I am about the 7 millionth person to see this but I just had to post it here. The whole The Guild series avail on YouTube or WatchTheGuild.com is very awesome and funny...
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Be very careful with MassPay!
About once a week I have someone spell their avatar name wrong or put in the wrong email address for PayPal.
This isn't much of a problem if it's a wrong avatar name - I just need the person purchasing Therebucks from me to 1.) figure out that that's what they did and 2.) email me clearly about what they did, what the wrong name was and what the right one should be. Assuming I'm there at the computer when I'm emailed about this, I can correct the avatar name spelling right away and payment will be very prompt after that - well of course also assuming that the avatar name they put in doesn't belong to someone else, in which case the person who made the order will need to contact the person with the avatar name they put in and maybe also contact there.com, but usually the misspelling doesn't result in the wrong person getting paid - that has maybe happened twice in six years, once being fixed by the avatar who received the payment and once being fixed with a little intervention from There.
It's slightly more of a hassle but still not too bad if someone put in the wrong email address, especially if they realize it right away and I'm there at the computer so it's easy for me to go in to PayPal and find the transaction and cancel it (assuming someone else doesn't have that wrong email address AND has it registered with PayPal, but I don't think that has EVER happened in six years.)
When it is a real problem is when people are using MassPay. MassPay is great if you have a larger transaction because it could save you $30 or more in fees that you would normally pay, however IF YOU SPELL YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS WRONG I have no way to go into PayPal and cancel this transaction. I've called them on the phone about this, and they have also refused to cancel the pending transaction manually. What happens if you put in the incorrect email address is that the transaction hangs there for 30 days and then cancels automatically. THEN I can go in and resend it. So it's not that you will never receive the money, but if you were counting on receiving in less than 30 days you may experience some distress/disappointment.
The reason I am mentioning this now is that recently I have had this happen with two rather large transactions, and apparently it is MY fault (I have even been accused of I guess going in to my own database and purposely changing the email to be incorrect) and I am a scrooge and a mean and cruel person for not magically canceling these transactions. People seem to think it's not that I CAN'T cancel them but that I WON'T, presumably because I like to watch people suffer and ruin the Christmases of their children and grandchildren and don't place as much value on money as other people do. (I'm just paraphrasing a few choice emails I have received blaming me for these situations.)
I can't stress enough that while it is great to save all that money on PayPal fees, it is VERY important to double and triple check the spelling of your email address when using MassPay! I swear to you I am not out to ruin anyone's holiday gift giving plans or whatever, and I am certainly not changing email addresses before sending payments.
This isn't much of a problem if it's a wrong avatar name - I just need the person purchasing Therebucks from me to 1.) figure out that that's what they did and 2.) email me clearly about what they did, what the wrong name was and what the right one should be. Assuming I'm there at the computer when I'm emailed about this, I can correct the avatar name spelling right away and payment will be very prompt after that - well of course also assuming that the avatar name they put in doesn't belong to someone else, in which case the person who made the order will need to contact the person with the avatar name they put in and maybe also contact there.com, but usually the misspelling doesn't result in the wrong person getting paid - that has maybe happened twice in six years, once being fixed by the avatar who received the payment and once being fixed with a little intervention from There.
It's slightly more of a hassle but still not too bad if someone put in the wrong email address, especially if they realize it right away and I'm there at the computer so it's easy for me to go in to PayPal and find the transaction and cancel it (assuming someone else doesn't have that wrong email address AND has it registered with PayPal, but I don't think that has EVER happened in six years.)
When it is a real problem is when people are using MassPay. MassPay is great if you have a larger transaction because it could save you $30 or more in fees that you would normally pay, however IF YOU SPELL YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS WRONG I have no way to go into PayPal and cancel this transaction. I've called them on the phone about this, and they have also refused to cancel the pending transaction manually. What happens if you put in the incorrect email address is that the transaction hangs there for 30 days and then cancels automatically. THEN I can go in and resend it. So it's not that you will never receive the money, but if you were counting on receiving in less than 30 days you may experience some distress/disappointment.
The reason I am mentioning this now is that recently I have had this happen with two rather large transactions, and apparently it is MY fault (I have even been accused of I guess going in to my own database and purposely changing the email to be incorrect) and I am a scrooge and a mean and cruel person for not magically canceling these transactions. People seem to think it's not that I CAN'T cancel them but that I WON'T, presumably because I like to watch people suffer and ruin the Christmases of their children and grandchildren and don't place as much value on money as other people do. (I'm just paraphrasing a few choice emails I have received blaming me for these situations.)
I can't stress enough that while it is great to save all that money on PayPal fees, it is VERY important to double and triple check the spelling of your email address when using MassPay! I swear to you I am not out to ruin anyone's holiday gift giving plans or whatever, and I am certainly not changing email addresses before sending payments.
Friday, November 20, 2009
There Town hall audio download
Oh boy, the Nov 19th town hall meeting audio recording is up already! I was going to attend one of the listening parties, but I didn't make it, so I'm happy to see the audio up so fast. I heard there is a LOT of talk about Therebucks resellers and scammers in it, so it's sure to be very interesting! I haven't even listened to it yet myself...I wonder if I can get my bf to let me listen to it while we're in the car in about an hour :)
There fun times page with link
Actual direct audio link
There fun times page with link
Actual direct audio link
Update on There reseller policy
I'd like to be making a video right now, but no time! Plus I want to give you some links, and that's a bit hard with video.
Soooo anyway...first I'd like to mention I had a laugh today when someone emailed me asking "where is my PayPal payment?" Why would I be laughing about someone not receiving their PayPal payment? Because this person was using an exploit in the catalog to get Therebucks from There and then they turned around and tried to sell a bunch of those ill-gotten Therebucks to me. As soon as There found out, they yanked the Therebucks out of my account, banned that avatar and banned some other avatars that were found to be doing the same thing as well. This could have ended very badly for me, if I had actually sent payment to this person before There yanked out the Therebucks from my account, I would have been out a lot of money. So, not only were they screwing There, they were trying to screw me as well. Or maybe I'm giving them too much credit, perhaps they had no idea this could end up adversely affecting me, but it can, especially with There's new reseller policy...
****
Okay, go now if you haven't and read these two things on the There site...
Official There announcement of Therebucks Reseller Policy Update
Fuze/Help Answer/Article with actual Therebucks Reseller Policy Update
****
I guess this is There's answer to the chinese gold farmer scammers. There has always had a policy of not supporting third party Therebucks sales, without actually prohibiting it though, as they recognize it as an important part of a healthy economy. Now, however, they are simply making it clearer that you're on your own and There isn't going to protect buyers or sellers AND if you end up buying fraudulently obtained Therebucks, There will yank them out of your account and if it happens multiple times they will ban you, maybe even permanently.
Some people may argue this is harsh punishment for "victims" of chinese gold farmer/scammers, but hey, what is There supposed to do? The way the scammers get the Therebucks is by buying them from There with stolen credit cards so that in the end the transactions get reversed and There is out the money. If you buy let's say $50 worth of Therebucks for $25 from one of these sites, the gold farmers are actually creating a $50 transaction with There and getting $50 worth of Therebucks, so for every $25 you give to the chinese gold farmers, There is out $50 in the end. I'd be upset, too! As far as I know, the gold farmers haven't hit any resellers yet, but if There finds a way to prevent their transactions (they might look to IMVU for advice on that one) then I am sure they will eventually. And for the gold farmers, even just a FEW transactions are a profit for them. Even if the Therebucks get taken away from the buyer eventually, it's still a profit for the gold farmers.
So how do you make sure you don't buy from an illegitimate reseller? Well first off, their prices are ridiculously low. Some place in China that really has no legitimate source of Therebucks and is selling them at FAR below market value...why would you think it's legit? I really don't see how anyone can think this is a valid source of Therebucks, so IMO, until they come up with websites and prices that are more in-line with the real market, the only way someone is going to buy from one of these places is if 1.) they are 100% noob or 2.) they think they can get away with it. So it's really like There is saying "don't be stupid, you can't get away with it."
Meanwhile, I don't think anything has really changed with "regular" resellers. There never had a policy that officially supported them or protected either the buyer or the seller, and that is why some people simply buy only from There and others buy only from the resellers they trust the most or are recommended by their friends. I don't think this will affect resellers such as myself much because of the simple fact that there is still a greater demand for discounted Therebucks than there is a supply. No reseller is in stock 100% of the time (which is also why Therebucks being sold at 50% off face value is so ridiculously illegitimate looking.)
Since one of the gold farmer sites is actually paying for Google ad placement when you do a search for "Therebucks", I do wonder if perhaps There should do the same thing. Sure it would cost them a little money, but maybe if they advertised with a link to the policy about the risks of buying from resellers, the money they spent on that would prevent them losing more money to fraud. Right? I mean, I'm tempted to do this myself for a month or two. As long as the scammers are making ANY money doing this, they aren't going to go away.
I thought this was funny...when you search for "Therebucks", check out the two highlighted (in a lovely salmon pink) results...me talking about a "cheap therebucks scam site" and then the site in question right below it. Wow, we must have all just RUN to that site to check it out, to get it so high in the rankings so fast!
Okay that's all I have to say about that for now. My one final thought is that if you are one of my buyers/sellers you should leave a testimonial for me if you haven't already so I can increase my er....legitimacy ranking or something: http://jinx.tv/feedback.php
Soooo anyway...first I'd like to mention I had a laugh today when someone emailed me asking "where is my PayPal payment?" Why would I be laughing about someone not receiving their PayPal payment? Because this person was using an exploit in the catalog to get Therebucks from There and then they turned around and tried to sell a bunch of those ill-gotten Therebucks to me. As soon as There found out, they yanked the Therebucks out of my account, banned that avatar and banned some other avatars that were found to be doing the same thing as well. This could have ended very badly for me, if I had actually sent payment to this person before There yanked out the Therebucks from my account, I would have been out a lot of money. So, not only were they screwing There, they were trying to screw me as well. Or maybe I'm giving them too much credit, perhaps they had no idea this could end up adversely affecting me, but it can, especially with There's new reseller policy...
****
Okay, go now if you haven't and read these two things on the There site...
Official There announcement of Therebucks Reseller Policy Update
Fuze/Help Answer/Article with actual Therebucks Reseller Policy Update
****
I guess this is There's answer to the chinese gold farmer scammers. There has always had a policy of not supporting third party Therebucks sales, without actually prohibiting it though, as they recognize it as an important part of a healthy economy. Now, however, they are simply making it clearer that you're on your own and There isn't going to protect buyers or sellers AND if you end up buying fraudulently obtained Therebucks, There will yank them out of your account and if it happens multiple times they will ban you, maybe even permanently.
Some people may argue this is harsh punishment for "victims" of chinese gold farmer/scammers, but hey, what is There supposed to do? The way the scammers get the Therebucks is by buying them from There with stolen credit cards so that in the end the transactions get reversed and There is out the money. If you buy let's say $50 worth of Therebucks for $25 from one of these sites, the gold farmers are actually creating a $50 transaction with There and getting $50 worth of Therebucks, so for every $25 you give to the chinese gold farmers, There is out $50 in the end. I'd be upset, too! As far as I know, the gold farmers haven't hit any resellers yet, but if There finds a way to prevent their transactions (they might look to IMVU for advice on that one) then I am sure they will eventually. And for the gold farmers, even just a FEW transactions are a profit for them. Even if the Therebucks get taken away from the buyer eventually, it's still a profit for the gold farmers.
So how do you make sure you don't buy from an illegitimate reseller? Well first off, their prices are ridiculously low. Some place in China that really has no legitimate source of Therebucks and is selling them at FAR below market value...why would you think it's legit? I really don't see how anyone can think this is a valid source of Therebucks, so IMO, until they come up with websites and prices that are more in-line with the real market, the only way someone is going to buy from one of these places is if 1.) they are 100% noob or 2.) they think they can get away with it. So it's really like There is saying "don't be stupid, you can't get away with it."
Meanwhile, I don't think anything has really changed with "regular" resellers. There never had a policy that officially supported them or protected either the buyer or the seller, and that is why some people simply buy only from There and others buy only from the resellers they trust the most or are recommended by their friends. I don't think this will affect resellers such as myself much because of the simple fact that there is still a greater demand for discounted Therebucks than there is a supply. No reseller is in stock 100% of the time (which is also why Therebucks being sold at 50% off face value is so ridiculously illegitimate looking.)
Since one of the gold farmer sites is actually paying for Google ad placement when you do a search for "Therebucks", I do wonder if perhaps There should do the same thing. Sure it would cost them a little money, but maybe if they advertised with a link to the policy about the risks of buying from resellers, the money they spent on that would prevent them losing more money to fraud. Right? I mean, I'm tempted to do this myself for a month or two. As long as the scammers are making ANY money doing this, they aren't going to go away.
I thought this was funny...when you search for "Therebucks", check out the two highlighted (in a lovely salmon pink) results...me talking about a "cheap therebucks scam site" and then the site in question right below it. Wow, we must have all just RUN to that site to check it out, to get it so high in the rankings so fast!
Okay that's all I have to say about that for now. My one final thought is that if you are one of my buyers/sellers you should leave a testimonial for me if you haven't already so I can increase my er....legitimacy ranking or something: http://jinx.tv/feedback.php
Monday, November 9, 2009
2 most common reasons for Therebucks payment delays
Argh, I'm a WEE bit frustrated today because I've had an increase in the number of delayed Therebucks payments (someone ordering Therebucks from me and then not getting them in about 2 minutes) and the reasons why are soooo preventable.
Recently I made a rather long video explaining pretty much ALL the reasons why your Therebucks could be delayed, but it can't hurt to go back over the TWO BIGGEST in a quick post...
Number one is SPELLING YOUR AVATAR NAME WRONG.
Seriously, if you don't get your Therebucks right away, check the email that PayPal sends you to your PayPal account email address and see what you used for your avatar name. The last few days I have had a number of misspellings and to make it even worse, it seems like people email me to say "where are my Therebucks? I've never had a delay from you before." and when I email them back asking them to check the transaction, I get no response, like maybe they aren't checking that email address or something. It's frustrating. Check the PayPal payment confirmation email, or log in to your PayPal account and check the transaction info there and see what you wrote for your avatar name. If it's wrong, email me either through Wheremail (but you know that is sometimes delayed) or at jinx.tv@gmail.com and let me know what you put down for your avatar name and what it was supposed to be and I can probably correct it right away.
and two is CREATING A NEW AVATAR
There are a lot of people who, when they've been around There for a while, decide to create a new avatar. Well, some of them may have half a dozen avatars. Or they have a friend who just created an avatar and they want to buy that person some Therebucks to get them started. I have a system that ranks avatars by how active they are on There, and if your avatar is brand new, it's not going to pay you any Therebucks. If you have a brand new avatar, or an avatar you use only to manage money for your neighborhood or something, you should either buy the Therebucks using your main avatar and then transfer them to your new avatar OR you can email me ahead of time (jinx.tv@gmail.com) and let me know who you are and what your new avatar is, and I have a pre-approved buyer list I can put you on assuming your main avatar is a regular customer of mine.
Well, I feel better now that I got that off my chest. I hope that helps and if you ever hear someone complaining "I didn't get my Therebucks", you might want to point them here to this post.
See you in There!
-Jinx_tv
Recently I made a rather long video explaining pretty much ALL the reasons why your Therebucks could be delayed, but it can't hurt to go back over the TWO BIGGEST in a quick post...
Number one is SPELLING YOUR AVATAR NAME WRONG.
Seriously, if you don't get your Therebucks right away, check the email that PayPal sends you to your PayPal account email address and see what you used for your avatar name. The last few days I have had a number of misspellings and to make it even worse, it seems like people email me to say "where are my Therebucks? I've never had a delay from you before." and when I email them back asking them to check the transaction, I get no response, like maybe they aren't checking that email address or something. It's frustrating. Check the PayPal payment confirmation email, or log in to your PayPal account and check the transaction info there and see what you wrote for your avatar name. If it's wrong, email me either through Wheremail (but you know that is sometimes delayed) or at jinx.tv@gmail.com and let me know what you put down for your avatar name and what it was supposed to be and I can probably correct it right away.
and two is CREATING A NEW AVATAR
There are a lot of people who, when they've been around There for a while, decide to create a new avatar. Well, some of them may have half a dozen avatars. Or they have a friend who just created an avatar and they want to buy that person some Therebucks to get them started. I have a system that ranks avatars by how active they are on There, and if your avatar is brand new, it's not going to pay you any Therebucks. If you have a brand new avatar, or an avatar you use only to manage money for your neighborhood or something, you should either buy the Therebucks using your main avatar and then transfer them to your new avatar OR you can email me ahead of time (jinx.tv@gmail.com) and let me know who you are and what your new avatar is, and I have a pre-approved buyer list I can put you on assuming your main avatar is a regular customer of mine.
Well, I feel better now that I got that off my chest. I hope that helps and if you ever hear someone complaining "I didn't get my Therebucks", you might want to point them here to this post.
See you in There!
-Jinx_tv
Saturday, November 7, 2009
A tip for Therebucks sellers
Well, now that I'm caught up on PayPal payments and paying Therebucks sellers very rapidly, here's a little tip to those selling to me on http://sell.jinx.tv...
Send your Therebucks as soon as you create the transaction! Seriously, I get a notification as soon as you create the transaction on my site, so if you pay right away and I'm there at the computer, I pay right away. Some people wait an hour or eight hours or a day to pay...first of all I pay in the order I receive your Therebucks payment, but besides that, I'm LOOKING for your Therebucks payment right after you send in the request, and I'm NOT looking for it hours or days later, so your delay can cause a greater delay.
Oh also, I'm on the west coast in the U.S. and I usually stay up late and sleep in late, so the time of day you create a transaction can make a difference...if you make a transaction in the morning, I can almost guarantee you won't get paid within a few minutes (as some transactions do) because I'm usually sleeping.
Okay, that's all I got today...back to burning DVDs of our Halloween Beatles Rock Band party!
Send your Therebucks as soon as you create the transaction! Seriously, I get a notification as soon as you create the transaction on my site, so if you pay right away and I'm there at the computer, I pay right away. Some people wait an hour or eight hours or a day to pay...first of all I pay in the order I receive your Therebucks payment, but besides that, I'm LOOKING for your Therebucks payment right after you send in the request, and I'm NOT looking for it hours or days later, so your delay can cause a greater delay.
Oh also, I'm on the west coast in the U.S. and I usually stay up late and sleep in late, so the time of day you create a transaction can make a difference...if you make a transaction in the morning, I can almost guarantee you won't get paid within a few minutes (as some transactions do) because I'm usually sleeping.
Okay, that's all I got today...back to burning DVDs of our Halloween Beatles Rock Band party!
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Cheap Therebucks
I found this site on Google today for buying Therebucks and I'm pretty sure you shouldn't use it...here's why:
Sunday, November 1, 2009
PayPal fee calculator
Well, had a little break in paying sellers (not buyers...buying Therebucks is still 3 mins or less) due to hosting a Halloween party, but I'm catching up fast.
Anyway, I thought this would be a good follow up to the MassPay video...
Isn't it funny how anything you can imagine is likely to be out there on the Internet already? I was thinking about how people always have questions about PayPal fees and how much they will be, but the fees can vary based on...well...variables...(like if you have a business account and do a high volume of sales, if you're doing a "cross border" transaction, etc.) and what is needed is a PayPal fee calculator.
So I checked online and OF COURSE there are already a great number of such calculators out there.
This one looks pretty cool:
http://www.rolbe.com/paypal.htm
So if you're selling your Therebucks and you want to know what sort of fees you're going to pay, give it a try...especially if you're contemplating MassPay. It should really help with figuring out if MassPay is right for your transaction or not. Ooooh...I should add a link to it from http://sell.jinx.tv! I'm going to do that this week I think.
Well, hope you had a great Halloween! We were pirates. Arrrr!
-Jinx_tv
Anyway, I thought this would be a good follow up to the MassPay video...
Isn't it funny how anything you can imagine is likely to be out there on the Internet already? I was thinking about how people always have questions about PayPal fees and how much they will be, but the fees can vary based on...well...variables...(like if you have a business account and do a high volume of sales, if you're doing a "cross border" transaction, etc.) and what is needed is a PayPal fee calculator.
So I checked online and OF COURSE there are already a great number of such calculators out there.
This one looks pretty cool:
http://www.rolbe.com/paypal.htm
So if you're selling your Therebucks and you want to know what sort of fees you're going to pay, give it a try...especially if you're contemplating MassPay. It should really help with figuring out if MassPay is right for your transaction or not. Ooooh...I should add a link to it from http://sell.jinx.tv! I'm going to do that this week I think.
Well, hope you had a great Halloween! We were pirates. Arrrr!
-Jinx_tv
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Why and when you should use MassPay
This is a video more for people selling Therebucks TOO me and not buying FROM me. You may want to view it on YouTube (just click on the actual video after it starts) to see it at a larger size if you want to be able to read the text file demo. If you don't want to see the There pics at the beginning, just skip ahead to 3:30 in the vid. Please let me know if you still have questions about MassPay after this! :)
Thursday, October 29, 2009
What's next, cats?!??
So apparently There is testing a sky neighborhood right now. Is that cool or what? I'm assuming if all goes well that this'll become a real, regular thing that anyone can use...and I know some people that are going to be sooooo excited about it! Seriously, I don't spend much time chatting with my buyers or sellers, but once in a while there is an email exchange that includes some non-Therebucks related chatter, and one of the common themes is people who are waiting for "real" sky pazzes.
Seriously, I know people who have been waiting and keeping the dream alive for YEARS and I was beginning to think they were crazy or delusional...or maybe both. Now it's becoming a reality. Yay! They must be over the moon (literally, considering they've been building up in the sky for years now anyway.)
As exciting as learning about this yesterday was, I still managed to wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, hating life, stressing out about not having my Halloween costume yet and just generally being miserable.
I perked up a little bit when I saw that Mike Wilson, CEO of There.com had retweeted my tweet regarding the space neighborhoods. This was very cool like "wow, MW knows I exist! He's following me on Twitter!" Right? But it seemed a little weird because the tweet included the URL http://jinx.tv, which almost everyone reading this post already knows is the URL for my Therebucks selling site. So it's like...the CEO of There was advertising my tbux sales. Wow, thanks Skippy!
(I probably shouldn't be soooo surprised that the CEO of There would pay attention to a Twitter account called "Therebucks":)
Then, I managed to get a pretty cool Halloween costume, and there are even some thigh-high boots on the way for it, so overall my day is looking up.
Now that we have hugs and props (and wow, props have really changed the look of things in There!) what do you think is next? Could it be cats?????
-Jinx_tv
Oh yeah, p.s. I added my first blogroll blog on the side...and it's Mike Wilson's There blog! (Hmmm...do you think he has a non-There blog?) It's pretty new so that was a nifty find. Hope it gets updated ALLLL the time. The blogroll is over on the right hand side of this page.
Seriously, I know people who have been waiting and keeping the dream alive for YEARS and I was beginning to think they were crazy or delusional...or maybe both. Now it's becoming a reality. Yay! They must be over the moon (literally, considering they've been building up in the sky for years now anyway.)
As exciting as learning about this yesterday was, I still managed to wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, hating life, stressing out about not having my Halloween costume yet and just generally being miserable.
I perked up a little bit when I saw that Mike Wilson, CEO of There.com had retweeted my tweet regarding the space neighborhoods. This was very cool like "wow, MW knows I exist! He's following me on Twitter!" Right? But it seemed a little weird because the tweet included the URL http://jinx.tv, which almost everyone reading this post already knows is the URL for my Therebucks selling site. So it's like...the CEO of There was advertising my tbux sales. Wow, thanks Skippy!
(I probably shouldn't be soooo surprised that the CEO of There would pay attention to a Twitter account called "Therebucks":)
Then, I managed to get a pretty cool Halloween costume, and there are even some thigh-high boots on the way for it, so overall my day is looking up.
Now that we have hugs and props (and wow, props have really changed the look of things in There!) what do you think is next? Could it be cats?????
-Jinx_tv
Oh yeah, p.s. I added my first blogroll blog on the side...and it's Mike Wilson's There blog! (Hmmm...do you think he has a non-There blog?) It's pretty new so that was a nifty find. Hope it gets updated ALLLL the time. The blogroll is over on the right hand side of this page.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
How I pay out Therebucks and Paypal payments away from home
This is a little longer and more rambling than I'd like, but I hope you'll find it interesting and/or useful or reassuring or something!
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Was trying to post video from Sacramento
Well, I was trying to post a video using my netbook webcam with youtube's record feature telling you all about how I keep the transactions flowing out and in while I'm away from home, but everything kept freezing up about two minutes in EVERY TIME. Maybe it just means I'm too long winded!
We're about to leave to go home via Lodi (wine tasting, woohoo!) otherwise I'd try again with a shorter video. Oh well, I'll just make the video on my mac tonight or tomorrow.
We're about to leave to go home via Lodi (wine tasting, woohoo!) otherwise I'd try again with a shorter video. Oh well, I'll just make the video on my mac tonight or tomorrow.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Tweet Tweet, Therebucks Sellers!
Wow, Twitter is AMAZING for keeping Therebucks sellers up to date! Now if I could just get ALL sellers to follow it, I think we'd all be confident and happy! (And flowers would bloom everywhere and there'd be rainbows and puppies and kittens...)
Sellers, please do follow me on Twitter for the most up-to-date selling status!
http://twitter.com/sell_therebucks
Tweet, tweet!
Sellers, please do follow me on Twitter for the most up-to-date selling status!
http://twitter.com/sell_therebucks
Tweet, tweet!
Thursday, October 22, 2009
All the new jinx.tv site updates
It's come to my attention that some people visiting this blog may not have the best english skills. Or it could be me not enunciating properly? If someone is a non-native english speaker, as someone who is always trying to follow the convos of people around me who are speaking another language (in my case, spanish) I can certainly sympathize with how much harder it is to understand what people are saying vs. what they've written down. For that reason, I'm going to try and post a nice balance of both written and video stuff.
Had some exciting updates on the site today. Well, exciting to me. So here's all the recent updates...
1.) added text to http://jinx.tv that tells when the last transaction took place
2.) added link to this blog to http://jinx.tv
3.) added link to my "therebucks" twitter account to http://jinx.tv (before the link only showed up when I ran out of Therebucks, now it's near the bottom of the page all the time.)
4.) added "status" link (it's in AJAX!) to http://sell.jinx.tv to help notify sellers about payment times...good for when I'm sleeping, or out of town (although I have a netbook and a fancy phone that I can do most transactions with it still causes delays) or am paying a few days late due to a MASSIVE influx of Therebucks and/or a dirty rotten scammer (knock on wood.)
5.) added link to this blog to http://sell.jinx.tv
6.) added link to my SELLER SPECIFIC Twitter account on http://sell.jinx.tv
and also...
7.) Created the http://twitter.com/sell_therebucks account and even made a first post to it!
So, things are looking good. I figure it's like when my cat had cancer...things can feel a little overwhelming sometimes, but if you do just a LITTLE bit every day, before you know it you've accomplished a lot.
Oh, I'm so dumb though. I wanted to email all past buyers so I went into my database and extracted out the 13,500 rows of data containing avatar buy Therebucks transactions, and then I put them in a Google Docs spreadsheet (although to complicate things, a table can only hold 10,000 rows), sorted it alphabetically by name and then removed all the dupe names...BY HAND. Yes, it took hours.
Okay, so then I wanted to do the same thing again with the sellers list, which is shorter...less than 5,000 rows of data but still quite a task. I had sorted alphabetically and then extracted duplicates up to the letter "C" when I thought to myself "I wonder if there is a spreadsheet function that can remove duplicate lines." So I googled it and...there IS and it's really EASY! Basically I just had to add "=UNIQUE(A2:A4110)" to a data cell and that's IT. It was so quick and easy...think of all those hours I wasted because I didn't do that simple google search earlier!
The only downside was that afterwards I realized it was case sensitive, so if someone had submitted requests that said for instance, "JohnSmith", "johnsmith", "Johnsmith" and "JoHnSmItH", they probably got an email from me for EACH spelling variation. Consider that your punishment for inconsistency! :P I guess I'll have to go back over the file now and check for those caps dupes.
Anyway, I guess I better go eat some freshly baked bread and then practice Rock Band Beatles (cuz we're making everyone do it at our Halloween party and I want to make sure we know how it works first. Hey, maybe I can be just a teeny bit better than most everyone else, too!)
See you in There!
Had some exciting updates on the site today. Well, exciting to me. So here's all the recent updates...
1.) added text to http://jinx.tv that tells when the last transaction took place
2.) added link to this blog to http://jinx.tv
3.) added link to my "therebucks" twitter account to http://jinx.tv (before the link only showed up when I ran out of Therebucks, now it's near the bottom of the page all the time.)
4.) added "status" link (it's in AJAX!) to http://sell.jinx.tv to help notify sellers about payment times...good for when I'm sleeping, or out of town (although I have a netbook and a fancy phone that I can do most transactions with it still causes delays) or am paying a few days late due to a MASSIVE influx of Therebucks and/or a dirty rotten scammer (knock on wood.)
5.) added link to this blog to http://sell.jinx.tv
6.) added link to my SELLER SPECIFIC Twitter account on http://sell.jinx.tv
and also...
7.) Created the http://twitter.com/sell_therebucks account and even made a first post to it!
So, things are looking good. I figure it's like when my cat had cancer...things can feel a little overwhelming sometimes, but if you do just a LITTLE bit every day, before you know it you've accomplished a lot.
Oh, I'm so dumb though. I wanted to email all past buyers so I went into my database and extracted out the 13,500 rows of data containing avatar buy Therebucks transactions, and then I put them in a Google Docs spreadsheet (although to complicate things, a table can only hold 10,000 rows), sorted it alphabetically by name and then removed all the dupe names...BY HAND. Yes, it took hours.
Okay, so then I wanted to do the same thing again with the sellers list, which is shorter...less than 5,000 rows of data but still quite a task. I had sorted alphabetically and then extracted duplicates up to the letter "C" when I thought to myself "I wonder if there is a spreadsheet function that can remove duplicate lines." So I googled it and...there IS and it's really EASY! Basically I just had to add "=UNIQUE(A2:A4110)" to a data cell and that's IT. It was so quick and easy...think of all those hours I wasted because I didn't do that simple google search earlier!
The only downside was that afterwards I realized it was case sensitive, so if someone had submitted requests that said for instance, "JohnSmith", "johnsmith", "Johnsmith" and "JoHnSmItH", they probably got an email from me for EACH spelling variation. Consider that your punishment for inconsistency! :P I guess I'll have to go back over the file now and check for those caps dupes.
Anyway, I guess I better go eat some freshly baked bread and then practice Rock Band Beatles (cuz we're making everyone do it at our Halloween party and I want to make sure we know how it works first. Hey, maybe I can be just a teeny bit better than most everyone else, too!)
See you in There!
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Reasons you may not get Therebucks in 3 minutes
Over 95% of all buyers receive their Therebucks from http://jinx.tv within 3 minutes, but then there are the few transactions that don't. Usually the reasons why are easy to fix, or even better...prevent! So here's what you can do to make sure you get the Therebucks you bought in 3 minutes or less...
wth? Transaction records missing?
Argh, I thought I was almost caught up paying people for Therebucks when I realized something weird happened and I had no record from There of anyone who sent me Therebucks on the 16th or 17th. I thought "wow, that's so weird that no-one who created transactions on the 16 & 17th actually sent any ThereBucks..." and that's when I started to think maybe something was wrong, but meanwhile it means I did pay some transactions out of order and I've paid people from the 18th and 19th and skipped over others. The good news is I paid at least a dozen people today, but the ones who sent Therebucks during BOTH those time periods may be awfully confused, and others may be pretty bummed out about the additional delay. I will be sending those PayPal payments asap though, and I'm really sorry about that since I always try to be fair and pay in order.
Meanwhile, I made a new video of reasons why a small percentage of transactions from those BUYING Therebucks don't get paid in 3 mins and what you can do to prevent it from happening to you...it's uploading to YouTube now and I'll put it up here when it's done.
Meanwhile, I made a new video of reasons why a small percentage of transactions from those BUYING Therebucks don't get paid in 3 mins and what you can do to prevent it from happening to you...it's uploading to YouTube now and I'll put it up here when it's done.
Monday, October 19, 2009
What's going on with selling Therebucks?
Yeah, inquiring minds want to know why it's taking a few days to pay sellers sometimes, so here ya go...
Sunday, October 18, 2009
I'm starting a blog just for my Therebucks buyers/sellers
Well, the title says it all. I want to give Therebucks buyers and sellers some reassurance that everything is okay, I've been around for a while, I'm a real person, I'm safe to deal with, etc.
My name is Laura Knights, but my There avatar name is Jinx_tv and I've been selling Therebucks for I guess about six years as I write this. The first time I ever "sold" Therebucks was actually in exchange for enough frequent flier miles for a ticket from New Hampshire all the way to Silicon Valley to attend the first ever There Real Life Gathering (and yes I have the tshirt to prove it...and the tiki mug and the mousepad...)
After that, I was not only creating content like crazy for There (I was the first member with over 1000 items in their catalog) but I did some contract work for There and eventually moved to Silicon Valley.
Of course then I mostly stopped developing content, although I keep wanting to start up again. It just seems to take so much time, but I do love doing it. Meanwhile I am still selling Therebucks, but most of them are resales...in other words, other avatars who may be developers or just members who are cleaning out their virtual closets and have extra tbux from garage sales and auctions, sell their tbucks to me and then I pass them on to people who want to buy them...for a small profit. Seriously, it is a small profit. It's about 10% before PayPal fees, but it's more like 5 or 6% after that and even less (much less) when I get chargebacks.
But anyway, that's my little story just to get this blog rollin'!
My name is Laura Knights, but my There avatar name is Jinx_tv and I've been selling Therebucks for I guess about six years as I write this. The first time I ever "sold" Therebucks was actually in exchange for enough frequent flier miles for a ticket from New Hampshire all the way to Silicon Valley to attend the first ever There Real Life Gathering (and yes I have the tshirt to prove it...and the tiki mug and the mousepad...)
After that, I was not only creating content like crazy for There (I was the first member with over 1000 items in their catalog) but I did some contract work for There and eventually moved to Silicon Valley.
Of course then I mostly stopped developing content, although I keep wanting to start up again. It just seems to take so much time, but I do love doing it. Meanwhile I am still selling Therebucks, but most of them are resales...in other words, other avatars who may be developers or just members who are cleaning out their virtual closets and have extra tbux from garage sales and auctions, sell their tbucks to me and then I pass them on to people who want to buy them...for a small profit. Seriously, it is a small profit. It's about 10% before PayPal fees, but it's more like 5 or 6% after that and even less (much less) when I get chargebacks.
But anyway, that's my little story just to get this blog rollin'!
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