Buy&Sell now less secure

[plasticman]

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I've just pulled an ad from the Buy&Sell - specifically from this forum - because the structure is now far less secure than before, and lends itself very easily to fraud imo.

 

The procedure before (and on other fora that I'm a member of) is that members PM each other with enquiries or offers about equipment. This guarantees certain things:

 

- the seller can see who is making an enquiry or offer, and can check length of membership and the credibility of that person (naturally the same operates in reverse - but buyers always see a seller's forum username)

- PMs keep communication within the forum - at least for the first contact

- the seller can also see that the potential buyer is a currently active member, and can make sure that it's 'the real person' that is contacting them.

 

In the current system, the seller is mostly contacted through the email form on the Sell page (for the ad that I just pulled, that was the only way people contacted me). The form forwards no information about the buyer's forum membership, and the email is almost always an anonymous online address, such as 'andreas_juergensen@hotmail.com' (yes - apologies - but you get the point - anyone could send an enquiry from that address).

 

The seller is then left no choice but to answer that mail - either by creating or using their own 'anonymous' mail-address (which leaves a bad-taste), or by revealing their own home or work mail to an unknown person.

 

I'm sure all the mails I received (this time) were in good faith - but there's absolutely no way of telling. And the system seems open to all sorts of abuse.

[andybarton]

I have reported this to Andreas

[LUF Admin]

Hi,

 

I understand the issue and will take a deeper look after Christmas.

 

There are some software settings I can tweak, perhaps that will be sufficient.

Otherwise I have to dig deeper.

 

Andreas