New auction site? great cow?

[diger7]

There is a brand new Auction site that is just starting up. The owner is looking to increase traffic and is PAYING new buyers and sellers $100 when they reach the threshold (currently $1.00) of items bought or sold.

I thought it was a scam and waited until I got my bonus before posting this and endorsing the site. Not sure how many are interested, check it out if you are.

www . great cow . com

Please use my name for the referal when asked, xxxxx and if you need an auction to qualify for your bonus don't hesitate to send me a message (there or here) and I will move one from Exhibition to Live.

My $100 Seller bonus has already made it to my account and I waited until it did before posting this, I also asked if posting this shameless advetisement was okay on this board, thanks for allowing this xxxxxxx.

Again please use my name (xxxxxx) for the referral, listing on the site is free, and the FVF is all he is currently charging and it is less than ½ of 1%.

Anyway try it out, unless you are not interested in getting your $100.00 of the seed money.

I am not spamming!!!!  I found this on another board, and wanted to hear your opinions.  The site looks nice though.

Edit:  The person who posted this said that they are not the owner of the site.

[regic]

How do I sell my item?

1) So, back to the selling part: Of course, you need to become a full member

What information we collect?

2) Full membership level
Last 4 digits of your Social Security Number

3) Verified membership level
Your bank name, routing number and account number

http://www. greatcow .com/home/?articleId=33

Edited by Amy to "fix" Regi's greatcow URL

[amy]

From online escorts to auctions and he's asking for SSN's and bank accounts?

His former site singleskitchen.com was a "dating" site.  Singles Kitchen also is the company name and the domain now redirects to greatcow.com.

What is a "female provider"? http://web.archive.org/web/2002012102393...tchen.com/

Oh, I see! A female provider is an escort!

Singles Kitchen: Escort Dating Club

"Escort-Friendly Place for All Your Dating Needs"

http://web.archive.org/web/2001121410510...?redir=ads&ads_id=143

What is this?
    Singles' Kitchen is a nationwide Escort Dating Club for providers and hobbyists (seekers). The Kitchen is a "private club". We are not an agency - we charge no agency fees.
What do we have here?
    In the Kitchen, you will find personal ads of providers.

http://web.archive.org/web/2001092207002...tchen.com/

There are two groups of dating participants in the Kitchen: providers and seekers. Providers are men or women who enjoy dating, and who make their time available to seekers for dating appointments. The providers place a certain monetary value on their dating time (what economists call "opportunity cost", and what we, in the Kitchen, call"time-value").

ps He was advertising his new auction site on forums  2 months ago. http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/...hp?t=17998 and said  the GreatCow inhouse payment system is bank account only. "We do NOT accept credit cards. We refuse to do so, and we have no plans to accept them. "

Strange this sudden opposition to credit cards because singleskitchen DID accept credit cards.

Our monthly membership fee is set at $4.95 if paying by Credit Card or $7.95 if paying by online check.

http://web.archive.org/web/2001103112511...om/faq.php

[dnc_ont]

Hmm, do you think his merchant account provider found out that he was pimping hos with an ordinary account and not disclosing his high risk adult transactions??  ;D

That might explain his 'refusal' to accept credit cards.. 

[bargainbloodhound]

Based on other new auction sites that have opened in the past and refused to take either PayPal and/or credit cards (and the reasons that later surfaced for their opposition to accepting a particular payment method),  I'm having a hard time believing it was a voluntary decision not to accept credit cards. 

Besides the dating site past and the credit card question, I'm also wondering how he hopes to earn enough revenue stay in business if the only fee he charges is a 0.49% FVF.  If the site becomes popular he's going to need LOTS of revenues coming in to build up the infrastructure, hire staff, etc.

[iron_chick]

For the love of gawd, please don't anyone give this person the last four digits of your social.
The first five digits are VERY EASY for anyone with your full name to find.  Give them the last four, too, and they don't even have to guess.

[jezebel]

A female provider

  That is a novel way of referring to the oldest profession.
  What a

[Mark]

Hello to all the ladies and gents! I love this thread!!! A member from G.C. suggested that I check it out, so I did --- and it fascinated me! I appreciate the interest that GreatCOW.com has provoked. And I love the discussion that has followed (how juuuuicy!!!). I also love the due diligence that you ladies/gents have done to investigate the name and the obviously interesting URL path! The old archived URL you found is one of a very very old web site we developed very early in our web development subcontracting career for a company in Central Europe. The European company – who actually paid for this web site development project is a company called Tomko. They didn’t have any other domain name, so we used our name.... In retrospect, we probably shouldn’t have (I was just starting business on the Net -- oh how naïve I was). It’s one of many very old web sites that we were hired to create.  ... We had nothing to do with the actual nature of the business, we only developed the site and managed technical and customer support....Wow! That rings the bell. Delightful! Nice graphics, actually. All done in PHP. A programming nightmare, it was, in fact - as I recall. I hired students back then. Saved cash. Very buggy software 

We are not particularly proud of this site.  And, it was just one of the software development projects that we did for Tomko. Not particularly proud of it, but they paid us for the project. BTW, we also developed some embedded (programming done in C.... not even C++, heh heh) control systems (engine and transmission controllers, also in-vehicle networks) for one of the big three automotive corporations in Detroit Area... But that is probably not in the web.archives ... We had done all kinds of software development programming. My background is in engineering and in software development. But I have no secrets... You can read my very brief bio right here: http://www.greatcow.com/home/?article=th...story_id35

Hey, having said what I said, there are some corrections to make about G.C. (1) We do not require last 4 S.S. digits to validate identity of individuals ... there were concerns about it, and we listen to our customers -- we removed this feature. (2) We have no problems getting merchant account (we just opened one)... however merchant accounts are much more expensive then direct bank transfers. (3) We do not require anybody to provide bank account numbers in order to buy/sell on our site. That is purely optional (4) we are already growing very well, I'm advertising for and hiring more senior J2EE developers and expanding the infrastructure.



But once again, I appreciate this post very very much -- and I like your comments -- cools beans! Thanks for your participation, keep chatting... Your feedback is very kind and very important for me to know.

Cheers,
Boys and Girls,
Mark J., The founder and creator of G.C.

[Nat]

GreatCow? Then why do they have a picture of a bull on their homepage and not a cow? Maybe it's supposed to be GreatBull?

[quote author=Mark link=topic=3177.msg14914#msg14914 date=1148514489]
Hey, having said what I said, there are some corrections to make about G.C. (1) We do not require last 4 S.S. digits to validate identity of individuals ... there were concerns about it, and we listen to our customers -- we removed this feature. [/quote]

Interesting, if it's been removed why is it still showing on the Policy page:

What information we collect?

In order to use this site, you are not required to provide any personal information, unless you would like to register at a desired membership level. Depending on the level, the kind of personal information collected is the following:

1) Junior membership level
Email address

2) Full membership level
Name
Address
Phone number
Last 4 digits of your Social Security Number

3) Verified membership level
Your bank name, routing number and account number

https://www.greatcow.com/home/?article=o...olicy_id33

That page says it was " Last edited by mark on Friday Mar 24, 2006 at 6:29 PM" so it was edited today but not to remove the part about asking for one's last 4 digits of their SSN.

Oh darn….guess Canadian's aren't welcome there are as don't have social security numbers (we have SIN numbers).

[Mark]

Thanks Nat, I appreciate your careful reading of our writings. Rhonda is our splendid senior member and the editor-in-chief for the article pages (including privacy policy). She has already made the correction (super fast!). That article was long obsolete... and unfortunately inaccurate. For the benefit of this fine community, we have not asked our members for the last 4-digits for the past 2 months.

Regarding our fine Canadian neighbors, we will soon be expanding to other countries (Canada is at the top of the list). We use standard security geo-location mapping mechanisms to filter out certain countries. Since the site is so new, we have been restricting registrations only to USA. However, we hope by the next week we will open it up to many other low-risk countries, and we will continue blocking certain high-risk countries.

Thanks so much for your comment!

Cheers,
Mark