I did a quick reading of BL's ToS and noticed that new stores must now be
verified by BL. Bravo! Well done! In the old days, anyone could quickly set
up a store here without any verification or feedback whatsoever. And it enabled
some nefarious characters to commit quite a lot of scams. How is the change
to verification of new sellers working? Has it significantly reduced the incidence
of seller scams?
What I didn't see in the ToS was any change or mention of customs fraud,
or buyers asking sellers to undervalue orders so they could avoid customs duties.
Does this still happen here? As a seller, I encountered this many times and
even had to deal with a number of angry buyers and a few bogus NSS claims because
of my refusal to do that.
And what about the problem of counterfeit minifigures and "custom" LEGO
parts? It got so bad for me as a former buyer here that I stopped buying minifigures
completely for a while (especially from Asia). Has this problem been addressed
and alleviated?
There is a lot to think about and relearn before deciding whether to buy again
or reopen my store here. IMO, BL still seems to be the best place to buy and
sell LEGO minifigures and bulk parts. Thanks in advance for whatever assurances
you can provide.
I did a quick reading of BL's ToS and noticed that new stores must now be
verified by BL. Bravo! Well done! In the old days, anyone could quickly set
up a store here without any verification or feedback whatsoever. And it enabled
some nefarious characters to commit quite a lot of scams. How is the change
to verification of new sellers working? Has it significantly reduced the incidence
of seller scams?
What I didn't see in the ToS was any change or mention of customs fraud,
or buyers asking sellers to undervalue orders so they could avoid customs duties.
Does this still happen here? As a seller, I encountered this many times and
even had to deal with a number of angry buyers and a few bogus NSS claims because
of my refusal to do that.
And what about the problem of counterfeit minifigures and "custom" LEGO
parts? It got so bad for me as a former buyer here that I stopped buying minifigures
completely for a while (especially from Asia). Has this problem been addressed
and alleviated?
There is a lot to think about and relearn before deciding whether to buy again
or reopen my store here. IMO, BL still seems to be the best place to buy and
sell LEGO minifigures and bulk parts. Thanks in advance for whatever assurances
you can provide.
Foster
Truth is that Bricklink isn't really doing much to enforce their terms beyond
the traditional mechanisms we have of NPB and NSS. Even though the BL terms clearly
state sellers should respect consumer rights, this unfortunately still leaves
them with plenty of room not to do that. I've done a count of sellers in
my area with illegal clauses in their terms plain and clear for everyone to see,
and told Russell about my findings, but sadly never received an answer and no
action was ever taken. And Bricklink not being clear about what exact conduct
they're expecting is also a sore point, since maybe half of the cases where
it goes wrong is just because sellers are good sincere people who are simply
not aware of the rules.
On the bright side, on the topic of tax fraud, there's now the DAC7 legislation
for EU sellers which makes their revenue through Bricklink has become more transparent
to the authorities, which might just reduce evasion a fair bit.
I don't know where there is data to answer your questions, other than anecdotal
observations. But here is my anecdotal observation.
You will remember the old days when it seemed that every week someone would come
to the forum complaining about being scammed thousands of dollars for a Millenium
Falcon or something similar.
This is not seen on the forum anymore. Any complaints about scams, are mostly
now about disputes between sellers and buyers, and certainly not involving large
sums of money.
Some big scams still do get reported on the forum, but in all cases they involved
a buyer being insufficiently cautious, and being convinced by a scam seller to
voluntarily circumvent all the protections that Bricklink, Paypal, etc. now have
in place.
Although I've never experienced it, I am sure some buyers ask sellers to
lie on customs forms. But the impression I get from forum posts is that many
sellers have learned how to respond to this. Possibly this is not so much of
a problem as it was. Perhaps the fact that Bricklink is now collecting the sales
tax in so many jurisdictions, thus producing documentation as to the sold value,
discourages attempts to fudge customs forms. It might be hard to claim that a
set cost you $50.00 when you paid VAT on $100?
I remember some of the very egregious cases of counterfeits/custom lego figures
and parts. I seem to recall an entire factory in China dedicated to such. I
see a lot of work has been done to clean this up. Brick Arms is gone from the
site, as are other alternate brands. This certainly was an effect of Lego's
purchase of Bricklink. Bricklink has certainly made efforts to define what is
a legitimate custom, and what is not acceptable, and to ensure they are not confused
with regular lego minifigs for sale. For example, in Problem Center, the number
of reasons to report an improper listing for sale has been massively expanded,
including several issues related to "Customs", for example, IP infringement,
custom printing, clone brands, custom items depicting warfare, item is a modified
lego element, item is counterfeit, item is custom but not listed as custom, item
is custom chromed, item is not Lego, or Lego approved. These are now, all officially
Verboten. Of course that is only as useful as its enforcement, but Admin did
post some stats recently that suggest complaints reported through the Problem
Centre do receive follow up to remove improper items.
Some people will still feel, that the TOS has not been beefed up sufficiently,
but I think reasonable progress has been made. Users were not able to log in
until they accepted the revised TOS, so at least everyone should know what the
deal is.
As for me, I still agree with your assessment that Bricklink is still the best
place to buy minifigs and parts.
I did a quick reading of BL's ToS and noticed that new stores must now be
verified by BL. Bravo! Well done! In the old days, anyone could quickly set
up a store here without any verification or feedback whatsoever. And it enabled
some nefarious characters to commit quite a lot of scams. How is the change
to verification of new sellers working? Has it significantly reduced the incidence
of seller scams?
What I didn't see in the ToS was any change or mention of customs fraud,
or buyers asking sellers to undervalue orders so they could avoid customs duties.
Does this still happen here? As a seller, I encountered this many times and
even had to deal with a number of angry buyers and a few bogus NSS claims because
of my refusal to do that.
And what about the problem of counterfeit minifigures and "custom" LEGO
parts? It got so bad for me as a former buyer here that I stopped buying minifigures
completely for a while (especially from Asia). Has this problem been addressed
and alleviated?
There is a lot to think about and relearn before deciding whether to buy again
or reopen my store here. IMO, BL still seems to be the best place to buy and
sell LEGO minifigures and bulk parts. Thanks in advance for whatever assurances
you can provide.
Foster
Man been a while.. Hope your well. You really want to poke a bear, Ask about
Gummies posts
I did a quick reading of BL's ToS and noticed that new stores must now be
verified by BL. Bravo! Well done! In the old days, anyone could quickly set
up a store here without any verification or feedback whatsoever. And it enabled
some nefarious characters to commit quite a lot of scams. How is the change
to verification of new sellers working? Has it significantly reduced the incidence
of seller scams?
I haven’t been here for that long but even tho some scam stores open occasionally
it usually isn’t that common and most get shut down super fast
What I didn't see in the ToS was any change or mention of customs fraud,
or buyers asking sellers to undervalue orders so they could avoid customs duties.
Does this still happen here? As a seller, I encountered this many times and
even had to deal with a number of angry buyers and a few bogus NSS claims because
of my refusal to do that.
Most places (USA, Europe, Australia, etc) now have sales tax collection by bricklink
so in general no tax is collected at the border so the buyer has to pay the full
amount every time
And what about the problem of counterfeit minifigures and "custom" LEGO
parts? It got so bad for me as a former buyer here that I stopped buying minifigures
completely for a while (especially from Asia). Has this problem been addressed
and alleviated?
Can’t say I’ve heard of any such cases. Now a days we have the Mexico one but
that is still technically real but I’m not going to open up that can of worms
again
There is a lot to think about and relearn before deciding whether to buy again
or reopen my store here. IMO, BL still seems to be the best place to buy and
sell LEGO minifigures and bulk parts. Thanks in advance for whatever assurances
you can provide.
IMHO, it should be an obligation for sellers to have AT LEAST their address and
legal terms mentioned in the TERMS-tab. Many sellers have empty TERMS.
Depending on the country your in, other things could (or should) be made mandatory
by BrickLink.
E.g. for French sellers :
- the obligation of showing the "Droit de rétractation" ("Cancellation
Policy" which every French sellers must mention.
- the obligation (for French sellers) to mention the "Mediateur de la consommation"
that they have chosen (legal obligation also for every professional French seller).
In Terms and Policies, ToriHada writes:
I did a quick reading of BL's ToS and noticed that new stores must now be
verified by BL. Bravo! Well done! In the old days, anyone could quickly set
up a store here without any verification or feedback whatsoever. And it enabled
some nefarious characters to commit quite a lot of scams. How is the change
to verification of new sellers working? Has it significantly reduced the incidence
of seller scams?
What I didn't see in the ToS was any change or mention of customs fraud,
or buyers asking sellers to undervalue orders so they could avoid customs duties.
Does this still happen here? As a seller, I encountered this many times and
even had to deal with a number of angry buyers and a few bogus NSS claims because
of my refusal to do that.
And what about the problem of counterfeit minifigures and "custom" LEGO
parts? It got so bad for me as a former buyer here that I stopped buying minifigures
completely for a while (especially from Asia). Has this problem been addressed
and alleviated?
There is a lot to think about and relearn before deciding whether to buy again
or reopen my store here. IMO, BL still seems to be the best place to buy and
sell LEGO minifigures and bulk parts. Thanks in advance for whatever assurances
you can provide.
USA
Netherlands, Utrecht
Canada, Ontario
France, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
which every French sellers must mention.