Seeking Advice from experinced Fourm sellers and buyers

I am new here , and give out all respect to everybody by default , so I think it well worth my time mentioning that, no offense at all is meant by any of this . I am honestly just trying to make a well informed decision...

I am about to pay rather a lot of $$ and I think it prudent to gather as much information as possible before parting with my $$...
Therefore I am just going to directly ask the members of this community if I am going about it in a sensible manner ...

I am really interested in starting up a laser hobby .. the people on this forum really inspired me to seek beyond the commercially available lasers. I was educated so much by these forums , I even decided to seek out a custom build rather than , i am embarrassed to admit., my original choice of a Spyder arctic ..

I found an ad on here that looked appealing, and informed the seller I was interested... He kindly offered to put the item on hold for me , untill i get the $$ together, has been uber responsive with the pre-sale q&A and seems confident in his tech skills , and since I am so new to the laser world , I feel more confident about transacting with somebody I have never met based on excellent communication from the seller ..

The seller then informs me that Shipping will be MUCH more expensive if the method of payment is PayPal, because they require tracked shipments , where as Alertpay will allow untracked shipments at a much reduced rate ...

to be honest I have never heard of AlertPay before in my life , and it is currently unable to verify my credit card , and asking for bank transfers and such things , so If people on here have an opinion of AlertPay , that would be helpfull... We can always fall back to PayPal , but this will multiply my shipping expenses by 6 !!!

I really appreciate the sellers advice ( he is obviously trying to save me $$ with the shipping) but dealing with a company that is unknown to me , and having it come up with errors and problems straight away prompts me to seek further information before proceeding ..

Thanks in advance for any and all advice as this will be my first ( and hopefully not last) transaction here on these forums ...

To add to my confusion , the Seller seems to be banned as of today ( or at least that is what is says next to his profile as of today) ... Now I am seriously wondering why ...

AlertPay (alertpay.com) - Is it a Scam or Legit? | Paid 5 Times

According to this AlertPay is not a scam site but has been having issues with its Banking partners. However it is still under review.

I have never heard that shipping is more expensive through paypal. They have never 'required' tracked shipping as I recall they only recommend it as a protection measure for their buyers.

Where was the seller located? Shipping to Australia and NZ is horrendously expensive.

Lase

Things got heat up lately in this forum.

My experiences with sales is that registered ( tracking ) mail is the best for both parties. If the shipment goes wrong who is going to blame ? It cost more but it will ease the mind.

Never use alertpay. I made that mistake once. They will accept payments for you but will hold your money for an indefinite amount of time and you will be forced to call them everyday for months before you are able to get it out. NOT WORTH IT. Avoide alertpay like the plague.

Please tell me you are not talking about Ryanelectro. He got banned today because he is an immature person. He overcharges for his builds and only completed his first laser one month ago. He is not the person to be buying from. Talk to lazeerer or rhd.

Jake check pm

jakeGT said:

Please tell me you are not talking about Ryanelectro. He got banned today because he is an immature person. He overcharges for his builds and only completed his first laser one month ago. He is not the person to be buying from. Talk to lazeerer or rhd.

Click to expand...

obsidianjaguar said:

To add to my confusion , the Seller seems to be banned as of today ( or at least that is what is says next to his profile as of today) ... Now I am seriously wondering why ...

Click to expand...

First I would not use this AlertPay listen to yobresal he knows what he is talking about.
Second if you were buying a laser from Ryanelectro you might want to do a little research first. You might be able to get a better deal?

Spend the time reading the trades feedback and dispute thread. Find a seller you like and contact them.

Don't go electro. He makes promises he can't keep. He says he can promise 2.5W builds anytime he wants which NOBODY can do.

Contact lazeerer or rhd for those types of builds.

As the others said, don't go Electro. I made a promise on one of his threads that I can do whatever he can with more quality and for 75% the price. But, again, contact RHD or Lazeerer if you want top-of-the-line work (I am busy at the moment - finals week).

IIRC PayPal requires signature confirmation delivery **for their buyer/seller protection programs** when the package is insured for over $250 (or $300)

International tracked mail CAN BE very expensive compared to non-tracked mail

However, I have no idea how AlertPay deals with non-delivery or "significantly different than described" delivery protection

You have more than one warning you off of AlertPay

To estimate the variable shipping costs for you, we would need to know the organization/company used to ship, the source, the destination, the reported/insured value, and the form of delivery confirmation

These numbers are available online if one has the above info
You do NOT need to take your sellers word for it
He/she may add some "handling and/or packaging" charge,
but that would become apparent with the estimate

Peace,
dave

**EDIT** --- I just had a look at AlertPay. It would appear that your seller is trying to make money off of referrals to them.
He refers you.
You sign up to do business with him.
He gets paid by AlertPay
They're also having significant trouble with processing credit card payments

Yep, RE sounds more and more like a profit monger every minute.

Agreed with JakeGT and Wolfman. Don't go with RyanElectro, he builds non-unique run of the mill lasers that everyone else uses and chargers a lot more for it. For the same price you can get something much better built by an experienced member

I'd have to think long and hard before buying anything from a seller that promotes the use of alertpay. I'd stick with the well known services such as PayPal or Google Checkout only. If your seller wants to charge a premium if you don't use Alertpay, it might be a good idea to see what other forum members can do for you.

There are plenty of experienced builders here that can build you a laser without needing to get a referral fee from a shady sounding payment method.

Edit: Just read the entire thread and figured out who we were talking about. Those hosts are all pretty standard hosts and can all be purchased from elsewhere without the fancy names.

Thank you guys , from the sounds of it, I think I just about got into trouble ...

you guys made a good guess about whom I was dealing with .. it was really only this AlertPay that raised a red flag for me .. I have seen soooo many bad reports about it since looking it up online.. The referral thing only applies to premium account , so I don't think that was part of the motivation of this particular seller ....
the main reason I joined up to these forums is so that I can have a group opinion about what I buy ... Seems like there are enough votes to sway me this time .... I was not too worried about the seller because he was very good at communicating with me , and I saw flaminpyro and others say that he was a good guy , on this thread
http://laserpointerforums.com/f63/thank-you-ryanelectro-73972.html
cause apparently he had acted honorably in some other transaction ... so I was all good to deal with him until this thread , and seeing as some people have told me his original shop in these forums got shut down due to bad workmanship, it seems like i may have dodged a bullet .... I still want a laser tho guys

I was also planning on purchasing a laser from him as well. If there is a possibility of finding a lower price from a more reputeable source than PM me and give me your ideas. I am looking for something in the 2 watt range and HIGHER I would prefer HIGH wattage!! I just want to use it for fun for burning stuff in my house for experiments. So, if any of you can beat his price and make a great laser please PM ME!

Thanks again LPF!