Buy,sell,trade section ending

[birddog1148]

This is how we do it at www.offroadOhio.com.

We'll keep this simple.

1. PRICE IS A MUST. That means no MAKE ME AN OFFER post. No price is needed if its a TRADE only ad.

2. LOCATION is a must. If its in Gabbersville, PUT located in Gabbersville. If you FILL IN your location in your profile it will show up and you wont need to worry about it

3. If you are NOT interested in the item forsale DO NOT reply to the post.
That means no "Bump for a good guy" "thats a pile of ****" That is WAY to high of a price" replies.

The ONLY exception to this rule is if the SELLER is a known con artist, bad seller, etc. If this is the case you may ONLY post a link to the Seller review.
Example: If someone post a forsale ad it is ok to post a link to the topic disscusing the bad practices. NOTHING ELSE!!!!!

4. You may bump your OWN thread once per week. Any more than that and your post WILL be deleted no exceptions!

5. EDIT the TITLE of yoru thread to say SOLD once your item has been sold.

6. ANYONE who's first post is a FORSALE ad, or who post a forsale ad within 24hrs of registering WILL BE REMOVED! This website IS NOT craigslist, you can pedal your goods for free there.

There will be ZERO tolerance on these rules. If the forsale ad doesnt have price or location it will be REMOVED. If you post in a forsale ad, and you have no intentions to BUY, the post will be removed and you will recieve a warning. Third warning will get you banned from the classified section of the site.

 

[freakboy]

That seems like it would be good ground rules.

and i think we do need more mods i could if you wanted me to mabey we can have a vote for a new mod? with nominations? and like whole voting deal?

 

[newrider3]

I'm guessing new mods would all be up to Robert as the admin.

 

[freakboy]

yeah but have a comunity vote for which ones we would like and then we run it buy robert.

 

[oscaryu1]

This is how we do it at www.offroadOhio.com.

We'll keep this simple.

1. PRICE IS A MUST. That means no MAKE ME AN OFFER post. No price is needed if its a TRADE only ad.

2. LOCATION is a must. If its in Gabbersville, PUT located in Gabbersville. If you FILL IN your location in your profile it will show up and you wont need to worry about it

3. If you are NOT interested in the item forsale DO NOT reply to the post.
That means no "Bump for a good guy" "thats a pile of ****" That is WAY to high of a price" replies.

The ONLY exception to this rule is if the SELLER is a known con artist, bad seller, etc. If this is the case you may ONLY post a link to the Seller review.
Example: If someone post a forsale ad it is ok to post a link to the topic disscusing the bad practices. NOTHING ELSE!!!!!

4. You may bump your OWN thread once per week. Any more than that and your post WILL be deleted no exceptions!

5. EDIT the TITLE of yoru thread to say SOLD once your item has been sold.

6. ANYONE who's first post is a FORSALE ad, or who post a forsale ad within 24hrs of registering WILL BE REMOVED! This website IS NOT craigslist, you can pedal your goods for free there.

There will be ZERO tolerance on these rules. If the forsale ad doesnt have price or location it will be REMOVED. If you post in a forsale ad, and you have no intentions to BUY, the post will be removed and you will recieve a warning. Third warning will get you banned from the classified section of the site.

#4 I'd say once/day.

#5 I don't think you can edit titles lol. On some forums you can, other's can't.

#6 Just make a small half month rule or something...

 

[r_chez_08]

#1 i think best offer works ok.

 

[kibble]

It's really difficult to make up a foolproof set of rules to have that will eliminate 100% of scammers. The best thing to use is common sense; don't just jump into buying something without first asking necessary questions. Don't immediately trust someone with very low post count. I do agree that it would probably be a good idea to have a forum where the for sale post had to meet certain criteria, otherwise the post would be removed.

Another thing is that maybe we do need more mods on this forum. It used to be a time when only a few of us could take care of most things as they happened but, the forums have gotten bigger and with that come more scammers/spammers. Even though I haven't posted much lately, I still try to take care of reported posts when I get the emails. Back when this site was still relatively young, we hardly saw any spam, if at all. Heck, it wasn't unusual to only have like 6 new posts or so a day.

 

[freakboy]

I think we could use more mods because for the most part tyler is the only one who is a mod thats on almost everyday. you are on here once a month or so.

 

[r_chez_08]

i could be 1 if you wanted, im on here pretty much every day.

 

[freakboy]

I would have to vote for kaptian hes pretty dang responsible when it comes to this stuff. i could but its up to you guys.

 

[Kaptain Krunch]

Woohoo... Either way I think more mods is a good idea.

Oh yea, freak go on aim got a funny story to tell ya.

 

[freakboy]

Alright i forgot i restarted my computer

 

[Smurph]

scams will happen no matter what.

What we need is a post informing the users of safe techniques online as they pertain to buying and selling in an insecure environment (as opposed to ebay with paypal). Although Paypal does offer some protection for you as an online buyer.

A few things to note would be
NEVER NEVER EVER wire money (moneygram/western union) to someone you do not know in person. I can't stress this enough!!

Money orders should be an absolute last resort. They do offer some paper trail/proof, but if you get scammed, getting your money back won't be easy, and probably won't be cheap, or worth the effort.

Paypal offers the best online security. This has a lot to do with them being a big company that can afford to cover your lost cash, and can afford to prosecute the other end.

Closing the whole section is detrimental to the forum, and is not the answer to the problem.

We need to look at it from the other end, and close all the openings the scammers work through. Such "loop holes" that allow members to be scammed includes a member being misinformed on how online different online transactions work.
Informing users on what they can do to protect themselves online will be a big step in preventing scammers.

Another idea I had would be to remove the forum section, and add a website section. I am very good with PHP, and I can do this for you if you'd like. I'll do it just for the sake of the community.
What I had in mind would be a page where a user can submit his or her classified ad. If the user is submitting a "for sale" ad, the ad will have to go through a review process. Site members that are granted access (moderators) will be able to check a page to see the submitted ads. They can review the ads and can require more information, or give it the go-ahead and it'll go live. Going live means it will show up on a page that all of the Site's members will be able to see.

This allows the mods to review each post, if the user has very few posts, or if it seems fishy, a mod can ask for more information (maybe another pic with the username, a phone number to call for verification, etc). This will greatly reduce scamming.

Robert, PM me if you'd like to see something like this in action. I'm a Software Engineer, this is no problem for me. I could get a rough draft of it all coded in about a day, having a live, bug-free version in under seven days. I can host it on my personal site for testing purposes. Again, no monetary compensation would be necessary as I enjoy helping others.

 

[RobertD]

Thanks for all the replies, guys. LOTS of good ideas in here, including (and I agree!) more mods. I need to mull over the ideas a little bit.

Smurph PM'd me with some interesting ideas, we're going to discuss them a little more and see what we can do with his idea.

First thing that I will do, however, is get up a sticky post with a "best practices" ideas / checklist type thing for buying and posting things to buy.


Thanks, and please PM me any time tipping me off to threads like this. I'll admit, I don't always see them!

 

[freakboy]

Alright will do.