eBay used to be the only place people went to sell anything online, but more often we’re seeing more eBay alternatives because Ebay has, unfortunately, lost what made them great. Selling or buying anything on eBay is more nerve-racking then it used to be. eBay offers little security and customer support; leaving eBay users open to scams and fraudulent transactions. If eBay won’t help it’s users, I will. Here are some tips when buying/selling on eBay:

Be weary of “Buy It Now.” I always considered eBay’s Buy It Now a great feature to add to your auction. If somebody wants what your selling badly enough they can avoid the auction and purchase the item for an often increased price. To put Buy It Now on your auction it’s about ~.25, which I felt was worth it.

After a couple of auctions I had started (iPod, Monitor, Games) I noticed that a few of the items I had auctioned would sell quickly. Quickly as in a couple hours after I posted the item. Looking at the buyers of the auction, a red flag poked me in the eye. Firstly, the mailing address was from somewhere in Nigeria. Secondly, the sender sent me a fake invoice, which could be considered real by unsuspecting eBay users. Trying to contact to scammer buyer was somewhat of a game. I told them that “I would consider this a scam until I received payment.” The next day I got an email from the buyer (this time the buyer was named Mary, the day before it was John) attacking me about the accusations I had put on them.

What I’m trying to say is, skip Buy It Now. After the auction, I still have my item, but I have lost $3.00 in listing fees and eBay hasn’t responded to any of the emails I have sent them. Just go through with the auction and let other users bid on your item.

Don’t do ANYTHING until the money is in your account. So you’ve just sold something on eBay and you’ve sent the buyer an invoice. Most often you’ll receive a PayPal notification alerting you that the buyer has sent you the money. Sometimes, though, the buyer will send you an email with instructions on getting your payment. RED FLAG! You, as the seller, should NEVER have to play any game to get your money. If this does happen, send the buyer an email, but don’t think about sending your item until you get the money in your account.

Make sure to check your account. The email you recieve could be a fake.

If it’s at all suspicious, walk away. If any part of your transaction on eBay (buying or selling) seems odd, walk away, it probably is. If the item you bought seems too good to be true, it probably is. Walk away with your item in hand or your wallet full. There will be another chance.

As I was writing this email I recieved an email from a fraudulent buyer who “bought” my iPod Touch a few days ago. This scammer is extremely good at what they do, but I found a couple of problems with the fake emails.

This is a fake PayPal payment notification email. Thankfully, Gmail knew it was fake.

Click to enlarge

…and what has Ebay to say about this? Absolutley nothing!

If you are having trouble with eBay or need help trying to figure out if an email is fraudulent, send me an email (mail[at]r3fresh.com) and I would be more than glad to help you. This kinda stuff should never happen, especially with a big company like eBay.

[UPDATE] Here is another fake PayPal email by my buyer. I’ve got to give it to him, he doesn’t give up easy.

Click to enlarge

Top Picture by Ella’s Dad

In my email the other day I got an invite to a closed beta service known as Wix. I didn’t remember signing up for the private beta, but I decided to see what it was. As soon as the page loaded I knew I had made a huge mistake.

Read the rest of this entry »

MyBlogLog is a relatively popular service among the blogging community and it’s always been a simple service. If you don’t already know, MyBlogLog is a social networking site for bloggers to communicate and a way to promote their blogs. Whenever a MyBlogLog user visits a blog with a MyBlogLog widget, the visitor leaves a picture behind (in hopes to bring users to their blog). The old widget was very customizable and would fit with almost any blog, but the new widget is the exact opposite.

The new widget seems to go against the MyBlogLog theme. It’s not only ugly, it’s clunky. The rollover profiles are obtrusive and annoying; completely opposite from the original single linked text. What makes this widget even worse is that there is no option to use the old widget, so keep the widget code in a safe place.

The reason for this new look? In early 2007, Yahoo purchased MyBlogLog and is now giving it a new look, for better or worse. If Yahoo hadn’t purchased MyBlogLog, the widget probably would have kept with it’s simple style. Too bad money trumps user wants.

You might have noticed that r3fresh has a new addition, the store. The store right now has a few shirts I made, and hopefully a bunch more in the near future. After doing some research (and asking a few questions), I decided to use Bountee as my shirt service. I chose Bountee because they offer the best quality prints at a reasonable price. I don’t want someone to buy one of my shirts and then find that it didn’t make it through the wash to wear again.

The only problem I’ve found with Bountee is its website. It sucks. I’ll start it off by saying navigation is near in-existent. Looking for new shirt puts you in an endless link circle; moving from one part of the site to another and back. I’m hoping a redesign is in the works.

The next problem is its homepage. Supposedly, the front page showcases most recent shirts, but that can’t be true. The same shirts have been up since last week. I have a feeling shirts are manually put on ‘most recent’, which seems old with current web practices.

The most fixable problem on Bountee is its speed. Bountee is slow, so slow it reminds me of Myspace (pre-purchase) and Myspace gets 500x more people than Bountee. Hey Bountee, if you want to grow invest in some more robust hosting.

Where the site does shine is the shirt creator. It defies the rest of the site with it’s nimble uploading and easy customization. The creator allows you to scale and position your design as well as pick colors. You can even pick the colors depending on gender and age.

Bountee will stay my shirt vendor until I find a site that offers similar quality at an affordable price. I’m looking for some alternatives. If you have a site that fits the curriculum leave a link in the comments.

The Apple and Photog blog known as Glennwolsey.com has recently been taken down by internet douchebag, “Malcor.” The site now displays:

Notice

This website has been flagged for excessive Apple fanboism, and has been taken down for 24 hours.

This is a message to the rest of the Mac community, so listen up. Ever heard of hubris?
Tone it down, and you will not be attacked. Everyone else is open game.

~ malcor

Hey Malcor, it’s called freedom of speech and you don’t have to read it. The hubris hacker’s blog is here.

A fellow blogger posted this on their site and I found it quite interesting and even more disgusting. Do you want to know how many germs are on your keyboard take the quiz here.

I’m surprised my keyboard isn’t glowing green.
2,247,000How Many Germs Live On Your Keyboard?

Free Online Dating from JustSayHi

I’m a huge fan of internet polls. Got anymore? Drop a link in the comments.

Leo Laporte brought up a really good point on this week’s TWiT. Should we (the users) surrender our bank account numbers and passwords to Mint? Mint, for those who don’t know, is an online money management tool that will supposedly save you money and allow you to keep a really close eye on the money you spend. The only question is security.Banks and credit card firms spend millions, if not hundreds of millions on keeping people’s information safe, but they still end up misplacing a “laptop” with account numbers of a few thousand people. A relative works for a company that creates applications for credit card processors. They get 10,000 attempted breaches a DAY and they don’t even use or have any legit credit card information. If the big companies are having trouble keeping information safe, then why should we trust Mint?

Like me, most think of Mint as another web service, but it’s a web service that uses (and could someday lose) your account numbers. Personally, I had put my PayPal account into Mint to try it out because my bank account didn’t work in Mint. Now I’m glad it didn’t work. We need to remember that for every good website there are a hundred more that are trying to access your information maliciously. I’m not saying Mint is going to ever lose your money, but a close eye should be kept on them.

I don’t want to surrender my information for better deals or a cool interface no matter how good the deal or how slick the interface is. Want a much safer alternative? Try an application like Quicken or just use your banks online banking site.

If you haven’t noticed I’ve updated my blog theme. I decided to make the change because of the problems I’ve encountered with my previous theme, Unwakeable. During my search for a new theme I have compiled a short list of tips for picking the perfect theme.

1. Don’t go overboard with the “sweet” effects. My first theme for this blog was pretty bad when it came to effects. It had the ability to change the color of the blog by clicking a button in the corner. What I didn’t take into account was that this cool feature created a thirty second load time for my blog. Just remember that site aesthetics are for pulling people in, but if you want people to come back you need to have a content-filled, quick-loading website.
2. Having a problem with a theme? Ask for help. Did you find a great theme that compliments your writing, but the comment system poorly formats text. What about a theme that has a sidebar bug? Don’t worry, if you need help fixing a bug, you’re not the only one. Find the creator of the theme and shoot’em an email. On my previous theme it required a logo. The creator of the theme had sent me an email with a step-by-step tutorial.
3. Leave the cutting edge web technologies to the professionals. There is no need to weigh down your site with new web technologies especially when the technologies slow or even cripple the viewing of your blog. Readers will come back more often when they know they can come back and read a few articles without conflict.
4. Keep it simple. If your theme looks like something the MySpace designers threw together, I would start looking for another theme and fast. Find a theme that’s easy to read and keeps the reader focused. Red on black is not something I will come back to and read again.
5. Ask longtime friends/readers their opinion. Before releasing your theme to everyone, ask some of your close (Internet or not) friends. They can give you advice on what to change before you get 100x that when you release it to the public.

My theme Pixkit, is what I’ve been looking for in a WordPress theme. It’s clean, quick, and there isn’t anything that will distract you while reading. My theme is a bit on the simple side, but that doesn’t mean yours does too. Pick what you like and go with it.