[slufan83]

I haven't traded as much lately as I used to, but here recently I've done about 17 deals in the last month. It got me thinking that I've never been ripped off by anyone on this site. I've had some close calls where it has taken a little over a month to get my stuff, but I've never had anyone all out steal from me in over 420 trades. But anyway, the guys who I've traded with recently have been great. Usually I ship the same/next day I complete a trade, but the guys I've traded with this last month have passed my expectations in shipping quickly. I just wanted to say thanks to everyone I've traded with recently and thanks to everyone I've traded with in my lifetime of being here for being honest and doing things how they are supposed to be done here.

I'm not sure if I just have a good intuition when it comes to avoiding people who scam or what. The reason my feedback score and completed trades don't match up mainly comes from traders who I requested to send first because they were either new or sketchy traders and they never ended up sending their side of the trade ad never completed the trade. I know some of you other good people here have been ripped off and I really hate seeing your threads about calling people out for not receiving cards. I remember when I traded a TON on the old buy/sell/trade system, I was around 16-18. Some guy stole a freshly pulled Kurt Warner autograph from me. You have to know that this was back in 2000/2001 when Warner was HOT....I was SOOO irate! So I can only imagine how some of you guys feel now when you bump into a dishonest trader. I put thieves like this in a completely different category than your regular shoplifter. A shoplifter can just go in, pocket something and be out. These people take the time to negotiate a trade with you, and then steal right out from underneath your nose. You don't know it's going to happen until a month later the guy hasn't logged in in over 2 weeks and you still don't have anything to show for a trade.

So guys, if you know you're a good trader be proud of that and keep dong what you're doing. And if you've scammed someone or are contemplating it, please heed this warning a leave this site now. There are people on this site who have good incomes and plenty like myself who sometimes spend their last extra buck just to be able to enjoy the hobby. You might get away with it now, but when you have to answer to the big guy upstairs it won't matter to him if it was a $2 card or that you robbed a bank. Please keep this place a fun and enjoyable card environment. The hobby is just trying to stay afloat, and we need to keep all the good people we can.

[greekgoony]

Well said.

[bman12]

I couldnt of said that any better.You will always be on my good trader list.

[rpspenner]

well said, sir. Pleasure trading with you.

[matrix99]

Ain't that the truth. The hobby is hard enough without someone ripping another person off.

[fishtaco02]

I've only begun trading this past month, working on my 5th trade. And man you couldn't of said it any better! Ppl are here are great, everyone I've talked to or traded with have been on the up and up.

[dlcarst]

I've only had 7 or 8 trades, and everyone has been great. One trader let me know his side of the trade was 5.50 less than my end after I made an offer & let me pick some other cards. Another added another card to his end of the trade just because it was my favorite football player. Really great people on here. And maybe paying for organize has weeded out bad traders. I was against paying for it at first but eventually I did it anyways, glad I did. Big thanks to people I've traded with so far, especially piyn, joserobles, and corbyrich.

[ceocards]

I'm just about to complete my 1,000th trade here, and I've only been scammed ONCE (by a trader whom I had 3 or 4 previous good trades with that suddenly went rogue and scammed a bunch of people.)

I agree that for the most part this is a fantastic trading site with great traders.

I also think the moderators *cough cough* do everything in their power to ID and get rid of scammers before they can pull their scams here. I know at times it seems like we hammer all the trading rules over and over again, but it's for good reason

The biggest piece of advice I have is USE COMMON SENSE. Probably 75% of the time when someone reports to me that they're having a trading issue, it's with someone that has lousy prior feedback, it's a new member that they didn't ask to send first, it's a "new" member that has an address matching someone on the banned trader list, or someone who acts like a moron on the boards.

At times it seems like all we talk about are the bad traders, so thanks Mike for a reminder that the good FAR outweigh the bad!

[bigt314]

Thanks Mike! This was well thought out and said. Thanks for putting it out there that the good do outweigh the bad. This should be a must read for all new traders here.

I know we have traded a few times and each trade has been perfect. Thanks for that as well.