Restricting/removing Access For Members Who Rip Off Numerous Other Members

[pistolpetefan23]

So it appears there are several situations occurring regarding members, including longtime posters, who are ripping off other members. It's one thing for a poor deal to happen once, but there are instances of 2, 3, even 5 members getting ripped off by the same person.

If these things happen, at what point do mods step in and remove access to the forum completely for those conducting shady deals?

 

[OakleyGuru379]

I agree with this as well actually. Like a three strikes and you're out type deal?

 

[Luis]

I agree but I think it should be one strike. Why give them an opportunity to rip off more people?

 

[GRFMotorsports]

Feedback system is in place to help with this. Proving things in stone might be hard to do if both sides dont cooperate. Turns into a he said she said thing. Personally I have only had an issue with one member. I didnt loose anything myself because down deep I knew something was up. Just got lied to multiple times. I didnt leave feedback in this case but I will never attempt to make a deal with this person again.

 

[OakleyGuru379]

I agree but I think it should be one strike. Why give them an opportunity to rip off more people?

Because the line between screwing somebody and goofing up unintentionally isnt always black and white when looked at from the outside. If it happens more than once or twice, you will know intent.

 

[Mr X Metal]

While I am totally in favor of banning member who conduct shady deals; what is to stop a member who is banned from creating a new account and continuing to rip people off? The internet is a difficult place to do business. We all take a risk every time we do a deal. I am in no way condoning this type of behavior, but it is simply impossible from keeping a dishonest person from doing dishonest deals.

 

[kronin323]

While I am totally in favor of banning member who conduct shady deals; what is to stop a member who is banned from creating a new account and continuing to rip people off? The internet is a difficult place to do business. We all take a risk every time we do a deal. I am in no way condoning this type of behavior, but it is simply impossible from keeping a dishonest person from doing dishonest deals.

The Mods can see originating IPs from new members and flag duplicate accounts. No system is foolproof but it'd take more effort to beat that system than most people will make.

And I think The Mods are the answer to this problem. There's no need for strict rules on what it takes to get banned - aside from reqs to access the exchange, most rules here are enforced by Mods, not code. Report a chronic bad seller to the Mods. And leave negative feedback.

As buyers it's first up to us to mitigate risk in a transaction. Caveat Emptor. It's easy to get lulled into the fellowship of this forum and trust members more than you would on ebay - I'm guilty of this myself, buying without checking feedback even though on ebay I always do so. And CarGuy made the right move in paying with a transaction type that provided him protection; there's a lot of F&F payments, which I tend to use myself, and that doesn't protect you (AFAIK).

So I think the real question here is for us, as forum members, to self-police. Have a bad transaction, leave negative feedback. If there's a trend, report it to the Mods. If a guy's a problem, trust the Mods to act appropriately when necessary - their judgement seems to be fair and balanced so far...

 

[stn51]

So it appears there are several situations occurring regarding members, including longtime posters, who are ripping off other members. It's one thing for a poor deal to happen once, but there are instances of 2, 3, even 5 members getting ripped off by the same person.

If these things happen, at what point do mods step in and remove access to the forum completely for those conducting shady deals?

As you now know pistol it depends on who is doing the ripping off, And to what extent that they powers that be would construe you being ripped off. So i guess in my opinion..... it would be never.

 

[Rays]

So it appears there are several situations occurring regarding members, including longtime posters, who are ripping off other members. It's one thing for a poor deal to happen once, but there are instances of 2, 3, even 5 members getting ripped off by the same person.

If these things happen, at what point do mods step in and remove access to the forum completely for those conducting shady deals?

The Mods are no gods in here and what i knew they can or may have poor judgements, what they can only say to us to do is....make us to personally PM with the seller (which offcourse never returned the PM) and try to PM the seller (which will only make any lame excuses to them Etc and poof nothings happen)and not to forget about giving us friendly reminder for using all safes money transfer methods(that's never happens if we doing trades)

also we know the verdict.....all the jury will say nay "he/she/it are the notable-respectable- bla...bla...dedicated member....again us as the only person with losing money only can stick our thumb in our anal and keep smiling and say...it's alright.

and this is the good point

I agree but I think it should be one strike. Why give them an opportunity to rip off more people?

 

[kronin323]

IMHO...

I personally prefer the mods as the benevolent gods that they are over them becoming draconian. I understand that a deal gone bad leaves a real sour taste in one's mouth and may turn one off from the exchange, at least for a while, but every deal involves some amount of risk, within the exchange or otherwise. It'd be nice if they were more proactive addressing issues with bad sellers, but sometimes you can't have it both ways.

Remember this is not an exchange forum with some side discussion but a discussion forum with an exchange area provided as a convenience. Heavily policing the exchange would require a good amount of (unfunded) additional resources and would turn this place into another ebay, killing the forum's true intent. Plus, if the mods take responsibility for policing the exchange, it could potentially open them to liability. It's a free exchange, so the primary responsibility falls on those of us entering these deals to assess risk and protect ourselves appropriately. That may suck but it's a reality, both here on the forum and with life in general.

Note that in the exchange guidelines, there is the suggestion of having a seller create an ebay auction to complete the transaction (instead of doing it on the side) so that one can benefit from the protections that ebay (and paypal, if applicable) provide. That pretty clearly infers that we're on our own to protect ourselves.

There are good reasons why things are the way they are and I wouldn't expect them to change.