AdSense? I Call It Nonsense!

I'm madder than a Filipino immigrant at a cancelled Far East Movement concert. Get this: Google disabled my AdSense account. Take a look at my site, you may notice a cleaner, more streamlined look. (The writing remains clunky) What's missing? The blipping, blinking flash-driven messages, trying to separate you from your hard-earned dollars. In their place is a big 'ol piece of negative space.

On Wednesday afternoon I received an email from Google AdSense. They claim my blog "poses a risk of generating invalid activity". So I guess running advertisements on my site was a roller coaster ride that lasted all of about a week. I'd like to say it was fun while it lasted, but dammit, I never so much as got a payout!

Now in their rules and regulations, they strictly forbid users from clicking on their own advertisements. Not a problem. Never did that. But they also say you can't hype your site and encourage your viewers to click. Uh oh.

But wait….who's to say what's a valid click or not? Wasn't Kat thinking about booking a flight or four on Icelandic Air? Perhaps Bunny forgot he already had a Netflix membership and accidentally opened that link 20 or 30 times. Skow is a big stock footage buff. Can you blame him for repeatedly looking at the Pond 5 website? I can't keep track of all my viewer's comings and goings, can I?

WTF happened to the true spirit of advertising? Why would we be putting these ads on our sites if the goal was NOT to have people look at them? "Enjoy my article, but ignore the 800 pound gorilla in the room, AKA that blinking Pizza Hut ad. That's right, do anything but support my sponsors." At this time I would like to thank all my friends/fans for hitting this site so hard over the last week. Although, maybe you hit it a little too hard.

I almost forgot, they give you the option to "appeal" the revocation. You fill out a quick form. After about 3 or 4 minutes I got a reply that amounted to, "Nice try, asshole." Please.

I'm calling horsesh*t on Google AdSense and if they want to shut this blog down, fine by me. I was only interested in posting here again with the promise of easy money. Damn, I had allegedly "made" about $140 in one week's time. Multiply that over a month's worth of posts, not a bad way to make some money on the side. Too good to be true, and you know these guys didn't want to pay me out.

BTW, How did they determine clicks are fraudulent? The fact that this is Google, I wouldn't be surprised if they have their spies all up in in everybody's business. Rooting through email, Facebook, texts and so on. My conspiranoia runs deep…..

"Your outstanding balance and Google's share of the revenue will both be fully refunded back to the affected advertisers." Oh really? You mean you're paying yourself back? That's mighty white of you.

I'll always cherish the memories of checking the "monetize" tab on a daily basis. When I saw those dollar amounts accruing, I was as giddy as the two guys in the movie Middle Men who created billable adult entertainment.

If you are running a site on Blogger, heed my advice: They will revoke your AdSense account just as quickly as they set it up. Don't click on your own ads, don't encourage your readers to click on the ads. There will be no friendly warning, they will just shut you down ASAP. This is a Catch 22: If you don't hype the site, you won't get paid. But if you DO hype the site, you won't get paid.

Some Euros Ruined My Record Auction! Part Two

Alright, picking up where we left off yesterday: Let's get into the financials. As you recall, I said that I bundled up the albums into groups of 6 and 9. I think I had 13 or 14 auctions going, give or take. A few were a bust. In the chart below, you can see my winnings for the week of April 3rd.



So, not terrible. I mean, I was really happy with the results. Here's where the problems start, hence the title of this post/article.

My counsel suggested it.

I agreed with it.

US buyers only.

In general, I love my European brothers and sisters. They have fantastic taste in music, hence their infatuation with all things American Hardcore. But it's those mother-fing shipping and customs forms that queers the whole deal. Have you ever filled out a shipping form to Germany? I'd rather be back in school writing an essay! It's absolutely miserable.

So on one of my typical listings, I would have it laid out, US bidders only:



But that certainly didn't stop European bidders from asking me questions about how much to ship. And then the auctions started ending. And the offenders started rolling in: Germany. Canada. Peru. Oh God. Have you ever seen a Peruvian address? It looks like a chalkboard in that movie, A Beautiful Mind. Anything with this in the address: (Por altura de la 16 de la Av. Velasco Astete) spells trouble in my book when you have to transcribe it to a tiny customs form. In the US it's easy: 12 Main Street. Done.

It was recently brought to my attention that if someone is, say….German, they should not have an Amercian eBay account, rather they should be going to ebay.de So essentially, they are jumping through hoops and breaking the rules to establish an American account. A lot of work to be a pain in the ass to us American sellers. And something you won't realize until they win your stuff.

Back to my auction: Now, I am *reasonably* a nice guy. I was only charging 4 dollars to ship out lots of 6 or 9 records AND offering a reduced rate on multiple wins. Despite inflation running rampant in the United States, you can still ship things fairly cheap. But Christ almighty, you should have seen the rates to ship international. To ship a small box of records to Canada (or as I call them, the Euros to our north) was over $30! Are you kidding me?? This wasn't a bag of golf clubs, it's 9 lousy records in a small box. So I got hosed on that one.

I believe I promised you a pie graph. Now, my math is absolutely terrible. I'm sure this isn't dead-perfect, but it gives you an idea of the the distribution of funds. (not to mention the corporate swindling) Let's break down the numbers.



Yes, thanks to a Canadian and German bidder, I had to tack on over $60 to the shipping fees. And fill out painfully long customs forms. My problem was that I only made up slightly inflated shipping charges when I sent them the invoice. "Oh, just add $9 instead of $4." When in fact, it was a hell of a lot more. My fault entirely.

Actually on that note, here is a much more accurate pie graph of the process on a whole:



So it was a lot of time & work for about 500 bucks. And I don't really feel like I purged our house of anything substantial. If you are in the boat that I was in, take this as a lesson. You want to ship to Europe, fine…they do pay top dollar for records. Just find out up front what postage is going to cost and make sure you pass the buck to them. On second thought, I just would ship within the continental US.
Or put the records here. -->

Some Euros Ruined My Record Auction! Part One

eBay: What was once a sure-fire way to drum up some extra cash has become a deluge of fees, new rules and general aggravation. Compounding the problem is the fact that eBay is in cahoots with Paypal, thus giving them the rights to double-dip on your winnings. Greedy, scum-sucking bastards.

Now this article is geared towards a very specific demographic, and by that I mean there are probably only several hundred people that this will be relevant to. (wow, way to alienate your audience in the second paragraph, Scott) But you can continue reading it if you want, especially if you like the promise of pie charts. And Euro bashing.

But before we go any further, we need a backstory.

I'm writing this for the benefit of men like myself: Americans who were avid fans of hardcore/punk music in the 1980's and somehow managed to save the records they collected at shows and trips to various record stores. You are in your late thirties to mid forties. You are probably married. You may have children. You most likely played in a band. You are what snarky little internet kids would call an "asshole". This post is not geared toward the uber-serious fanboy record collectors with online trade lists who take their game seriously. But if that's you, you are more than welcome to keep reading and go, "What an asshole".

I mulled around with the idea of selling off my vinyl collection several months ago. Specifically, December. Heeding the advice of my consul, I held off on the auction until after the holiday madness. Hold on, why selling? The long and the short of it is that I have no real use for a record collection of any size. My turntable is long gone and iTunes has replaced the once-popular hi-fi stereo system that occupied my living room. If I want to listen to Youth of Today's "We're Not In This Alone", I've got it in mp3 form. I have close to everything I love listening to from my youth on a Western Digital external drive. Including YOT's longtime nemesis: Half Off. And why bother putting a record on a turntable when I could much easier get into this with a few clicks of the mouse?

So I turned to a good friend and former hardcore frontman for some guidance. He said, "My advice? Just consign the records to Malcolm at Trash American Style." (you know who Malcolm is, right? Because I don't have time to get into that) My friend said I should save myself the headache of dealing with:

1. A bunch of stupid hardcore kids and adult-kids who will be bidding on the records...

2. And asking incessant questions about pressings, wax colors and matrixes

3. And who will be whining "where's my stuff?"

4. And will potentially leave me negative feedback over minute details

5. And shipping them out a pain in the ass (Oh, more on that coming up)

Now those all valid points. BUT, I sold a ton of 7" records to Trash American Style in the late eighties. 100% my decision, and a dumb one at that. I didn't get the money the records were worth (didn't care at the time) and I was to be damned if I was going to make that mistake again in 2011. No, I was going to sell these discs myself and try and reap as much profit as possible.

Now, no slight to Malcolm. He is a great guy and has alway run a fantastic business. But guess what? I like MAKING MONEY as well.

How about Craigslist? No f-ing way. Over my wife's dead body is some weirdo dropping by the old homestead to peruse my vinyl collection. Oh and at this point, let me establish that the records I had were for the most part, nothing great. About a milk crate's worth of stuff from New York, DC and the like. A few Cro-Mags albums, Gorilla Biscuits, Youth of Today, Beyond, Rorschach, Dag Nasty. 7" from Warzone, Slipknot, Metallica, Rollins and Collapse. Not the rarest offerings, but musically, they kick mucho ass.

My first move was to test the waters with a few CD sales. Yes, if you didn't know already, the right compact discs are worth money. For example, I sold Leeway's 2nd album for like 30 bucks and I hear it can fetch up to $50. I also had good luck with the Into Another unreleased LP.

So one fine Sunday morning, I motivated myself to start snapping pictures of records and drawing up item descriptions on eBay. And I was f**ked if I was going to list & ship each record individually. No, for the most part, I put the records into groups of six and nine.

Oh look at that, we ran out of time. In Part Two I'll tell you how much money I made and if the whole damn thing was worth it or not. And of course, we'll get to the bottom of why this article is titled: Some Euros Ruined My Record Auction!

Today's post is brought to you by McGuinness Brand Ipecac. "If your roomate is keeping you from getting nookie, put a little McGuinness on his cookies".