Therebucks BuyBack (whoopie?)

Okay, so for those who don't know, MW (aka Mike Wilson, multi-millionaire owner/CEO of There aka Skippy) recently made a post in the There.com forums about a new Therebucks buyback program for There developers.
You can read it here, if you haven't already.

Naturally, there has been some discussion about this since the announcement came out, although as far as I know it has been a somewhat lackluster response limited to the developers section of the There forums, I suppose because this seems to be mainly of interest to developers (although in reality this could affect quite a few more There member than that.)

At first I wasn't sure what to think of the program, and to some degree I still don't, since a vague announcement and an actual working program are not really the same thing and it remains to see how this will actually be implemented, however, so far these are my thoughts (which I did post in the There forums but thought it would be appropriate to repost here):

(I'm happy to have anyone else add their thoughts here as well, feel free to leave a comment!)

This seems like bad news for people who enjoy buying Therebucks at an 11% discount (or more, depending on who you are buying from). So, good news for developers, assuming the queues aren't long, but bad for Therebucks buyers. Meanwhile, it does nothing to stop the resale scammers, in fact it may make those sites look MORE attractive to those who don't know better since reseller Therebucks are likely to become harder to find. (and so if people are getting less Therebucks for their money, it may come to pass that they simply have less Therebucks to spend and therefore the slight increase in value Devs get for their Therebucks may be offset by slightly lowered sales, not to mention the fee they will pay to There and the money some will lose if There does not use MassPay.)

Meanwhile, I think it gives an artificial sense of the strength of the There economy. In 2009, although my sales ended up being SLIGHTLY higher than in 2008, there seemed to be more people trying to sell Therebucks than ever. So whereas in the past it has always been normal for resellers to sell out and not have any Therebucks in stock, then be back in stock, then sell out again ad nauseum, and to oftentimes be out of stock more than in stock, for the second half of 2009 in particular, I have found myself almost NEVER out of stock...in fact I don't think I've run out of Therebucks for a few months straight now, and meanwhile my average Therebucks balance creeps ever higher.

This says to me that the amount of Therebucks going into the There economy is becoming more than the amount going out - a surplus that has never before occurred in There history (except for some temporary situations caused by Black Friday and the Coke Studios Therebucks conversion.) So it seems bizarre and unnatural for There to buy Therebucks from developers AT FACE VALUE, when obviously that is not at this time the actual value of Therebucks.

It doesn't stop scammers, people who like to buy discounted Therebucks will lose out (and there are more of them than there are devs) and they are being bought at an artificially high price from devs who have to wait in a queue to sell a limited amount at unknown intervals with a future promise that someday they'll be able to do exciting things like trade them for other currency (virtual?) Whoopie!

Do you want to date my avatar?

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...

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.

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

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

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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

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

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!

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:

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

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! :)