[jimmy]

A fraudster who operates on a range of forums occasionally comes for a tickle for a few days on here. He's sacked off the 'FOR SALE' section since his ads are so retarded that it's obviously a scam - now he simply PM's people to offer them stuff so it's out of the moderators eyes.
I got a PM today asking about the chap and I banned him instantly - tomthedon. A clear scammer.


Right - so there are obviously manymany MANY trusted people on here, people who've been on a long time or well known etc. But also new guys to the sport who are genuine and shouldn't be treated like second class citizens.

I propose a fee - either anual or one-off to essentially use the trade section - it would give you a badge of trust in some way (yet to be decided) so even when someone PM's to offer something out of the eyes of anyone else, if they don't have that badge in their profile, ignore them.

What do people think, what's fair? I don't want to go thru thousands of users by hand but I could somewhat automate the process I think.

I'm not looking to take the mickey - I don't want your money - but discouraging fraudsters is the only aim. It's been pointed out that Ebay fees are INSANE and here it's free and works well since everyone is generally honest. The real users of the website ARE indeed honest. It's outsiders that do this on various websites that are the problem.

I don't want to create a 2-tier system where people feel excluded from a part of a FREE forum like rcracechat became back in the day. This isn't about that - I hate to see people getting scammed, so feel free to put in your opinion. If you wouldn't like it, TELL ME, and also why.