ALWAYS check Heatware Refs!

[skyblue12]

interesting, but what about people with existing heatware feedback? Do we have to build that up over again ?

(I guess we could ask the previous people that we did transactions for to leave feedback again)..........hahha oh man........

that's pretty annoying considering every time you have to leave like.. comments and stuff and some people have done a LOT of trades.. pretty hard tracking down every single person and getting them to leave feedback again

[GimmeGear]

I don't know if anyone is paying attention to this thread - but I'll try posting my question here.
I signed up with heatware (have not traded yet) and I wanted to change my email address to a non-personal one. I made a mistake and entered a wrong email address, so I could not re-activate the account. I emailed support at heatware 3 times now in order to reset the account, but I have not heard from them yet. It has been close to 2 weeks now.
I am planning on just setting up a brand new account, but I'm concerned that that will look fishy. Any recommendations?

Thanks.

[Ubershopper]

In response to questions like, should I start a new heatware account, etc...

There is no need to start a new account, unless you care about making your usernames match. I believe what Ryan was suggesting was that if you are going to make a trade or deal with someone and they are telling you they have a positive Heatware (or Ebay or other feedback system) rating, you SHOULD NOT take their word for it. Go to that system and message that userid directly to confirm it is the same person.

I would further caution that just because a username matches, this is no reason to believe it is the same person. A scammer could pick an Ebay or Heatware account with a positive score (not their account), then come to RFD and create an account with that userid and claim to be the same person...

[aimfox]

i have no idea how to use heatwave. can ebay be usuable?

[nork]

Heatware is probably the very best place on the internet to find out if a trader is good or bad. It has the most info there is and the most members of any such group. Members swear by it and all good forums (fora) do as well.
One point i might bring up. Some forums, not this one, but others i know for sure, ban the use of things like hotmail email addies. They want you to use your standard account. The reason is that a large number of bad guys, around the world, use hotmail and other such accounts when they are scamming. This brings these accounts into dispute i guess you could say. Now i am not writing here to debate wether they should do this or not, so please, no discussions on wether you think they should or should not ban hotmail and other such accounts. This may even apply to gmail accounts as well. Again, only telling you what i know and what i have read. I do know for a fact, though, that some forums ban accounts like hotmail.

My reason for writing this? Easy, i see, above, that at least one person has complained that they applied for a heatware account and it didnt go thru. So maybe this is why. Try again with your main email account. I happen to have the email addy for the person who runs heatware and will provide it upon request. That is, if i can find it, havent used it for years.

Again, dont complain here or email me about the reasons you dont think hotmail and other accounts should be banned. I am only one person reporting what i think i know, thats all. If you believe me fine it you dont check it out for yourself.
Try forums like techimo, anandtech and others like that, of which there are a dozen or so.

[blackhawk]

Its always a good idea to contact someone through an alternate email like heatware(especially if you dont know them) to check ID and have an alternate contact means if a forum goes down, never do a deal just through pm's unless its local.

Worked for me so far, only a couple bad deals and none without a partial resolution.

[nork]

From a fair amount of experience with fora, I can tell you this. Many more people in many fora have a lot more respect for heatware and rely on it a lot more. I have found that a lot of people here at redflag tend to ignore the value of heatware refs. Of course a trader can always decide not to pay first or ship first if the other party doesnt want to consider heatware refs, we all know that. But, again, I find some of the people in this fora either tend to either feign ignorance of heatware and\or wont acknowledge their value. I do know that on some other sites i do business on the people there tend to rely more heavily on heatware and thus give it more respect.

I have 170 good heatware refs and so i guess someone can say i am biased in that respect. But i havent influenced whole fora that rely much more on heatware refs than this forum does, so that shows that wether i am biased or not doesnt change the facts.

I believe its a a matter of the powers that be at redflag to decide they want to guide the members in the area of giving more creedence to heatware refs and giving the whole concept the creedence it deserves.

I think its fair to say that ebay and heatware refs are the most valuable worldwide, although that perhaps is another issue.

But let me point out that the mods and other powers that be have a very good forum here, much better than some other fora i have tried to work with!

thanks for listening.

[JAC]

From a fair amount of experience with fora

Really? Pedant.

[bubble.tea]

Are you some Yuppy or something?

fora? honestly?? Man...eccentric much?

[QUOTE=nork;10519726]...Many more people in many fora have a lot more respect for heatware and rely on it a lot more.

I'll come back to this.

I have found that a lot of people here at redflag tend to ignore the value of heatware refs...I find some of the people in this fora either tend to either feign ignorance of heatware and\or wont acknowledge their value..

You're 18-24months too late it seems. Before iTrader was introduced, Heatware was the quintessential defining Rep Generator on RFD. Once iT came about, people didn't need to rely on heat as much hence it has probably waned. It's also a matter of publicity. I ONLY found out about heat because on RFD people would ask for either 'heat' or 'hofo'. As time goes on, less and less people will ask about foreign reputation evals.

...people there tend to rely more heavily on heatware and thus give it more respect.

I'm curious., on 'those other fora' do they have an internal iTrader-like system in place or not?

Are people chosing to not use the internal system and only use Heat instead, or do people use both, or...? what exactly?

...I believe its a a matter of the powers that be at redflag to decide they want to guide the members in the area of giving more creedence to heatware refs and giving the whole concept the creedence it deserves.

While they may 'recommend' or remind, by stickies, and boldened notices of latest scams, I doubt these guys will care to guide people one way or another. That's left up to the individual.

I think its fair to say that ebay and heatware refs are the most valuable worldwide...

are you mad? ebay = heat? Honestly. Last I checked, ebay accounts could be hacked (far more likely to be), evals can be falsified, can be misleading (accumulate fifty $1 evals as buyer only )...how can you possibly say they're equal?

imho

Heat/RFD > Ebay

Simple as that.

[nork]

I re-read my post and i see quite clearly that i never said heat was equal to ebay refs, i only pointed them out as the largest in use, likely.
As to the rest of the comments they dont deserve my time.

[bubble.tea]

If you hadn't intended to say that, then why did you clump both under the same part of the sentence?

If you agree that fleabay evals are lower in standing than heat, then you-like all 'heatware-biased individuals' would've said something more exact...seeing as how you're the 'self-proclaimed aristocrat' by calling blog-sties/forums-fora...I would've expected very specific language from you if you weren't holding them in equal light...or maybe you're just selective in where you want to be specific and where you want to mash-it-up.

I guess we'll never know..seeing as how 'it's not worth your time' LOL...

[Mendesb]

when I do transactions with people I say I only accept RFD/HoFo/Heatware. There are exceptions to this rule, but I do not accept ebay at all.

I suprisingly did a deal with someone who had over 150 heatware a little while ago, so I sent first, and someone else who was a forum admin/creator/moderator of a plant forum with 10k posts and a ton of transactions, so i sent first again. Other than that RFD all the way