Creating a Safe Marketplace - Need your thoughts

[bearsworth]

I have been thinking about how one would create a safe marketplace that handles disputes fairly - let's just say I want to be a part of a safe one hence maybe I might want to create one.

One of the issues I've come up with is how does one handle a dispute when a buyer of an item claims the item is faulty or not as described and wants a refund, but the seller is quite confident the item is working and nothing affected the items on delivery.

Another issue I've thought about is how does one prevent scammers from a marketplace aside from relying on user ratings/ratings ( which could be skewed from people wanting to boost their ratings by making duplicate accounts). One thing I thought about is requesting more information aka driver's license or some type of way to background check a person.

If anyone could chime in with systems already in place I'd appreciate it. Also if anyone has other issues they've seen which weren't able to be handled correctly, please describe them here. Thanks and appreciated.

[bytemaster]

Have all users 'register' with an arbitration agent who validates their ID and signs their public key.

As long as both parties trust the other parties arbitration agent (or their agents have agreements among them) then the transaction can happen securely and privately.   If there is a dispute then the arbitration agent can be contacted (say Judge.me) and get a globally (mostly) enforceable decision. 

Also see the escrow system described in the BitShares white paper (in my sig).

[bearsworth]

Thanks for the response. That's what I'm talking about .

[bearsworth]

What about if trades were for actual items as well, say bitcoins for underwear as an odd example.

[bytemaster]

I am designing / planning a system to entirely decentralize government which would solve your problem.

[BitPirate]

I have been thinking about how one would create a safe marketplace that handles disputes fairly - let's just say I want to be a part of a safe one hence maybe I might want to create one.

One of the issues I've come up with is how does one handle a dispute when a buyer of an item claims the item is faulty or not as described and wants a refund, but the seller is quite confident the item is working and nothing affected the items on delivery.

In most jurisdictions, the buyer has statutory rights -- they should be able to return an item for a full refund even if it is not faulty, for a period of 30 days or so. This might cost the seller somewhat (wasted time, shipping fees etc.), but they should price this into their business -- all sellers have to deal with it. The Bitcoin community isn't immune from this.

The best thing you can do is encourage sellers to live up to their statutory obligations (unless there's a good reason (e.g. digital goods) why they can't), and encourage users to rate accordingly. Sellers with nice return policies (e.g. 30-days no-questions-asked) will do brisker business than those who will enter into an online tiff when the buyer states the items were damaged.

Another issue I've thought about is how does one prevent scammers from a marketplace aside from relying on user ratings/ratings ( which could be skewed from people wanting to boost their ratings by making duplicate accounts). One thing I thought about is requesting more information aka driver's license or some type of way to background check a person.

If anyone could chime in with systems already in place I'd appreciate it. Also if anyone has other issues they've seen which weren't able to be handled correctly, please describe them here. Thanks and appreciated.

Most ratings systems are based on the number of transactions rather than the number of users. Sock puppet accounts shouldn't have any bearing on that? You could also do a pagerank-style algorithm, where feedback from users with high feedback themselves is rated higher than newbies -- but you'd have to monitor it carefully to avoid cronyism.

Hope that helps :-)

[bearsworth]

bytemaster, my example is for creating a system where users on a website can trade safely lol.

[bearsworth]

I have been thinking about how one would create a safe marketplace that handles disputes fairly - let's just say I want to be a part of a safe one hence maybe I might want to create one.

One of the issues I've come up with is how does one handle a dispute when a buyer of an item claims the item is faulty or not as described and wants a refund, but the seller is quite confident the item is working and nothing affected the items on delivery.

In most jurisdictions, the buyer has statutory rights -- they should be able to return an item for a full refund even if it is not faulty, for a period of 30 days or so. This might cost the seller somewhat (wasted time, shipping fees etc.), but they should price this into their business -- all sellers have to deal with it. The Bitcoin community isn't immune from this.

The best thing you can do is encourage sellers to live up to their statutory obligations (unless there's a good reason (e.g. digital goods) why they can't), and encourage users to rate accordingly. Sellers with nice return policies (e.g. 30-days no-questions-asked) will do brisker business than those who will enter into an online tiff when the buyer states the items were damaged.

Another issue I've thought about is how does one prevent scammers from a marketplace aside from relying on user ratings/ratings ( which could be skewed from people wanting to boost their ratings by making duplicate accounts). One thing I thought about is requesting more information aka driver's license or some type of way to background check a person.

If anyone could chime in with systems already in place I'd appreciate it. Also if anyone has other issues they've seen which weren't able to be handled correctly, please describe them here. Thanks and appreciated.

Most ratings systems are based on the number of transactions rather than the number of users. Sock puppet accounts shouldn't have any bearing on that? You could also do a pagerank-style algorithm, where feedback from users with high feedback themselves is rated higher than newbies -- but you'd have to monitor it carefully to avoid cronyism.

Hope that helps :-)

thanks for the thoughts that rating system based on feedback from users with high feedback is interesting and maybe i'll look into that. also, while i do like buyers being able to return items, what about for sellers who are like the average citizen an only have a few items. would you still prefer a lenient return in that case?

[BitPirate]

I don't know.... I think if you're selling something that is returnable, you have to give the buyer the right to change their mind. As above, in most jurisdictions (e.g. across Europe), this isn't actually up to the seller -- they are statutory rights that every consumer has.

[markm]

Since having a "market" distinct from the individual buyers and sellers or not merely constituted by the aggregate of buyers and sellers, it seems as if you are already conceding some kind of middle-something, a middle-agent or middle-network, something that finds buyers and finds sellers and helps them to find each other.

Therefore maybe by distributing that somewhat it could be possible to Kijiji-ize it so to speak: turn it into a "you meet physically in person to do the purchase".

Like maybe there could be a business-to-business level network, that has the advantage over person to person of the fact that businesses can be maybe more long term / committed to a specific market or product line or service or whatever than individuals who might only offer for sale one item on that market in their lifetime might be.

Maybe even just think of it as a network of kijiji-arbitrageurs, maybe even directly implement it as that.

Search for things wanted that aren't for sale where they are wanted, find other places that do have them for sale, contact your counterpart there to handle physical transfer of the goods arbitrageur to arbitrageur.

For example I am in Halifax, Nova Scotia. If i see someone here post that they want a one-eyed pirate cabbage-patch doll, and I locate one in New York, I could contact an arbitrageur who operates out of New York, maybe tip him off about stuff for sale here that maybe he knows people in New York are looking for, and enquire whether we could do a deal. It would of course depend partly on whether he thinks he can profit more by picking up the doll to sell later locally (time-arbitrage) than by picking it up for me to sell here in Halifax (space-arbitrage).

Basically the end result for the end-user would be they advertise what they want to buy or to sell and deal locally with a local buyer or seller in person.

The rest is just arbitrageur-network internals that the end users need not even know or care about.

Of course this just moves the problem of a safe marketplace out of the p2p zone of how to make such a marketplace for ranndom individuals who might only buy or sell something in that market once in their lifetime to how to make a safe b2b marketplace for arbitrageurs who in turn provide safe p2p markets by making p2p markets appear strictly local right under the noses of the local cops in broad daylight in a public place to the individual customer end-users of markets.

This might already exist actually; i heard rumours that pawn shops across Canada do deals so that you can pawn something here in Halifax that ends up selling in a pawnshop in Edmonton. Apparently this can be particularly useful for stolen goods since local police here looking for your stolen goods in local pawnshops won't find them here as of course such goods are among the first shipped elsewhere for sale...

-MarkM-