I go to share my porshster.com site on the two porsche forums at thesamba. Next thing I know I can't even hit their site now.

Page says I have been banned. No email to me, no explanation, no nothing. Says contact the admin...but they blocked my IP entirely. Can't see any page; only their header.

I wasn't spamming or over posting; nothing. My one post just said> "Sick of ebay, please check out my new website: porshster.com.



Is my site such a threat?

I am no different than (almost) anyone else here when it comes to trying to earn an extra buck or two and help out the community at the same time.

I wonder if they have paying sponsors????

They are funny over there. One time I posted some Audi wheels for sale. I was informed that it is for VW parts only!

Many sites (Rennlist come to mind) will shut you down pretty fast if you are "selling" something commercially. Andy is pretty tolerant....

Not selling anything really. It's for the members.

Gary - if you posted that in their regular forums, rather than under their classifieds section for vendors, then that may be the cause.

Try contacting the head forum guy there using someone else's computer, & let him know you're a bit of a newb on that stuff, & ask if he can reinstate you & advise how to do it per their rules.

He may want you to list some parts, & then link to your site - but under the vendor classifieds.

Why worry? The Samba is a waste!

Not worried, just caught me by surprise. Never been banned from anything. Well there was that one time......but that's another story.

I don't know much about the samba, but isn't your site direct competition to them?

I am just providing a nice platform for members to buy and sell. In a way it is competition to any classifieds listings but I think it is laid out better than the forum classifieds.

It's just another choice in the marketplace. I think it's easier to keep track of inventory, sales, shipments, etc. using a shopping cart system rather than a forum. All products display all the time. No nonsense about bumping listings, are prices displayed, one post for each item, etc.

Plus it's not VW it's Porsche so not really competing for anything. Just trying to drive some traffic and generate some interest.

Ok, so you *are* doing the same the samba does ...


i can understand why they don't want you to promote your site there.

Maybe I don't know their whole strategy. And if they feel that way I can understand.

But banning me by IP and not contacting me at all rubs me the wrong way.

Had they deleted the post and sent me an email with their point of view I wouldn't feel this way.

I agree, a timeout and explanation would have been in order.

Andy would never do that..you know, unless your spelling is terrible and you have your brother's wife's cousin's best friend call and yell at him about it:)

I'm a little puzzled why some members here haven't joined in. If I had the amount of stuff some you guys have and I was selling actively, I would think it's a much better way to present, sell, account for all the activity; as well as keep transaction records and buyer info.

Are the fees to high? I know it's not free but it's way less than ebay which I used as a target model.

There are fees and time involved on my end...

open to comments, criticisms

Yes we have all been spoiled!

Not to beat a Dead Horse , but

When you are Guest on someone's Site & then start competing with them, they are going to be pissed.

Andy is very lenient here, but I'm sure if you go on Pelican they will treat you the same as Samba did

Samba DOES have Porsche sections for both forum chat and classifieds.

I see Audi wheels in the classifieds from time-to-time ... a lot of Vanagon guys run them

I would venture to guess it has nothing to do with your site. It is simply because there are already so many good outlets to sell parts. Why register/join/track one more? I know that everyone thinks theirs is a better site but as a seller you don't really get too picky about that. You just want to go where the people are. Here, PP, CL, eBay etc. Just my .02.

Just wanted to say great site, looking at it now in my bus140 class haha.

Put 'the samba'in your search terms so you'll come up on google when someone types in The samba.

I'm confused as to why I would go to your site to sell my stuff when I can do it here in the classifieds where, I would guess, it will get 1000's more hits from guys looking for 914 items?

About 10 years too late and you're getting the cart before the horse with the fees. You are not competing against ebay you're competing with this site, samba, rennlist and Pelican. Charging a fee right off the bat with no traffic and no listings is going to give you about a 0 percent chance of gaining traction. Go free, keep your name/site in front of people, be patient and let your traffic and listings grow for two or three years. That will give you about a 1% chance of gaining traction but it's better than zero chance. Nice site and well done BTW.

Get a new IP address...


You will need to invest $1M in advertising before you make your first $500k in revenue

You need to find some venture capitalists to pour money into your company to be truly successful...

How is that seller Jennifers 914 working out for ya?

Suggest taking this conversation to the sandbox. This is the Garage

I can keep track of transaction and I can list parts for free here where they get more exposure. I guess I am surprised why you are puzzled

Can't really "browse" for stuff. Available items may be on page 3. Have to keep bumping. What if you have 30 items for sale?

Members here with tons of stuff to sell need a store front. Think of the lost opportunity. Can't window shop.

Can always promote it here at the forum...

My opinion I suppose.

I like it. Parts for our 40 year old cars is becoming scarce. I applaud anyone that spends time to support our hobbies. The more the merrier.

The Fact that you accepted an Ad from dANNY would turn me away immediately

The rules over there are open to interpretation! I posted up a thread about a cost effective rear disk brakes, added drawings/blue prints, came up with a second option and offered to make a small run in a group buy kind of a thing. CHEAP as hell! Any way made a proto and sent it over to a guy to see if it was as easy for some one else to do. It was. Never got around to making any because they locked down the thread calling it an add. A paying sponsor had complained.

Fast forward

Same thing a guy was gone to make some "postal flares" and asked if there was enough interest? 12 pages and one of the MODs posted on every page. When a few of us called it an add we were blown off. I complained directly to Everett and got the blow off letter. It did get locked when the classified add went up but is now unlocked and those of us that complained have been scrubbed from the thread.

long story short Its become a bunch of "bolt up tuners" over there! Almost as bad as the nabisco?

anyway rant off now back to the engine porn!

jcl