Post Count Minimum for the Market Place

After reading the scammed thread in the marketplace, i feel (with no offense to any new members) that we should initiate a Minimum Post requirement in the marketplace. This would force a user to post for a certain number of times before they can start a new marketplace thread. Hopefully, this will keep scams away, as well as most of the posts saying "do you have any references".... becasuse we are not the largest forum, i think a 50 post minimum would be good. what do you guys think?

a minimum post count is always a good thing.

I agree. Either 50 post or maybe something along the lines of user reputation points would also be a good idea.

I agree completely

ok, by saying this i wont be selling anymore things because i will be misjudged.
That still wouldn't be safe, because say a member like me, has been here for a little while trying to act good, and honest, and then all of the sudden i try to scam someon e, they would think hey hes a great member, and honest, i can buy from him. Thats just my 2 cents.

biggyme13 said:

ok, by saying this i wont be selling anymore things because i will be misjudged.
That still wouldn't be safe, because say a member like me, has been here for a little while trying to act good, and honest, and then all of the sudden i try to scam someon e, they would think hey hes a great member, and honest, i can buy from him. Thats just my 2 cents.

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your right, it won't stop scamming completly, but it will surely drop the amount of scams that occur on the forums.

and spammers.....

I am of two minds on this. On one hand it prevent the quickie one post seller/scammer. On the other it means modifying the code for little reason.

We can all see the post counts when people post in the marketplace. If he is a new user caution should be shown, just like the $999 17" laptop. It could be real, it might not. I was half tempted to see if I could get a member in good standing to act as a bondsman for me, but honestly I have no need for a 17" PB no matter how good the deal.

So yes a post count seems nice but really a little bit of forthought and judgement should do just as well.

In short, is it really necessary to enforce common sense on our members?

macEfan said:

After reading the scammed thread in the marketplace, i feel (with no offense to any new members) that we should initiate a Minimum Post requirement in the marketplace.

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Even though I'm a relatively new member, I agree with some sort of posting minimum. Members need to remember, tho', that a higher post count is still no guarantee of upstandingness - somebody can easily pad post counts.

I really like the idea of a "bondsperson". Could we round up enough members to be a volunteer corps of bondsers?

What would a bondsman do?

I don't agree with a minimum post requirement. I have bought and sold things on this forum, as well as countless others. The only site I have seen a requirement at is Macrumors, which I hate because I would like to sell there, but don't post there. I have been scammed before, and I have to say that it is the buyers fault if it happens. You have to be careful these days, and do your research. I had such good luck with my online transactions that I got sloppy recently and it cost me. But by instituting a post requirement you may stop honest sellers from offering products to members here.

Oh, and the thing about a high post count meaning something: Judging a seller by their post count is worthless. I was scammed last week on hardforums by a member that has over 3,200 posts on that site. Now I am out $130 and fighting to get it back. So to agree with what someone said, post count means absolutely nothing.

PowerBookG4 said:

What would a bondsman do?

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IOW send the money to someone I trust. Have them go and meet the seller F2F and recieve the merchandise in person. This way the buyer (in this case me) would not have to have faith in the seller, but instead puts his faith in the trusted member.

A bondsman would be nice, but totally pointless/worthless since this is an internet site, which means thousands of ppl have access to it from all over the world and i'm sure as **** that no one would want to do that job without getting paid or incentives.

But as far as getting ripped off, it is the buyer's fault for not taking all the precautions to make sure they won't get ripped off...i.e. contact info(not just pm's on this board)...even though it's not 100% the buyer's fault

In general, no. In the specific instance I was talking about though there were a couple people nearby. Even with a $100-200 retainer it would have been worth it. That is off topic though.

Internet buying off eBay or forums always involves some risk, the qustion is would a post count limit really help mitigate it? I find it attractive, but not for scammers. What I would prefer to be rid of are the one post wonders. The marketplace is for members, not some random guy who wants to offload his gear.

yeah but some of those random guys who come to offload gear stick around and become members. People just need to be very careful when dealing online, thats all there is to it.

Also could people please state (maybe in the title)where the item sale is from (or where they can post to) such UK or US, etc... This may help people sort through the items on sale.

macEfan said:

After reading the scammed thread in the marketplace, i feel (with no offense to any new members) that we should initiate a Minimum Post requirement in the marketplace. This would force a user to post for a certain number of times before they can start a new marketplace thread. Hopefully, this will keep scams away, as well as most of the posts saying "do you have any references".... becasuse we are not the largest forum, i think a 50 post minimum would be good. what do you guys think?

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Here here, I totally agree.

I like the idea of getting pictures with the member and forum name in it with a peice of paper. That would make me feel more secure.

techster82 said:

yeah but some of those random guys who come to offload gear stick around and become members. People just need to be very careful when dealing online, thats all there is to it.

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if they plan on sticking around for a while i am sure that they can wait a week or two to boost up their post count. they will most likely have some sort o valuable information to offer all of us which would make us not second guess purchasing from them.

i can think of about 8 users on this forums off the top of my head i would purchase off of without hesitating.

another thing you can do with new/shady/anybody is set up a private auction with buy it now on ebay, that way it is through a 3rd party place and paid through paypal there is more protection that way. a legitimate seller should not argue about doing this
-chris

thats a great idea coach!