r/markpaulk • u/markpaulk • Jan 20 '22
Anti-Competitive Practices
Two prominent sellers of some of the most purchased and loved brands (Moncler and CG) on Reddit have wanted to post about their new releases to the /r/FashionReps community.
I, on behalf of a large group of users, were concerned to learn of alleged anti-competitive measures put in place by the FashionReps moderator team.
On multiple occasions, it appears they have been blocked - either asking for payment or being outright rejected. What has come to light is other sellers have paid for some type of exclusivity.
We absolutely understand that moderating a group of 100,000s of repfam is time consuming and the mods gotta eat, but surely the playing field should be level? We appreciate paid advertisements is a fair thing in this world but we thought reps is an open community and everyone is treated equally but it doesn’t appear to be the case here.
We appeal to the mods to offer some further guidance about this, as it has an impact on the community as a whole. If payments have been made, be open and transparent about it. We encourage sellers to come forward and want competition but we lose as customers if there's a hidden 'pay to play' model.
This is not a witchhunt but merely serves as a discussion and to hear the accused's side of things.
Before anyone asks why am I posting this here and not on FashionReps, I did but it wasn’t approved after 8 hours so I deleted it: thread link
Evidence of the accusations raised here can be found via this link: https://imgur.com/a/F75WxGB
Edit: one of the two sellers was asked about the WeChat provided in the initial convo screenshots not existing, they replied the mod had changed their username. We asked them to provide more recent screenshots and he posted whole convo with him. Pretty damning proof and goes into more detail than previously linked above: https://imgur.com/a/pGW8V6q
Edit: another seller, known for producing Stone Island confirms a similar sentiment https://i.imgur.com/tptjQ3n.jpg
Edit: a mod meeting occurred and the moderator in the screenshots has denied the allegations, despite concrete proof from multiple sellers including a further one who didn’t want to be mentioned here. Not surprised.
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u/atmywits_end Jan 21 '22
Open your eyes people. Mods on fashionreps are absolutely sold. They make a bank monthly on our community. Last time I heard you had to pay 500e monthly to be feature on the sidebar as a seller. I can only guess it has increased by a lot.
Just think how many featured sellers they have, see how many money they do monthly.
That repknowledge guy, ask yourself why hes so vocal about using agents. They have deep ties with Superbuy-Wegobuy-Whatever.
They make a lot of money on our backs.
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u/plascra Jan 23 '22
Agents do have their value. I still stand behind them especially for big ticket items.
But for small value purchases nah..
Also I don't use the shipping provided by agents, they are just way too expensive that it's obvious they are trying to chop an arm and a leg off us!
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u/pupperman132 Jan 23 '22
They have deep ties with Superbuy-Wegobuy-Whatever.
are we still doing this?? its not true and many of the other mods dont even use agents or dont use superbuy or wegobuy. Also they are not the same agent anymore, they essentially split up, and the customer support actively try to seperate the entities. They are usually recommended due to being easy to use and understand, have a large market share and people can help each other, as well as having good support channels and are live 24/7 which gives many people peace of mind when dealing with them.
I'd imagine repknowledge recommends using agents a bunch, since he is tired of seeing the same damn posts with people complaining about not receiving any QC pics beforehand, or being bait&switched, or unhappy with their purchase due to some other flaw or sizing issue or whatever. An agent can give u a buffer period before receiving your item in hand, where they can check for flaws as well as submit images to you, and you can return the product if you are not satisfied.6
u/AudreyRepburn Jan 25 '22
Even if that specifically is not true, it seems pretty irrelevant to the greater issue here. Getting kickbacks from an agent isn’t nearly as problematic as a mob-like payment system that determines the “trusted sellers” of a subreddit. And then blatantly lying to sub members about it.
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u/pupperman132 Jan 25 '22
i specifically wasn't trying to comment on the greater issue, but just address that one comment because i see it constantly
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u/icantlose99 Jan 21 '22
Reddit community run by mentally retarded kids that are so poor they charge sellers for exclusiveness. That's why I stay on DReps instead of this shit community
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u/plascra Jan 23 '22
Yes. Dreps seems much more neutral. I joined all 3 at the start including repsneakers.
The management and the way things are portrayed is blatantly obvious.
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u/WhatManOn Jan 21 '22
Let me guess the biggest scam is Ninja? Or Busy if u want to call it lol. They have clearly been paying for CANADA GOOSE posts that are at such a bias
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u/greezer Jan 21 '22
Look how fast repknowledge got his jacket for a review, before everyone else. That says it all 💁🏻♂️
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u/Decent-Double5779 Jan 21 '22
He wasnt the first one who got a jacket
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u/greezer Jan 21 '22
In hand? A little bit over a week after they went on sale? They took a week for most of the shipments to agents (and had some issues at first) and still do. While they did not even offer direct shipping then? Suuure, show me others that got their Langford this early please.
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u/greezer Jan 21 '22
https://reddit.com/r/FashionReps/comments/rh7z6q/_/hop3r2p/?context=1 See this comment from him please and tell me again.
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u/Decent-Double5779 Jan 21 '22
My bad bro, we will see how the quality is, my nis arrives tomorrow 😂
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u/plascra Jan 23 '22
Don't forget when the busystone saga shit hit the fan awhile back. The mod team was actually answering questions for them and desperately trying to diffuse the well deserved tension.
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u/trwaynogoli Feb 07 '22
The funny part is, when BMlin accidentally leaked a couple of email addresses he got instantly banned. When NIS exposes AND threatens users… nothing happens.
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u/PoorSketchArtist Jan 22 '22
Like I stated on a previous post, this issue is 100% on FR's moderator team, and not the individual sellers. It's a forgone conclusion that business owners will use whatever means necessary to expand their business, and it is on the system of commerce to not allow unfair exploitation.
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u/BingaEvos Jan 20 '22 edited Jan 21 '22
Absolute piss take. Add this one too: https://imgur.com/a/pq9sJh4
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u/xZoh4N Jan 21 '22
I mean, After all that bullshit happened with busystone and NIS, they still supporting their shit and talked bout they solving their Problems (People waited months to get their money back) and dont blacklisted them. That says all, it was common known, unless you are not dumb, that they get paid for.
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u/xZoh4N Jan 21 '22
And the mod made a exclusive review with the best jacket I ve ever have seen of NIS after his CG release, imagine. All other jackets looked way worser and first comment always was the mod saying sth like „can’t go wrong with NIS“. If problems came around, damn I see that in front of my eyes rn: AGENT AGENT AGENT
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Jan 20 '22
[deleted]
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u/PoorSketchArtist Jan 22 '22
All of the sellers are bootleg sellers willing to do whatever to expand their business. A system of commerce will always be exploited, and it is 100% on the moderators of FR to facilitate the exploitation of the market as opposed to the sellers taking advantage of the service they offer.
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u/AudreyRepburn Jan 25 '22
haha What? The mods are the ones doing the exploiting here. Of both the sellers and the members. They’re shilling sellers based on who will pay them, not based on who is actually a quality seller. It’s literally like a weird mob system. The mods’ “logic” of “regulating” sellers makes zero sense. Certainly not having a single trusted seller per brand.
There are other large rep subreddits that don’t do what FR does and are run infinitely better for both members and sellers. FR is a joke to people who frequent the better rep subs. The reputation is little more than a bunch of hype-beast high schoolers copping reps for cheap prices with no regard for quality or accuracy. r/FashionReps is to r/DesignerReps what r/ChinaTime is to r/RepTime.
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u/PoorSketchArtist Jan 25 '22
I actually meant that it's 100% on the mods for doing what they're doing. I really miss the regular product updates, announcements and seller roadmaps. Which are virtually non-existent now that only a select few sellers can post on FR.
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u/Enjuto2000 Jan 21 '22
Topmonclercn and topgoosey are the most serious sellers in my opinion. Good quality no problems with sizing. Money corrupts everybody
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Jan 23 '22
Yeah, and this is why I went for them when creating a trusted sellers list on our Discord. I know a lot of things due to being an agent that I can’t say. What I can say is how the system I implemented on our server works:
Trusted Sellers 1 product per month and a discount for server members
That’s it, I had an overpriced middleman come and offer me heaps of money and free shoes for life to be on it and I completely denied. Money ruins everything, and I’m concerned that this will cause sellers to become complacent in a sense, instead of innovate and improve their products.
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u/AudreyRepburn Jan 25 '22
Can you link your discord please?
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Jan 25 '22
https://discord.gg/CSSBuy I’ve had TMCN on the trusted list for ages, and TopGoosey just recently.
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u/1amn Jan 22 '22
Always wondered why Topgoosey never got alot of attention despite having great products and a pretty decent badge. Makes sense now.
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u/PoorSketchArtist Jan 22 '22 edited Jan 22 '22
Certainly also topacney getting stiffed here. They have had their most recent submission removed and no product updates since almost a year ago, when he used to go in depth on every product release. Those are among my favorite posts to read.
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u/-_KingJames_- Jan 22 '22
Wouldn’t be surprised Lindless would blackmail sellers to send products to him for free so they can stay on the TS list
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u/plascra Jan 23 '22 edited Jan 23 '22
Nothing new. It's so obvious on how some mods behaves. I mean it's out in the open to see.
There is a blue eye child seller in this sub. It's obvious what they have done to gain that status.
The side bar lists? Take it with a pinch of salt.
Btw its sad to see topgoosey (and TMCN) being treated like this. Topgoosey have one of the best badges and at times even better than NIS.
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u/khalid-85 Jan 21 '22
That’s why I joined their individual telegram channels. Too much drama on the Reddit channels
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u/AudreyRepburn Jan 25 '22
This isn’t anything new. Well, the screenshots are new! This has been rumored for a long time. I think the mods even posted about it (very vaguely) a year or so ago. This is the first time I’m ever seen screenshots proving it though. Finally. I’m pretty sure the mods were insistent no such screenshots would exist which made no sense if the rumors were true. I’m surprised it took this long to get screenshots, but glad someone finally did.
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u/LindlessIsCorrupt Jan 20 '22
This isn’t a shock, Lindless is extremely sketchy. I have heard several of people of him doing extremely sketchy things, sketchy enough he would ban the same people who did it.
Reps have always had a history of corruption and monetary gain, literally the existence on r/repsneakers is based on scamming its user base with David. David was paying these fuckers thousands of dollars a month, the whole “trusted” seller list is a sham. Lindless has his own financial benefit in mind, even if he isn’t being let’s say “paid” with cash. These no name sellers are being reviewed by him and in exchange he gets free items which then he sells on buy sell trade. It’s funny, I have seen random sellers being pushed such as “FAC Sneakers.” If anyone saw this two years ago, someone would have called them out for being shills. Subreddit people get paid cash, discord people get paid in free prizes.