Xaxaxe wrote:As a final note, I'll add that it doesn't matter whether it was Tonya or Melissa (and wasn't Meslissa's name Allan at one point?) who was lying about the cancer — the entire episode is completely offensive on a number of levels and should not be anywhere near a public "About Me" page.
Badmike wrote:I really feel if your daughter had just come clean on this either here or in her About Me page on Ebay, a lot of misdirected vitriol would have dried up before ever being spewed. This is the reason I don't have employees in my business unless they are family. I think everyone can relate better to someone that has been screwed around by a dishonest employee than one who gets into email wars with customers and tosses out "Cyber Stalker" and "Moron" on replies to negative feedback.
mbassoc2003 wrote:Mr King,I don't believe I have had the pleasure of buying from your company. Certainly in recent years my judgement has been swayed by the continual bad press that you and your daughter attract. However, I can see from what you have written that they are two separate business entities.Could you tell me whether your daughter's business practaces are modelled upon your own, or whether you operate different policies when dealing with your eBay customers?At the moment it would appear that Tonya creates the bulk of the problem, and that it is reflected back onto Titan Games by association. Does that concern you?Ian
mbassoc2003 wrote:Tonya's entire business ethic is downright offensive. Lest we forget the $20 she wanted to ship a single sheet of paper to the UK, or the $34 she asked for to ship two modules.One can only guess at how they arrive at those figures. I understand that the 'staff' are given the cost of shipping and are then insentivised by being told that anything over and above the actual cost of shipping they get as a 'bonus'.On overprice of $24 on shipping is down to an over enthusiastic staff member.
I was astonished at the anger, cruelty and meanness directed at my daughter here by people who never met her, or only saw her at a con for a few moments. I really thought gamers were better than that.
Titan Games Owner wrote:Part of this is the way eBay works. The seller gets to quote one rate for international airmail (and one for surface, if they want). You cannot quote by the destination (which is STUPID) so if you quote $9 cause you can ship it to Canada for $7, then you are screwed when a customer in China buys it.
Blackmoor wrote:I am curious about all this, she has a packer and a lister who make there money with handling fees? This is very weird, what does Tonya actually do then? Just collect the cash? Man I wish I had somebody to do all the work for me. Funny when I list stuff I take responsiblity for everything with those listings! I list them, pack them, leave feedback, e-mail, everthing!!I really do have a full time job!I really do have a family with three kids!I have had 2 complaints on over 8 years (both by whacos mind you)I also take all the responsiblity for them as well!!Tonya and Titan are lucky to have any business! I know they will never have mine.J
Blackmoor wrote:I really do have a full time job!I really do have a family with three kids!I have had 2 complaints on over 8 years (both by whacos mind you)I also take all the responsiblity for them as well!!Tonya and Titan are lucky to have any business! I know they will never have mine.J
burntwire brothers wrote:I think alot of sellers have read some book by Greedy McAssbag that told them they can make more money buy selling items cheap but making a big profit on "Handling Charges" since ebay doesn't get a cut on shipping. In our experience having cheap shipping gets more return bidders and the items make up for any "handling charge" we could have stuck the buyer with. Also this practice gets WAY more return business and loyal customers. Check our feedback if you have any doubts. http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.d ... =burntwire
Deadlord39 wrote:$9.50 to ship overseas flat-rate.Marcus, there's something a bit fishy here. Are you saying Tonya has so many RPG books that she needs a dedicated person to PICK them? I think that might be a bit farfetched. The personal attacks really didn't crop up until the Melissa thing happened. Are you saying Tonya made the statements KNOWING Melissa was lying? Or did she make them thinking she wasn't? Either way, it's pretty bad.personally, I don't particularly care if you guys rape people on shipping. If I bid on something from you, I figure the exact cost of shipping, subtract it from actual charged shipping, and that is the "rape fee". I deduct the rape fee from my max bid, and that sums it up. If I get outbid, either someone else really wanted it, or they don't mind taking it up the can. Not my concern. Whatever item it was, I'll see it again, and probably MUCH cheaper.
Titan Games Owner wrote:>> I really feel if your daughter had just come clean on this either here or in her About Me page on Ebay, a lot of misdirected vitriol would have dried up before ever being spewed. This is the reason I don't have employees in my business unless they are family. I think everyone can relate better to someone that has been screwed around by a dishonest employee than one who gets into email wars with customers and tosses out "Cyber Stalker" and "Moron" on replies to negative feedback. <<Two issues here, BadMike:First, Melissa was lying her arse off about her condition, but she left abruptly, and Tonya was holding the bag on at least 2 dozen orders where the printed invoices were simply thrown away, lost, eaten or something. Tonya wanted to know what to say on her about me page, and I don't think saying what she and I knew about Melissa was appropriate. Ultimately, she posted something very neutral about her ALLEGED condition without calling into question M's integrity.Second: Tonya has been stalked, and has a hair trigger about it. The one guy went so far as to hack her AOL account, and sign her up for hundreds of newlsetters are hundreds of sites, all of which filled her inbox with unwanted updates. AOL allows you to have 1000 emails in your box, and Tonya's was filling up so fast that paypal payments and customer questions were BOUNCING, and this, of course, caused more problems.It went so far I had to call the man, in Florida, on the phone and appeal to him to please QUIT harassing my daughter.Ultimately, there are things you can say in your ABOUT ME page, and there are things you SHOULD NOT say in your about me page, and I think Tonya should NOT mention that Melissa lied about her condition. She followed my advice, and this mess on the forums is what resulted.I just think on the About Me page maybe too much information is worse than not enough. Something along the lines of "I was decieved by a former employee and I am rectifying the situation now and making good" would have sufficed without bringing the cancer angle, real or faked, into the story. Cancer is just such a hot button issue with so many people. But it's a semantic point I realize, most excuses just sound like excuses, don't know if I can fault you either way knowing what we know now. I realize your daughter has issues with cyber stalking, but not every disgruntled buyer has the time or effort to do more than vent a little, in 99.9 percent of the cases that is probably all it is. It doesn't do any good to label all of them Cyberstalkers and put it in writing in their feedback, it makes it look like overreacting. As for S&H fee's: My company tries to not overcharge on S&H, but we do charge for both shipping AND HANDLING. Usually $3 per order for handling is what we try to hit.Tonya (and Titan-Games ebay) has to charge more, cause most of her overhead is covered by the handling fee. She is a college student, and doesn't get much time to do anything except attend class, study and work - she has to have an assistant doing her listings, and one doing her packing. The lister does get paid for every item that sells. And, the packer gets about $1 per aucton packed - so, 4 small moduels add up to about $8 handling fee's, which in the long run means the packer and lister make about $8 an hour (obviously, the lister has other duties, such as photographing, writing descriptions and stuff, so he gets up about 12 listings an hour, of which about 2/3rds sell. The packer has to pull items, and prepare them for packing, so they do about 7 to 9 auctions an hour.Would you work for less? Nobody is getting rich on this. Tonya is paying for her schooling, and I am expanding my company a bit, and paying my bills on time. However, I cannot even afford health care. I sure ain't lowering my prices. As I said in another post, besides maybe gas prices, shipping and handing fees will drive people nuts even if in the scheme of things it's only a few bucks. The same people that think nothing of paying a premium for a shrinkwrapped module will scream holy murder if gas has gone up 5 cents a gallon overnight. The same thing happens when they pay $10 for shipping and the package arrives with a $3 postal stamp. I sell online and I know logically there is a reason for this...I have had long debates with my wife on shipping. I had to raise my shipping this year mostly in reaction to higher postal prices. My wife does my taxes and tells me I am losing my ass on shippingand handling because I don't charge enough. There is such a fine line between what the buyer will accept and what you can charge to be profitable if you are running a business. I know you have crunched the numbers and come up with something that would be acceptable to you, and frankly since you have a ton of customers most of your buyers don't disagree. However, no matter how logically you arrive by these numbers it all comes down to someone seeing a $3 stamp on a package they know they paid $10 for, and that is going to make someone upset even thought they AGREED to pay that amount. Illogical it may be, but it's a viscereal emotional response that is just going to take place no matter what. I guess like they say if you like sausage, don't go see it being made, the same with shipping fees. Anyway, I appreciate your interest in my and my daughters operations. But, please - remember, she is my child. And, frankly, anyone who walked up to me and called her ugly, or a gully dwarf, would be picking up their teeth with broken fingers (or, perhaps I would be picking up mine).Is there a man here, who would not be offended, even enraged, by people belittling their children?
Titan Games Owner wrote:>> I really feel if your daughter had just come clean on this either here or in her About Me page on Ebay, a lot of misdirected vitriol would have dried up before ever being spewed. This is the reason I don't have employees in my business unless they are family. I think everyone can relate better to someone that has been screwed around by a dishonest employee than one who gets into email wars with customers and tosses out "Cyber Stalker" and "Moron" on replies to negative feedback. <<Two issues here, BadMike:First, Melissa was lying her arse off about her condition, but she left abruptly, and Tonya was holding the bag on at least 2 dozen orders where the printed invoices were simply thrown away, lost, eaten or something. Tonya wanted to know what to say on her about me page, and I don't think saying what she and I knew about Melissa was appropriate. Ultimately, she posted something very neutral about her ALLEGED condition without calling into question M's integrity.Second: Tonya has been stalked, and has a hair trigger about it. The one guy went so far as to hack her AOL account, and sign her up for hundreds of newlsetters are hundreds of sites, all of which filled her inbox with unwanted updates. AOL allows you to have 1000 emails in your box, and Tonya's was filling up so fast that paypal payments and customer questions were BOUNCING, and this, of course, caused more problems.It went so far I had to call the man, in Florida, on the phone and appeal to him to please QUIT harassing my daughter.Ultimately, there are things you can say in your ABOUT ME page, and there are things you SHOULD NOT say in your about me page, and I think Tonya should NOT mention that Melissa lied about her condition. She followed my advice, and this mess on the forums is what resulted.
As for S&H fee's: My company tries to not overcharge on S&H, but we do charge for both shipping AND HANDLING. Usually $3 per order for handling is what we try to hit.Tonya (and Titan-Games ebay) has to charge more, cause most of her overhead is covered by the handling fee. She is a college student, and doesn't get much time to do anything except attend class, study and work - she has to have an assistant doing her listings, and one doing her packing. The lister does get paid for every item that sells. And, the packer gets about $1 per aucton packed - so, 4 small moduels add up to about $8 handling fee's, which in the long run means the packer and lister make about $8 an hour (obviously, the lister has other duties, such as photographing, writing descriptions and stuff, so he gets up about 12 listings an hour, of which about 2/3rds sell. The packer has to pull items, and prepare them for packing, so they do about 7 to 9 auctions an hour.Would you work for less? Nobody is getting rich on this. Tonya is paying for her schooling, and I am expanding my company a bit, and paying my bills on time. However, I cannot even afford health care. I sure ain't lowering my prices.
Anyway, I appreciate your interest in my and my daughters operations. But, please - remember, she is my child. And, frankly, anyone who walked up to me and called her ugly, or a gully dwarf, would be picking up their teeth with broken fingers (or, perhaps I would be picking up mine).Is there a man here, who would not be offended, even enraged, by people belittling their children?
burntwire brothers wrote:I think alot of sellers have read some book by Greedy McAssbag that told them they can make more money buy selling items cheap but making a big profit on "Handling Charges" since ebay doesn't get a cut on shipping.
Xaxaxe wrote:burntwire brothers wrote:I think alot of sellers have read some book by Greedy McAssbag that told them they can make more money buy selling items cheap but making a big profit on "Handling Charges" since ebay doesn't get a cut on shipping.This is an excellent point. On your next trip to Barnes & Noble, take a look at how many "Make A Million on eBay" books are on the shelves. All of the "unauthorized" titles — and that's every one of them except for one — generally suggest that buyers are to be treated as mindless cattle, and should be happy to help the seller make his million by gleefully ponying up for extra shipping charges and, of course, the "H" word — "handling fees."Whatever the hell those are.
