Colnect swap warning

A serious word of warning about the colnect site.


Like many of us, I also collect banknotes and use the colnect site to catalog them. (Please do not turn this into a "Numista should do that" thread--there are other threads already on this subject.)

In my first 12 swaps there (with only 9 different members), I have already had 3 very bad experiences. The reason for the bad experiences is probably best summarized by the fact that there is little/no adult supervision (moderators) there.

Any member can change their rating of another member at any time. Because of this, members can change your rating to negative after already rating you positive.

There is also a disgusting pervasive attitude with some members at colnect. Sadly, this mentality is that if they have more ratings than you, they will threaten you with damaging your ratings unless they get what they want. These unscrupulous members work together to suppress members with fewer swaps.

When problems with members are experienced at colnect, invariably the first thing said is not "let's work together and fix this," it's "you'd better not even think about rating me negative, because I will destroy you." Sad indeed.

I hate to bring up problems without solutions. Although this is not a very good solution, it is the best I can think of. My solution to the colnect problem is to not execute swaps within colnect. Insist that the member create a Numista account and perform the swap here. This will give you the protection of Numista moderators (they're hundreds of times better than colnect--once again please stay on topic and do not discuss Numista moderators).

I'm sure this kind of behavior has also happened at Numista, but I'd like to hear from Numista members that have been swapping on colnect. Am I just very unlucky at colnect with a 3/9 (33%) dirtbag rate? Or is that what I should expect if I decide to do more swaps at colnect?

Truly, probably none of this matters, as colnect members are currently colluding against me so that no one else will swap with me. But I refuse to roll over for the 3rd time, as I did against the first 2 bullies.

I've done over 50 swaps on colnect and never had any problems. Trust me when I say that the Colnect moderators are take care of this problems, you were just unlucky I think.

I like many things about Colnect, not least the practice of publishing the names and addresses of serial thieves. I've never made a swap there because until recently they didn't support itemizing coins by year which made it just too cumbersome.

Also there is an assumption that everything will be shipped by registered mail making it unrealistic for US members. To make any kind of economic sense it has to be a trade of well over $200 to make the cost proportionately viable and I'm just not willing to take such a gamble with people I don't know.

The person with the main responsibility for resolving disputes recently passed on which might account for the current lack of response. Hopefully this will improve once a replacement is found.

Yes, I'm aware that he passed away. I'm sure this is part of the mediation problem.

Quote: "allexis"​I've done over 50 swaps on colnect and never had any problems. Trust me when I say that the Colnect moderators are take care of this problems, you were just unlucky I think.

​You're very suspicious my friend. 50 swaps on colnect without problems it's hard to believe.
I never swap there before and wont swap there in the furture neither.
7 friends of my did and they're the ones who advice me to avoid colnect.

I've swapped on Colnect 5 times over a year with 3 different folks: two swaps each with two of them and once with a Numista member who is also on Colnect. All the swaps went well, I have no complaints. But I have just a handful of notes in my swap list and none of them of a high value. The most expensive note I've swapped was last year's Canadian commemorative $20 but I swapped it in the second swap with that person and that was rather an exception from my own "rules" (that I impose on myself only anyways).

I do agree that feedback system there is flawed. You basically don't rate the swap but rather a member. If one swap was good but another one not so good with the same person, what do you do? I've modified my feedback for those two members that I swapped with twice clearly (somewhat) marking my additional comment. Also, the fact that you can modify your feedback at any point (unlike here) has more cons than pros in my opinion.

Anyways, good luck to anyone swapping outside of Numista.

I swapped banknotes on colnect just one time and with a Numista member (swapped coins before). I got many swap request on colnect but I won't go in this way, this website is kinda weird for me.

Quote: "Dutchgalego"​

Quote: "allexis"​I've done over 50 swaps on colnect and never had any problems. Trust me when I say that the Colnect moderators are take care of this problems, you were just unlucky I think.

​​You're very suspicious my friend. 50 swaps on colnect without problems it's hard to believe.
​I never swap there before and wont swap there in the furture neither.
​7 friends of my did and they're the ones who advice me to avoid colnect.
​
​

​Suspicious...why? Because I always make sure that the coins/banknotes/stamps I send and receive are exactly as described? When I first started collecting coins and banknotes colnect was easier for me to use, and never heard of numista back then. That's why I have so many swaps there. I'm not sayin that is better then numista because both have good and bad sides. I was just talking about my experience there.

Yeah, Colnect is a bit of a silly place but I have swapped there with success for about 20 times. And thanks for the kind words, Andy289 and smoked_caramel! ;-)

There are a few more swindlers on Colnect yes, but it's pretty easy to avoid them. I usually swap with European, North-American and Asian members because most of the Latin-American swappers act very strange so I just ignore them. Kudos to Indian collectors though, these guys have been extremely helpful so far and they are very friendly once you approach them. Their mail takes forever to arrive (2-3 months if you have bad luck), but when it does it gives a nice feeling. What also really helps, is looking for active members with positive feedback who have about the same amount of banknotes (I use Colnect only for banknotes) in their collection like as you have. I have about 800. When I see a member that has for example 2,200 notes in their collection, the odds are very small that my swaplist offers anything interesting for them so I don't message them.

In short, only send swap requests to members with at least 3-5 positive feedback, that works fine to me and if someone is acting strangely just cancel the swap.

I read the topic at Colnect and ended up wanting very much to intervene. It seems you are being jumped on by people who have completely ignored the circumstances of YOUR particular problem. It really doesn't have any bearing on the current problem if someone else had a satisfactory experience months ago! They seem to be circling the wagons against the new guy.

I just got an email this morning asking for the reasons why I'm not especially active there. I reckon I'll tell them.