Chance of Creating new sticky?

[Medic1]

Just dawned on me after reading a post on a possible stolen body and lens for sale, that a sticky thread entitled "suspicious ads & sales" or something similiar might be useful under marketplace maybe, for POTN members to post suspicious ads for possible stolen equipment or scams.

Just a thought....

[Ook]

I think that most stickies start their lives as threads such as this, with a good idea in them, and are noticed by a moderator. Perhaps PMing one would be a good idea, or perhaps one will pop in here.

It's a great idea.

[Pete]

No.

We have a policy here of no vigilante posts against sellers or buyers here.

We have had several cases where a seller has been slow in responding due to unavoidable personal commitments. The buyer has got impatient and then created a public thread describing the seller as a scammer without good reason.

Public "scam" warnings like this can be very damaging to a user's reputation and is something we want to avoid here.

The vast majority of deals on POTN go well and people are happy. The low instances of scams are either caught early, or the users are pemanantly banned when a scam has definitely occurred.

POTN takes the stand that transactions on POTN are entered into at the user's own risk. We take no part in policing the reputation or veracity of the people placing ads (although the latest 30 day/30 post rule will help to prevent people from registering just to put up items for sale).

Anything suspicious should be reported to the moteration team by using the report button http://photography-on-the.net/forum/images/buttons/report.gif. That way, we can take the appropriate action.

Any vigilante posts will be deleted without comment to protect the potentially innocent sellers from impatient buyers.

[Medic1]

Thanks for responding Pete....

I wasn't referring to deals on POTN. I meant that the thread would be geared towards ads someone may see locally or on online sale sites for used camera equipment like kijiji. Certain obvious ads like those where someone is selling a 1dsmkIII for $3000 in "like new condition" (which I came across recently on kijiji). Person tried to say he was getting divorced from his wife and needed the money, initially told me he was local and we could meet then said he was too busy and tried to have me send the cash through a fake escrow site.

Or where there is obviously a post for a "too good" deal on a local "trading post" website for alot of high end equipment and you contact the person and they are obviously not a photographer as they do not understand the first thing about any of the questions your asking......and the equip may be stolen.

Are vigilante posts towards non-POTN advertisments allowed? I have seen a few posts like this floating around alerting members who may have had equipment stolen that it may have been located. I just thought that if they are allowed against non-POTN advertisements a central location may be better than randomly scattered.

I know if I had all my equipment stolen out of my car I would love to see someone post something when they see $10,000 worth of stuff being sold for $1500 on kijiji.

I can, however, see your point and understand if this is something that the mods don't want to deal with as it would be kind of difficult to police. Oh well, just thought I'd throw the idea out there!

[Pete]

Sorry. I mis-understood you there, I thought you were referring to ads in the Sell section here.

For dodgy commercial business, there's quite a few stickies already in the "Market Watch" section that contain details of business and how to deal with online vendors safely.

Feel free to add to them with anything useful.

[Medic1]

Sorry. I mis-understood you there, I thought you were referring to ads in the Sell section here.

For dodgy commercial business, there's quite a few stickies already in the "Market Watch" section that contain details of business and how to deal with online vendors safely.

Feel free to add to them with anything useful.

Thanks Pete! I will go check out those stickies now.