ComicLink — What the....???

[tth2]

my often professed ire for the Credit Card handling whatever you want to call it, its still a surcharge. ...

 

If I'm going to have to shell out top dollars I would prefer to give my business to Doug at Pedigree

Uh, Doug charges a surcharge for credit cards too.

[greggy]

my often professed ire for the Credit Card handling whatever you want to call it, its still a surcharge. ...

 

If I'm going to have to shell out top dollars I would prefer to give my business to Doug at Pedigree

Uh, Doug charges a surcharge for credit cards too.

[jbud73]

my often professed ire for the Credit Card handling whatever you want to call it, its still a surcharge. ...

 

If I'm going to have to shell out top dollars I would prefer to give my business to Doug at Pedigree

Uh, Doug charges a surcharge for credit cards too.

 

ya but you are still buying the book off of Doug

 

Tim are you turning into my very own Troll

[tth2]

ya but you are still buying the book off of Doug

I've never had a problem with Josh, and have always received top notch service and prompt responses from him. And from Doug.

 

Tim are you turning into my very own Troll

Turnabout is fair play!

[jbud73]

Tim are you turning into my very own Troll

Turnabout is fair play!

 

delusions of grandeur

[EJR]

A while ago there were raw books on CL that I was interested in so I e-mailed Josh about them but didn't get any response after a few days. So I decided to call him and ask him about the page quality of these books. He told me he would get back to me and I gave him my phone number and e-mail address and he never got back to me! A few days after I called him the books dissapeared from the CL listings. I wish Josh would have had the courtesy to at least call me back about these books!

[sfilosa]

After the Donut situation and my often professed ire for the Credit Card handling whatever you want to call it, its still a surcharge. I

 

 

While I would admit I don't want to pay the additional 3% for credit cards, you need to look at it from a business stand point. Remember that Josh and Doug are only middlemen taking a commission from the seller. At this time it's 10% for ComicLink and 8% for Pedigree Comics.

 

Now if they didn't pass the credit card charge on to the buyer, then they probably would just bump up the commission to 13% and 11%. Therefore, they would still get the same amount, and if a buyer paid in cash, they make more.

 

Assume a book sells for $100 on Doug's site. That's a wopping $8 commission he makes, to list the book (and he writes a description), receive the book from the seller and ship the book to the buyer. $8 isn't very much (nor is $10 on CL site). Now you expect them to lose an additional $3 (the credit card charge), so Doug can make $5 (and Josh $7).

 

At those rates, it just wouldn't be worth it on books less than several hundred dollars.

[BassGMan]

I just use my PayPal credit card and get back half of that 3%. When I bought the Burntboy comics on Pedigree I used my PayPal credit card where you get back 1.5% instantly (payment comes out of actual PayPal balance, not credit). So the transaction cost me 1.5% (not 3%). Paying straight with PayPal would have cost 2.5%.

[joe_collector]

Now if they didn't pass the credit card charge on to the buyer, then they probably would just bump up the commission to 13% and 11%.

 

Then do it. At least then the charges are upfront and no one is circumventing credit card regulations or breaking any State laws by making the buyer eat the CC fees.

[Foolkiller]

My problem with Josh charging the 3% in New York is that it was illegal for him to do so. Period, end of story. I don't care what margin he is working on. Every other business has to deal with the same situation.

 

Now -- his language has changed, making it at least legal on its face, if circumventing the spirit, but that's really not my concern.

[joe_collector]

Now -- his language has changed, making it at least legal on its face...

 

But it's really not. Research this "prices are 3% cash discounted" BS and you'll see that it has to be present on far more than just some info page. This kind of "cash discounted" format needs to be visible when evaluating and making the purchase, not hidden deep within a webpage.

 

It is NOT present on comic listings, it is NOT present when entering a bid, and buyers would have no reason to accept the charges CL levies. In fact, if I ever bid, I'd be calling VISA to dispute it soon after.

 

Of course, Josh does NOT show this clause simply because it would lower sales and not allow him to back-door the CC charges later.

[Foolkiller]

JC:

 

I understand what you're saying. Before though, he used to outright state that the 3% was a surcharge for using CC fees.

 

Now -- I know it certainly isn't worded perfectly, and perhaps if the Ewert thing weren't taking up my energy on comic litigation, this would be something to look at more carefully.

 

Frankly though, he's modified it enough to at least make an attempt to make it look a bit better.

 

He's going to do it anyway, I just felt it was stupid for him to blatantly state his illegal activity right on the website.

[sfilosa]

My problem with Josh charging the 3% in New York is that it was illegal for him to do so. Period, end of story. I don't care what margin he is working on. Every other business has to deal with the same situation.

 

Now -- his language has changed, making it at least legal on its face, if circumventing the spirit, but that's really not my concern.

 

And it's good that he has "circumvented the spirit" because the real reason the rule / law is in place is to protect the credit card companies. It was never there to protect the consumer. And if companies were actually allowed to pass on the 3% fee to consumers, then they could in theory, reduce the price of all products by 3%. Wow, that would help out the consumer, but we don't want to do that, do we?

 

Look, if you don't like paying the fees, then pay with a check or even from PayPal right out of a bank account (no charge for that).

[joe_collector]

And if companies were actually allowed to pass on the 3% fee to consumers, then they could in theory, reduce the price of all products by 3%.

 

Then why doesn't Josh do this for his cash sales, rather than this using the lame-hass loophole of "prices are ALREADY 3% price discounted"?

 

And I don't think you *really* understand why some businesses actually do discount cash purchases... to be able to "hide" the money from prying eyes and perform "under the table" transactions.

 

But of course, that's with an actual cash discount, not the surcharge of somewhere like CL.

[Foolkiller]

sfilosa:

 

As I said, whether or not philosphically you liked it or didn't like it, as it was previously, it was in violation of New York law.

 

Didn't all of us have this discussion already? I'm just pointing it out -- frankly, I don't even care anymore -- there's more important things going on right now.

[shadroch]

This is the 21st century.Businesses no longer need to offer cash discounts in order to hide money. Any CPA worth his salt can legally use the brazillion page tax code to offset income.

But thats not the point. The CC surcharge is illegal in NY,anyway you cut it.Even the way Josh has it set up right now is possibly illegal.

In my opinion,if a business's margin is too thin to eat the 3% CC fee,then don't accept CCs if you do business in a state that doesn't allow you to pass them along.

Its been five years since I had a club that took CCs,but back then it was written into my cardholder agreements that you couldn't add on fees to recover your cost. Has this changed?

[skybolt]

How long does it usually take for Comiclink to respond to a purchase you make?

 

For instance, I hit the bin on this one book about 9 or 10 days ago, and automatically received a notice from Comiclink telling me that they'll contact the seller and get back to me in 5 days tops. After 8 days I e-mailed them since I didn't get a response. I realize that the seller may be out of town, but they should've at least sent me an e-mail with some info after the 5 days had passed.

 

I just heard back from Josh. I guess the seller was on vacation last week, and my buy order cancelled out after a couple of days. Josh reactivated my purchase order, and sent the seller another e-mail. Hopefully, things should be smooth sailing from here on out.

[drbanner]

How long does it usually take for Comiclink to respond to a purchase you make?

 

For instance, I hit the bin on this one book about 9 or 10 days ago, and automatically received a notice from Comiclink telling me that they'll contact the seller and get back to me in 5 days tops. After 8 days I e-mailed them since I didn't get a response. I realize that the seller may be out of town, but they should've at least sent me an e-mail with some info after the 5 days had passed.

 

I just heard back from Josh. I guess the seller was on vacation last week, and my buy order cancelled out after a couple of days. Josh reactivated my purchase order, and sent the seller another e-mail. Hopefully, things should be smooth sailing from here on out.

 

I believe bids and counter-offers are cancelled by the system after 3 days of no response (either from the seller on an offer, or from the buyer in response to a counter-offer).

 

I would recommend that Josh implement an auto-notification in such instances so that the buyer/bidder (and seller in this case) are made aware that the bid/offer has been cancelled by "the system". To my knowledge, no such notification is currently given to either party...

[The Black Hand ®]

After the Donut situation and my often professed ire for the Credit Card handling whatever you want to call it, its still a surcharge. I

 

 

While I would admit I don't want to pay the additional 3% for credit cards, you need to look at it from a business stand point. Remember that Josh and Doug are only middlemen taking a commission from the seller. At this time it's 10% for ComicLink and 8% for Pedigree Comics.

 

Now if they didn't pass the credit card charge on to the buyer, then they probably would just bump up the commission to 13% and 11%. Therefore, they would still get the same amount, and if a buyer paid in cash, they make more.

 

Assume a book sells for $100 on Doug's site. That's a wopping $8 commission he makes, to list the book (and he writes a description), receive the book from the seller and ship the book to the buyer. $8 isn't very much (nor is $10 on CL site). Now you expect them to lose an additional $3 (the credit card charge), so Doug can make $5 (and Josh $7).

 

At those rates, it just wouldn't be worth it on books less than several hundred dollars.

 

I just can't understand how Josh can continue to stay in business, it sounds like the poor guy doesn't make any money at all and that he's doing everyone a favor by offering his services as a middleman. I can see his fingers wrapped in bandages as he types away on those description for 100.00 books. Maybe we can all take up a collection for him and all the other self sacrificing comic book dealers out there. As for the 3% cc fee, I think it should be factored in to his fee one way or another and not just levied on the buyer.

[joe_collector]

I just can't understand how Josh can continue to stay in business, it sounds like the poor guy doesn't make any money at all and that he's doing everyone a favor by offering his services as a middleman. I can see his fingers wrapped in bandages as he types away on those description for 100.00 books.