My Trading No-Nos

[Maizing]

I don't do a lot of pet trading. I don't generally have the opportunity to acquire spare trade worthy pets. Every so often though, I will find myself with some spare pets that someone else is interested in and will find myself in a pet trade.

Recently, I had a pet trade fall through, and am posting some rules that I expect to be followed if someone wishes to do a trade with me.

Rule #1: Do not offer me something that you don't have to trade.
Rule #2: If you have offered a specific pet in trade for one I have, do not put something completely different in the trade window when we meet to do the trade. I will notice and I will not accept that trade.

Now I understand that people can make mistakes, so I am willing to work with someone on these two points (though if all you have to offer are pets that I already have, then they need to be of equal or greater value)... which leads me to the third rule:

Rule #3: Do NOT EVER go AFK during the trade process. If you do this, then the trade is off. I will not tolerate trying to work out a deal with someone who doesn't feel that the trade is important enough to stay at their keyboard.

I'm sure the majority of the pet trading community would not only follow these rules, but would expect them to be followed by those they trade with as well.

[Sweetdr0ps]

seems like common etiquette unless its a special situation. I mean some people have kids and may go afk (crying baby etc) though i've never done this myself nor do i have kids. Unless this happens to you a lot I would say don't let it get to you, sometimes real life stuff happens and you need to be understanding when that's not the norm. On the other hand people doing half-hearted trades or intentionally trying to deceive is another ballgame but honestly I have yet to run into someone like that and I trade a lot.

[Rhaellia]

While I agree with one and two, three seems like a case-by-case basis.

Trades are all about patience and understanding, mistakes happen! When a mistake happens and both people are calm, understanding, and work to resolve the issue together. You know those are two good traders! :)

I assume you meant the person simply being careless and going afk though, not valuing your time. We have to go afk, it happens but there is a right way to do that. This person must not have understood that or simply didn't care.

I always try to make sure I'm free when making a trade but I know life can be silly at times!

I'm sorry you've had a bad trade, all of mine having been really nice with really nice people :(

[Maizing]

If someone has a crying baby or the like, I would be cool with a quick, "I need to go AFK for a bit because of X." I have done this myself, and am perfectly willing to wait patiently when others have done this. I understand that life happens.

My real issue is someone going AFK without a word. No, "sorry, phone (baby, etc)." Nothing.

During the course of the failed trade that sparked this post, the person (who shall remain nameless as I do not call people out in public) just placed a different pet in the trade window from what he/she had offered, clicked "accept," then went AFK without a word. He/she came back about 15 minutes later (shortly after the character went into auto AFK mode and sat down), we started to discuss other options to complete the trade, then he/she went AFK again before we had concluded the dialog (again, without a word of warning).

Nor did the person apologize or give any explanation for why he/she went AFK the first time (nor has he/she made any attempt to contact me since then with an apology or explanation). I ended up sitting there for half an hour while the person who wanted one of my extra [pet]Lumpy[/pet]s was AFK. I finally just gave up and left them sitting there. I will not put up with that again.

[Peanutty]

Looks like you found yourself a bad trade, sorry that it happened but what you experienced is definitely not the norm. Don't let it deter you from trading in the future! Sounds like you handled it well on your end so there wasn't much else you could do there. I don't mind waiting for people to complete a trade but I also know their time is valuable, so I'll always try to complete my end as quickly as possible and I know most traders have that same mindset.

[Kpb321]

I know I've been guilty of #3 from time to time when doing my trades but never for anything like 15 minutes. Fortunately, people have been understanding when I apologize and explain I was dealing with a toddler. So far I've had nothing but positive experiences doing trades with people on the site.

[Astraldr0p]

Now that you explained it, it really makes a whole lot of sense. I mean, number 1 is pretty obvious and the only thing I can think of with number 2 is that, having a thread can get enough responses and requests that when I first started, it was hard to keep track who wanted exactly what etc.

But for number 3, just the fact that they made no explanation for the AFK, is really disrespectful. I know that circumstances happen but I mean, at least explain why you left, even if its as embarrassing as having diarrhea.

[Maizing]

I think what upset me most about the entire business is that I got the distinct impression that the person in question was tabbing out of WoW to play Hearthstone during the trade. It is kind of hard to hide what you are doing when you are b-tag friends, and that is what he/she had been doing just before we met... and was doing every time afterwards that I saw them online (up until I removed them from my friends list).

I guess I was just due a bad trade. The few trades I had done prior to this one went well.

...and Kpb321, I would have had absolutely no issues with a person who has a toddler to deal with. I don't know anyone who is responsible for babies or small children that are not up front about it and warn that they might get called away at any moment.

[Sweetdr0ps]

completely unrelated; but Astral, I couldn't help but notice your name style/avatar is similar to mine, did i inspire it? lol

[Astraldr0p]

completely unrelated; but Astral, I couldn't help but notice your name style/avatar is similar to mine, did i inspire it? lol

lol nah, it's from a comic series. However, I thought of the same of you too xD

great minds think alike