IMPORTANT!!! New Security updates made between 22.04 and 24.04.2012

New server updates were made between 22.04 and 24.04.2012. We have increased our security by making some major updates to our servers, however, it is possible that some of our website features failed during this period, this includes our contact us, registration, refund and payment forms. Customers who used this forms between 22 and 24 of April please resubmit your questions or registration details so we can be sure we have received them. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

/Casey

 

UPDATE: BellYard Sales (www.bellyardsales.com) Updated Today 10:00 am pst – 12:00 pm pst

Just a friendly message that BellYard Sales had routine maintenance to the website today between 10 am pst and 12 pm pst. A few of you might have been kicked out of your session during that time. For this, I do apologize. The good news is, everything is better than ever with the site. Feel free to post free sell ads, want ads or send and receive payments safely with BellYard Sales’s safe payment system.

Buy and Sell Safely!

./Casey

 

BellYard Sales (www.bellyardsales.com) working on telephone support

Improving customer support involves making a commitment to learning what the needs of customers are. BellYard Sales recognizes that good customer service is not as much in winning customers, but in keeping them and the key to keeping customers is the level of support provided. We know that it is hard to make a transaction through a service when you have no contact number to speak with a live person and get your needed confidence.
We have started a project to make that happen and will launch a Telephone Support soon. Providing a high-level of customer service is critical to the overall success of problem resolution. BellYard Sales is climbing the ladder to be a customer service “star.”

 

BellYard Sales Fraudster Foiled in New Orleans

The Kenner Police Department recently arrested a wannabe fraudsters for attempted fraud with the support of BellYard Sales 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 BellYard Sales is reported?

The team at BellYard Sales 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 BellYard Sales.

Buy and Sell Safely,

./Casey

 

BellYard Sales helping Japan victims

While the devastating Japan earthquake and tsunami have passed, the recovery and mourning have just begun. The disaster could become the most expensive earthquake in history. The crisis could get even worse, depending on what happens next at the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

Now, more than ever, the Japanese people need our help and support to get through this crisis.

BellYard Sales is  willing to donate 5% of all profits to the tsunami and earthquake victims. ” We wanted to donate items that didn’t sell through our service and ask all our customers to donate as much as they can but shipping anything there is a nightmare and we decided to just donate 5% of our profits to the victims.” said David Gantert the founder of BellYard Sales yesterday in a press meeting. “Some of our customers are donating as much as they can and we should make an example for them by giving even more” said David.

The BellYard Sales specialize in online consignment services for businesses, individuals, and non-profit groups offering their services on eBay and Craigslist.

 

BellYard Sales 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 BellYard Sales’s secure online payment system. If you are sending or receiving a payment for items bought our sold outside of BellYard Sales, use the links listed under “Payments” section of My BellYard Sales 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

 

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 BellYard Sales 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, BellYard Sales is only $1.95 or 5% for credit cards (with sliding scale) or FREE for ACH / eChecks, that’s it. BellYard Sales 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 BellYard Sales the buyer and seller don’t owe a thing unless the transaction is successfully complete.

While both Escrow.com and BellYard Sales 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 BellYard Sales’s 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

 

Maintenance on BellYard Sales Email Server

Great news! We’re making upgrades to our email server today and should be up and running again any hour now. If you don’t want to wait for your registration email and want the BellYard Sales team to confirm your registration for you, just click “Contact Us” to go to our contact form.

Buy and Sell Safely!

./Casey

 

BellYard Sales – Bonds Ball: You Decide!

How the tables have turned! Us good folks at BellYard Sales are die hard sports fans so we followed the auction of Barry Bonds record breaking 756 baseball. In an ironic twist, designer Mark Ecko has purchased Barry Bonds’ 756 home run for $752,467 USD. That’s a lot of jeans!

Marc has now set up a website to determine the balls fate. This is not a joke. As a fan you can vote to:

A) Bestow it and send it as is to Cooperstown.

B) Brand it with an asterick and then send it to Cooperstown.

C) Banish it and put the boll on a rocket ship and launch it into orbit.

The people haven’t had this much power over a fraudster since BellYard Sales went online in June of 2006!

You can vote for 756 here: http://www.vote756.com/

Fight Fraud!

 

Michael Vick Ads Pulled from BellYard Sales

After reading about NFL QB Michael Vick of the Atlanta Falcons federal indictment, the team at BellYard Sales has decided to shut off all ads selling Michael Vick memorabilia, clothing and collectibles. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused to our various sellers, but we did not want our fraud-free services to directly benefit Michael Vick. We did however allow one ad to remain posted

Men (and I use that term loosely) like Adam Jones, Tank Johnson and Michael Vick are giving athletes a bad name. While the “Vicks” of the world steal from the more needed headlines from philanthropic athletes such as Reggie Bush of the New Orleans Saints or Vicks teammate, Warrick Dunn, I have no problem letting the media test Michael Vicks own ferocity. Lucky for him our legal system won’t hang, drown, strangle, shoot or electrocute him when it said and done. Too bad I could not say the same thing for the dogs he allowed to be murdered. He’ll have a chance to walk out alive even if his own tail is between his legs.

But are you really surprised by Vicks actions? This is the same player who flipped off fans after a game … his OWN fans! How about the “Ron Mexico” incident? Even better his idiotic attempt to bring marijuana (illegal) hidden in a water bottle (which you cannot bring on a plane). He’s obviously not all there upstairs. I’m starting to think it’s how he was rasied because his younger brother isn’t much better, Marcus Vick.

Dumb Stat of the Day

The most disturbing stat of the day was a recent poll by ESPN.com.

The question was “Should the NFL act now and suspend Michael Vick?” Out of 110,887 votes, only 58% said “Yes”.

For the sake of our country, I’m just hoping that a majority of the 42% are waiting for more facts in the case to come out and not blind Vick supporters or Falcon followers. After viewing the ESPN voters map, I have a sickening feeling that it’s the later.

 

BellYard Sales – How to Safely Buy an iPhone

How to Safely Buy an iPhoneSo, you have a life and didn’t want to act like a wannabe Wookie and wait in a long line for an iPhone. For that I commend you! But like most of us, we’re on the outside looking in on what has been one of the most anticipated – and successfully hyped – product releases since one can remember. So what now? At BellYard Sales, we’ve anticipated the launch in a different light. We expected and received an entirely new wave of fraudsters and they haven’t disappointed us. We’ve been diligently removing phony iPhone ads as they appear all day long. Of course, nothing makes us happier than seeing a fraudster waste his time on our site just to get rejected by the BellYard Sales Fraud Protection system. I don’t know what’s been easier; breathing or stopping iPhone scams on BellYard Sales! But just in case you want some extra protection here are a few buying tips when purchasing a new iPhone online:

1) Be prepared to pay in full.“What! Pay in full?” you say? That’s correct! Apple didn’t discount their iPhones so if someone is selling their iPhone below what’s listed on Apple or AT&T you can bet it’s a scam.

2) Do NOT send payments via money order, Western Union or like payment service! This actually applies to all on and offline transactions, but I will diligently and responsibly reiterate this message just to remind our fraud-free readers. Once you send your money via Western Union, it’s long gone! Use a reputable and secure payment service like BellYard Sales to protect your transaction. Besides, it’s free for buyers and affordable for sellers. Heck, for a limited time if you use an eCheck, our payment security is free to both of buyer and seller.

3) Avoid “Free iPhone” scams and solicitations. Most are just phishing for your personal information or will require you to jump through more hoops and hoopla than the iPhone is actually worth. The “Free iPhone” scams are just elaborate ways to prey upon those that are juiced up on hopium (yes, that’s a new word and I plan I using it again in future blogs). The only thing that’s free will be your personal information you provide to these bottom feeders.

4) Buy from Apple or AT&T Wireless. Why pay more on eBay or Craigslist or even our beloved BellYard Sales when you can buy an iPhone directly from Apple or AT&T Wireless? Of course when and if supplies run out, you’ll see opportunistic sellers flood the market with their inventory in hope of turning a buck or two. If that turns out to be the case, I suggest reading #2 again.

Fight Fraud!./Casey

 

BellYard Sales – RipOffReport.com: Useful or Useless?

As it’s been well documented, us crime fighters at BellYard Sales take fighting online fraud seriously. I always want to offer more ways to protect our buyers and sellers and here’s one that might be worth a glance. I read an article in the LA Times today about a website that helped catch a suspected fraudster, Kathleen Legaspi: http://www.ripoffreport.com/

I’m still playing with the site, RipOffReport.com, but the idea of a centralized fraud reporting portal for everyone to reference is a great idea. Wikipedia of scams if you will. I personally wish they had a tool to search email addresses of suspected fraudsters, but I couldn’t find one if it existed.

More to come about RipOffReport.com after the BellYard Sales fraud prevention team plays with it a bit more, but we’d like to hear from our users to see if they’ve had any experience with this site.

Buy and Sell Safely,

./Casey

 

BellYard Sales – Yahoo and Hotmail Enable Fraudsters

Yahoo and Hotmail Enable Fraudsters While analyzing the fraud catching fishing nets on BellYard Sales 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 BellYard Sales 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

 

BellYard Sales – eBay Stamp Scam – Biggest Online ?

In spirit of recommending some of my favorite websites, I’d like to give a quick BellYard Sales 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 BellYard Sales. At least with BellYard Sales, 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 BellYard Sales.

Buy and Sell Safely,

./Casey

 

BellYard Sales – The Departed – Wins the Tony and an Oscar?

“The Departed” – Win’s the Tony and an Oscar?

In honor of “The Departed”, the Oscar winning thriller staring Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Wahlberg and Jack Nicholson, I would like to dedicate this moment to the most recently departed fraudster from the BellYard Sales website: “samuel”

“Samuel” attempted to register on BellYard Sales with a first name “Tony” and last name of “Sam”. “Tony Sam”. Say it out loud to your self and try not to laugh at the thought of this wannabe fraudster thinking of realistic American name to register with. This was one fraudster that even our proprietary fraud detection tools wasn’t even needed for. For any real Tony Sam’s out there, I do apologize on many fronts.

I think the fact that he registered on bellyardsales.com in the city/state of “flrida, Colorad“ means either one of two things:

1) Al Gore was right when he said there are obvious signs of global warming in our lives today when an ocean state turns into a city in Colorado. “Vail for beach volleyball anyone?”

2) Tony Sam … snicker snicker …. has no concept of city and state and is a very very terrible at what he does. He should stick to his day job.

I’m voting for number two, but that’s just me. We don’t recommend sending tons and tons of nasty spam to Tony Sam’s email account at tmsplaza@yahoo.com. Seriously, we don’t *wink wink* recommend flooding Tony Sams inbox with so much spam that he won’t be able to use his favorite tool for fraud, his Yahoo email account.

So Tony Sam, the man with two names, you join the thousands of those “Departed“ by the BellYard Sales fraud detection system.

Until next time, safe buying and selling everyone!

./Casey

 

Skip Starbucks – Grow a Tree with BellYard Sales

I’m not one to promote other websites, other then www.bellyardsales.com of course, but I thought signing up for http://www.greendimes.com was worth the quick blurb. In a nutshell, they have a program that eliminates your junk mail (which I can audit) and they plant a tree on your behalf (which I cannot audit). If you can spare a dime a day, visit Greendimes and sign up today.

By skipping out on a Starbucks twice a month I feel like I have helped our plant and reduce my junk mail.

Now, after reading about Greendimes mission, it got me thinking; what if BellYard Sales were to do something each time we catch a fraudster? I’m open to great ideas. Email us your idea today!

 

March Madness Comes Early at BellYard Sales

Yes, we know it’s early to discuss March Madness. The pool of 64 teams hasn’t even been announced yet. Heck, the biggest conference championship games have yet to even take place yet! But while on the subject of conference champs, how intriguing is the Pac 10 championship going to be this week at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, CA? Ucla, Washington State, USC, Arizona, Oregon and Washington can all stake claim to the title.

Personally, I think Washington is playing the best basketball at this time after sweeping the LA schools over the weekend. But the team to beat will be from LA and I’m not talking about those gutty little Bruins, I’m talking about the men of Troy. Yes, those Trojans. The path isn’t clear for anyone but if the finals come down to an ‘SC vs Ucla match-up the Trojans are due. An early season free throw melt down at home cost the Trojans from a sure W over their cross-town rivals, but a lack of free throw love from the refs in the rematch (Ucla shot 35 free throw to 5, yes FIVE, for USC) gave the Ucla Bruins the sweep. I’m not a betting man, but if I was, I’d go with the old adage that third times a charm. That’s assuming that both LA schools can battle past the other powerhouses in the Pac 10.

But back to the reason for this post. We’re excited to report we made some ‘behind the scenes’ improvements to BellYard Sales on Friday, March 3rd, 2007. It’s not as exciting as discussing college basketball but we want to let our community of fraud-free friends know that we’ve made updates and we like sports.

If you have any issues to report, please do so by filling out this easy to use bug form.

Buy and Sell Safely!

./Casey

 

BellYard Sales – Out with the Old, In with the New!

BellYard Sales has made some amazing strides in the last week. We’ve added FREE eCheck payment capability to our site. All you need is a valid US bank account and you can send and receive payments to anyone in the US of A at no cost. “Why on earth are you giving away free BellYard Sales payments” you ask? Because we want to prove to the internet that BellYard Sales is the safest and easiest way to send and receive payments, that’s why.

So the next time you find that perfect gift on eBay or don’t really want to risk sending money to a stranger on Craiglist, just use BellYard Sales eChecks to secure your transaction.

BellYard Sales eCheck will replace American Express as a secure payment solution on BellYard Sales. We strive to offer 100% secure payments and continue to lead the internet in fighting payment and transaction fraud. We felt American Express no longer fit our definition and model of full protection for both the buyer and the seller. Visa, backed by Verified by Visa, is still a very viable choice for payment on BellYard Sales.

Until next time, safe buying and selling everyone!
./Casey

 

BellYard Sales Plenty to be Thankful For

The good folks at www.bellyardsales.com have plenty to be thankful for this Thanksgiving Eve. For starters the site is growing exponentially on both fronts; ads and secure payments. Fraudsters have been foiled on a daily basis. Yes DAILY basis. It’s amazing to see how many fraudsters attempt to rip off good buyers these days. To reiterate past posts, our focus is to eliminate online fraud and make buying and selling online affordable.

So on this Turkey Day Eve, the BellYard Sales Team would like to give a huge “Thank you” to our members and readers alike.

Until next time, safe buying and selling everyone!

./Casey

 

BellYard Sales Moving on up!

BellYard Sales is making upgrades to our servers and services and will temporarily be down over the weekend of September 21st to September 23rd. We apologize for the inconvenience but are excited to see the improvements to the site speed.

Buy and Sell Safely!
./Casey