Question
Anyone thinking about or using this service?
As anyone who knows me can confirm ... I've been a collection agency advocate to deal with eBay NPBs for years. I've realized roughly 20% of accounts placed for collection. Got a check this past in July from a 2003 placement.
I'm curious what folks here think of ReliaBid.
Answer
Originally Posted by FLvamp
Anyone thinking about or using this service?
Nope. NPBs are an extremely small part of my business, less than one-tenth of 1% of all sales.
Shucks, usually I don't even file for UPI, I just relist the thing and move on.
This may be because of my core buyers: long-time customers who account for about 80% of my sales.
fLufF
--
Answer
A thread with Reliabid's co-founder Jon Rosen...scroll past Jon's comments and you'll see some of the problems with the service: namely a long drawn out process and debts under $50 aren't eligible for credit reporting. If you sell low priced items the service is basically useless (although Reliabid's Jon probably wouldn't agree with me )
http://community.tuliptools.com/inde....html#msg17615
EDIT: that $50 isn't the purchase price it's a restocking fee ($10 + 20% of sale price) so a $150 item (which has a restocking fee of $40) isn't even eligible for credit reporting.
Answer
Holy cow! That's kinda ludicrous IMHO. Certainly not what MY agency does for me ... without any up front fees whatsoever. They report ALL debts unpaid no matter the $$$.
I'm gonna ask somebody sumthin before I go any further in this thread.
Answer
Originally Posted by FLvamp
Holy cow! That's kinda ludicrous IMHO. Certainly not what MY agency does for me ... without any up front fees whatsoever. They report ALL debts unpaid no matter the $$$.
I think this was the key sentence in what Reliabid Jon said:
"This is much more about the deterrent factor than it is about the collections and that is why it is profitable."
.
His main point seemed to be that adding the Reliabid shield (the one that basically says "warning NPB's will be shot" ) to your listings would dramatically reduce the number of NPBs you get.
Answer
Okay. Got my answer.
Reliabid, In My most lowly and Humble Opinion: What a crock of crap!
ReliaBid looks to me like just another company with their hand out for another portion of meager eBay profits. A monthly fee as a % of each item sold? 3 collections per year then $9.95 for each extra one?
I've been using MAD Collection Agency for 4 years now. They are excellent. Their only fee is 50% of whatever they collect, when they collect it. No collection, no fee.
Rules are different for each state, I can only speak for FL. YMMV! All collection statements must be clear and in your auction so a bidder knows up front. You don't need a ReliaBid seal - write/make your own!
If a NPB owes $20 before collection, according to my terms of 100% collection fees, I place the amount to be collected as $40. The collection agency gets $20 and I get $20. Simple. Placement is online and also extremely simple. No up front fees ever. Unlimited collection placements. I have placed a collection for a $9.99 bid (plus shipping charges, of course). So don't let small amount bids make you think they won't bother. They will and they do.
Oh - and all debts once placed go on the debtors credit report if unpaid past a certain grace period allowed for payment. That debt stays on a credit record for 7 years.
I've been able to collect a nice portion of NPBs. As I said prior, I recently got a check from a 2003 placement.
Anyone who wants to check out MAD, feel free to PM me and I'll return the info.
Answer
Silly question. When you get paid through the collection agency are you supposed to ship the item? Since it's now paid for?
Answer
How can you not ship the item? Under the collection as described the person has now paid for it double (I don't get that part). Most debts that go to collection are for sevices already rendered or products already delivered. Sending an ebay buyer who has received nothing off to collections sounds strange to me. Maryanne
Answer
I figured you should ship whatever it was. I know I couldn't not ship.
Bidding on ebay is a binding contract. So in that way they are obligated to pay. And as long as you disclose what you do the bidder isn't going in to it blind.
If I sold a lot-I'd probably use something like that if I needed to.
Answer
Originally Posted by bargainbloodhound
A thread with Reliabid's co-founder Jon Rosen...scroll past Jon's comments and you'll see some of the problems with the service: namely a long drawn out process and debts under $50 aren't eligible for credit reporting. If you sell low priced items the service is basically useless (although Reliabid's Jon probably wouldn't agree with me )
Actually, I don't completely disagree with you. I will highlight that credit reporting is only one facet of the service, and majority of debts are settled without credit reporting. Therefore, the fact that debts under $50 aren't eligible for credit reporting (and this is a credit bureau rule not ours) is true, but I don't think a central issue. The idea of the service and how it works for our members (I'd be happy to connect you with some actual members with actual experience to speak from) is that the seal deters unpaid items by alerting potential NPB's that the seller is serious about the transaction and has joined a pay-service to that effect. This is similar in effect to a store owner purchasing a security system and putting a decal in the window to alert a thief that the store is serious about not being robbed. In the event that there is a NPB, you can choose to go to collections. If you do, then the agency is generally very successful collecting. If they are not, then the agency may report the debt to a credit bureau if the debt qualifies.
Nobody wants it to progress to the end of that scenario, and in fact, most of our members find that the seal is enough of an effective deterrent that they frequently don't bother collecting because they have such a reduction in unpaid items. If you go from 50 unpaid items down to 5, then you probably would just let the five go. When it is 50, you probably would want to send many to collections. I see most of our customers having reductions from 50 to 5 and just feeling that the value of such a reduction is of enough value to them, regardless of collections. That is what I think is valuable and why I keep raising this point about deterrence in the forums.
Anyway, back to the point on the service being valuable for lower priced items. I think they way to measure if the service is valuable or not is to look at what % of your monthly (or annual) sales are unpaid items, in dollars. If you do $100,000 of sales in a month, and have $5,000 in unpaid items, you have a unpaid item rate of 5%. I think the service makes a lot of sense here because you want to get that $5,000 down as close to zero as possible. If we only reduced it by 50%, then you'd have a net sales increase of 2.5%. With our fee of 0.25%, your profit is still 2.25%, this is positive cash flow and the numbers are very clear about that, as well as easy to measure. That is a BIG number. If you do $100,000 and you have $500 in unpaid items, I don't think the service makes sense because you are already pretty close to zero. So, it isn't the price of the item as much as it is the sum of all unpaid items in ratio to your total sales. Is that a fair answer?
The goal is to close the gap the unpaid items create for you. Every dollar of unpaid items is money you are giving up! It is money you earned, that your could and should be paid, that you are foregoing. If you have unpaid items in any quantity, then you should want payment for those items. If you get payment then that gives you an increase in net sales. We regularly hear from ReliaBid members that have a couple percentage points of unpaid items and after 1-2 months with ReliaBid, they see entire percentage points of unpaid items dissapear -- effectively giving them entire percentage points of more revenue!
Originally Posted by FLvamp
They report ALL debts unpaid no matter the $$$.
I'm sorry, but that is misleading; I'm not sure your agency was completely honest with you. Your agency may "report" any debt to credit bureaus. However, a credit bureau will only accept a debt of $50 or more. Nothing under this amount is eligible to appear on a person's credit report. That is their rule, not ours.
Further, you later mentioned that your agency charges you 50% of anything they collect? Holy cow!!! That's NUTS!
The industry average for contingent collections is to keep about 30%. Your guys are ripping you off for an additional 20%!
To tell you the truth, I don't think contingent collections make much sense, and that is why ReliaBid works off of a flat fee. I don't know what your profit margin on your goods is, but if it is anything under 50% then you LOSE money when you collect. If it is over 50% then that is great, but for a lot of folks it isn't that high...
ReliaBid uses a flat fee so that if one of our members decides to collect, he or she can just have to worry about one fee and not about losing money. For some of our members that sell Dell computers * $500 each, you agency would charge you $250 to complete the transaction?! Sounds like they are trying to put you out of business as much as your non-paying bidders!
ReliaBid, on the other hand would charge you only $10 to collect, and that's a big difference. Your 50% vs. our 2% (in this case).
Originally Posted by mommygonecrazy
I figured you should ship whatever it was. I know I couldn't not ship.
Bidding on ebay is a binding contract. So in that way they are obligated to pay. And as long as you disclose what you do the bidder isn't going in to it blind.
This highlights another important facet of ReliaBid, as well as how it differs from the agency that wants 50% of your sale that is mentioned in this thread. It is kind of ridiculous to think of holding an item to ship for 2 years. But, if you start a collection on an unpaid item, you would normally have to do that. Why? Because if someone from the past decides to pay up, you would have to deliver the item. And, if you can't deliver the item, even if it is a collection from 2003, they can sue you.
Since I think we'd all agree nobody is going to hold an item they wanted to sell for up to 7 years, ReliaBid created a process that allows sellers a way around this hurdle. That is our restocking fee feature. We ask a seller to hold an item for 30 days (and we are trying to cut even that time down!!). Attempts are made during that time to collect on the bid amount and to get the transaction completed- that's what we all want anyway, right? After 30 days, we accept that the transaction will not be complete.
At that point, a restocking fee is assessed to the non-paying bidder. This fee is $10 + 20% of the final value. This amount will then be attempted for collection and potentially reported to credit bureaus. This offers value in two ways: a) you can relist the item; b) because the value is a lot less than the final value, it is more affordable for the bidder to pay and not have on his credit report. This way you get paid for your troubles AND get to relist and profit from the sale of the item. The NPB also gets to pay a reduced fee and not take delivery of the item. This creates a compromise which ends in a win-win situation, it turns a problem into an opportunity for all parties.
I hope that answers some of the questions that were raised here. I'm happy to answer more.
And FLvamp, I really hope you look into switching services. At 50% you are paying way, way too much. You don't have to use ReliaBid, but you can do much better than what you are doing. Although I think our model is truly best, if you are set on contingent collections, private message me and I can refer you to a few services that will take your contingent collections for less.
-Jon