31 replies to this topic

[shorty]

hmmm good point

this is putting me off putting stuff up for sale in the classifieds now.
it does need to be sorted

It's putting me of buying anythink in the classified section, over 1200 quid scamed.

there is that to.
recently used the wanted section to buy something and that was all fine
however really not wanting to buy anything incase another fiasco happens.
what has happened must be having an effect on the people with ads up in the for sale section already

[Ethel]

It's a valid point but you could have been scammed even with the old system. It will always come down to the buyer to protect themself.

Using the comments to do your dealing in public does seem sensible.

The old system suited me, I made one purchase & one sale that I'd have missed now - I'm often on the forum but rarely go into classifieds because I'm not looking to buy anything. If I was looking for stuff, there's loads more in the classifieds than ever came up on the forum & I wouldn't have to be lucky enough to find the relevant topic bumped to the top when I logged on. The new classifieds are better at putting more sellers in touch with more potential buyers.

Use your signature if you want to attract attention from the forum to your classified ad.

[Jordie]

There would be nothing stopping NavySeal selling the items multiple times via PM. The only thing about the forum sales,is that people showing "interest" would have posted on the site. Once contacted by PM, he could sell it to everyone showing interest. No different to the multiple sales of the classifieds.

The issue is not the system here but the person(s).

EG.

Forum post by seller.
Couple of replies by buyer 1, buyer 2 and buyer 3.
PM's sent by each buyer.
PM from seller to buyer 1 saying they can buy it, arrange payment etc.
PM from seller to buyer 2,saying still available, arrange to sell, payment etc
PM from seller to buyer 3,saying still available and arrange to sell once again

Forum advert would read SOLD next to the item. But still 3 people have paid for the one item!

So to me, i cant see the difference? Because I would never arrange payment etc on the public forum as this is private information.

[freaker]

or is there a possibility of moving the wanted section back to the normal forum ?

as i think there aren`t a lot of people viewing the requested items....
it would probably help a lot of people out

freaker

[Jammy]

I echo Jordie's comments. Aren't we all forgetting that Pie did exactly this with the old system?! There was NOTHING in the old system to stop people selling things through PMs to several different people.

In fact it was a problem I always used to have. Advertise something, 3 people would PM me saying they'd be interested, and if you weren't careful and PM'd only one of them with your Paypal address then you could get yourself into a position where you took two payments for something. I know it happened to me at least twice where I replied to the first PM with my Paypal address, then heard nothing back, then replied to a second person with my Paypal address and then both the 1st and 2nd person paid.

At least with the new system there is a button that people can press to buy the item immediately, pay immediately and then the advert is automatically and immediately marked as sold.

For a final time, we will not be going back to the old system, people are looking at the old system through rose tinted glasses and from a staffing point of view the old system was an absolute nightmare! There are improvements coming for the new system, people are just going have to be patient.

I'll reiterate Jordie's comment, the problem wasn't with the system, it was with the messed up head of the scammer!

[Shifty]

There would be nothing stopping NavySeal selling the items multiple times via PM. The only thing about the forum sales,is that people showing "interest" would have posted on the site. Once contacted by PM, he could sell it to everyone showing interest. No different to the multiple sales of the classifieds.

The issue is not the system here but the person(s).

EG.

Forum post by seller.
Couple of replies by buyer 1, buyer 2 and buyer 3.
PM's sent by each buyer.
PM from seller to buyer 1 saying they can buy it, arrange payment etc.
PM from seller to buyer 2,saying still available, arrange to sell, payment etc
PM from seller to buyer 3,saying still available and arrange to sell once again

Forum advert would read SOLD next to the item. But still 3 people have paid for the one item!

So to me, i cant see the difference? Because I would never arrange payment etc on the public forum as this is private information.

I didn't start this thread to try and cause an argument, it was simply to highlight a weakness in the system, which whether anyone wants to admit it or not exists

The old system was a lot more public, even if you weren't the buyer of the item you may know the person who had bought it.
ie

I buy a set of cooper brakes off Pie, I then go and tell a few mates via pm that I've done so.

Roofless is on on during the day and sees a conversation between pie and and another buyer, he alerts me and that arouses suspicion

If you look the old for sale threads people who buy items, usually post up with "Sold to me!" or similar.

This would then pop up at the top of the new posts list.

Also as the ads didn't have a finate life they could be used to keep track of when the items had been posted therefore if 3 people pop up all asking where their set of cooper brakes is then that gave an early warning as well.

A scammer will always try to find a way to rip people off, however the more public the transaction the more chance they have of being caught, at the moment the for sale area is a dingy little backroom away from the main area.

Some forums encourage deals to be done in public rather than via pm, again this gives everyone protection. In this instance if the seller decided to conduct buisness in private that would start alarm bell ringings, if you got nothing to hide then do in it full view of everyone.

I don't for one minute expect a sudden u-turn and undo the all the hard work that has gone into the new system, however improvements and upgrades have been promised for a while now and nothing seems to have been done.

Buying and selling on this forum used to be easy, I've always put full trust in anyone I'm buying and selling to on the forum and so far have never been let down.

Simply saying that there isn't a problem with the system doesn't really help anyone, as far as I can see there is a very big weak spot that needs to addressed before it happens again.

[Jordie]

No one is trying to cause an arguement. Bloody hell, can there not be more than one opinion on a topic without it been an arguement like?

It is very hard to implement updates to the forum, due to complexity and size. We cant just bang on updates, without making sure every outcome of the system is tested to prevent errors and such. Thats why it takes a long time, as there is no straight forward updates, each update is coded to work with the forum as it currently is.

Jordie

[Shifty]

I was responding to Jammys

"For a final time, we will not be going back to the old system, people are looking at the old system through rose tinted glasses and from a staffing point of view the old system was an absolute nightmare! There are improvements coming for the new system, people are just going have to be patient."

Whatever system you do choose to go with needs to be looked at though a scammers eye, not everyone's as honest as Jodie and Jammy!!

[Ethel]

I'm sure everyone is only interested in having a system that protects people from being ripped off.

It is true that the old system was harder for deceit if dealings were done in the open but that wasn't guaranteed. The current classifieds offers more options to implement something that will do that better- such as comments.

[Shifty]

I'm sure everyone is only interested in having a system that protects people from being ripped off.

It is true that the old system was harder for deceit if dealings were done in the open but that wasn't guaranteed. The current classifieds offers more options to implement something that will do that better- such as comments.

The point I'm making though is that there could be a 1000 comments on the ad and very few people will ever know, lets be honest unless you're looking for something specific how many of us go back over the old ads and read them?

I know that on the occasions that I venture into the for sale area I just click on last day or perhaps the section i'm interested in.

Theres no way of telling just by looking at an ad how many comments have been made.

Once an ad goes past 24 hrs old and drops off the list it may as well not be there as far as 99% of us are concerned.


EDIT just noticed Jammys comments about Pie and the old system.

Stop me if I'm wrong but last time he only misold 1 of each item?

This time(assuming it is Pie) the new systems let him sell the same item several times over.
(which is is exactly the weakness I mentioned!!)

Edited by shiftyseamus, 11 September 2009 - 12:31 PM.

[Ethel]

We can't make people read them but if I was about to send someone £100 I think I would make the effort and I'd also be more than happy to tell everyone I sent my payment after the seller told everyone they were selling the item to me.

[Shifty]

Ok then fair enough, I've done my bit and brought it to everyones attention.

Whether on not any action is taken remains to be seen, I think I've said all that I can on the subject for the time being.

[wolfie]

Its not the system thats the problem but clearly those using it, you can have whatever system you like old or new with email and pm's making scammers easily contactable you realistically cant police it.

If you think this is new to TMF then think again:
http://www.theminifo...x...=26153&st=0

Edited by wolfie, 11 September 2009 - 02:06 PM.

[Jordie]

This time(assuming it is Pie) the new systems let him sell the same item several times over.
(which is is exactly the weakness I mentioned!!)

Your point is taken, but i dont believe its just a weakness in the new system as you keep mentioning. It exists on the old system (forum posts) also.

The scammer may not have needed as much money or gone for as big as risk as last time. There is no difference between new or old system in multiple people been able to be scammed for the same item.

Not everyone will post saying "sold to me" and not all sellers will edit topics to say "sold to x person" or even just SOLD. So the opportunity is still there. Public comments on the topic is exactly the same as the public comments on the classifieds. On a forum topic, you would scroll down the topic to see the posts. On the classifieds, you scroll down from the advert details and comments are displayed at the bottom.

Its not the system thats the weakness, its the people.

We all want a secure,scam free way to buy and sell on the forum. TMF can only do what It can, the rest is down to buyers and sellers.

My advice is to gather as much detail from the person you can and confirm its correct before purchasing. Get a telephone number and speak to the person, get there address and cross check it with google maps. Does the postcode match the street name and such. Buyers can lower the risk of been scammed, by taking precautions, but non the less, sellers should be geniune in the first place.

Unfortunately we dont have the resources to operate an ebay type approval system (address checks, bank details, etc etc) and even then, unfortunately people get scammed on ebay.

[Jammy]

Well I try to always take feedback on board, and in the interest of continous improvement then I can always make the comments appear on every advert, and take away the option to have them or not. As has been mentioned though, I doubt this would make a huge difference.

Again, as I've pointed out, if just one seller had bought the item using the buy it now button then the item would be marked as sold, and no one else would be able to buy it. Having said that I realise it is possible to not have the buy it now button by not specifying a Paypal address. Only one way round this, and that is to make Paypal a mandatory option, which I doubt any of us want! :laugh:

With the Pie thing, I thought he sold a pair of brakes at least twice. Might be wrong, but I am right in saying that there was nothing in the old system that would have stopped him doing such a thing. Yes it might have been easier to spot, IF either/both buyers had mentioned it in posts on the advert, but this is just a case of after the horse has bolted. Plus with the old system we had adverts advertising dozens of things, with tens of people enquiring about this that and the other that it would become impossible on some adverts to work out who had bought what.

However, going back to making comments mandatory on all adverts with the new system, what we could do is suggest to buyers that they leave a comment on the advert to state that the item has been bought. OR there could be a button that a buyer can press to say that payment has been sent, which would then tell other members that the item had probably been sold. The flip side is, how long before sellers get peed off with buyers pressing such a button and then sending payment two weeks later after they'd been paid!!

Yes, a feedback system would be very helpful, I agree. Certainly one of the things that is high on my to-do list. Again though, I don't believe we've ever had any problems with this 'navyseal' before, so at the time these people bought these items the member would have had an impecable feedback score, so again wouldn't have done anything to stop this latest incident.