Hi,
I am a new member, and I have taken to "lurking" here and reading the forums, using the board's resources and using the search function to seek out answers I may be looking for. Mostly because in my experience new people dive in feet first and ask lots of questions, buy everything they see is cool and ditch. I don't want to be considered one of those people, and part of me feels out of line by chiming in to this discussion but it is something I have kind of taken an issue with IN this community. This is going to be incredibly long but hopefully insightful.
That is this forum has no feedback section for people to give feedback for sellers or people they have dealt with. On top of some members placing restrictions on new members to purchase items from the trade forum, but not so much on the people that are selling product.
I'm right there with you. I totally believe that people should "contribute" in some way before they are allowed to buy. That is not what appears to be the problem here. It's the sellers that are what people are taking issue with. People just joining have no legitimate place to go to READ into the people that are selling products here, this is one glaring reason why my name has not appeared on any lists. I do not know if x person's cumberbund is "the" best, compared to y's. I do not know if person x's selling ethic is better or worse than another's. I just see a few different people selling the same thing.
I come from a community where people have to PURCHASE a supporting membership in order to sell their wares. That takes away this problem:
http://forum.bikersc...showtopic=11208
If you are willing to make money in the community, you should be willing to support it with some of that money earned from it. This is on top of a period of membership and easily obtained post count. Most especially so if you expect people to pay 100% up front for whatever it is you are selling. There absolutely needs to be more accountability, not just here, but damn near everywhere because this is a practice I've seen in countless prop communities. I totally think being a member of the 501st and other related groups below would have more accountability, but also may lead to people "protecting their own" (which I will explain some later)
Currently I am at a point with my tb armor that I am either going to abandon the project all together, because I was ripped off by one of the members here and a 501st member, this guy: Peter Gebhart, a 501st member.
http://forum.bikersc...l=&fromsearch=1
If I was not fortunate enough that someone at Paypal was willing to listen to me that mediaguypj/Gebhart was committing fraud by using their gift system, he would have walked away with my very hard earned money because he disappeared after I paid him. I also did not get everything I paid for (did not include a helmet) because as it turns out, while I was in talks with him about buying this armor, he put it up for sale here during that time; and sold the helmet separately. This was all going on before I became a member here and it took me looking through the for sale forum to see that he put up the armor here for sale. I don't know what his plans were, but I know they were not very good.
Now, with that in mind; I am toing the waters to see if I want to pursue this armor or sell it and hope that I get what I paid for it back on ebay. This armor has been a mentally frustrating and exhausting ordeal for me. I am leaning on going straight to SC and getting an armor from there and redoing the whole thing.
I also have a really good friend friend that was financially involved with a seller here, who's thread was closed and they are no longer selling, this person:
http://forum.bikersc...?showtopic=6013
Who is not answering any of my very good friend's attempts to contact the seller. He did everything that was required of him to do in order to get this person's wares. As of today, he has nothing except another hobby he got into screwed him out of more money. It's really a shame because it seems he's always running into rotten luck with sellers in every community we both join.
Had Ladysewforus and mediaguypj/Pete Gebhart, have to jump through an extra hoop or two in order to sell, and/or people dealing with them in the past were able to speak openly about them in a feedback forum my friend and I, and most likely others, would have heeded some very invaluable warnings and not pursued a business interest with those people, and word from their feedback here would reach their local detachments.
I also must add, Hotshot/Rhett Martin is banned and blacklisted from a community I am a member of because he recasted member's items on top of already poor customer service track record and has taken money from several people without delivering products as promised. I think had there been some warning HERE about him many of you would not have run into the issues you had with him because unfortunately information and blacklisting recasters does not cross over to communities such as the rpf and here.
Finally, I also am anxious to hear the absolute NEED for a member to be in the 501st. I have always loved the biker scout, Han Solo is one of my cinematic heroes, and I live to play around with my many millennium falcons; but my experiences with local and clearly some national (since Gebhart is a member) members of the 501st, have been incredibly negative. I have been harassed by a local 501st tk at many local conventions, I've gone as far as writing letters to their detachment and seeking help with others with no results(seemed as if they were protecting their own), and then the fiasco with Gebhart.
I know plenty will object even though I have more interest in this community than I do joining local 501st detachments and I believe even though that may impede my membership here, I am also a very talented and thorough prop builder with plenty of helpful incite and experience in that aspect of the hobby and would hope that can be appreciated more. I do have many friends in the 501st, but they live out of state and I do not hold the 501st over all in a negative light, it's just locally, and those few bad apples I've encountered.
Making "be a 501st" requirement to be a member here or purchase would be awful for others that may be in my shoes that want nothing more to be apart of this community and work on something with people with similar interests but have countless times been burned by the overall group they may have to join. Does everyone at a convention in a StarWars armor have to be a 501st? Do you treat them any different if they are not?
