Suggestion: Limit the number of active trades per user

This has been mentioned before wouldn't it be a good idea to limit the number of active trades? If not a limit, show everyone how many current trades a user is involved with and we can decide for ourselves if we should trade with someone with an excess number of outstanding trades.

From what I've gathered reading this board, scammers tend to be involved with a lot of people at the same time -- 15-20 at a time. Worse, all these people don't know that they are being scammed and tend to find out together when someone posts here. I don't know about you but that seems like a ridiculous amount of trades to be doing in the first place. Maybe they didn't intend to scam people but having that many trades at once easily overwhelmed them.

With this proposed limitation on number of active trades, it'll reduce the number of victims per scam. This would reduce the return/incentive for scamming which would discourage would be scammers. Lastly, it encourages people to finish up existing trades before starting on fresh ones which is always a good practice.

Your thoughts?

It would put me out of biz.

I cant remeber the last time I had under 30 trades in my module. Usually have 30-150 going on at one time. Never hd any major problems.

I think it has to do with the person more then the amount of trades

I have mentioned this before and I agree with you. I think the limit should be esculating. So mayb under 4 TR you can have two. Then 4-10 can have four. 11-20 can have six. 21-30 can have eight. 31-40 can have ten. 41-60 can have twelve. 61-100 can have fourteen. 101-250 can have twenty. 251+ can have thirty.

Or something like that, who knows. But I have always liked this idea.

Or maybe people can become verified traders? They would have to have a verified paypal account, have a letter sent from FIPG to their home (with a code that has to be PM'd to a mod) and maybe a phone call to verify phone #? This could cost $5 to $10 (to pay for postage and the mod's time).

verified is not a bad idea, i like the escalating TR rule too. i disagree with the paying to get something verified though. if that is the case it shouldnt be done. not that fipg should be stuck with it. the whole point for me doing these sites is to minimize cost.

[quotecb05192f54="jy3"]verified is not a bad idea, i like the escalating TR rule too. i disagree with the paying to get something verified though. if that is the case it shouldnt be done. not that fipg should be stuck with it. the whole point for me doing these sites is to minimize cost.[/quotecb05192f54]

yeah, if people aren't paying $5 or whatever I doubt it will happen. I wouldn't pay 40cents each time someone wanted to be verified.

[quote0c3c580270="Gigante"][quote0c3c580270="jy3"]verified is not a bad idea, i like the escalating TR rule too. i disagree with the paying to get something verified though. if that is the case it shouldnt be done. not that fipg should be stuck with it. the whole point for me doing these sites is to minimize cost.[/quote0c3c580270]

yeah, if people aren't paying $5 or whatever I doubt it will happen. I wouldn't pay 40cents each time someone wanted to be verified.[/quote0c3c580270]

yes, neither fipg nor us users would want to pay that )

maybe we can get someone to pay for it by paying for ads we can place in the envelopes )

[quotec8cfc6be37="jy3"][quotec8cfc6be37="Gigante"][quotec8cfc6be37="jy3"]verified is not a bad idea, i like the escalating TR rule too. i disagree with the paying to get something verified though. if that is the case it shouldnt be done. not that fipg should be stuck with it. the whole point for me doing these sites is to minimize cost.[/quotec8cfc6be37]

yeah, if people aren't paying $5 or whatever I doubt it will happen. I wouldn't pay 40cents each time someone wanted to be verified.[/quotec8cfc6be37]

yes, neither fipg nor us users would want to pay that )

maybe we can get someone to pay for it by paying for ads we can place in the envelopes )[/quotec8cfc6be37]

being verified would be optional and add to the number of trades you can have at a time. So if people don't want to pay, they just don't have so many trades

fgr_admin, you are in a league of your own )

I'm talking about average users. It's just a way of minimizing the incentives for scamming. If I can be involved with 20 trades at $25 a pop, I can steal $500. If I can do 40 trades, that's $1,000. That's motivation to steal.

I do like the idea of an escalading system. However, the scammers who have hurt us real bad are the ones with 30-50 TR (Two examples being Exile & Whatisntseen).

Either way, I think something should definitely be done. It is quite difficult for the mods or any of us to recover the money once it's stolen. The best solution is to prevent it from happening in the first place.

I fail to see how restricting # of trades will cut down on scammers. All I see it doing is hurting the people needing greens

This week I sold 50 greens to freepay. That would be twice as many as allowed under your suggestion. That would mean 1/2 the people would have got screwed Tuesday morning by freepay.

Also just a point if someone wants to scam you there is nothing a trade restriction will do to stop them.

If someone wanted to scam they could simply make 10 screenames and make 10 trades for each. Thats 100 trades.

Nothing you can really do but use best judgement. I have probably bought or traded for more greens here then anyone else and I only have 2 posts in the scammer section (for people scamming me).

All in all 600+ trades an so far only gottten screwed on 5 greens. I seldom trust new members and dotn allow old high TR people to do old sites. My reasoning being I dont trust anyone under 20tr, and anyone over 40 has probably done all old sites so I dont trust that they didnt do it.

i dont trust you too, you probably done every site in the universe

[quote972f6add51="BoYgAB90"]i dont trust you too, you probably done every site in the universe[/quote972f6add51]


I probably have, thats why I almost never tell anyone it will be me personally signing up. I always clearly state it will be a friend, coworker, crack head etc.


As to not trusting me I wouldnt either I have beady eyes and am addicted to cheese. A deadly combination in the freebie world.

fgr is my hero... don't restrict him from doin his thang

[quotedc2567f2da="Gigante"]I have mentioned this before and I agree with you. I think the limit should be esculating. So mayb under 4 TR you can have two. Then 4-10 can have four. 11-20 can have six. 21-30 can have eight. 31-40 can have ten. 41-60 can have twelve. 61-100 can have fourteen. 101-250 can have twenty. 251+ can have thirty.

Or something like that, who knows. But I have always liked this idea.

Or maybe people can become verified traders? They would have to have a verified paypal account, have a letter sent from FIPG to their home (with a code that has to be PM'd to a mod) and maybe a phone call to verify phone #? This could cost $5 to $10 (to pay for postage and the mod's time).[/quotedc2567f2da]

Great idea

This is not the end all solution to scamming. It simply HELPS in preventing a large number of people being scammed by the same person.

Yes a scammer can create 10 accounts and scam 10 person per account but that requires a lot more work than using 1 account and scamming 100 people. For one, the scammer would have to get TR ratings up on all 10 accounts rather than just focus on one. This is about putting road blocks and obstacles to make scamming a great number of people HARDER.

My other point is that it helps people from potentially being scammers. It's easier to initiate trades and get 100 greens than it is to deliver on your end. From what I've read, this has been the excuse/reason that scammers have cited. Maybe it's a lie but maybe it's got merit.

fgr admin, you are in a league of your own. While this certainly wouldn't benefit you, it benefits the majority of us so hopefully you can understand where we are coming from.