As others have said, surely banning PPG is the easiest way to stop scammers. let Paypal deal with it…

As others have said, that’s not really the answer. The problem is, a lot of the methods other forums use to stop this happening, such as the feedback system on HDUK, just don’t exist on STW due to the forum being so….erm…basic 1997

*sugar coats response*

…minimilist.

it is a scammers dream for a very very small percentage on here.
seriously how many people have been scammed?
how many people have had a very good service from someone……..if i posted on every good deal, there would be pages and pages.

Very true ton, but it does happen occasionally, so something needs to be done.

As you said though, if a new member with no forum history asked for PayPal gift, you really should be able to smell a rat

exactly mate…….all people need to do is use a bit of common sense.
look how long they have been posting/what they post/if they only sell stuff.

nothing needs to be done. The responsibility lies solely with the buyer, not STW, not the mods, not paypal. The internet is full of far more well organised and serious scams and frauds than the odd dodgy STW deal (gumtree is rife with money-forwarding scams, often with details lifted from genuine adverts), but if you are “sophisticated” enough to use the internet you should be able to protect yourself.

Dont buy from new members. Dont use PP gift- pay the fees yourself. Search forum history. Google the seller. Dont use western union.

Ive used STW for a couple of years (used to piggy back my other half’s account when my original one disappeared after the hack) but I was buying and selling stuff on the MTBR forum in the late 90’s when no one had heard of ebay and before paypal. Never been ripped off, never had a negative experience (a few underwhelming experiences where my definition of “mint” was different to that of the seller, but purely subjective rather than being had).

As somebody who has only ever brought off the classifieds and never sold anything, can I say that I have not yet had any hassles, however these days I do tend to look at the forum history of the seller and will now only buy off of someone who has some history on here. A while ago I enquired about a turbo trainer that was for sale only to receive an email back saying that it had already been promised to someone, in theory sold pending collection, however if I wanted to offer more money then I could have it. Needless to say I didn’t reply to that email.

Oh and I have brought of ton (set of Mary bars) good communication and prompt delivery so all happy here

Sad to say but it is now buyers beware.

However as a seller surely if you post in here for sale you then you have to make time to check emails etc, I don’t expect prompt delivery on everything but a bit of communication and being kept informed of what’s what saves a load of issues, even if it’s a case of “sh*t sorry mate, hectic week, l try and get it posted later on” wouldn’t go amiss

It was me that suggested STW ban sellers asking for PPG

This was really for their sake to try and stop some of the scam threads, what buyers and sellers do once they are in negotiations is obviously up to them.
But if they’ve been done and used PPG after being advised against it, at least STW can say they did what they could.
It can’t be good for this sites reputation sometimes with some of the threads about scams I’ve seen

so once again, I didn’t suggest banning PPG [only PP can do that] but rather ban sellers asking for it on the sale thread and maybe STW putting a disclaimer up about it on all sale threads

Just ban the for sale if its that much of a problem.

Most of the time scammers are easy to spot. ie 5 threads all in for sale.