Hey everyone,
My reason behind this is down to a number of factors, one being it isnt fun to trade anymore as its becoming clear that everyone is out to get the best trade possible and not trade for simply helping someone out. Even I try my best to help out others and trade for trading sake when I can but then that became a one-sided field and its not being returned..I know its not needed but for those Ive helped out and to then be told sorry cant help when they have pins I need then Ive had enough of being nice.
I'll probably get blasted for this, but oh well.....
"Helping" people can be a very tricky thing, especially online when you don't really even know the person. I'm surprised that I've never seen this discussed before. Probably because Dizpins always wanted to pretend everything was all hunky-dory..... But the reason you listed above is precisely why I have for the most part stayed away from zapping, games, or helping threads. I've had bad experiences where people weren't very greatful or when you actually did have someone's grail they expected you to trade it to them for cheap.
When I look through the grail thread sometimes I think....."that pin isn't too difficult to find...it just costs $25, $50, or whatever". And that is when I think to myself, "oh....so it isn't that they can't find it, it is that they can't find it for cheap so that want someone to "help" them". The word is "help", not "hand-out". I just don't think it is right to ask for help with a pin when you aren't willing to give what it is worth. Please don't confuse that with overpriced items. If a pin with a true value of $75 is sitting on ebay for $300, by all means, ask for help finding it, but be prepared to trade/pay $75 for it.
Everyone has their own wants and goals in pin trading and some people's wants/goals are more difficult than others. And over the long term, pin trading/collecting is expensive. So you need to gain where you can. For example, if I stayed up until 2:30 a.m. one night to get a good pin from Disneystore.com, I'm sorry, but I am not trading it out at cost unless that is what the market value is. If I just helped people out like that all the time then I'll never make any progress myself because more often than not, the people that need/want the help are people that will never be able to help me because a lot of my wants are so difficult. You can say what you want about pin karma, but sometimes it just doean't work. Look at swim2sea again for example. I see people post all the time about how she helped them but nobody can help her. Not necessarily because they don't want to, they just can't.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for helping friends or picking things up for them. But when you work hard to get good deals or find things for people you shouldn't be expected to just give it away. If you just get satisfaction out of helping people and don't care if you lose money in the process that's great, but not everyone can afford to do that, especially not for strangers.
It just depends....For me, if I'm going to helping a friend, I just want to be kept whole (unless it is a gift of course). So, if I get lucky and find their grail for cheap then I'll pass it to them for what I had to give for it because the only reason I was looking for it was for them. But if it is for someone I've never even met....then I'm probably going to want a little more for it because I put the work in and I'd want any of my postage costs covered.
And then you get into the aspect of picking things up for people. We've all seen the bad part of that. Like the person that was having someone get things for them and then were just putting them on ebay. I've picked up things from Disneystore.com before with no problem, but where I've started having issues with it is D23. I had done it 3 or 4 times where people would just pay me cost and I would add it to my order......but then it hit me that it was totally unfair! I don't live near the parks so I don't get any of the perks of being part of D23 other than the fact that I can buy stuff. I don't even read the magazines and the gifts are lame....so really, that's it. I was paying $75 for the ability to buy stuff (pretty much the reason I probably won't renew this year). So I can completely understand why people wouldn't want to join and would rather just get someone to buy for them.....but I paid my $75, so why should everyone get a free ride off me??? So, I stopped. That may be ruthless, but it just isn't fair for me to pay that cost and have others use it for free.
Idk....the whole thing can just get sticky sometimes, whether it be helping or trading. Like in trading, if I'm going to trade for pins that I don't even want/need for my collection then I'll probably need a better deal. I'm not going to make a special trip to the post office and pay for postage just to stay neutral. For example, I just traded for a pin that is an extra for me, so I traded evenly for it and then it cost me $3 more in postage to get it. If I trade it out for something I want, then that's great. But if I trade it out for just another trader pin....that's another $3 in postage just to stay in the same place. Doing that just adds to the cost of my traders and in turn makes me want more for them. That's why, for the most part, if I am trading for traders then it has got to be worth my while. That way, I'm helping someone by getting them a pin they want and they are helping me by keeping me whole by giving me a slightly better deal.
It has to be a two way street. I've found that you can't help people and expect it to come back to you because it won't always come back. And your perception of how much you helped them may differ than theirs. You might think, "I just found this pin for you so you owe me one" but they may be thinking "I gave you a pretty good deal last month so now we're even".....tricky game to play....
My recommendation is to just make sure you are happy with each and every deal. If you want to help someone, great, but you've got to assume that you will get absolutely no help in return.
Best wishes to you!
