Member verification ideas

Of all the ideas, I like a paid membership being a requirement for trading as well as buying and selling. There is a psychological investment in the community when you pay to join, and it will deter (but not stop) scams.

I do not like the idea of using ebay feedback. I avoid ebay, and give it zero weight as a trust indicator.

There is an onus on the buyer to check out the seller. Caveat emptor. And as LW once said, you don't just buy the knife, you buy the seller. Make it difficult for a scammer to take advantage of you. If the deal is too good to be true, well it probably is.

We on this forum tending to be trusting, and that is a sweet scent to predators, who are flocking here from ebay to exploit out trusting nature. Let's make it a bit harder for them to succeed. Bottom line: stay alert, and let's petition the mods to require paid memberships to conduct trades. That's my thinking.
 
Well as a new non paid member (for now at least) I do agree with a few of the suggestions listed in this thread. I think having to be a paid member to trade is a good idea like others stated it makes one feel invested in the community. And having a low feedback rated person ship first is a fair request to be made. A valid phone # would be ok to I think.
 
The seller owes it to him/herself to buy insurance, delivery confirmation, and signature required.
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To me this just seams like common sense to CYA when selling anything online. It does bug me when a seller puts the responsibility of insurance on me as a buyer sorry OT
I think a 3 month waiting period and a minimum post count would be a good idea.Most thieves and scammers are lazy and that would be to much work. It also gives the other member a chance to get a feel for who this person is. If all their posts are "lol" "cool" or other posts of no substance it would be a big red flag.

PS Scammers are reading this too!
 
As moderators, we can look over the suggestions here and combine them with an edited summary of the FEEDBACK stickies. This will not happen tomorrow. Give us about a week. Then we will take your suggestions on these edited proposals and policies.

Part one will be suggestions on how you can protect yourselves even now.
Part two will be ideas on new rules for new members. Don't count on many changes.
Part three will be current policy too often ignored or misunderstood.
 
Excellent. Maybe scammers will recognize that we are not so easy pickin's anymore, and go back to ebay to ply their insidious trade. Not that there is anything wrong with ebay. Some great deals over there on fake high end knives, and pakistani damascus blades.

Esav Benyamin said:
As moderators, we can look over the suggestions here and combine them with an edited summary of the FEEDBACK stickies. This will not happen tomorrow. Give us about a week. Then we will take your suggestions on these edited proposals and policies.

Part one will be suggestions on how you can protect yourselves even now.
Part two will be ideas on new rules for new members. Don't count on many changes.
Part three will be current policy too often ignored or misunderstood.
Click to expand...
 
Squirrel442 said:
Just wanted to add I do know there is a "Rules for the exchange area"

Man there is a lot of good info there, but it is a lot to take in. Anyone who has had a power point presentation can relate. Too much info can make it hard to process or remember.

By having a condensed clear version (maybe a thread they have to post in saying they read and understand the By-Laws).

Hypothetically I could look to see if the seller agreed to the by-laws and use that to help settle a dispute. Or a new guy with no feedback score will realize he should ship first.

Sorry back to coloring.

Edit: A paid membership will help keep scams down, but it will not educate or help with disputes. Possibly do both Paid membership and sign the by-laws thread.
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I did condense the rules, last Summer s a matter of fact. I asked Spark if he was cool withit and he was. I trimmed it down and consolidated Sections 1 & 2. I never did get around to getting the rest of it tweaked yet.
The bottom line here is that some members have a hard time with vocabulary. For example, the word "Integrity", "Honesty", and honoring your word seem to be forgeign concepts to a lot of people that just need to stay away from this section altogether. The last thing anyone wants is even more rules, it's hard enough for people to follow what we currently have, imagine adding much else? Some folks head would surely explode (or implode).
 
Roger That RevDevil,

I think if there were a thread to post in as a new guy "I Squirrel, have read and agree to the terms of (you guys get the point), It would have done a few things:

One, as a new user it gives me a quick lesson.
Two, I have to agree to said lesson because I don't want to get banned
Three, I signed my name (so to speak) so there is no excuses.
Four, I look up the seller and he also agreed to the law.

I imagine what happened with Woody and I would have been settled very quick if this was the case. I am not a gullible guy and Woody doesn't seem to be a crook. As far as we were concerned we were both right. I am not going to sugar coat it, Woody and I duked it out (cyber wise), but eventually we worked it out because we are both reasonable people. But common rules that we both agreed to would have squashed it faster, with no emotions.

Not talking about my situation anymore (changing gears)

You guys are great at circling the wagons, but it happens after a mistake.

Scammers are predators. To stop a predator you educate the pray. The smarter your members the faster you kill the predator. You guys are great at killing predators by the way.

If a new member is forced to read a condensed version of the rules and sign, you are giving every new member a solid foundation. Once the foundation is there you build the house. I am all over the spectrum with analogies, remember they call me Squirrel. You get what I am sayin? Where is the current foundation? I think it is trial and error. Well we know it works but I'd rather teach my kids fire is hot rather than letting them get burned.

Lets clarify, FOCUS SQUIRREL You don't need more rules you just need a foundation for new guys. In the military if I had to send some guys into battle and I was short on time I would condense the info "Listen up troops here is the sh** that will get you killed."

Once you have created a baseline, they'll be more stable as they grow. Now as the new guy I know enough to hopefully not be wounded/or killed on the battlefields of the marketplace (i.e. chalk it up as a loss). I also know the community has my back (wagons circled before an incident) so I am less likely to take a shady deal. If the predators aren't getting fed they'll leave (in theory).

I don't agree with a waiting period, but understand why others do. The way I see it if I pay money then I have earned my right to be part of the club. I originally suggested a required post limit. Now I don't like that idea either, some people are better off the less they open their mouth. Statistically speaking the more posts I have the more people I'll offend.

I have decided I am going to buy a gold membership. I don't want to buy/sell/trade anything (unless anyone has M1A mags wink wink), but because of what I have seen over the last few days.

Only problem now I'll have to wait until my wife wakes up because I can't figure the paypal thing out.

Sorry for rambling, friggan meds/can't sleep. I hope you guys can decipher the moral of my story. LOL
 
Locutus D'Borg said:
Excellent. Maybe scammers will recognize that we are not so easy pickin's anymore, and go back to ebay to ply their insidious trade. Not that there is anything wrong with ebay. Some great deals over there on fake high end knives, and pakistani damascus blades.
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Some of the most highly respected dealers here at BF are also selling on eBay. I don't agree with using anything from eBay here however. But, I have bought excellent knives from eBay, I've traded/bought/sold here too (with great results) and you have to be a bit savvy to keep from getting the bad end of a deal on either. The only time I ever got took here was on two trades and I let both go, although I shouldn't have. On eBay I've got one knife that wasn't new as described, but eBay forced the seller to refund, even though he didn't want to. There's people in both places I'd never deal with. But, it's not that hard in either place once you have experience.
 
There is no real way to protect yourself, no matter how much planning you..it just comes down to reputation and taking a chance
 
I don't think any new rules will deter much. All of the times I have had issues here have been long standing members with paid memberships. Some new members join to sell collections they inherited/collected and are liquidating. A six month waiting period will do little to benefit the community in these regards, as we will loose new members and loose out on adding these knives to the BF collective as it were. I don't visit other knife sites, and would like to see as many new members here as possible, even if for a short time. If people want to scam they will. I always read past posts to get an idea of what the member is like, and choose my terms accordingly.

As it is most transactions go smoothly, and sometimes things go wrong. For myself, they are only knives, and while I will fight to get back what is owed (I have a long memory), loosing a knife is something that may happen, and it won't ruin my life in the long run. I don't think any solution will be 'the one' in the end, and change just to say change is done is something I'm against as well. Leaving it as is for now would be my suggestion.
 
Subscribed

I've bought, sold and traded here, I have over 12,000 posts, I've been here from the beginning, yet my feed back scores are low, (half the people I ever traded with or bought/sold with didn't leave feedback but most deals were for under $100 and I tried to deal with people I trusted.

Still being a cynic I don't trust too many people so what's a member to do, I went back and searched out threads where the other guy I was looking to deal with made previous dealsy and sent PMs, emails to the people they dealt with and asked, "how was so and so to deal with?"

When I did my first higher end trade, Swamp Rat for a Sebenza, I did my own background check before the trade and even with the good to go from the other members I was still nervous and had some concerns as the member I traded with was only here less than a year and IIRC a registered member.

I know we have TGB&U but that usually does the worst and best, not the guy that comes on again and again with a new name just to scam the little deals, how about at least making sure that feedback is submitted by both parties before either one can make another deal/trade.

Maybe a thread in exchange where we can go to make inquiries about past deals, I know it did make me feel a little better knowing that the people who dealt with the member before , I don't wanna say vouched for him but at least told me how their deal went.

Just seeing the response on this thread I know there is always some one around with real feedback of one would just ask before making a deal.

Just my 2¢ worth.
 
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