Author Topic: PSA: Trading With New Members! READ THIS AND DON'T GET SCAMMED!  (Read 150475 times)

Online CountValentine

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Re: PSA: Trading With New Members! READ THIS AND DON'T GET SCAMMED!
« Reply #180 on: August 02, 2024, 01:01:10 PM »
I agree a completed trade shouldn’t count as a vouch, but after enough completed trades,, the illusion of credibility doesn’t feel far off from being vouched for.
I am just old school.  :)
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Re: PSA: Trading With New Members! READ THIS AND DON'T GET SCAMMED!
« Reply #181 on: August 02, 2024, 01:02:36 PM »
The sad part is this board/forum is one the easiest and fairest out there. The bad apples are going to ruin that.
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Offline Yehudaa

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Re: PSA: Trading With New Members! READ THIS AND DON'T GET SCAMMED!
« Reply #182 on: August 02, 2024, 01:05:48 PM »
TLDR for my long post above-

IMHO, GFST should be a side benefit of being a general DDF user. It should not be something that either a scammer or an innocent person can join for.

Offline DavidsDeals

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Re: PSA: Trading With New Members! READ THIS AND DON'T GET SCAMMED!
« Reply #183 on: August 02, 2024, 01:11:39 PM »
Maybe another way to restrict things a bit is to require 50-100 posts outside of GFST before one can send or receive any PMs at all. I’m sure scammers will try to MS some posts to get there, but it would be a bit of a barrier.

Yes, that would also restrict legitimate new members from trading, but I imagine the intention of GFST was always as a side benefit for overall users of DDF, not what we want people to join for.

ETA: This would also save innocent new DDF users from being scammed. I could be wrong, but I assume most scam victims here are relatively new on DDF and don’t understand the risks yet, like the OP of this recent scam. Nothing against him, but in a year here, it looks like he has 0 posts outside of GFST.

Basically I’m saying that we should keep new members off GFST, both to keep scammers out, and to prevent innocent new users from getting scammed.

I signed up for this forum and only really use it from GFST. I’m not sure how I found the forum but I think someone posted it on Reddit.

And Lowkey I feel bad for the scammed members. Likely the scammer has their info now and will sell it. I once got scammed after 2 successful trades with the same person, luckily I was using PayPal G&S for the first 2 so managed to recover most of the money. Probably could have gotten it all if I had went to small claims. Afterwards I started getting more spam and scam calls. Pretty sure my info is being sold somewhere since we exchanged censored IDs and FaceTimed. Not sure how much other scammers are paying for it

Offline HudZ

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Re: PSA: Trading With New Members! READ THIS AND DON'T GET SCAMMED!
« Reply #184 on: August 02, 2024, 01:13:05 PM »
TLDR for my long post above-

IMHO, GFST should be a side benefit of being a general DDF user. It should not be something that either a scammer or an innocent person can join for.
I like your idea very much. You shouldn't be able to enter GFST until you have X amount of posts.

It's unfortunate, as there are many who would come here to sell things, and are actually legit, but would have to lose out because of those thieves. :-\

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Re: PSA: Trading With New Members! READ THIS AND DON'T GET SCAMMED!
« Reply #185 on: August 02, 2024, 01:14:52 PM »
DDF needs to set up an escrow account for new members trades. Hold money for 90 days. Charge a small fee that is donated to charity. I will volunteer @jj1000 since he does not have anything to do.  :P
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Re: PSA: Trading With New Members! READ THIS AND DON'T GET SCAMMED!
« Reply #186 on: August 02, 2024, 01:15:53 PM »
It's unfortunate, as there are many who would come here to sell things, and are actually legit, but would have to lose out because of those thieves. :-\
Actually we all lose out from less liquidity.
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Re: PSA: Trading With New Members! READ THIS AND DON'T GET SCAMMED!
« Reply #187 on: August 02, 2024, 01:20:25 PM »
Actually we all lose out from less liquidity.
True

Offline Yehudaa

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Re: PSA: Trading With New Members! READ THIS AND DON'T GET SCAMMED!
« Reply #188 on: August 02, 2024, 01:20:54 PM »
Just thinking that there are two ways to accomplish what I mentioned above-

1. Restrict member from sending PMs and from posting in GFST.
2. Allow PMs, but restrict GFST to be visible only when logged in to an account with the requisite non-GFST post count.

I think I like the second one better, as it'll also prevent people from joining DDF to try to eventually get to GFST. Other than people who have already seen it, hopefully future scammers (and innocent people) won't know that it's a benefit of a certain post count.

Not sure if either of these options are technically doable, but maybe?

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Re: PSA: Trading With New Members! READ THIS AND DON'T GET SCAMMED!
« Reply #189 on: August 02, 2024, 02:12:43 PM »
Agreed. It’s also possible that the scammers do complete a couple small transactions fully to get house legit users to vouch for them, and then find a big fish to scam. Buying a few little things like lounge passes for $20 is a small cost in a subsequent scam for a few thousand.

The other thing to remember is that someone “vouching for a member” does not necessarily mean that that new member is trustworthy. If the new member paid first and then you sent them whatever you sold, all you now know is that they exist and did a deal. You do NOT know that they’re trustworthy- they did precisely nothing that required trust.

Short of some verification system on DDF (which I don’t think is necessary), I’d just not trade with new members. Personally, when someone PMs about a transaction, the first thing that I do is look at their post history. Even if their account is a year or two old, if all they’ve ever posted about was buying/selling a few specific things, to me that’s still a bit of a red flag. I try to deal with people who have posted meaningfully in other threads outside of GFST. (I say meaningfully as it’s easy enough to post a simple “Thanks” or something to get some posts outside of GFST.) It’s not foolproof, but it’s just something I’d recommend.

Lastly, I’d say that IF people place any weight on this thread:
1. Anything there that’s posted by a relatively new member should be disregarded.
2. Maybe all posts there should include something like:
- Member Name
- Transaction value
- Did the member actually do anything that required trust? (Seems second paragraph above.)

/.02

At the very least there should be a restriction of certain number of posts before being able to post in the review thread.
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Re: PSA: Trading With New Members! READ THIS AND DON'T GET SCAMMED!
« Reply #190 on: August 02, 2024, 02:20:05 PM »
Just thinking that there are two ways to accomplish what I mentioned above-

1. Restrict member from sending PMs and from posting in GFST.
2. Allow PMs, but restrict GFST to be visible only when logged in to an account with the requisite non-GFST post count.

I think I like the second one better, as it'll also prevent people from joining DDF to try to eventually get to GFST. Other than people who have already seen it, hopefully future scammers (and innocent people) won't know that it's a benefit of a certain post count.

Not sure if either of these options are technically doable, but maybe?
Restricting the board by elite level is very easy as that's basic forum functionality. Same goes for limiting the PM inbox by elite level.

But speaking from experience, the most restrictive it is, the more dead the board is.
Save your time, I don't answer PM. Post it in the forum and a dedicated DDF'er will get back to you as soon as possible.

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Re: PSA: Trading With New Members! READ THIS AND DON'T GET SCAMMED!
« Reply #191 on: August 02, 2024, 02:20:51 PM »
At the very least there should be a restriction of certain number of posts before being able to post in the review thread.
I don't think thread level restrictions are possible.
Save your time, I don't answer PM. Post it in the forum and a dedicated DDF'er will get back to you as soon as possible.

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Re: PSA: Trading With New Members! READ THIS AND DON'T GET SCAMMED!
« Reply #192 on: August 02, 2024, 02:21:49 PM »
The sad part is this board/forum is one the easiest and fairest out there. The bad apples are going to ruin that.
Which of course makes it a target for sophisticated scammers.
Save your time, I don't answer PM. Post it in the forum and a dedicated DDF'er will get back to you as soon as possible.

Offline HudZ

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Re: PSA: Trading With New Members! READ THIS AND DON'T GET SCAMMED!
« Reply #193 on: August 02, 2024, 02:34:26 PM »
Which of course makes it a target for sophisticated scammers.
Can you make someone Mod of just one thread?

And put in the thread title, you must have 100+ posts to post here...

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Re: PSA: Trading With New Members! READ THIS AND DON'T GET SCAMMED!
« Reply #194 on: August 02, 2024, 02:35:05 PM »
There are groups that require brokers to put a down payment in escrow

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Re: PSA: Trading With New Members! READ THIS AND DON'T GET SCAMMED!
« Reply #195 on: August 02, 2024, 03:01:31 PM »
Restricting the board by elite level is very easy as that's basic forum functionality. Same goes for limiting the PM inbox by elite level.

But speaking from experience, the most restrictive it is, the more dead the board is.
Maybe we want it more dead? I vote yes
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Re: PSA: Trading With New Members! READ THIS AND DON'T GET SCAMMED!
« Reply #196 on: August 02, 2024, 03:30:45 PM »
So I have been in some buying/selling transactions recently and I had a couple of ideas that I wanted to bounce off of everyone.

1. It would be great to have some type of escrow system to hold funds during a transaction. We are all (hopefully) honest, but there are always a few dishonest guys out there so we all have a tough time figuring out if the buyer pays first or the seller sends the item first. In theory, it would be great to have a third party hold the funds during the transaction and not release until both parties agree, and get paid a small fee for his service. With Paypal or AP it could be done pretty easily. That said, the challenge would be - how can we trust the escrow agent? I would be interested in doing this service if we could figure out a way to make it work.

2. I know that the purpose of DDF is not to buy/sell items, but we all end up having miles/certificates/GC or other items that we want to sell. It would be great to have some kind of rating system, like ebay, so that we would know if the other person is honest or not
I see someone wanted to do this already in 2013!

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Re: PSA: Trading With New Members! READ THIS AND DON'T GET SCAMMED!
« Reply #197 on: August 02, 2024, 04:36:09 PM »
I don't think thread level restrictions are possible.
I guess it could be put in a board of its own, but not sure you want to create extra boards.

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Re: PSA: Trading With New Members! READ THIS AND DON'T GET SCAMMED!
« Reply #198 on: August 02, 2024, 06:47:40 PM »
Maybe another way to restrict things a bit is to require 50-100 posts outside of GFST before one can send or receive any PMs at all. I’m sure scammers will try to MS some posts to get there, but it would be a bit of a barrier.

Yes, that would also restrict legitimate new members from trading, but I imagine the intention of GFST was always as a side benefit for overall users of DDF, not what we want people to join for.

ETA: This would also save innocent new DDF users from being scammed. I could be wrong, but I assume most scam victims here are relatively new on DDF and don’t understand the risks yet, like the OP of this recent scam. Nothing against him, but in a year here, it looks like he has 0 posts outside of GFST.

Basically I’m saying that we should keep new members off GFST, both to keep scammers out, and to prevent innocent new users from getting scammed.
I like this idea. No different than a lot of WA groups that are exclusive

Offline DavidsDeals

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Re: PSA: Trading With New Members! READ THIS AND DON'T GET SCAMMED!
« Reply #199 on: August 02, 2024, 11:05:40 PM »
I like this idea. No different than a lot of WA groups that are exclusive

What is a WA group?