Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hi, I'm not really familiar with of the online realm of wargaming, so my question is whether or not bartertown is a reliable/trustworthy place to buy/sell/trade miniatures. I"m familiar with the feedback system, but I would just like second opinions to give myself a little sanctity.

Barter town itself is great. Like all places you may find a bad user or two but overall it's a great place to buy, sell, and trade miniatures.

I've done plenty of buying/selling/trading on Bartertown. I've only gotten screwed over once, and that guy never came back to the site. Otherwise, I've always had positive experiences with the other members of the site, and I check it daily just in case something interesting is posted.

Love the site. Use it more than any other for buying/selling/trading minatures.

It's a very reliable site and I've never had a serious problem with it. Proper posting, good net habits, and refraining from acting like a giant farty butt will, as with all things internet, increase the likelihood of your transactions being super successful.

Bartertown is great, and some of the moderators are even members over here. MagicalMemories and Porkuslime are both on here and have the same names on both sites. I'm not sure if other mods over there are here or not, but MM seems like a seriously upstanding guy in how hard he works to keep members safe and Porkus is a great guy as well-we've hung out a few times, and I can say you're in good hands on the site those two work so hard on.

My other question is, how long did you guys take to get approved? I'm starting to get paranoid as to whether or not xD

Bartertown is ABSOLUTELY reputable.

I"ve been there for many, many years, and built up a great "rep" there.

That said, you do need to be careful, there are bad apples out there, though the community usually weeds them out quickly. As a new trader, check everyone's references - even if they have a high rep, and be a little wary of anyone with neutrals or negatives.

Try to get a few trades under your belt with hyper reliable people (anyone with 200+ rep with no neutrals or negatives).


Fair warning: you do not want to use bartertown if you are a flake (not meant as an insult, as a friendly head's up). Bartertown community will literally skip trace down people and get the authorities involved as a community if a trader rips off another trader. It has and does happen.


It's a great place, but we watch each other's back.

That all said, holy crap i can't recommend it enough. It's seriously the best swap site out there. You can find utterly amazing deals there, and really have a great experience dealing with the 2nd hand mini market. Couldn't recommend it more.


-- Haight


Automatically Appended Next Post:

MrFreeloader wrote:
My other question is, how long did you guys take to get approved? I'm starting to get paranoid as to whether or not xD

What do you mean "approved"? (fair being fair, i registered several years ago, there was basically no barrier to entry.... that was before the days of epically bad traders though like Jason Ticknor and The Dropzone and good ol' Redstarone / Mandelbaum).

I started trading the day i registered, but it's possible they have changed their sign up protocols.

Done lots of trading there. Btown rocks!

Bartertown is the single best resource we have for second hand buying after ebay(which only wins on convenience and speed of sale).

I always prefer to buy from the Dakka Swap Shop or Bartertown before resorting to ebay for any purchases related to the hobby.

MrFreeloader wrote:
My other question is, how long did you guys take to get approved? I'm starting to get paranoid as to whether or not xD

Well, just checked and there were a couple accounts in the "to be approved" queue... so cleaned that up.. you SHOULD be good to go there, and if not, PM me here on Dakka.

Our staff are volunteers and sometimes approvals on accounts can take 24-48 hours.. we TRY to make sure to check diligently, but times get hectic etc..

Haight - about a year or so back, we got hit HARD with spambots, like.. 200+ new accounts daily with 10 posts or more per account.. we were fighting an uphill mud slide until our programming guru web-savant got us a Must Be A Real Person filter to stop freebie accounts..

And guys.. yer making me and Eric blush.. lol

Makes perfect sense. Honestly, this is the first time i've ever even heard of the approval process, so you guys must be doing a pretty good job keeping it current.


Btown's a great place. Good community, good system, in my opinion it's the pinnacle of the 2nd hand minis gaming market.

We have it rigged to be invisible to current users, and only visible to the un-approved. Once they are approved, they can no longer see it.

Kinda sweet.

And.. yeah.. I ALSO recommend Bartertown.. but admit to inherent bias..

SOME people over there seem to only trade to just increase their ratings.. sheesh!

-P

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Bartertown is great, and some of the moderators are even members over here. MagicalMemories and Porkuslime are both on here and have the same names on both sites. I'm not sure if other mods over there are here or not, but MM seems like a seriously upstanding guy in how hard he works to keep members safe and Porkus is a great guy as well-we've hung out a few times, and I can say you're in good hands on the site those two work so hard on.

Yeah, I love Bartertown and can't emphasize the above enough. They work hard to make sure things run smoothly and don't get enough credit. Class act all around.

Well, I'm sold. I'm slowly liquidating about 1/3 of my Malifaux collection, and will probably have a big pile of Robotech Tactics figures to sell off once those boxes come in (sometime around 2025 or whenever Palladium's curse actually lifts), so I might as well join in and learn the lay of the land.

Oh thank jeebus, rule 4 is fantastic.

No offense to Dakka, but the off-topic section's lax naming requirements drives me up the wall at times. Thread 'OMG LOL!' ... ABOUT WHAT, JERKFACE??

Context is key, damnit!

... ITT: Forar's anal retentive side shows up. How embarassing.

This is kind of a rant...but its about members not bartertown itself
I just heard of bartertown quite recently from a guy here on dakkdakka swap shop. He keeps bumping and updating his thread here so when i pm him he says "whew ive been so busy with pms from here and bartertown, sorry i havnt gotten back to you!" To which i reply ok so what about that deal? Then thats it for a week or two till the next bump or update by him. This last time i actually thought wed get somewhere, i got his zip code! But now screw it, trying to trade some like 20 assault marines for 4 weeks for grimaldus and 7 gks isnt worth the aggravation.

Another quickly developed pet peeve? People not responding to messages. I have the same user name here as i do there. Check it out ive sent offers to a bunch of people, the majority have simply not answered me back. Cant you just hit reply, type no. You dont even have to type no thanks! Just no damnit! Lol. The first guy i ever talked to was really good, said no thanks. First guy i bought from was really good price is right. First guy i turned down was really good, think i may have irked him a little, I thought he was asking for my philosophy not my haggle. The rest of those people ive messaged? As Arnold says, to hell with you!

Otherwise bartertown is awesome! Its brillant!

I used to use bartertown all the time, but I got screwed on my last trade there (nothing major) about a year ago and haven't used it since (mostly because I wasn't able to do anything other than post negative feedback, I was unable to post a thread in the appropriate forum to lodge a complaint against the user, and the site admin/mods wouldn't respond to my pm's attempting to clarify what course of action I was supposed to take).

chaos0xomega wrote:
the site admin/mods wouldn't respond to my pm's attempting to clarify what course of action I was supposed to take).

I'm not saying that this didn't happen but it seems REALLY unusual. The mods on BT have been nothing but responsive in every case that I have seen. It seems unusual that they would just snub you.

Well, they sure let me down then, didnt they?

chaos0xomega wrote:
Well, they sure let me down then, didnt they?

I dunno, I'll let Porkus or MM chime in on that. It seems like there would have to be something else going on beyond what you're saying for them to just neglect an issue like that.

I find BT an easier site to trade on because of the feedback system they use. I have only one bad trade on BT (other member never sent their item) so I cannot complain. I like dakkadakka because of its size and I have only traded a few times.

Love it. Been a member (under the same name) since it was .org

I've found so many good deals and made some great trades on there. Admittedly.. lately.. I've had much better luck finding purchases than trades. I'm not sure if this reflects more people getting out of the hobby or what.. but admittedly my attention has always been predominately focused on GW goods. I see a lot of migration to Warmachine and Hordes there. I've actually gotten more trade offers on Dakka than BT as of late.

The rating system in Bartertown is very good and generally represents a trader accurately. General etiquette is, if you're the one with the lower rating, you'll be paying/shipping first. Be cautious of those with very low ratings or nothing at all. Guessing this is where you'll start and you'll have to build your rep up.

Really? Because I'm still selling plenty of 40k and getting plenty of trades. /shrug

Different experiences for different folks, I guess.

 pretre wrote:
Really? Because I'm still selling plenty of 40k and getting plenty of trades. /shrug

Different experiences for different folks, I guess.

Hmm.. you're probably correct. I forgot to mention I've been out of 40k models for a long time. Been mainly focused on Fantasy.

Oh yeah, I don't touch fantasy with a ten foot pole.

 pretre wrote:
Oh yeah, I don't touch fantasy with a ten foot pole.

Its funny.. i used to think the same. I got into 40k back in 2nd edition and I remember turning pages in White Dwarf thinking how stupid Fantasy looked. I hated their ranks, I hated their trays, I hated low tech.. etc.

Now its kind of the opposite. While I still like 40k.. more and more things are looking ridiculous to me.. especially things like giant marines riding on wolves. For some reason its just too comical for me and I played Space Wolves way back.

Oops, sorry for the threaddrift.. carry on.

No, I mean from a resale standpoint. I don't touch fantasy with a ten foot pole for a couple reasons:
1) I don't know enough about it to make good pricing decisions.
2) Fantasy seems to be glutting the market right now and isn't a good resale investment.

 pretre wrote:
No, I mean from a resale standpoint. I don't touch fantasy with a ten foot pole for a couple reasons:
1) I don't know enough about it to make good pricing decisions.
2) Fantasy seems to be glutting the market right now and isn't a good resale investment.

Ahh gotcha. Agreed. On ebay.. GW is really killing it with their dual kits. Essentially paying double the amount only because it comes with enough bits to make 2 options. It most definitely kills resale value but at the same time potential money can be made by selling bits. I think more than ever, Fantasy players are seeing extra bits in hand. See it all over on both BT and ebay.

porkuslime wrote:
And guys.. yer making me and Eric blush.. lol

Just back online today after surgery a week ago. Couldn't agree more with Pork.
Sometimes, we have to get a bit "hard nosed" about the rules. We don't LIKE it, but it makes the site run easier. It's always nice to see that validation. You know?

The truth is, one of our main goals is to make the site as friendly as possible. That comes from the top down. On expreme circumstances, you WILL see us (staff) get snarky with people, but not undeservedly.

Additionally, we have a certain degree of politeness and respect we expect all memebers to extend to each other. It helps keep the place away form being a flam-fest that much of the rest of the internet devolves into and, really, is one of the greatest contributors to why our forum is more of a group of like-minded people than some generic forum. There's a huge degree of identity there.

Although Jim (Porkuslime) already touched on the approval process, I'd like to emphasize one thing; ALL approvals are done manually. There is no automated process. Unfortunately, this means that you do have to wait until a staffer sees your post. We try to make it a top priority, so it shouldn't typically go beyond a day. The upside to this is that is SEVERELY reduces the likelyhood that your kid's going to be looking over your shoulder and see a huge pair of knockers on the screen (unless, of course, you're a Bartertown Plus member... but that's voluntary on your part and a story for a different thread).

chaos0xomega wrote:I used to use bartertown all the time, but I got screwed on my last trade there (nothing major) about a year ago and haven't used it since (mostly because I wasn't able to do anything other than post negative feedback, I was unable to post a thread in the appropriate forum to lodge a complaint against the user, and the site admin/mods wouldn't respond to my pm's attempting to clarify what course of action I was supposed to take).

Sorry to hear you had problems. Aside from that, I cannot offer much specificity.
Sometimes, our "real life" gets in the way and we lose track of conversations. A PM equivalent of clearing your throat will typically get us back on track. If you were outright ignored... you probably PMed someone without looking into WHO you were PMing very closely. Jim and I, for example, are the ONLY Admin who are regularly on the site in an Admin capacty (Plarz is on often, but he's out Tech Guy and passes inquiries to me and Jim). If you want help, you're better off postig your question in the "Need Help?" forum and waiting for a reply. Someone WILL reply.
Another problem is not having your proof. We get that a lot. People delete their PM history, then want to complain about the trade. You've got to be able to PROVE your claims, and the burden is on you to show the facts. Due to the sheer number of dishonest people out there, we can't presume to take anyone at their word when potentially disparaging the reputation of another trader. You know?

Although, at a year out, it's too late to really do anything about the trade, feel free to PM me there or here to discuss it further, if you want.

Eric

 porkuslime wrote:
We have it rigged to be invisible to current users, and only visible to the un-approved. Once they are approved, they can no longer see it.

Kinda sweet.

And.. yeah.. I ALSO recommend Bartertown.. but admit to inherent bias..

SOME people over there seem to only trade to just increase their ratings.. sheesh!

-P

My favorite quote on Btown is "Okay let's see who, in the next week, can increase their rating the mo- Porkuslime wins."

Seriously man, mid 2k rep ? jesus h. I'm around 270, and i thought that was impressive !