Members Market

Cuchulain

Cuchulain

Cuchulain

Soldato
Joined
28 Dec 2004
Posts
7,620
Location
Derry
I hope this isn't against the rules, apologies if it is.

Anyone else feel that the members market is slowly becoming a bit of a risk to buy and sell on? I might be biased having been ripped off with several other people recently but I'm seeing more posts with stuff not received, paypal payments reversed etc and as good a job as the don's do, other than banning them there's not much else that can be done. The police and the banks don't seem to be interested so it's becoming a bit of a lottery with more people hitting 250 posts, ripping someone off then disappearing with no comeback.

I'm sure it never used to be like this, people relied on trust and I never had a bad experience with buying or selling up until now, I might be wrong and may have missed posts where others have been duped but I don't think so.
 
I've not noticed a great amount of bad deals to be honest, and haven't been ripped off once myself yet. I also think a small part of the blame lies on the buyers who do not do things like get home telephone numbers of the sellers and then ring them to check for validity etc and instead rely on mobile numbers, and often don't even get the address of the seller. Things like this can go a long way to making a safer deal, and I think regular buyers here tend to get slacker with precautions the more used to the section they get.
 
Ive just got access to member market, took me a while, and have been reading some of the problems people have been having. Its a shame theres so many numpties trying to make a fast quid, but surely theres easier and quicker ways than having to bump up to 250 posts.

im also cheesed that theres such good stuff in there, and i have no cash.. aargh
 
Ewanb75 said:
Ive just got access to member market, took me a while, and have been reading some of the problems people have been having. Its a shame theres so many numpties trying to make a fast quid, but surely theres easier and quicker ways than having to bump up to 250 posts.

im also cheesed that theres such good stuff in there, and i have no cash.. aargh
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I suspect if it was easier and quicker, there'd be even more people joining just to rip others off.
 
I agree with your concerns about members market, I feel a bit annoyed as I have used these forums since 2001 and have seen many changes on these forums, although I am a bit of a lurker I only post when I think my advice will be useful to someone else, therefore do not have a high postcount, but have completed many successful deals in past years on members market and now am barred from accessing it as I dont want to spam to achieve 250 posts. It is a shame that the admins do not consider length of membership important as well as a post count. Sorry to have a rant.
 
Problems were inevitable since the size of the forum has grown so much since MM was introduced.
I think this is a great post that should serve to warn people that there are muppets out there and that a few of them even have OcUK forum accounts too.

The 250 rule (and valid non-webmail email addy) is about the best idea that you can use to validate people but users should note that OcUK is still 'tinternet so treat it with caution.

Good post. Have some stars!
 
not had any problems really, had one where something didn't arrive but the seller offered an immediate refund so can't complain at that. Where's my trust gone though? can't see it at the mo.
 
Well, another suspicious case here, someone paid for a laptop a week ago and has received no goods or reply... http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17775571

It's a damn shame, but the quesiton is how could MM be made safer? Increase post limit and length of time on the forum to something like 500 posts/3 months? Would that make much difference? Would there be any way to implement more stringent checking and validation of a users address/contact info before being allowed to sell?

What about a validation system for MM where for a user to be approved to sell, they need to email OCUK webmaster with full contact details and some security questions, which are then verified by a Don calling the landline number and asking the user to maybe repeat the security info (user-created PIN, secret answer or word etc) to validate who they are and that they have a landline? No idea if any of that would work, and it would likely be hassle for OCUK, i'm just throwing some thoughts around...

EDIT - I still think people could do more to help themselves though by being more stringent with their verifying the sellers information.
 
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I feel members should hand in their full address. A mod can then post them sort of letter with a verification code - once the code has been exchanged and verified, that member can then use the MM.

But, in practice, it would take a LOT of effort to do that - and cost a small packet, initially. :(
 
All those ideas take effort on the part of OcUK when they see no return for the effort really.

How about a tier system for transactions, you start off small (HDD's, software, DVD drives) and for each transaction trust increments a point, then set the minimum points needed in order to sell large items like Laptops or TV's etc:


30 transactions for Laptop
20 transactions for entire system
And so on....


This would only need a mod to rate how items should fall into place.
 
Adding a lot of cost to essentially take business away from the shop isn't something that's high on the list I imagine.
As for buying stuff on MM, I am pretty cautious about it, I'd rather the person had been registered for a year or more and not just a few months to spam up 250 posts.
Bought the laptop I currently use off there and have sold quite a lot of my old kit and everything's been fine.
Think it is just a case of, if you're buying high value items now get all the info you possibly can, including address. As for selling, reading the horror stories of Paypal scams and people claiming that they never received items. I don't think I'll ever use it for high value things again.
 
basmic said:
I feel members should hand in their full address. A mod can then post them sort of letter with a verification code - once the code has been exchanged and verified, that member can then use the MM.

But, in practice, it would take a LOT of effort to do that - and cost a small packet, initially. :(
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I wouldn't mind paying a small fee to be allowed access to the members market :) For the sake of making it safer, I'd be more than willing to, actually!
 
furnace said:
I wouldn't mind paying a small fee to be allowed access to the members market :) For the sake of making it safer, I'd be more than willing to, actually!
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Same here, i'd MUCH rather use it than Ebay for used parts, and it's fart more likely that you're buying decent used kit as almost everyone are overclockers and look after their hardware.
 
I'm not sure that any changes are really necessary, it is simply one of those things I think, most people on here will be trustworthy whether they use the MM or not but you will always get a few people to mess up the system. For instance I recently bought DVDs off a member here who had no trust (at the time) but because they'd been a member for a while, it was a low value deal and whenever I'd come across their posts before they seemed sound enough I had no worries about it. It all turned out fine which may have something to do with luck but if a bit of discretion is used the risks should be fairly small but as I've said there will always be some people who will circumvent whatever measures you put in place. :)
 
It's been suggested before, and I'd be happy to volunteer some free time towards doing a moderated system where anyone wanting to sell has some confirmed details.

Length of service is a dubious one, because someone perfectly honest could be wanting to sell something and not have the required length of duty, similarly I feel number of posts is useless.

One thing I would suggest is the complete banning of Free email addresses. It may sound a bit draconian, but since you can't sign up to the forums with one, why allow trust based transactions with them?

I'd also like to see the removal of Paypal as being a payment option. If people discuss it in private over email that's fine, but please lets make this against the rules.

Another thing is I won't usually buy from people who I don't actually "know" from the forums. Another form of trust, if you will.
 
furnace said:
I wouldn't mind paying a small fee to be allowed access to the members market :) For the sake of making it safer, I'd be more than willing to, actually!
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I would happily verify my address and pay a small fee. The costs of verification (that I outlined earlier) could very easily be built into the fee.

I'd say £5 for full, lifetime, access would be very reasonable. :)
 
Name: platypus
Real Name: Russell Dunn
Email Address: russell.d_at_cordic_d0t.com
ICQ:
MSN:
AIM:
YAHOO:
Location: Cambridge
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Now, looking at my trust here it's not overly revealing - but then I dont have ICQ/MSN/AIM or Yahoo. Would it be that much work to add a "Details Confirmed: YES" (or something similar) under that?
 
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