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I made $100K from a dick joke

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Re: I made $100K from a dick joke

#181
post #9

Sometimes I think about the years of hard work that I put into building a SaaS business and wondered whether I should've just done something silly like this instead.

Done something silly, or done the same thing with a false advertisement that was more viral?

Re: I made $100K from a dick joke

#182

I sold a laptop on eBay once long, long ago. Someone did the "Buy it now" option but never paid. I'm trying to remember the exact situation (probably more than 10 years ago), but I had exchanged messages with him several times and he always had an excuse to not pay. Then I noticed he was selling the exact same model of laptop so it was easy for me to realize that he had just "bought" my laptop to remove the listing s…

Just remember eBay has almost no way to report scam listings, hacked seller accounts, obviously fraudulent buyers, etc. They don’t want to clean up their act. Caveat emptor. Two executives were recently imprisoned over harassing a journalist, to give you an idea of the corporate culture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBay_stalking_scandal

> The Steiners were harassed and threatened both online and physically in their home by deliveries of such things as a bloody pig mask, live cockroaches and spiders, a funeral wreath, and large orders of pizza.[5][1][6] Pornographic magazines with David Steiner’s name on them were sent to a neighbor’s house.

Wow, what disgusting human beings..

Re: I made $100K from a dick joke

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those in europe - check out vinted.com

My wife uses Vinted (UK) for selling hers and the kids clothes, usually single-to-double digit values at most (or she uses Oleo to just give it away). It works _fairly_ well from what I've heard, but she does have the occasional issue with people complaining about things and sending them back for obtuse reasons, often hardly worth it because the value was so low, the cost of the shipping there and back eclipsed the v…

I have what I think is probably a weird mindset that practically everything I own, short of maybe a car or a house, I assume is worth £0 after I've owned it.

Probably indicative of not having a very good business brain. However, it always seems strange to me when when people buy things and keep track of their used values the whole time they own it - expecting at some point to trade it in.

Re: I made $100K from a dick joke

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EBay doesn't care about fraud unless they think you're going to file a charge back with your card issuer, then they're pretty quickto protect their bottom line. I do know for a fact that eBay can kick a seller off very quickly though. I bought a NES shaped raspberry pi a few years back as a gift. The day I got the item, I went to leave the seller glowing feedback, only to find his account was axed (he included NES ro…

I'm banned from eBay since about 2010. Sold a cellphone which my sister shipped without requiring signature, guy just said he never received it. My sister was working at a Telco so we just confirmed that he had actually received it because he put a SIM card into it, proof and everything eBay didn't care. I withdrew the money from my PayPal account before they could claw it back. PayPal still works for me but eBay is…

Sounds like your sister got that information illegally. It’s hard to blame EBay because they can’t use that.

Re: I made $100K from a dick joke

#185
post #9

Sometimes I think about the years of hard work that I put into building a SaaS business and wondered whether I should've just done something silly like this instead.

About 10 years ago it was possible to make a living from silly Android apps. I made several of farts, meme sounds, and even politicians that were funny to laugh at. One of my fondest memories as dev is making apps for little kids and getting back long strings of hearts, kisses and smiles in the reviews.

Ah, the golden age of Android where any app could make you money.

Re: I made $100K from a dick joke

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found ebay more reliable, interesting and smoother than Amazon. Amazon screwed me over for 40 USD now they are nagging that I should sign up for "Prime" (I ordered a bunch of stuff, maybe 800 USD. They decided the order is fraudulent, and canceled it, without ever telling me. When I moved into my new place, there was nothing. No sheets, no nothing from Amazon. That this order was "canceled" without any email seemed…

Last time I ordered from amazon, I repeatedly declined prime. My bank called me the next day about a suspicious charge for a year of prime. I had to cancel my card and get a new one. The banker told me they'd had dozens of similar problems where amazon was charging people for stuff they never ordered. When I got the package a few days later, the $150+ set of cello strings I ordered, sold and shipped by amazon, were c…

Out of curiosity, how did you realize that they were counterfeits and is there a big difference? FYI: I don't play cello.

Re: I made $100K from a dick joke

#187
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my kids’ generation (college aged) they all use Facebook Marketplace.

It’s astounding how bad FB Marketplace search is, though. For very popular things, it’s fine. For browsing and “huh, that’s interesting,” it’s fine. But if I am looking for something specific, it is an incredible failure. It’s so bad I suspect they intentionally don’t want it to work well. That is, I think they only want to optimize for low-effort social buying, not picky people who know exactly what they want. For t…

It also doesn’t seem to respect the distance filter.

I’m not one for conspiracy theories usually, but I’m pretty sure the state of Marketplace search is, if not ‘deliberate’, at least a result of metrics-driven development. The search results are _just_ useful enough to keep you scrolling and tapping, so the vagueness increases engagement :-(

Re: I made $100K from a dick joke

#188
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my kids’ generation (college aged) they all use Facebook Marketplace.

You must be kidding. No kid uses facebook anymore.

Lots of people have a Facebook account just to use Marketplace, at least in my area.

Re: I made $100K from a dick joke

#189
This really surprised me: from a paragraph near the end:

It's one of the reasons I've stuck around Imgur so long - there's an extremely diverse, and supportive community.

I had no idea that there was this kind of community on Imgur.

Re: I made $100K from a dick joke

#190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm banned from eBay since about 2010. Sold a cellphone which my sister shipped without requiring signature, guy just said he never received it. My sister was working at a Telco so we just confirmed that he had actually received it because he put a SIM card into it, proof and everything eBay didn't care. I withdrew the money from my PayPal account before they could claw it back. PayPal still works for me but eBay is…

Sounds like your sister got that information illegally. It’s hard to blame EBay because they can’t use that.

But you also can't blame Ebay for letting the guy steal? Ebay just can't be blamed ever, seems like a great position to be in.
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