implement at some point. An X number of posts requirement and a X number of months requirement I think would cut down on some of the crap. But then again ... I've heard that even some long time members have struggled to live up to their end of the bargain (there was a recent situation just last week involving a long time member) so I'm not sure what to do. It's frustrating, because I would like you guys to have it but you have to look at this thing from my perspective. What legal obligations do I have to protect the members on this site? Maybe I don't have any. I'd rather not have to find out the hard way though by getting dragged into some ludicrous situation that was completely out of my control.

Bonger wrote:It is a matter of semantics. Could some issues have been avoided by peeps being more cautious when dealing with members with like 2 posts, ofcourse. I believe that was pretty much his point.

That's exactly my point and exactly why I get frustrated when someone complains to me about getting ripped off. Wait? You bought something from someone who just registered yesterday? Wait? You bought something from someone who only has 3 posts? What am I supposed to do to help out with that? Or what about the situation where someone gets ripped off by someone that's been here for a while? I just don't know what the solution is and I'm tired of worrying about someone getting really ripped off (i.e. spending thousands of dollars on a too-good-to-be-true deal), suing that member and then me having to supply database records and all sorts of crap that I don't want to have anything to do with. None of you guys would be dragged to court. Just me. I love this site and all of you guys and am tickled to death to know that the hard work that I've put into this site over the past 7.5 years has provided all of you with an online home and a sense of belonging or community, but I've got to draw the line somewhere with what this site can or can't do. I just don't think this is one of those things that we should have when there are great tools like eBay and such.

Now, I might be able to be talked into having an eBay forum so that people can promote their eBay auctions. I'm just afraid that it will turn into a "hey, i'm about to post this on eBay but I wanted to give you guys a heads up first" thing ... which resolves nothing on my end.

AlienQuiksilver wrote:This is truly unfortunate. Nobody hears about the positive stuff that goes on in there.

I developed a comrade in there. ZedsDead. We no longer need the forum, because a great trust has been developed between us and our many trades. It's just unfortunate that others will not get the opportunity to build this kind of trust with other members.

It can still happen, but carbombya was a great vehicle to use to get there.

Here's what I'll do ... I'll keep pondering how to provide you guys with a more legitimate way of doing this. X # of posts, X # of months ... something. But it's very low on my priority list at the moment. Getting the new forums up and running, moving Transtopia, moving the VSD improvements live and getting caught up on new figures that haven't been added to the galleries are all way ahead of even thinking of coming up with a solution to Carbombya because all of those things affect far more people than being able to buy/sell/trade.

I saw this coming a mile away. When I first got online, I was looking for a MP Prime trailer. Someone just happened to have one, great deal too. Apparently someone had "given it to him". I was nearly seduced by the thought of a cheap trailer for Prime and, conveniently enough, he also had the classics Starscream I had been looking for too. However, every time I PM'd him for photos, he just vanished. I saved the PMs and thought it was funny when the responses I saved from him started showing up as a different user name. Point is, just link Ryan's been saying, I did the due diligence to prove this turd was a fraud. Fortunately, he was pretty stupid to boot so it was easy to figure out. Unfortunately for some, some of these a$$wipes do a considerable better job fooling people-even the most intelligent folks can fall prey to them from time to time. Bottom line, when you're running a fan site, there's no time to play cops and robbers and run down bad sellers. That's what eBay is for.

Seibertron wrote:

AlienQuiksilver wrote:This is truly unfortunate. Nobody hears about the positive stuff that goes on in there.

I developed a comrade in there. ZedsDead. We no longer need the forum, because a great trust has been developed between us and our many trades. It's just unfortunate that others will not get the opportunity to build this kind of trust with other members.

It can still happen, but carbombya was a great vehicle to use to get there.

Here's what I'll do ... I'll keep pondering how to provide you guys with a more legitimate way of doing this. X # of posts, X # of months ... something. But it's very low on my priority list at the moment. Getting the new forums up and running, moving Transtopia, moving the VSD improvements live and getting caught up on new figures that haven't been added to the galleries are all way ahead of even thinking of coming up with a solution to Carbombya because all of those things affect far more people than being able to buy/sell/trade.

I think I speak for us all (those of us who didn't misuse BST), in saying that it's good to know that its still being thought over.

And, just me speaking, mos def keep ya in my prayers lol.

On a lighter note, just think of all the crap the eBay folk put up with

Seibertron wrote:

AlienQuiksilver wrote:This is truly unfortunate. Nobody hears about the positive stuff that goes on in there.

I developed a comrade in there. ZedsDead. We no longer need the forum, because a great trust has been developed between us and our many trades. It's just unfortunate that others will not get the opportunity to build this kind of trust with other members.

It can still happen, but carbombya was a great vehicle to use to get there.

Here's what I'll do ... I'll keep pondering how to provide you guys with a more legitimate way of doing this. X # of posts, X # of months ... something. But it's very low on my priority list at the moment. Getting the new forums up and running, moving Transtopia, moving the VSD improvements live and getting caught up on new figures that haven't been added to the galleries are all way ahead of even thinking of coming up with a solution to Carbombya because all of those things affect far more people than being able to buy/sell/trade.

hey, Seibs...at least you gave us hope that Carbombya V.2.0 could be a reality after all. i can understand the massive amount of frustration on your part, and we members are frustrated also. but then again, it's not your fault. again, thanks for that flicker of hope that you're considering setting up this forum again (even if it may take a while), and keep up the good work.

Idea! It may have already been mentioned, but possibly instead of a bst forum per-se...maybe an eBay forum, where we can make others aware of our wish for our stuff to go to a good home.

If someone wants to end an auction early, let that be worked out in either PM's here, or through emails on eBay

Seibertron wrote:

AlienQuiksilver wrote:This is truly unfortunate. Nobody hears about the positive stuff that goes on in there.

I developed a comrade in there. ZedsDead. We no longer need the forum, because a great trust has been developed between us and our many trades. It's just unfortunate that others will not get the opportunity to build this kind of trust with other members.

It can still happen, but carbombya was a great vehicle to use to get there.

Here's what I'll do ... I'll keep pondering how to provide you guys with a more legitimate way of doing this. X # of posts, X # of months ... something. But it's very low on my priority list at the moment. Getting the new forums up and running, moving Transtopia, moving the VSD improvements live and getting caught up on new figures that haven't been added to the galleries are all way ahead of even thinking of coming up with a solution to Carbombya because all of those things affect far more people than being able to buy/sell/trade.

Very cool. Also, maybe we should think about setting a maximum dollar amount per sale? For trades, we'll all estimate how much the worth is.

This way, if we keep it under a pre set cap ... legal actions are less likely to be taken against you. Of course, not everybody will read the rules ... and it still could happen.

There's always that chance that some idiot will come in, claiming to have this HUGE lot of TF's. Somebody could really be taken to the cleaners that way. I'm not sure if this ever has happened, but after reading about your worries of legal actions ... this idea just makes sense.

This still may not be foolproof in covering your ass, Ryan ... but it sure would help.

Moving right along, it sounds like you got your hands QUITE full. Go git 'em! This particular issue can be sorted out over a period of time. It's nice to know your thoughts on the matter.

That's a shame, the second forum gone becos some jackasses have to be well, jackasses.

I haven't used it jet, but would have in the future.
Well maybe one day asytem can be figured out, something like a seibertron.com shoping section, maybe, which is like ebay.

People will always be ripped off in any concept that involves the exchange of money. Ive enjoyed carbombya b/c the scammers are easier to see coming. On ebay even the smartest buyer can be scammed; the scammers are that good unfortunately. Im sure you could post a legal disclaimer for Carbombya, but that doesnt mean that the owner's conscious isnt affected by hearing reports of scamming. I have met some really cool TF fans b/c of Carbombya. I think thats the thing Ill miss more than the actual buying/selling/trading is the comradery of the Carbombya experience.

I have the lowest post count out of anybody that actually posts in this thread. I dunno, just wanted to go ahead and lay that out on the table.

Seibertron wrote:Now, I might be able to be talked into having an eBay forum so that people can promote their eBay auctions. I'm just afraid that it will turn into a "hey, i'm about to post this on eBay but I wanted to give you guys a heads up first" thing ... which resolves nothing on my end.

*Talks you ito it*

That's just the thing, though. It kinda does. Just a forum section with literally, one simple rule. Anybody wanting to post something about a figure they are selling on Ebay must already have the auction up and running over at Ebay.

Guy posts a link to his auction, and we go and look. If its going on on Ebay, then a person's Ebay feedback should stand as their reputation.

Anybody's reputation here is dependant upon their reputation there. What's great about that is Ebay's size and their "marriage" with Paypal that offers so much more than Carbombya ever could offer. With Ebay-Paypal, if you get ripped off, you can do so much to get compensated, if you're ready to "step up and play hardball" with these frauds that are out for blood.

I can totally understand the crap you'd get, Ryan, just being the owner of the site. You probably pay through the nose already as is just to keep this place up and running even with your sponsors. Then you're placed in the crosshairs when you didn't do anything than own the roof over the place where the scam took place. Its also not "extreme case scenario" to think that you might one day get a letter in the mail saying you've got to fly three states over just to appear as a witness in some court hearing. Its not a farfetched idea, at all.

But truly, just a section where we say "Hey, I'm selling something on Ebay" would be awesome, in my opinion. I can't for the life of me find it now that I'm actually looking for it, but don't we have something here... The, uh... "Ebay auctions from Seibertron.com" something... A forum section for something like that where everyone can join in.

Exactly who were these scammers?
It might be a good idea to compile the usernames and list them somewhere in case they are doing the same crap on other TF boards.
They use a similar system to this ^^^ on the CGC boards and it works real well.

They also have 2 selling sections, 1 strictly for Ebay and 1 for forum members to sell and buy. Any deadbeat buyers or sellers go in the above mentioned "Hall of Shame" probation thread until they can either produce the goods or pay for the item. They have used that system for years and it works.

havn't you all learned that there is always some dumbshit that will ruin everything...

Ryan can come up with the most complex b/s/t system imaginable...and someone will find a way to scam.

Welcome to the internet.

C'est la vie, I guess. Thankfully any deals I made were legit and finished up before the lockdown.

Just wanted to chime in and say thanks for keeping Carbombya around as long as you did. I really enjoyed the community aspect of it, and was able to pick up a lot of nice figures for my collection that I would otherwise never have been able to afford or find. I was out of the Transformers game for a little while, and it really helped me fill in some holes. I completed quite a few trades in the past couple of months and never had a single problem. Unfortunately, I guess I was lucky.

Same as above (though I did have a little shipping cost issue with someone who decided they were to good to reply to me)

Wow.. sad day... I LOVED that forum... I met and made a lot of friendships that I would have NEVER done without that forum.

I do have to admit that I almost got ripped off... but I never went the to Site Owner. In my mind.. there's nothing he could do anyways. I resolved the matter totally outside of this site.

I do hope something similar does pop up again... Being a new collector, I probably would have never started collecting if it wasn't for the b/s/t forum... it would have been way too expensive and way too complicated to get anything older than the movie figures if I had to resort to something like Ebay.

I guess my question is... If there isn't a B/S/T forum... where does all the Anti-Ebayers get their Transformers?