Hostility towards Deputy Services?

[Nelia]

I was surfing around and found a thread on a Jpop music forum talking about Deputy services and the canceling of bids. This is a c/p of the post. And yes, the original post is quite a few years old, I'm just wondering if this is still happening?


For those who don't know, a deputy service is basically a middle man to get you goods from auction sites and online stores that do not ship overseas; but I noticed that there's been a lot of hostility against these services online, especially on Yahoo! Japan Auctions. It has gotten to the point that sellers are canceling bids made by these services because they just don't want to deal with them.

On 2ch there has been a blacklist thread made to expose the IDs of these deputy services, http://pc11.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/yahoo ... 391/43-143 , and reading the thread I've noticed a lot of discomforts. Their major frustrations seem to be with the two biggest English speaking deputy services: Shopping Mall Japan and Rinkya.


Anon wrote:
This is the " Expose the IDs of these Auction Parasites " thread.
Tamabiz, Chaos Japan, Rinkya, etc...

These individuals have been committing forgery. We have been following our rules, yet they have came in and exploited transactions -- they are extreme annoyances.

Their emails are private, so its hard to identify them. Because of this, let's post their names and add them to a black list.

Let's keep them from bidding!

I'm sorry if the translation is a little wonky.

With the growing awareness of deputy services and the Japanese now becoming more resistant to selling to them, what are your thoughts? Do you think that Deputy Services are coming to an end? Is the hostility really worth it or is there more behind the transactions then we know?

(the original thread is here: http://www.jpopmusic.com/forums/viewtop ... 16&t=73543 )


My question is, has anyone here experienced problems with their bids being cancelled on YJ? I personally have never had this happen, but then again, I haven't bought anything off of Y!J for the past 6-8 months.

[Keropi]

Wow...such anger. But I suppose that's to be expected considering the source.

No, I don't recall ever having a bid deleted in about 250 YJ transactions. But I've avoided bidding on auctions that say they don't accept deputy bids. None of them ever had anything I wanted very badly though. So there wasn't any real loss there.

[zerospace]

I think this has been happening for quite some time -- and each time a problem arises with any deputy, it makes them all look bad. *shrug* I avoid sellers known to have issues with deputies.

I'm probably in the minority here, but I've actually had a couple of bids deleted on YJ, due to deputy service issues. One seller that does it pains me, because they often list nice stuff for sale, but I look at it this way, if they don't want to deal with my deputy, then I guess they don't want my money. So, they can get less for their item because of it. No skin off my back!

[Sui Kune]

The sad truth is that there's deep-seated racism against foreigners in Japan. I'm close friends with two Americans who have lived in Japan for several years, and the racism they have to deal with on a daily basis is unbelievable.

One of my friends uses Yahoo Japan very often, and even though she's perfectly fluent in Japanese, sometimes she's still blacklisted because she's a foreigner, nevermind that she lives in Japan and there's no language barrier. The reason why most sellers won't ship overseas is because they simply don't want to deal with foreigners, and when they find out what deputy services do, they blacklist them. In reality, it's rarely actually the deputy service's fault; it's no different than dealing with a regular Japanese customer. They simply don't want to sell to foreigners, period.

I know it sounds unbelievable, but it's sadly the truth.

[jcaliff]

The sad truth is that there's deep-seated racism against foreigners in Japan. I'm close friends with two Americans who have lived in Japan for several years, and the racism they have to deal with on a daily basis is unbelievable.

One of my friends uses Yahoo Japan very often, and even though she's perfectly fluent in Japanese, sometimes she's still blacklisted because she's a foreigner, nevermind that she lives in Japan and there's no language barrier. The reason why most sellers won't ship overseas is because they simply don't want to deal with foreigners, and when they find out what deputy services do, they blacklist them. In reality, it's rarely actually the deputy service's fault; it's no different than dealing with a regular Japanese customer. They simply don't want to sell to foreigners, period.

I know it sounds unbelievable, but it's sadly the truth.

I used to use YJ all the time when I lived in Japan, and in all the things I bought I only ever once had a problem with someone canceling my bid because I was a foreigner, and once received a neutral feedback on a different, sucessful auction for reasons unknown. I was always completely upfront in my emails to the sellers (typically starting off with something like "Hi, I apologize for my poor Japanese as I'm still learning"). In fact, some sellers were curious about me and started corresponding. I even ended up with a free T-shirt when one seller found out what a fan I am of Nintama. In all, my positive experiences far outweighed my negatives. Just another perspective.

[kizu]

Actually when I lived for a few years in Japan, I didn’t notice any racism/prejudice directed against me nor my family. In fact I found them quite warm, although not as “openâ€

[Keropi]

I think the main question is where does this level of anger come from?

Do some of them resent selling to deputies while some of them resent losing to deputies?

I remember back when some seller's preferred not to sell old Confederate currency to foreigners because they didn't want a large amount of the collectibles to get out of the U.S. There were a lot of Europeans buying and investing in Confederate currency some time back.

[JWR]

From what I remember when most of this came to head (around 2 years ago) there were certain sellers on YJ that blocked Deputys from bidding on their auctions. this lead the Deputys to create new bid Id's they rotate to stay ahead of them.

There seemed to be a "keep it in Japan" Nationalistic effort but I really think those who were complaining to the sellers about Deputys were more upset that their customers were winning a large precentage of the auctions due to the Dollar to Yen exchange rate.

I do know that several sellers that have in the past blocked Deputys have reversed that policy as they found they were getting the higher prices for their items when they only allowed "in country" bidding.

[alyssium]

The thread may still be old but it is certainly still happening.

I generally use Celga as my bidding deputy. I recently queried them on a auction in the last couple of days as i thought i has lost (even though it was under my maximum) as the bidding name was differet to the one that they generally use. Their reply was that it was blocked and they had to use another unknown ID to get it through.

I know there was some issues with this is the past but i didnt realise it was still happening!!!

Alyssium

[ginga123]

i haven't purchased anything from my deputy in about 4-6 months now, but i haven't had much of this problem. i do remember encountering problems by trying to bid on a cel a wwhhiillee back and the seller kept canceling the bids regardless of what deputy i used.

the seller was willing to sell to a foreigner, but wanted them to deal with him directly. i would only do it if i knew that it would be safe. i've had a rough cel deal before, so i am a bit weary.

[star-phoenix]

Well, with all due respect to the Yahoo japan sellers, they wouldn't even get 25% of the amount for their stuff if it wasn't for deputy services.
It is kind of like spitting on the person who drags you from the fire. Deputy services brings TONS of business. Yet, they get spit on by the ones they help most, the Japanese community. Very sad.

[Animechaos]

None of that is anything new and we deal with it almost daily, and have for years.

[sensei]

I've not had a problem with being blocked, but on two occasions I've won lots from a seller named twin_angels_xx, which were simply never sent to my DS. I understand that this seller works on consignment, and, for some reason, I won both lots for less than my reserve bid. I'd guess that the owner simply decided not to part with them at the price I won them at and, I'd guess, paid off the seller separately. Whether this had to do with the use of a foreign-based DS, I can't say. It is annoying, though my DS, knowing the risk, does not ask me to pay for the win until the item is received on the Japan side, so it is no more than a nuisance, thankfully.

I have heard tell of some prejudice on some parts of letting cultural materials go out of the country. This may be no different from the increasing discontent among, say, Native Americans when baskets or other personal items are sold to collectors by families who are tempted by the cash offered for such "collectables." The sense is that such commodification takes objects that represent the family's link to tradition and the past and strips them of their cultural content by making them art objects. The purchase of old quilts, particularly from African American families, by art collectors raises some of the same tensions in that camp.

But I'm not aware that North American collectors, on the whole, are disrespectful of their collections or unwilling to give the creators their full due for crafting the cels/sketches. So while I see some incentive for this reaction, it doesn't make me hold back when I see the chance to get something really significant for a disgracefully low price.

[beatrush]

I also heard that some sellers do not like deputies because of the Internal bidding practices.

I could see why though, for example. they get 1000yen from the auction while the deputy gets 4-6k yen due to an internal bidding war between two users.

[Golden Boy]

I also heard that some sellers do not like deputies because of the Internal bidding practices.

I could see why though, for example. they get 1000yen from the auction while the deputy gets 4-6k yen due to an internal bidding war between two users.

I've never understood this as a reason to ban deputies. How are these other users supposed to bid on the auctions if they don't use a deputy? Having a friend in Japan to bid for you isn't the norm.

If YJ sellers feel their missing out on these "hidden profits" then they should price their auctions accordingly!

To use beatrush's example, a seller should be happy to get the 1000 yen that they would not have gotten had they banned deputies. And if they were unhappy with that, they should have priced the auction at 5k.

Which brings up another question: How do sellers know what the internal bidding prices are? I would think this information would be a lot less transparent.