I like to stick with facts. Emotions can get a bit tricky…

This was an impulse buy. Because no additional photos were requested to verify anything.

Buyer already prepaid in full. No refund was going to happen.

The feedback system is worthless. No wonder I see so many 100% sellers.

Is sucks you got taken but if that’s all you got screwed on I’d count your blessings. It could have turned out much worse.

This must be the reason....

497f624b78f62e3fda7e51567a5880ff (resized).jpeg

When is Robin going to fix the bug?

If you look at the seller's feedback, the OP did, in fact, leave a review that reads quite negative about the guy. I guess that the little green face next to the review is smiley, but otherwise it's what I would call a negative review.

Correct. Do better next time. You had multiple opportunities and did not take them. You accepted the machine as-is and now it's too late.

I agree but we all make mistakes.

The buyer should be able to leave formal negative feedback to warn others as the seller definitely was not honest in his ad.

We're all busy - it's nice to have clear warning signs with regards to dishonest sellers.

It can be tough being in the moment trying to check over every possible thing when making the deal. Definitely a misleading post. Hopefully everyone that reads this thread will think twice about buying a game from Jake the Snake

Actually, he said the seller drove 10 Hours to deliver it but he was busy with Pingolf and friends to inspect it.

It's the latest trend on the internet. No downvotes nor negative comments allowed. It hurts too many feelings. That was youtubes reason. It discouraged people from posting videos because they were afraid of downvotes lol. I won't be surprised if downvotes are removed from Pinside in the near future. If I was allowed to use profanity here, I would tell you exactly what our society is becoming, but I might hurt some feelings.

Profanity is allowed on Pinside. Fuck, shit, meecrob. See?

I didn't know that?! I still feel I would be disciplined or banned if I said "pussies".

Ads that are a bunch of blurry photos should just be flagged for removal. It's inexcusable and a massive red flag.

Fucking hiarious!!

About fell off the shitter laughing!!

You can't say that!

I'm 100% with you there delt31 otoh it's Robin's site and I understand his reasoning for doing what he did. The threads are ok but it's not very practical to find some negative feedback months or years later when it's buried in a thread.

Another forum I a longtime member of had downvotes. People would get so butthurt over it. Some real wars occurred when it was weaponized. They finally did away with it…

Good times.

If this happened to me I would not blame the buyer. I would blame myself. I call it "taking resposibility for the decisions I make". It's a radical and highly unpopular thought system but I highly recommend it.

OTOH, one board I was on leaned into having the wars over downvotes. They also awarded points for posting but then it was possible to steal them from other posters and all sorts of other evil hijinx. Posters had all sorts of sock puppets, private room pranks, and high dramas. There was even a courtroom forum for having trials about particularly heinous behaviors. Annoying posters might find themselves in a forum that only they could post in.

It was completely the Wild West and the best board I’ve ever posted on until it fell apart when FB took off.

YouTube banned downvotes to appease advertisers not content creators.

This. But those pesky facts won't discourage the tragic 'i can't say what's on my mind anymore because the world has gotten too goddamn soft' whining of the crowd that gives off strong racist uncle vibes here.

Math question.
What does the 100% positive rating mean now?
Won't all people be at 0% or 100% positive?
-mof

Fair point, minus any transactions where a seller told Pinside who the buyer was and they were able to then leave bad feedback

Assuming you meant you wouldn't blame the SELLER.

And yes, the buyer has to accept some responsibility, but I don't think there's any doubt that this douchebag purposely took shitty pictures and conveniently didn't mention the problem in his ad - there's no way he didn't know about it, it's right in the middle of the goddamn playfield. He screwed the guy, period.

If it was your $7500 you might see it a little differently.

It's the same as the rating system, the raw number is worthless but reading the comments with an eye to who left them can be helpful.

Youre exactly right!!!

Buyer had every opportunity to inspect the game, and did not conduct a thorough inspection

Thats on OP. OP seems to agree. I feel bad for him, but we have all been disappointed by a game we bought used before. If you have not been disappointed by a used game, or even new in box purchase, just stay in the hobby long enough and it will happen

Best thing to do here is be grateful its just some playfield clear and a small paint chip, and not some 2500 dollar issue or a totally useless game like some other guys have been burned on.

OP, id be grateful that the letdown seems to be purely cosmetic and not a disfunction in ur game which ruins the ownership experience. Play thar RZ like every day until the rest of the playfield looks like that circular chip in the art, then it will be a congruent, players condition game and u will habe played 2000 games on it and had tons of fun !!!

Theres always a silver lining

Cheers!!

Yes to this! two other Pinsiders withdrew from the deal; this says alot about the seller and his proposed price. it was revealed to not be "minty" as advertised. It is disappointing to see that some sellers improperly and/or inaccurately describe their games. However, as we all know, the buyer must beware, and must do his or her due diligence when seeking a game to buy from a complete stranger. If a friend had duped the OP, then it would be a whole lot more of a let down. However, OP did not know the seller at all, and it turned out to be a misleading, at best, game advertisement, and a completely fraudulent, and intentional bait and switch tactic by the seller, at worst. This is a solemn reminder to any buyer of a used game to inspect a pre owned game closely before handing over the cash and taking possession of another person's game. It's like the old saying: "It's not that I don't trust you, it's that I don't trust ANYBODY, so don't take offense." I'd have a very hard time paying some stranger 500 bucks to drive any game to me without playing it first and having a close look at its condition. maybe OP just had the cash burning a hole in his pocket; I've been there before myself, but I bought a NIB MBR and didn't regret it. That's a whole different deal though. OP got burned by his own impulse to "buy buy buy!" without considering that the seller might be overhyping the game and its condition. It is a bummer!!! Sorry OP!

Maybe give the guy a positive feedback review but blast him in it and notate it would have been negative but Pinside doesn’t allow that. maybe Maybe at least someone would read and see that

Hi all! Thanks for posting your concerns.

If you haven't read my reasoning behind the removal of the negative recommendations feature yet, please do so: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/negative-recommendations-feature-removed

In short: giving Pinsiders the ability to leave other Pinsiders unsolicited negative feedback, without having any evidence of an actual sale taking place is the base of this issue and the reason for removing the 'feature'.

The current system is simply dependent on the seller inviting the buyer (which is not likely to happen if the seller knows beforehand that the feedback will be poor). Could there be another way to link buyer and seller? To make sure that feedback is legit, or at least based on an actual sale taking place? Right now, I don't see it but open for suggestions!

You mean "you"

Bahahaha, did you look left, look right and behind you before you typed that then chuckle a bit?

That is a broke ass mechanic for a sale forum. Totally undermines the entire premise for leaving feedback. There is no way to look at this as being positive from a buyers standpoint. It is currently 100% biased toward the seller.

In one year I have bought 5 machines thru Pinside. All great experiences but if I had a bad one and then found out I could not rate it I would be beyond pissed. Glad I know this now.

Again to have a well laid out and active sale forum have its integrity undermined just so non participants can jack up someone’s user rating is absurd. Make a linked thread for that.

Other than that Pinside is great. Keep up the good work!

How often did something like this ever happen? My guess is rarely, but you would know. If a transaction never took place and someone left negative feedback I’d think they would get called out on it and it would backfire on the one leaving feedback. Bring back the negative feedback option. The positives outweigh the negatives. No pun intended

Kijiji asks you after you sell an item who the buyer was and it gives you options based on who you have been messaging lately. Obviously the seller could choose not to answer or lie but if you have problem sellers who are constantly saying it was someone else not on this site who bought it you could probably figure out that they are lying pretty easily. The buyer could also indicate that they were the one who bought it with a chance for the seller to appeal. It shouldn't be that hard to prove who is lying if the buyer can produce pictures of the same machine that was sold.

I think no feedback might be better than only positive.

Everything is about race now??

Someone could still leave a “positive” feedback vote and in the narrative completely trash the guy. Nothing has been improved by removing the negative feedback feature

Great feedback, this gives me some ideas to work with...

How about re-enabling the ability to leave negative feedback, but limit it so that only people who have messaged with a Pinsider in the past x weeks (and with regards to a Marketplace ad) can leave negative feedback?

Technically this is doable: the site can detect if you were in recent PM contact with the person you are trying to leave feedback for. It can also see whether that contact was with regards to an ad. It could even check to make sure that the PM thread has at least X messages. After all, we don't want retaliatory feedback, just because someone got ignored for making a low ball offer (i.e. a PM thread with under 4 messages is unlikely to be a successful sale).

Not anymore. I recently added the option to remove any "fake" positive recommendation from your profile page.

Note: you can only remove positive recommendations. Ad-related feedback is of course not user-removable.

I like this idea. I think the ability to leave positive or negative feedback helps both the seller and the buyer in the long run. There will always be situations where it's abused, but no system is perfect. I think the positives of being able to do both far outweigh the negatives.

One of the business lessons I was taught was to make decisions based upon what happens 90% of the time and to just deal with the other 10% when it comes. Assuming historically the old feedback system worked properly at least 90% of the time, my preference would be to bring it back.

I can see Robin’s decision because this is not a transactional system like eBay and lacks the requisite triggers and transaction specific experience logs.

The positive vouch thing is all that you can do. Otherwise buyer beware.

I've just been super-careful when buying a used pin here--especially if it's being shipped. I think if you do your research on Pinside about the member, see how long they've been here, how past transactions have gone (if they've REALLY pissed someone off, there would likely be a thread about it), or do one of those "feeler" threads asking who can vouch for him/her...all of that will go a long way toward a positive experience with the seller.

Past results (like positive feedback) are in no way indicative of future results with a seller, though.

How did the OP send the money? Hopefully paypal or even partly paypal, always. So you can at least get costs of repairs back. Expensive lesson. That sucks man! Pitchforks for seller.

If this is the case, do you also think past negative feedback is not indicative of future results with a seller?

I am not trying to start anything, just curious on your thoughts. I agree with being careful and doing your due diligence. The Pinside feedback system is only one data point to consider, but for me, it is a very helpful one nonetheless.

And ebay. No more negative reviews

If there is any takeaway from this whole situation, it's that you should never commit to purchasing something without, at the very least, seeing a ton of high quality photos. If the photos aren't good enough to ascertain the true condition of the machine, then ask for more photos, or tell the person that the sale is contingent upon seeing the game in person. If they do not agree to either of these two things, then walk away.

@robin… as part of creating an ad you create an object in that posters history. When someone wants to leave feedback they can pick from the past ads the seller has ran. Only one person per item, and close unclaimed items after 6months.

It would flow like the amazon return process. Sure there isn’t a hard link up front… but provides a limited use flow and the feedback obviously should match the ad content.

5 star rating system on confirmed sales through Pinside ad?

Yes. Because there are some unreasonable buyers here who don't understand that even though a machine might work at your house, once it's transported, switches can get knocked out of alignment and connectors can come loose. I've seen guys here blame sellers for that as if they were hiding something. Ignorance can rear its ugly head in ways that affect innocent people.

Yep. I get what you are saying. I can totally see that. And it definitely can tarnish a seller's perfect ratings without good cause.

For me, I also look at the individual who has left feedback regardless if it's negative or positive. If all the seller's positive feedback are from pinsiders who have been active for less than a year, that also sounds an alarm for me. (I lean more towards the skeptical side). I tend to value the feedback of someone who has years of pinside activity with good ratings over a noob. And that's why I initially stated that over the long term, having the ability to leave positive and negative feedback is important. I rarely find anything online whether it be a product or seller (ebay, amazon, etc) with 100% perfect scores anymore.

But based upon your Pinside profile (activity and positive feedback), I would not hesitate to do a deal with you (provided you are willing to work with me)