Astrobuysell Advert reply system - Does it actually work?

[johninderby]

I've tried a few times recently to contact sellers on Astrobuysell using the advert reply system, but have not had any replies. Is it just me or is anyone else having problems with it?

John

[Carbon Brush]

Worked for me recently.

Have you reported the problem to the Astrobuysell forum or Paul the webmaster?

I think some of this computing at a distance stuff relies on eye of newt and toe of frog!

[Moonshane]

I think the problem is sometimes the messages go into their spam folders.

[astro_al]

I think that if prior to the introduction of the reply system a seller has entered their email address in a manner such as address[at]domain{dot}com to stop spammers mining it then when a buyer submits an enquiry via the site it cannot be delivered to the address by UKABS until they update their address to the correct format. As it is not you actually sending the email you don't receive the non deliverable message that you would otherwise get.

[Pete Presland]

i have used as well and it worked fine.i used to have a few people just ignore my responses berore though,just a fact of life i'm afraid.

[spaceboy]

Worked when I needed it most. More than likely peoples over active spam filters.

[pmlogg]

I replied to one want ad and had no reply. My offer to buy an item was responded to. I've not long sent another message so we'll see.

[carastro]

I've had a bit of a problem since they introduced the security check "name that constellation which is obviously xxxxxx, and it keeps telling me I gave the wrong answer.

Has worked sometimes though.

Carole

[johninderby]

It actually worked last night (at last !) and I was able to purchase a small item I'd been after.

John

[Crunchard]

Works for me ... fingers crossed I get the bargain I'm after

[Simms]

Woks OK here, my virtuall new Telrad arrived this morning!

[F15Rules]

I had some problems at first and reported it to Paul who was great and responded very quickly.

You should now get a copy of the mail you send, to your own mail address, as proof that your mail has been sent successfully.

Carole, just one watchout...I got so used to putting "xxxxxx" as the constellation that I had to look again when it was rejected, to notice that they now have zzzzzz instead of xxxxxx! So it will obviously change from time to time.

If you still have a problem do check your spam/junk folders as I have had mails sent to me which were diverted to that folder..if so, just mark as "not spam" and it'll go into your inbox, also, your system should then in future not treat UKABS mails as spam.

HTH

Dave

[rocketandroll]

I've replied to three ads recently and had zero response from any of them.... I never trust these 'one step removed' communication things where you can't actually speak directly with the seller or see if your message has got through.

Oh, and Carole, the xxxxxx thing.... I had problems too, turns out it's case sensitive, I believe you have to put it all in in lower case I think?

Either way, I've stopped using it... as far as I can see, either you now can't contact sellers properly, or they ignore buyers... either way, not much help.

Ben

[PaulABS]

Hello Everyone,

This is Paul from AstroBuySell. The relatively new "respond to ad" form appears to be working quite well. The posts above have already mentioned nearly all that I wanted to say, but here's a summary:

1) In some cases emails from AstroBuySell can end up in the spam folder. I've done lots of testing and depending on your ISP's spam filters and your own spam filters, this can be a problem. The issue is that spam filters can themselves be inconsistent!

2) To make up for the above shortcoming, I added a CC: field to the email (Carbon Copy) so that the sender also gets a copy of the email, and thus see the email address of the seller/buyer. At that point one is able to send a follow up email using their own email application.

3) If the seller/buyer's email is malformed or incorrect, the email bounced back to me. I always follow up and get it to the right person, or if that's not possible, I let the sender know that the email failed.

4) The "scam / spam" prevention constellation question is very very effective at stopping unwanted replies! It is not case sensitive. I have had a few reports where the correct answer was *sometimes* being rejected. It turns out all those people were using smart phones (as opposed to desktops or laptops) so I'm thinking it has something to do with a weak wireless signal. Just a guess. But the problem is definitely intermittent and only on smart phones.

If there are any other concerns, please let me know and I'll do my best to help.

Cheers,

Paul.

[Madhatter]

I dont know how astrobuysell works, but if the seller is swamped with emails they probably realize pretty quickly they have under-valued thier equipment and dont want to sell?.

[PaulABS]

Hi Madhatter,

The question you asked is unrelated to this thread, however, I can tell you that it’s the seller’s prerogative not to sell an item if they believe they have under-priced it.

Cheers,

Paul.

[Madhatter]

Absoultly, for the most part i would imagine people know the value of there stuff and the price advertized is one they would be happy with. I was interested to know if the items with no responce were for the most part very cheaply priced. Just out of interest really.

[Naz]

I have had to edit several posts within this thread as they have mentioned the security answer on AstroBuySell. By openly discussing the actual answers to the security question, you are giving spammers and others a way into the site.

Please respect other sites / forums security, we have a difficult enough job keeping the forum free from scammers and spammers, etc without help from within.

Thank You.