Jim R Posted April 12, 2006 Report Posted April 12, 2006 Actually, I think perhaps "Square Trade" has been around for awhile (?), but I couldn't help but feel a bit lost today when I encountered this listing: Gibson L5 (Wes Montgomery edition) I come across an alarming number of fraudulent listings for high end archtop guitars on ebay, and I usually report them. When I saw this, I was suspicious (seller's feedback rating listed as "private"; item located in the UK, where a lot of frauds had pretended to be located; ebay member since... 4/11/06 ; bidders' ID's kept private; etc etc). So, I opened the link to "Learn Why" people can bid with confidence since the seller is a member of Square Trade, and I read this page. The first thing I see: "A SquareTrade Seal Member in good standing since 04-11-2006". Oh, great. A member in good standing since... yesterday! Also, there's this: "The SquareTrade Seal, along with other factors, can substantially lower the risks of buying online. The Seal is not a guarantee of a successful transaction or of a Seller's performance." I mean, what's the point? I don't know if this seller is legit or not, and I'm not interested in bidding anyway, but this kind of shit just makes me less interested in bothering. I didn't follow any more links in terms of more explanations, and maybe this is a good idea in some ways, but it just seems silly. Maybe ebay's inability to handle and police everything makes this kind of thing inevitable... Quote
connoisseur series500 Posted April 12, 2006 Report Posted April 12, 2006 Seems like all the crooks would be elbowing and shoving each other in a stampede to sign up for the Square Deal seal! Quote
Chuck Nessa Posted April 12, 2006 Report Posted April 12, 2006 Seems like all the crooks would be elbowing and shoving each other in a stampede to sign up for the Square Deal seal! At least be polite Connie. Quote
Jazzmoose Posted April 13, 2006 Report Posted April 13, 2006 Square Trade has been around as long as I've been using eBay (since 2001), but this seal of approval thing hasn't been... Used to be Square Trade was sort of a crappy mediation service on eBay. Don't know what it is now. Quote
jazzmessenger Posted April 13, 2006 Report Posted April 13, 2006 I used Square Trade once when the 1 cent CD seller didn't send me what they described for the auction. Square Trade didn't do any good. The seller just blocked me from bidding. Quote
Claude Posted April 13, 2006 Report Posted April 13, 2006 I checked their website. Apparently the main benefit of Squaretrade for the buyer is that they check the identity of the seller, something that Ebay doesn't do (please correct me if I'm wrong). But the main goal of the company is clearly to sell a trust seal to Ebay sellers, while the additional guarantees offered to buyers are minimal. Here's an article from 2003: http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y03/m05/i25/s03 Quote
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