Avoiding Bad Traders

Although they're less common than in the anime world, there are bad dorama traders out there! I have been on the wrong end of a bad trade twice. Once was a complete surprise from someone who has been a reliable trader for years, but the other one could easily have been avoided if I knew then what I know now. In fact, I have avoided other bad trades by using the ID and protection techniques below. These techniques are based on my own experiences and what I've heard from anime traders. Although I hesitated to describe these -- since it potentially alerts bad traders about what people can look for -- I think it will still do more good than harm to alert all the good traders. So that I don't give everything away, there are a couple of things I look for that I'm not listing here. However, the ones I'm listing are most of what I use and should be enough to get you thinking about it. I hope they will help you.

Identifying Bad Traders

What do you look for? Some bad traders are pretty sneaky, but I've found you should be especially careful if you meet up with anyone who does some of the following:

Uses a free e-mail account. A free e-mail address is a tip-off that someone may want to be able to hide. I almost never trade with someone who uses such an address. Note that there are a lot of domains that provide free e-mail accounts, so if you receive a letter from someone with a domain you don't recognize, check their web site to see if the domain is one of them. For example, if foo@bar.com writes you, look at http://www.bar.com.
You should also be a little extra wary of people who use .edu, MSN, or AOL accounts. .edu accounts are free, not too hard to switch, and given to people who may abandon them soon (especially near the end of a school year or during the summer). So they have the same problems -- to a lesser extent -- as other free e-mail addresses. People with MSN or AOL accounts are more likely to be new to computers -- and trading -- and thus are a higher risk. However, the risk in this case is more often ending up with an incompetent trade than a bad trade.
Uses bad English. b carful f ppl use no caps punctuation or haf bad speling specially f u think their doing it 2 b kewl or r doing so 2 save writeing a ltr or 2.
Uses the word Jap. Jap is a pejorative. Anyone who uses it instead of J, Japan, or Japanese is likely to be, at best, obtuse, and someone you don't want anything to do with.
Has most things/everything you want. Let's say you write that you are looking for obscure shows X, Y, and Z. Someone miraculously has all three. Plus, when you ask about additional obscure shows, they have most/all of them too. Not only that, but they're all in tiptop condition. Beware! Remember if something is too good to be true, it probably is...
Trades commercially available movies or anime. Trading in general is a grey area, but trading commercially available shows is very bad form and very illegal. If someone is willing to rip off copyright holders and sends you a list filled with such shows, you really should avoid them, if only because the odds are significantly higher that they're willing to rip you off, too. Plus, given the way studios are increasingly going after copyright violators, trading with such people is asking for trouble.
Gives you a gut-level bad feeling. This is the most important thing to look for! When I ran into a bad trader, and reported it in a mailing list, a number of people wrote me to say they also had bad experiences with the same person. Every single person mentioned that they had a bad feeling about the bad trader and thought the person seemed "a little off", but they also all dismissed the feeling! Good traders mistakenly tend to think other people are as honest as they are. The letters I got all were very similar: they thought it was "just them", "a language barrier", or thought they would give the person "the benefit of the doubt." Don't dismiss your reaction to an e-mailer; it's more often right than wrong!

Just because someone fits the bad-trader profile, you may not necessarily want to avoid a trade. I've successfully traded with people who fit some of the above, but I'm always a little extra careful when I do so.

Protecting Yourself From Bad Trades

OK, so you're concerned you may have a bad trader on your hands, or you just want to practice safe trading. What should you do? Try the following:

Don't trade if you're not comfortable. You don't have to trade, or even send e-mail back, just because someone writes you. If you have a bad enough feeling, pass the trade by. There will always be other people you can trade with later.
Trade small amounts. Never trade multiple shows with someone you don't know. Trade the smallest possible amount, typically one normal-length dorama. This limits your risk.
Don't send shows until you receive yours. If someone writes you, it should be on them to send you their shows first. It's perfectly reasonable in this case to wait to send your shows to them until they send theirs to you. When you receive them, check all of the tapes/disks/etc. to make sure you're getting what they said they said they would be sending you. This is the most important way to avoid bad traders. (Note: if someone makes a request for trades in a mailing list, I think the people who respond to the request should send their shows first. If for any reason, you're not comfortable with the person who made the posting, don't trade.)

If despite your best efforts, you still fall prey to a bad trader, you should absolutely report it, either to me or in the dorama mailing list! If you send me e-mail, I'll try to help, or at least alert people on this web site about the bad trader.

What about Incompetent Traders?

Much more common than bad traders are incompetent traders. These are people you have significant (and repeated) problems with. They are likely, for example, to send you unwatchable or blank media, media with a show only partially recorded, watchable video with problems (ex., copies with an on-screen counter), or be very slow sending you your shows. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes, but these people do it habitually.

The fact that these traders exist is another reason to always check all the videos when you receive them. Check the beginning, listen to a bit of the theme song (where it's easiest to hear audio problems), spot check the middle, and check the end to make sure the whole show was recorded. Incompetent traders don't intend to mess up, and will generally fix the problems if you ask. (Make sure to check their fixes, too, because they could also have problems.)

If someone messes up once, I would let it slide -- especially if they fix the problem quickly -- but if they repeatedly have problems with basic competence, you should think about whether or not you really want to trade with them. Again, there are plenty of traders, and you should consider whether or not the aggravation is worth it. Consider bringing the issue up politely, especially if they write asking you for another trade. Also, the same things you can do to protect yourself from bad traders described above can apply to incompetent traders.

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