what happened to olx?

[kagalingan]

Bumagsak talaga olx.

May away pala sila ng mybenta.

MyBenta Founder Says NO To OLX, Paid Ads

An Open Reply To OLX Philippines’ RJ David, May 9, 2015

MyBenta received a two-part email on May 8, 2015 from OLX Philippines’ RJ David, accusing us of misrepresenting OLX on our website and in our SMS invites. Mr. David also threatened a possible legal action if we won’t stop our campaign. Below is his email and our open response.

“This is RJ David, the founder of OLX Philippines.”

Hi. This is Emmanuel Rey Mariano, the founder of MyBenta.

Correct us if we are wrong, but the public have known you to be the founder of the once-popular classified ads website SULIT, which was later sold to and merged with an existing OLX branch in the Philippines. We do not believe this qualifies you to be the founder of OLX Philippines; OLX was co-founded by two foreigners in 2006.

“It has come to our attention through our loyal users that you are sending SMS to our users that is:
- spam in nature and violates the NTC rules against unwanted commercial messages” -- RJ David

Any SMS invites we sent are aimed to share with online sellers our growing online selling community, where they can post free ads without having to spend anything. It is informative in nature and is not attempting to sell any products or services for any monetary return.

We see it self-serving to use these legal provisions now, when you have admitted in an interview with Philippine Star before that you pulled cellphone numbers from other classified ads sites for SULIT's text blasts. And we quote "So he (RJ David) created another program from his Nokia 3210 that captured cell phone numbers from printed classified ads when he scanned the pages. He did text blasts from there — unlike today, it was a time when very few people were doing that." -- See article here -- How P2,400 in capital became a billion-peso business

“- violates the privacy of our users which in turn violates the Data Privacy Act and therefore the Cybercrime Act” -- RJ David

We have not violated any provisions of the Data Privacy Act nor the Cybercrime Act. Any seller/store contact information were available in an online selling community, open to the public, and were accessed legally in a public sphere.

We again quote the same Philippine Star article "As a web developer, RJ had a lot of tricks up his sleeve. First he created a program that captured the email addresses of people from other websites. He got 100,000 and sent emails to them inviting them to check out their website" - - See article here -- How P2,400 in capital became a billion-peso business

We doubt that scraping the net to get email addresses and sending spam emails about SULIT would constitute an act abiding by the Data Privacy Act and therefore the Cyber Criminal Act.

“misleading, misrepresenting and unfair which violates the AdBoard Advertising Code of Ethics that form part of the implementing rules of the Consumer Act of the Philippines.” -- RJ David

We invite and encourage online sellers through business quotes promoting entrepreneurial spirit with short informative message about our growing online selling community. In one of our invites that says “OLX is charging P350 per ad”, the message is factual and based on OLX sellers’ experience. There is no intent to misrepresent, mislead, or take unfair advantage of OLX. Please refer to your OLX FAQ -- What are paid ads? and the image below:




“Our lawyers are now collecting proof against these violations with the help from our loyal users.
But before we proceed with this action, I am personally asking you to stop sending SMS to our users and stop misrepresenting OLX. If this will not stop ASAP and we will not get any confirmation soon that this practice will stop, we will proceed to protect our brand, company and users from these violations.” -- RJ David

“One more thing: messages misrepresenting OLX are displayed in your site. We ask you to immediately remove those misrepresentation about OLX as we will never hesitate to protect our brand, company and users from these misrepresentations.” -- RJ David

MyBenta’s community feedback on our homepage provides a space for the concerns, complaints, suggestions, and compliments of our members. We respect freedom of speech and expression. Unless the comments are abusive and unlawful, we will not restrict or censor our members.

Just as OLX Philippines have all the right to implement its own policies such as removal of feedback system, OLX forum, Seller Profile Picture, and charging its users P100-P700 per ad, we, at MyBenta, also have the right to gather our community feedback, sentiments, and experiences in selling online. You have no right to demand that we take our site’s content down.

OLX Philippines already merged with AYOSDITO and started monetizing from a pay-per-ad posting scheme. Why would you try to suppress our efforts to share our website, which offers online sellers unlimited ad posting for free? Intimidating us with potential lawsuits to stop us from sharing our free classified ads website casts doubts on your intention to protect your members’privacy or if you are just leaving them with no choice but to pay to have their ads posted on OLX Philippines.

To better put this into context, we received a recent community feedback from a seller, who earns a living solely from selling online. With 500 ads posted on OLX, he said that he is being required to pay P100 per ad, amounting to P50,000 per month. The seller said that he would rather rent a mall space with that amount -- and we agree. Posting online ads should always be free.

We admire your concern to protect OLX brand, but we are more concerned to protect the livehood of online sellers.

We will continue to support small Pinoy online sellers and entrepreneurs. Our online selling community cannot be silenced and MyBenta is not for sale and cannot be bought.

We hope that someday, Mr. David, we will share the same cause.

Cheers and happy posting,


Emmanuel Rey Mariano
Founder, Mybenta, Free Classified Ads
Online Selling Community

Marunong bumanat si mybenta. hahahahah

[uls]

my opinion on olx

what ultimately matters is - nakakabenta ba ako thru olx?

the answer is yes

when i ask a buyer paano ako nahanap

most of the time it's thru olx

second is fb

despite all the complaints about olx, olx produces results naman

[99moves]

Tinanggal din kasi yung feedback sa olx

[kagalingan]

Ok lang matanggal yung feedback kasi majority gagawa lang account tapos mampepeke ng good feedback.

Ang binagsak nila eh nung nagsimula sumingil ng overprice ads.

Kung papiso-piso or the most is 10pesos per ads tiba-tiba sana. Imagine meron mag-laban laban mga seller tapos magflood ng ads eh pabor pa din sa olx.

Kaso maniningil 350 per ads..... Ano tingin nila baliw mga tao

[badsekktor]

Not really looking for anything in particular. Madalas kasi we just browse the ads then dun pumapasok yun idea like when we were starting, doon kami nakahanap ng supplier ng collapsible booths. Yun supplier din namin ng milktea supplies. Some cooking equipments na volume ang capacity. Right now wala na masyado nagpopost sa kanila. Dati may refrigeration pa for an ice plant na supplier.

I usually start with the idea tapos browse lang ako kung anong product or raw mat ang magagamit saka ko kakausapin yun seller. Ang hirap kasi magmaterialize kung hindi mo alam kung saan ka makakabili nung mga required materials.

Sayang lang. Ok pa naman sana sila lalo na nung time na sulit pa sila

[glenn manikis]

Ok lang matanggal yung feedback kasi majority gagawa lang account tapos mampepeke ng good feedback.

Ang binagsak nila eh nung nagsimula sumingil ng overprice ads.

Kung papiso-piso or the most is 10pesos per ads tiba-tiba sana. Imagine meron mag-laban laban mga seller tapos magflood ng ads eh pabor pa din sa olx.

Kaso maniningil 350 per ads..... Ano tingin nila baliw mga tao

Your 350 pesos is chicken... sa amount na maari mong kitain sa OLX... Kung Alam mo lang... har har har...

You dont know how good olx is as a marketing tool..

Ikaw man... or anyone you know... already seach or browse olx.. pag may hinahanap ka na gusto mo bilhin... Olx ka dba..

[kagalingan]

^
maniks

May binebenta ka ata sa olx kaya todo promote ka.

Pero majority tumigil na jan.... Kaya nga pumatok facebooks selling.

At hindi naman lahat same ng binebenta mo. Madami klase products na pwede ibenta na no need to pay 350.

Kung baga lumiit na choices jan. Eh paano kung meron under the radar biglang sumulpot na magandang buy and sell sites eh di balik libre ulit olx.

Kung hindi nga naging topic ito tsikot eh akala ko nga close na olx.... Waley na talaga masearch.

[dct]

Your 350 pesos is chicken... sa amount na maari mong kitain sa OLX... Kung Alam mo lang... har har har...

You dont know how good olx is as a marketing tool..

Ikaw man... or anyone you know... already seach or browse olx.. pag may hinahanap ka na gusto mo bilhin... Olx ka dba..

Chicken ang 350 pag shop ka talaga. Madaling bumalik. Pero pag may gusto ka lang ibenta let say used cellphone, worth 2k na lang, ang bigat naman na mag bayad ka pa 350

Sent from my SM-A9000 using Tapatalk

[_Cathy_]

Chicken ang 350 pag shop ka talaga. Madaling bumalik. Pero pag may gusto ka lang ibenta let say used cellphone, worth 2k na lang, ang bigat naman na mag bayad ka pa 350

Sent from my SM-A9000 using Tapatalk

Yeah. I was planning on selling my old stuff at OLX mostly priced below P2k. P350 is over 10% of the price na. Dun na lang ako sa libre [emoji14]

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk

[EQAddict]

Olx has the worst search engine ever. Its the worst. If you dont spell your search criteria exactly right.....it wont find it. It wont even look for items with similar spelling. I used to use it a lot when you were able to input keywords etc. Now its a disappointing mess. I use carmudi and lamudi.

You would think they would strengthen their search engine.......

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

[badsekktor]

Olx has the worst search engine ever. Its the worst. If you dont spell your search criteria exactly right.....it wont find it. It wont even look for items with similar spelling. I used to use it a lot when you were able to input keywords etc. Now its a disappointing mess. I use carmudi and lamudi.

You would think they would strengthen their search engine.......

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

Yep! Plus the fact na mas madami na nagpopost sa carmudi at lamudi ngayon. Kahit nga sa lazada eh! Sayang si olx lalo na nung sulit days.... lalo na ngayon, ang pangit na magsearch sa olx. Kakaunti na mga post.

[Lew_Alcindor]

From what I read:

1) removed seller reviews (not good for buyers)
2) limited the number of free ads -items for sale (not good for sellers with numerous items to sell)

sellers jumped ship (to where I do not know). from my experience, this is true. mas kaunti na yung lumalabas sa searches ko.

BUT, nabawasan din ang bogus sellers/scammers.

I seldom use olx na. More fb na lang.

[uls]

i'm coming from a seller's point of view

not from the buyer's

i hardly use olx to buy anything

but as a seller, olx works

olx's reach is unmatched by other sites like mybenta, etc

[nissde]

Nawala na din forums.

Drastic yung change niya kaya nagsilipatan sa FB groups.

Here in Singapore gamit ko Carousell. I checked PH dipa nautilize.

[Wh1stl3r]

As a buyer Olx still works for me despite the horrible search engine. Top results pa din kaso sya sa Google.

Come to think of it kahit di mo nilagay "olx" if you Google any object nasa top results pa din sya. In which case it gets annoying hehe.

I wonder if Amazon will ever put up shop here.

[SilverHorizon]

Olx has the worst search engine ever. Its the worst. If you dont spell your search criteria exactly right.....it wont find it. It wont even look for items with similar spelling. I used to use it a lot when you were able to input keywords etc. Now its a disappointing mess. I use carmudi and lamudi.

You would think they would strengthen their search engine.......

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

+1 ako dito....
sobrang lousy ng search engine ni OLX neto neto...
nakakainis pa pag sa phone ka nag se search ang hirap baguhin ng filter na mali mali ang query... madalas pre filled na yun "Categories" ng filter nila mali naman yun filter

[uls]

if you're a seller and you wanna post unlimited free ads without rules you can skip olx and post somewhere else

madami naman free ads website dyan

but what olx has that other sites don't is google ranking

[granro01]

Try mo new Sulit website. www.sulit.ph.....

I just noticed that the ads there are dwindling in numbers?

Any alternative websites similar to olx? I usually look for potential suppliers on the site pero lately pati yun mga suppliers ko na nakuha ko doon eh hindi na nagpopost sa olx.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Try mo new Sulit website. www.sulit.ph.....

I just noticed that the ads there are dwindling in numbers?

Any alternative websites similar to olx? I usually look for potential suppliers on the site pero lately pati yun mga suppliers ko na nakuha ko doon eh hindi na nagpopost sa olx.

[ninjababez]

isa lang di nagbago sa olx, mga law ballers LOL
selling my item * 1.5k, tinatawaran 800 php O_o

[uls]

isa lang di nagbago sa olx, mga law ballers LOL
selling my item * 1.5k, tinatawaran 800 php O_o

yeah but lowballers are everywhere

i just ignore them