Perhaps the Answer is D

We received a great question from a user today. The question from Maurice was “How are you different from escrow.com”

Ironically, we never felt the need to point out why we are better. Perhaps its because we know our services are more of day-in and day-out solution to protect buyers and sellers. Perhaps its goal of trying to have the site speak for itself. Perhaps its because we’ve never been asked that question outside of reporters. Perhaps it is “D. All the above.” Regardless, it was a great question that needs to be addressed.

I’ll point out two strong differences why we feel ChestNet Transactions is a more viable secure payment solution.

Escrow.com charges the user $25 or 6% for credit cards and $10 to ACH (“eCheck”) the payment to the seller so it’s very unrealistic that transactions under $500.00 would require escrow.com or a traditional escrow company. It’s far too expensive for standard online transactions. Could you imagine buying anything and having to pay that extraordinary fee? Another issue is Escrow.com puts the responsibility of the fees on the buyer ($25 or 6% for credit cards, whichever is higher). In contrast, ChestNet Transactions is only $1.95 or 5% for credit cards (with sliding scale) or FREE for ACH / eChecks, that’s it. ChestNet Transactions fees are only for the seller. We’re out to protect ALL transactions not just the extremely high end ones that Escrow.com feasibly protects.

Here’s the kicker, because price alone is never a good way to compete. The buyer is responsible for the escrow fees ($25 or 6%) and both the sellers and buyers shipment fees if the item is returned. So if a fraudster sends a refurbished laptop that cost $1000.00, the buyer still owes $60 + Shipping x 2. On ChestNet Transactions the buyer and seller don’t owe a thing unless the transaction is successfully complete.

While both Escrow.com and ChestNet Transactions help fight online payment fraud, our feeling is that we shouldn’t profit from fraud, so we should not collect fees on failed transactions. Foolish on ChestNet Transactions part? Perhaps. But we’re not going to turn our backs on our company’s mission statement and begin profiting on something we don’t believe in. Not today. Not tomorrow.

Until next time, safe buying and selling everyone!

./Casey

ChestNet Transactions – The eBay Killer

“ChestNet Transactions is an eBay Killer!”

We’ve heard this from various people ranging everywhere from the government to focus groups when people learn about ChestNet Transactions and to get right to the point, we don’t agree. We think ChestNet Transactions is more of an ‘eBay Evolver’.

Yes, ChestNet Transactions free ads can take market share.

Yes, ChestNet Transactions payment system makes PayPal look archaic and exposes its flaws.

Yes, ChestNet Transactions near future enhancements can really stick it to their bottom line.

Yes, ChestNet Transactions manta of “Making the Net a Safer Place” is second to none, even Googles “Don’t be evil” doesn’t compare. Now if Google changed to “Stop all online evil” we’d have some competition there.

Yes after yes after yes and we still don’t consider ChestNet Transactions as an ‘eBay Killer”. At ChestNet Transactions, we know that we can increase eBay’s market share in the United States by giving people who have been scammed or are afraid of being scammed online a secure reason to buy and sell online again. ChestNet Transactions opens doors for not only consumers online, but for retail, classified and auction sites. Now calling ChestNet Transactions a “Fraud Killer” … that’s something we believe in!

ChestNet Transactions in the News
ChestNet Transactions was recently mentioned by Andrew Johnson of The Arizona Republic as a solution for buying online. Kudos to Andrew for recognizing ChestNet Transactions as a safe way to conduct online transactions! Here’s the article: Remote nature of Net sales gives both sides of deal risky rewards 

Until next time, safe buying and selling everyone!

./Casey

www.chest-net.com Goes Live!

Hello everyone! Casey Cosgrove here, C.O.O. of chest-net.com. I’m thrilled to announce that ChestNet Transactions (http://chest-net.com) is officially up and running. After years of development and testing we’re confident that ChestNet Transactions will eliminate online fraud as we know it. Our mission is to give both buyers and sellers the opportunity to send and receive money without the fear of being ripped off. We’ve tested the system on our own live classifieds for the past year with real buyers and sellers and have successfully prevented various forms of scams and blocked thieves world-wide in their tracks.

ChestNet Transactions was created because we were tired as buyers and sellers of not having a way to control our transactions. Other payment services and methods would take someones hard earned money and give it directly to the stranger without any way of checking if the transaction is legit. That’s why there’s over $183 million reported internet fraud to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). In 2005 according to a Gartner Group report, they found that only 1% of people actually report the fraud. 1%! How much is that other 99%? We estimate in the billions and it’s our job to make sure that number goes down.

At ChestNet Transactions, we feel it’s smarter to verify the buyer and their money on behalf of the seller and provide the buyer a way to approve the item before the seller receives the payment. So next time you win an auction on eBay or find a great deal on Craigslist, use ChestNet Transactions to pay and you can control the transaction.

Safe Buying and Selling everyone!

./Casey

The Birds and Bees of www.chest-net.com

The good and geeky folks at ChestNet Transactions receive a number of emails daily. The one that we answer the most from our community is “What does ‘ChestNet Transactions’ mean?” One thing for sure, we didn’t dip our spoon in a warm bowl of Alphabet Soup and pull out a tasty melody of “e” “a” “s” and “y” pasta letters. There’s actually a story behind the name. Come one now, that’s EASY!

Our co-founder, Peter Levshin, is from Australia. If you know anything about Australians, they love the game of cricket, surfing and using words almost as outrageous as the wildlife that inhabits their ‘island down under’. Peter is no exception. While describing cricket (or was it surfing) he used the world “bonza” in the sentence. “ChestNet Transactions” is Aussie slag for “rad”, “amazing” or “the best”. While some of us liked the idea of naming the site “eRad.com” it just didn’t work as well as ChestNet Transactions. Okay, so it’s not a rad story, but the name chest-net.com is pretty awesome.

Wild Wild West(ern) Union Thoughts

I just Googled “Western Union Fraud” and received over 14 million results. I’m curious to what percentage of Western Union’s business is related to fraud? Inquiring minds would love to know.

Three Strong Weeks

ChestNet Transactions has been live for almost three weeks and we’ve had zero fraudulent transactions. The ChestNet Transactions system has successfully protected thousands of dollars. Here’s a recent email from a thankful user, Mark in Irvine, CA:

“Thanks for the heads up. You saved me 1500 bucks!!”

Mark from Irvine, you were not alone. We’ll continue to do our part protecting transactions. Thank you and everyone for their emails.

Until next time, safe buying and selling everyone!

./Casey

Yahoo and Hotmail Enable Fraudsters

Yahoo and Hotmail Enable Fraudsters While analyzing the fraud catching fishing nets on ChestNet Transactions today I noticed that all the fraudsters have a striking similarity in their tactics; they all used free email services. Yahoo and Hotmail seem to be the preferred choice, but mail.com and AOL are not off the hook. Between the Big Four free email services they account for over 96% of the blocked email accounts on ChestNet Transactions this week. I would imagine that percentage is similar on most online sites. 

Should Yahoo, Hotmail and AOL be held accountable?

It’s hard to hold an email service accountable. Some might argue that they are equivalent to the getaway driver in the bank robbery but I consider them more of the car. Would you arrest the car markers at Ford Motors if an Explorer was used in a bank robbery? Absolutely not, so I don’t think holding Yahoo accountable is a solution. Would it work? Of course, but for the millions of honest free email users the punishment would be transferred to us good guys.

Should free email services do more to protect people from online fraud? 

Absolutely! They should take a page out of the books from some of the more fraud conscience websites and do simple address verifications (AVS). If a user registers and claims to be in Seattle, Washington but their IP address shows up in London, UK or even Washington D.C. for that matter, the new account should be denied. Bye bye, Western Union scams. See ya later scammers claiming to be in the US and located elsewhere. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out “Mr. Smith” who just inherited millions and wants to give me some of it if I give them the account to transfer the money too. AVS is a simple solution to the problem but only one of many that would need to be made to make free email services free of being an accomplice in online crimes. 

Without the free email services could fraudsters still easily attempt to swindle millions of dollars from Americans? 

Initially, no. You would get rid of a majority of the ‘fly by night’ fraudsters and leave the crimes only to the hardcore tech terrorists. There is still ways for the tech savvy to mask their location and take over a persons computer to avoid the AVS net, but for every tech savvy fraudster, there are a hundred more that don’t have the juice to make it happen.Like all crime, it evolves over time, but if the free email services such as Yahoo, Hotmail and AOL did more to protect all consumers and websites the crime wave would drop drastically. 

Buy and Sell Safely,

./Casey

World Cup of Fraudsters, Scammers and Filth of the World Score on Craigslist

“Goooooooooaaaaaal” rings loud across the world this month and we’re not talking about soccer. These are the united cheers of scammers, fraudsters and filth of the world who are taking advantage of World Cup ticket buyers online.

Starting June 9th, 2006 the good folks of ChestNet Transactions began receiving calls and emails from buyers looking for World Cup tickets on Craigslist who have been approached by scammers, fraudsters and the filth of the world. These scammers, fraudsters and filth of the world have been emailing Craigslist users saying that ChestNet Transactions has ‘verified’ them to sell World Cup tickets and it’s now safe to send the scammers, fraudsters and the filth of the world a Western Union money order to an address in either Italy or the UK. Red flag! Red flag! Red flag! (We’ll get to Western Union below. )

ChestNet Transactions secures money for both the buyer and seller within ChestNet Transactions, not outside of the ChestNet Transactions payment protection system. If the buyer puts money in their ChestNet Transactions account, there is no way a seller can steal a single penny, pence or yen from them. These fraudsters, scammers and filth of the world were trying to dupe the good soccer fans from Craigs’ into sending unsecured money orders to them for nonexistent tickets. Lucky for a few of the buyers they smelled something fishy and didn’t fall for the scammer, fraudster and filth of the world’s trick and immediately reported them to ChestNet Transactions.

For every report we received, we’d post a warning in the Craigslist city. To date, we’ve posted in over 20 cities where we’ve identified scammers, fraudsters and the filth of the world. We noticed that Craigslist took down most if not all of our posts warning buyers of the scams but we were able to still able to find the scammers posts listed on Craigslist. Looks like another “Goooooooooaaaaaal” for scammers, fraudsters, and the filth of the world as Craigslist has scored on it’s own goal and taken down the wrong ads.

Wild Wild West(ern) Union
ChestNet Transactions has reported each and every case of fraud that’s been reported to us from buyers on Craigslist to Wild Wild West(ern Union) to prevent the scammers from collecting payment, but we’re sad to learn that Wild Wild West(ern Union) could quote, “Do nothing about it. Once the payment is sent, the fraudster can pick up the payment just by giving the senders name, address, amount and their own first name”. I loved how the rep on the phone admitted that it was a fraudster collecting payment, yet they wouldn’t stop it. I guess without the fraudsters, Wild Wild West(ern Union) would lose their biggest clients. You do the math!

Speaking of “math”, ChestNet Transactions is still free to buyers and inexpensive for sellers and we plan on keeping it that way.

Until next time, safe buying and selling everyone!

./Casey

ChestNet Transactions First Week = In the News, News and More News

Ironic News? We think not! We’re in the middle of our first week and the response from the media has been extremely good. For an example, we had a local piece on KCAL CBS 9 in Los Angeles this week. Alan Mendelson surprised us the day after we launched. You can follow this link to see the clip: http://cbs2.com/video?cid=95 and click on the June 7th video.

Ironically, two days later KCAL 9 did another story on eBay auction fraud. Ironic? We think not. Not that eBay is a fraud-for-all. The good folks at eBay do their best to stop fraud but there’s obviously a lot slipping through the cracks. In the story, a seller is trying to auction off a fake Mickey Mantle autographed #7 baseball. If the ‘winner’ of that eBay auction used ChestNet Transactions to pay for the item, they would have had nothing to worry about. With ChestNet Transactions free buyer payment protection they would have had up to 7 days to authenticate the baseball before the seller runs off with their money. Luckily for the highest bidder, eBay pulled the auction before it was too late. With ChestNet Transactions, we feel luck as nothing to do with “it”.

Where’s Waldo? Every office has their little inside jokes and the good and geeky folks at ChestNet Transactions are no different. We have a lime green cookie jar bear that constantly gets placed in random places in people’s offices. Some days you’ll sit down at your desk and open your desk drawer and there it is, Mr. Freaky Green Bear.

The day Alan came in to interview our fearless leader, David Gantert, was also the day that Mr. Freaky Green Bear was hidden in Dave’s office. Timing is everything! What great timing and a perfect cameo for Mr. Freaky Green Bear. Hint: You’ll see it over Alan’s shoulder during the interview.

More News. One of the other news stories that broke this week was from a writer, Leonard Fischer of Gannett News. I religiously check out the Thursday column “Hot Sites” to see what is new and it was an honor to see we made the cut in our first week. Here’s a blurb of what he had to say:

“If you buy or sell a lot of stuff on sites such as eBay, you want to protect yourself from fraud, including items that never show up in the mail or aren’t quite what you bargained for. This new online payment system can help. It’s free for buyers and inexpensive for sellers.”

Until next time, safe buying and selling everyone!

./Casey

Fraudster Foiled in New Orleans

The Kenner Police Department recently arrested a wannabe fraudsters for attempted fraud with the support of ChestNet Transactions and our fraud protection tools. See my online friends, there is some teeth out there and the good people in the Kenner Police Department proved it!

Personally, I would like to thank the Kenner Police Department for taking our leads and information to heart and following through and taking this scammer out. In a day and age when law enforcement is stretched thin and people are becoming too immune or bothered to report online fraud, it was refreshing to work with an agency that took an online criminal offline. Which brings me to ask the following; what percentage of people actually report online fraud? We’ve noticed an increase in attempted fraud online, but how much of it outside of ChestNet Transactions is reported?

The team at ChestNet Transactions would like to hear from you. Tell us your story about how you’ve been scammed online and we’ll give you a free Hot Spot when you post a sell ad. We want to know if you ever reported being scammed to the authorities and what was the outcome? Simple way to get free exposure for your classified ad. Oh yes, and it’s always free to post your items for sell on ChestNet Transactions.

Buy and Sell Safely,

./Casey

ChestNet Transactions Tips: Send and Receive Money Safely

Buying a laptop from Craigslist? Sold your Wii system on eBay? Why send money to a stranger when you can protect your transaction by using ChestNet Transactions secure online payment system. If you are sending or receiving a payment for items bought our sold outside of ChestNet Transactions, use the links listed under “Payments” section of My ChestNet Transactions Tools.

To request money from a buyer click “Request Money” under the green Payments section.

To send money to a seller click “Send Money” under the green Payments section.

To manage your payment requests, use “Overview” to track the progress of your payments.

Buy and Sell Safely,

./Casey

What if the BCS Ran College Basketball?

It’s here! The NCAA Tournament is just a day away. The ChestNet Transactions office pool is in. (Can you say free Starbucks anyone?)

In my last post I predicted that the USC Trojans would win the Pac 10 tourney. I was off by one team. Oregon spanked the men of Troy in Saturday’s final at the Staples Center. I personally think the Oregon Ducks are the hottest team coming into the tournament, but it is going to be the Ohio State Buckeyes cutting down the nets. Then again, last time I said a team was hot (Washington), they didn’t even make the NIT.

Why the Buckeyes you ask? Easy! Kansas is too young. UCLA is soft. Texas and North Carolina will wear each other down too much to compete in the end. That leaves the football school OSU. Does this make them a basketball dynasty? Far from, but below is a list of schools who are … along with some wool dynasty national championship banners for each of the teams:

UCLA Bruins

Arizona Wildcats

Duke Blue Devils

Indiana Hoosiers

Kansas Jayhawks

Kentucky Wildcats

Louisville Cardinals

North Carolina Tarheels

I read an interesting article the other day in the Los Angeles Times titled “BCS Basket case“. The author, Chris Dufresne, asked us to imagine college basketball if the BCS (Basketball Championship Series) were to run things with the same rules as football. His story really exposed the fraud of a system that college football gives us. It really made me wish we had a similar playoff system in NCAA D1 football like March Madness. Could you imagine! Any who, enough about sports, back to putting fraudsters out of business for me.

Buy and Sell Safely,

./Casey

eBay Stamp Scam – Biggest Online ?

In spirit of recommending some of my favorite websites, I’d like to give a quick ChestNet Transactions Stamp of Enjoyment to http://www.419eater.com/, a site dedicated to exposing fraudsters.

Speaking of stamps, I wasn’t too surprised at recent article titled “Is eBay stamp racket the Net’s stickiest scam?“.

The article got me thinking … is it? I personally think so, but on a much bigger scale then just stamps. The commonly unreported misrepresentation of goods is the largest and most unreported online. For an example, is that Gucci wallet you practically got for free from the seller on eBay really a Gucci or Pucci made in Vietnam? You would like to tell yourself it is and by golly he had positive feedback (whatever that really means!). But how can one tell? If one can tell eventually, can one swallow ones own pride enough to report the fraud? If one can swallow that pride, who does one report the online fraud to? eBay? Police? FBI? Batman!

Psst. Stamp Collectors. A little secret I’d like to share with you. Use ChestNet Transactions. At least with ChestNet Transactions, you will get seven days to approve the stamp before the seller gets paid. In the case of the stamp, that’s 168 consecutive hours to get your super small sticky paper collector b u double t over to an appraiser or your fellow collectors to see if the item is legit. If not, return and refund! It’s that simple with ChestNet Transactions.

Buy and Sell Safely,

./Casey

Will ChestNet Transactions Put Judge Judy Out of Business?

I know it’s the question on everyone’s mind … will ChestNet Transactions put Judge Judy out of business? After watching the video of the “Pictures for PayPal” scam, I couldn’t help but feel concerned about JJ’s future. I wonder if Judge Judy realizes that that scam that happens on eBay couldn’t happen on www.chest-net.com?

We really like Judge Judy. Honestly, we really do, but what will become of our Constitution Defending Superhero if www.chest-net.com keeps eBay fraudsters from committing fraud?

I think I have a solution. It’s not as glamorous as yelling at an eBay scam artist, but she can at least be part of a team that solves eBay fraud. We can use Judy in our HR department. We’ll even give her the title of “VP of Judicial Officer” aka VipJo. As VipJo, she’ll keep those loose ChestNet Transactions vacation days in line. Call in sick? Better have your doctor show up to vouch for you. Car has a flat? She’ll remind you that cars have four tires.

On second thought, I’m not really sure if JJ will fit in with our corporate culture of “Fight Fraudsters Not Fun” philosophy.

Until next time, safe buying and selling everyone!

./Casey

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