For sale forum (idea to deter scammers)

lviva003 · May 20, 2015

Hello,

I am not sure if this has been discussed before, but I had an idea about the for sale forum. Lately there has been increasing amount of scams and I hate seeing fellow reefers get robbed... I thought that reef2reef should make it a little harder for people to be able to sell. I think the best way to decrease scams is to make a small donation to have the access to sell on the for sale forum. It would be like a one time donation of x amount of dollars and that individual would have unlimited access to be able to sell. I know other sites require members to have a certain amount of post to have access to the for sale forum, but I think that is a bad idea since it will make people just post whatever to gain access. which then results in R2R restricting their policies in regards to post and then it sucks for everybody else. I am also a member for a DSLR forum and they have the same system and it seems to work great as far as decreasing scams.

questions comments and or concerns are always welcome!

so what does everybody think?

ngvu1 · May 20, 2015

It is really hard to scam with paypal. How about attaching a signature txt like "no PayPal as gift " to all the for sale posts?

ritter6788 · May 20, 2015

lviva003 said:
I know other sites require members to have a certain amount of post to have access to the for sale forum, but I think that is a bad idea since it will make people just post whatever to gain access

The R2R selling policy is 30 days membership and 25 meaningful posts. There was a glitch with the new software update where some new members were able to post items for sale but that has been fixed and should have all been removed.

The best way to avoid being scammed is never send PayPal as a gift and don't do business with people you don't know/trust. Be very wary of new members that will contact you by way of private message. Most of the "scams" that have happened here would easily be resolved by not sending money as a gift to strangers.

lviva003 · May 20, 2015

ngvu1 said:
It is really hard to scam with paypal. How about attaching a signature txt like "no PayPal as gift " to all the for sale posts?

unfortunately some people still send money as friends and family.... my suggestion was more of deterring scammers, how many scammers would willing to pay to have access? I don't think too many... Also, some people will be offered a better price if they pay through friends and family. I do think the pay through paypal as a regular transaction should be mandatory.

ritter6788 · May 20, 2015

lviva003 said:
my suggestion was more of deterring scammers, how many scammers would willing to pay to have access? I don't think too many... Also, some people will be offered a better price if they pay through friends and family. I do think the pay through paypal as a regular transaction should be mandatory.

It has been brought up before but the site owner doesn't want to charge members to sell here. It's buy at your own risk though. Everyone needs to protect themselves. Don't trust people just because they post a lot or have been members for a long time.

lviva003 · May 20, 2015

ritter6788 said:
The R2R selling policy is 30 days membership and 25 meaningful posts. There was a glitch with the new software update where some new members were able to post items for sale but that has been fixed and should have all been removed.

The best way to avoid being scammed is never send PayPal as a gift and don't do business with people you don't know/trust. Be very wary of new members that will contact you by way of private message. Most of the "scams" that have happened here would easily be resolved by not sending money as a gift to strangers.

I didn't know R2R had a selling policy, thats good to know. My only concern is that anybody can make those post especially since it doesnt cost anything to post. The problem is that anybody can still open up a thread and take advantage of a new prospective member...

lviva003 · May 20, 2015

ritter6788 said:
It has been brought up before but the site owner doesn't want to charge members to sell here. It's buy at your own risk though. Everyone needs to protect themselves. Don't trust people just because they post a lot or have been members for a long time.

LOL well this answers my question... Thanks! I did not know it was brought up before