Tonya King wrote:Well  I sure see why my dad didn't mention this to me.  But, a  fellow with the email address of [email protected] sent me a verrrrrry vulgar email attack - through eBay, even though I don't think I have ever sold him anything or met him and pointed me to this site.  I can say I won't be back (here), and that your comments did, indeed, hurt my feelings.  How can people call me a gully dwarf who never met me?  How come so many people how never met me hate me so much?  I used to be proud to call my self a gamer, thinking that we at least shared a love of something common, and a tollerance of one another.    What an EYE opener!!!!!!

  As one of the writers who kept this thread going, and focused it on Tonya's Games (although I don't believe I resorted to any personal attacks at any time), I can give you a few bits of unsolicited advice that you may never see...I know you say you are "never" coming back here, and I don't really have the wherewithal to actually email you personally, but I have a feeling you will be able to read this at some point.
    As I said this advice is unsolicited, frankly you seem to sell twice as much stuff as I do so you are welcome to ignore it, but you also seem tohave piled up about ten times the negs I have.  Here are just a very few pointers from someone who has been selling online since about 1994 or thereabouts, feel free to think about these points:

1.  I would totally erase the "About Me" page, and start over again.  Ditch the cutesy references about being a starving college student, or whatever.  State in 2-3 paragraphs what it is you do, answer some repeated questions that buyers always seem to ask, tell a little bit about yourself but not too much, at this point the page has become a gigantic mess of misplaced junk and is very open to ridicule.  Drop the references to why your shipping is so high...leave it at "handling fees" or whatever and move on, talking about paying a shipper and packer just makes you seem like a prima donna that has underlings doing her work.  Drop the references to finding games at Salvation Army or Goodwill stores or whatever (I'm going by memory here) because it sounds fishy and untruthful. For heavens sake don't mention any former employees or blocked buyers my name, that makes you sound vindictive, petty and unprofessional.

2.  When you leave negs, I know it's necessary sometimes but you should try to make those times very few, there is no need to get involved in childish banter and repartee with the buyers.  Name calling is very, very unprofessional and simply makes you a target for ridicule....A simple, factual statement such as "Didn't pay for item" makes much better business sense.  Remember statements like those you have left stay up FOREVER and are always available to be giggled over years from now.

3.  Remember the old saying "The customer is always right", well, I would pay attention to this.  Yeh, I know the customer really isn't always right, but let's face it you seem to have a problem in this regard.  Such a small, small effort in follow up emails to admit fault, then refund shipping, will serve you far better than your unsuccessful confrontational assaults. Coupled with the threats,  this is not a real winning combo.

4.  Consider lowering your output until you get caught up with your shipping.  A lot of newbies especially sometimes list more than they can comfortably ship in one week's time, not understanding that when all that listed 1000 items sells someone has to package and ship. In the short run you may make less money until you catch up, but in the long run you'll serve your customers better.

5.  Either decide you are going to run a business, or not.  If not, state that it's a hobby/sideline and you will be given a lot more leeway when you screw something up.  If you are going to run a business, don't expect a lot of kind words and sympathetic remarks from customers you mess over.  I would suggest, seeing as you are a college student with other responsibilities, you turn this business into a hobby and drop all the references to this endeavor as a job in your descriptions.  There are plenty of us here on the Acaeum that approach this RPG stuff as a business, it actually pays the rent in some cases, so understand that you are being criticized by competitors who see someone like yourself poisoning the entire customer base.  When you give someone online who buys from you a bad experience, this translates to a distrust and dislike to Ebay as a whole, and by association other sellers.  

6.  Finally, your shipping is high enough that the ocassional buyer who doesn't read through your descriptions will complain and may leave you a neg.  If you wish to keep the shipping at the present level, you will simply have to swallow these while smiling, it's the cost of doing business.  I would suggest shipping to priority mail (all supplies are free) and keeping your shipping the same, that would seem to be a good compromise, but that is your call. To act shocked and upset that everyone doesn't understand the reason you charge so much for shipping is self defeating.  Either accept it and move forward, or lower your shipping costs and reap the benefits of satisfied customers.

Hopefully you will at least read these suggestions and possibly act upon them, I believe they would serve you well.

Mike B.

I notice Tonya King only posted the 'ooh, why does nobody like me?' reponse. She seems to be more than happy to ignore the way she treats her buyers?

guerret wrote:If I may follow up with a personal, unprofessional, but rather reliable client-side advice for miss Tonya, I will state that I have purchased once from her for a few bucks and was so disappointed that I will not do so again, while Mike has seen repeated purchases from me, for an exact total of... a good lot, and I am pretty certain this is going to keep on for a while. And this is not only thanks to the excellent items he lists, but also to the promptness with which he replies, the discounts he happens to make on shipments for large amounts of items, the humility with which he admits mistakes and corrects them, and a bunch of other things which a buyer is not entitled to expect but come as a superb plus in his eye. For this reason, I would invite miss Tonya to at least take the time to carefully read the advice offered by Mr. Badolato and think a while about them before thrashing them as some pompous rants from one of her wannabe killers.

I honestly think she would benefit from my suggestions, or I wouldn't have spent the time thinking about what was wrong with her business to get everyone so bent out of shape, and then condensing it down to several points.  And thanks for the compliments!  I especially like the admitting mistakes parts, man I am really piling them on this year, I need to take my own advice I guess and slow down.   Stay tuned to my About Me page where I confess to a Scotch rocks addiction as the reason I'm shipping slow...

Mike B.

It is definitely a good idea to not post angry, although I have a tendancy to do this myself.  


Couple other good pointers. Don't post while intoxicated, when you wake up the next morning you will look at your posts and wonder if maxwell broke into your house and started posting away while you were out.  Oh, and another thing not to do. Do not go on EBay intoxicated either.  It seems that you will end up bidding on not only some crazy ass things, but also in ridiculous amounts.  And yes, I do know this from experience.

Oh, before I forget, I also apparently called my best friend around midnight to tell him all about the charity auction.

He's a construction worker; he goes to bed at about 8:30.

My new motto: Never drink and dial.

Yes, good old "roflmao wtf lol nOOb l33t wut u got". I imagine he just spontaneously combusted one day. He struck me as the jumpy, energetic type.

[quote="Deadlord39"]I believe Tonya's statements in her About Me page were made when she actually thought Melissa was sick. If so, she certainly deserves every bit of flaming that went on here. quote]

As I stated earlier, I helped guide Tonya on what to say.  About 2 weeks prior to Melissa leaving we had discovered her treachery, and had decided to let her go (both Tonya, my wife, and I).

Tonya wanted to address the issue since Melissa had taken so much time off, and caused so many problems, but didn't just want to say "That gal lied to me!" so she posted something I felt was neutral.

Perhaps too neutral, to those who thought Melissa was ill.

My apologies for causing the problem, but it is what I suggested Tonya do, and I did look at her about me page the moment it went up, and found it to be fairly innocent, though I can now see that was a mistake.

Marcus King
Titan Games Owner
269-963-3773
[email protected]

Xaxaxe wrote:

Something tells me that JonB is about ready for a re-boot ... I believe this would be JonB version 4.0, right?

Does that mean JonB is actually worse than version 3.5?  
(Just to re-ignite the old 'original/AD&D v 3rd edition' debate )

AdderMcOne wrote:Xaxaxe wrote:

Something tells me that JonB is about ready for a re-boot ... I believe this would be JonB version 4.0, right?

Does that mean JonB is actually worse than version 3.5?  
(Just to re-ignite the old 'original/AD&D v 3rd edition' debate )

We will all count on BC to sniff out Eastern Treasure Chest/Game Emporium/Jon B when he finally returns.  BC is Jon's separated at birth twin, Jon B represents BC's dark side that was split from him through certain mystical ceremonies, which accounts for the connection between the two. I think we are due for a resurgence, as seen by the pattern below:

Eastern Treasure Chest: Oct 2000-March 03
Games Emporium: Jan 04-August 04
Jonb: March 05-July 05

When you see the Mayfair Beastmakers and such you'll know it's him.

mIke B.