New Providers - Your Going To Start Giving Reviews

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zingo said:
Beggar = Banned ,, this might fix it maybe

Or if you see a beggar call him out.
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I don't even provide any services but I hate nothing more than review beggars. Most of them you can see their post history and the do CTRL + F and type in "review" and the entire screen lights up in pink because in pretty much every post they have made the word review is used. I fucking hate those people and they should be banned from WF and then sent to prison. No seriously, I hate them.
 


I've been gearing up to do some writing for extra cash -- so I've been checking out the competition ahead of time:

1. What I've seen is a lot of people asking for reviews, (and clearly being given them by service providers) while never leaving any feedback.

2. A lot of selling threads that die before they get to the second page.

Everyone (buyers and sellers) have to change their tune, to help everyone avoid being scammed, or good people leaving the forum to sell/buy elsewhere.
 
While I agree that free reviews would be the best way to go, I have a few ideas about them.

First of all, I don't think it's fair to force the service providers to give a free review. If they don't, then they'll suffer decreased business, like a few people have said. It's their own choice.

Also, I think that belikethat makes an excellent point about giving paid reviews where the reviewer pays after the service has been delivered. These seem just as good as free reviews to me - the reviewer doesn't pay until satisfied, so it's like they're getting a guaranteed service. What's wrong with that?

Again, ideally everyone would offer free reviews. But perhaps that's not plausible for everyone, and pay-once-satisfied reviews should work just as well - so why not use them?
 
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ly2 from WF said:
Just charge a fee to post in BST, that will get rid of most of the idiots.
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I'm beginning to think that might be one of the best 1st solutions. (Not the only thing to do, but one of the 1st). Listening to what others also had to say about this idea, like how this works in BHW, etc. If it works to reduce the idiots, it means we buyers won't have to spend nearly the amount of time wading thru the garbage (like wading thru junk mail, spam, etc) to find the genuine article. That alone would be a big help.

The free review-free upfront and pay later, etc, I'm guessing there never will be any set rules or requirements placed by the admin? Probably gonna be up to the individual provider. But no reviews = reduced revenues.
 
Like ly2, I hate the review beggars.

What also pisses me off are the review beggars who leave 10-word "reviews" in an attempt to "appear" legit. They build up a high post count, mainly because of these horrid reviews, and have the "appearance" of legitimacy.

The new sellers wonder why they don't have any business despite the positive reviews from beggars (because no one takes the review beggars seriously).

And, other buyers are ill-served because they don't have reviews from people who have any credibility.

Incredibly, some of the sellers are part of the problem.........some sellers don't want to give reviews to mods or high trust users at all, despite suggestions to do so from me and others.

In my viewpoint, if sellers don't have the financial cushion to offer 2 to 5 free reviews of their service (depending on their price point), they shouldn't be in business.

I mean, do you really want to buy from a seller who won't give a free $50 value review because they can't afford to? Do you really want to do business with someone who is only $50 away from financial collapse?

N~
 
Seriously!! why don't WickedFire charge a bit ($10-$20) for posting a thread on BST? That will make BST cleaner and more professional.
 
1 - I got scammed too so I would like to see some changes also. Some of these providers do serious work so I don't think forcing them to do a FREE work for someone else is fair. I think payment after work is better option, it should be provided for 5 or 10 members with +10 or 20 itrader. I know it's not 100% secure for providers but at this point I think a lot more people get scammed buy providers than providers buy buyers, so that is the "burning" problem. Placing $1-2 payment for posting their services would probably cut of many scammers.

2 - Review beggers. I could stand losing 10-20-50 bucks from getting scammed but this just pisses me off. I would completely ban this ... out of the forum. I would leave either after payment what I said so nobody would spam the forum asking for a review because they have to pay anyway, or I would transfer this to direct pm to provider. So they should ask him on pm not in thread. Come on guys half of threads are spammed with this review beggers and few little changes can make the difference.

3 - I'm not sure what reputed member should be. I am here more than a year but I don't post a lot. I have very few posts and even my itrader is not so high. But I buy a lot from this forum providers I just do spam for reviews and I don't ASK for iTrader, if it's given great but I don't need to ask for it like many people does. Also, I always try to give decent, longer review even when I'm not given the review copy. It's just fair to other members.

4 - From testing many guys here I also found many good providers. I wouldn't want that our "spam prevention" actions lead to having less good providers on this forum so anything too drastical wouldn't be so good also. We have to find a balance not to give place for top 1% of providers but to give a place for all legit ones. People don't forget that even new members can be legit guys. Let's not assume that any newbie on a forum is a scammer. So we just need a way to reduce scam and spam on this forum not to reduce market activity.
 
Having rules and certain criteria might create more of a implementaion
and enforcement problem. If a fee is charged, that fee will somehow
be passed on to the buyers. Requiring review copies is good, but
it's worth it to give a few before he runs.

zingo is right, it's up to the buyers as a group.

Be a "tough crowd" to con. Be hard on a new provider, not soft,
wishy-washy, and loving. :D

Ask tough questions and follow up on any unanswered questions that
someone else asked.

Call them out:
"You are new, why should we trust you?"
"What is your experience?"
"On what other forums are you known?"
"Do you have a web site?"
etc

The bad guys always look for the easiest target.

imo,
Bompa
 
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Bompa said:
...
Call them out:
"You are new, why should we trust you?"
"What is your experience?"
"On what other forums are you known?"
"Do you have a web site?"
etc

The bad guys always look for the easiest target.

imo,
Bompa
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So far I think this is the best advice. Don't be too trusting, be smarter than these scammers.

The website question could be verified.

If someone says they have a website, a trusted member could send an email to the contact address on the website and ask the seller to post what was in the email.

That could prove they were the owner of the website and not just post some random site that does what they are peddling...
 
Firstly a disclaimer: I am a new service provider and currently have 2 services listed here (although, I buy some services as well)

This is a great thread and some of the points are right on the money.

Some of my experience and opinions.

- Since I am new, I have to continue to ask for iTrader and request my buyers to post reviews. I know at times it is annoying and time consuming for a buyer to do that, but that is how a seller is judged. i.e the iTraders and reviews

- Free reviews - I have been asked for free reviews and in a lot of cases I have offered and provided free or discounted reviews. This cuts into my time and a loss for me. but, that is the cost of doing business.

But, some one posting on the thread saying - "You have to give a free review since you are new here" OR "We do not trust you" does not justify that.

On top of that I have been asked by someone with less than 10 posts and 0 itrader to give them a FREE service. :)
This is a waste for both buyers and sellers.


As has been suggested, will it make more sense for both the buyer and seller for new service offering to:

"Pay after service is complete" OR
"Get a discounted copy and pay after work is complete"

In exchange the buyers has to write a review after service is complete and provide an iTRader


- Paid Section - This will weed out some of the scammers. Serious sellers will pay to get thier thread listed before they can start to provide service.

I think we need to have a balance where buyers get what they pay for and sellers don't constantly have to provide free service and lose money in the process.

Everyone is trying to make money :)
 
If I'm a scammer, paying $10 to post on the forum is nothing when I can potentially make hundreds of dollars scamming people. Requiring a fee to post does nothing besides keep kids and people with no money from offering a service.
 
For every rule implemented, there will be ten ways to exploit it.

If a "pay to play" rule is put in place, scammers will pay to play. It is that simple. They'll just raise their prices, reduce their customer service, or put out shoddier products/services.

If a "free review" rule is put in place, scammers will simply build that into their model. They will give a few high-quality review copies to reputed members, and then scam others once the positive reviews and itraders come in. And they'll raise prices to compensate them for the upfront time and effort.

Same with enforced discounted copies.

Same with enforced payment after delivery.

Same with any other rule put in place.

Rules sound good on paper, but they seldom work out as planned. They usually end up tying the hands of those who follow them.

Nothing weeds out poor performers like unregulated competition. If a new provider has not been vetted, Bompa has the right idea:

Call them out:
"You are new, why should we trust you?"
"What is your experience?"
"On what other forums are you known?"
"Do you have a web site?"
etc
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EDIT:

Magic Hat said:
If I'm a scammer, paying $10 to post on the forum is nothing when I can potentially make hundreds of dollars scamming people. Requiring a fee to post does nothing besides keep kids and people with no money from offering a service.
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My thoughts exactly.
 
Three simple rules to follow.

1) Talk to the person in PMs/AIM/GTalk. They should give you multiple ways to get a hold of them. Also watch how they interact with others in their thread. Do they seem knowledgeable about the service they are offering?

2) Stay away from providers who speak horrible English. Some of these guys use grammar like Nigerian scammers. It's so fucking obvious they are fake. For the most part, you are better off staying away, because you will have a headache one way or another.

3) If something seems too good to be true, it probably is ($50 for a PR8 permanent footer link, for example).



Also, something that might be interesting to see implemented: an actual marketplace system instead of forums. See Envato shops. This type of shop tells you how much a certain person has sold in dollars (IE "This seller has made $10,348 in sales through 294 transactions"). You know that person is doing legit business and not padding their iTrader with bullshit transactions. WF could make a pretty penny running a system like this, but it might also require them to become responsible for stuff getting delivered.
 
MagicHat and JakeStratham - I disagree.

These advices and rules that are suggested are not here to make this perfect community without any exploatation and to stop every bending of the rules. The point is to stop MASS exploatation. Any change in that direction is welcomed. With JUST $1-2 payment placed it would weed out I gurantee more than 50% of the scams. It's in their philosophy if they have to pay for it they don't do it. People like free, if he can do something easily, scam people without having to pay anything they will do it. It's kinda like dupe accounts. If they can register accounte easily they will do it, if they have to use proxy (which everyone can learn how to use) most will not re-register with dupe account. It's in their head. I saw in may cases that just a small simbolic fee has cut out most of the "bad" users.

Also $1 payment will not make them go bankrupt and guess what, they can make new forum accounts easily but they can't make a ton of paypal accounts. You can use how many 8 total e-mails with paypal account but you also have their name so I think they can make a scam one time but next time they try to pay $1 to scam somone there will be know scammers and they will be rejected.

If scammers would be smart and rational they would just do a legit business, they are motivated by some other reasons and not log run business like it's presented here.

I think the point here is not to be careless and buy things without thinking but the point is to reduce spam and scam in BST section. These advices are good to check them but if I have 100 threads offering what I want should I contact all 100 on messenger? No, but if I have 10 of them I just might.

Combination of these things would reduce scam significantly for example:

1 - Add a $1 payment fee for a thread in BST section
+
2 - Enforce the rule that seller/providers has to offer 5 free reviews OR payment after job (sellers choice).

I am 100% sure it would remove 90% of the scam on the forum.

@ Bompa - You said .. "Having rules and certain criteria might create more of a implementaionand enforcement problem."

I thought this is why forums have moderators.
 
My point is if you use common sense you won't get scammed. I'm 91.4% sure this would reduce more than 87.1% of scamming in this forum. I like making up random percentages too. I gurantee it.

Charging someone $1 to post will do absolutely nothing, and could be the dumbest idea I've read so far.

I think you're on to something with your theories on exploatation, however.
 
Well of course, everyone has a right for their opinion and you have right to think it's dumb idea. However, my past experiences (not ideas) have shown that it's not so dumb idea.

As for common sense, well it seems according to you all the guys that got scammed don't use common sense? I'm not sure what are you saying that they (including me) are dumb?
You know exactly how I conduct business, what I need? Or everyone elses? Maybe we get scammed because we buy a lot and have to take some "risks"? Or you think you know better our businesses than us? You are making a lot of presumptions here.
And yeah it's caluculated risk but I would rather get scamed one time on every 100 purchases than 1 every 10.
If nobody would buy from new providers than there would be nobody to leave reviews, itrader etc. Also, not to mention that BST thread is flooded with new BS threads everyday, shouldn't quality of things we read also be important or we are just worried when we get slapped on the wallet?

Like I said everyone has right for opinion I do to. To me it's dumb idea saying "hey world, please change". Few small rules that are easy to implement (not necessarily mine) and it will reduce scam&spam. Changing how someone behave and even worse trying to change the way they conduct business is dumb.
Please make suggestions don't just come here and criticize.

While we are on dumb ideas I have to mention that saying "avoid people who don't speak English good" is not just dumb it's prejudicial and on the edge of being racist statement. If someone doesn't speak English good he is not good service provider? What if the service doesn't require him to know English? Yes it's English speaking forum but that doesn't mean we should eliminate people who try to speak it, it's not their fault they weren't born in US, UK. The way this thread is going someone might suggest avoid Indian, Pakistani, Filipino workers. Come on, stop the judgmental BS here.

We shouldn't make presumption, we need realistic methods that will increase the quality of forum, the ones I suggested might not be perfect but are certainly not "dumb" as I had experiences that contrary to your belive did had effect.

And if we are making judgments, lets say (to me) it seems from what your saying that you haven't had much experience with similar implementations so just saying something because you "have opinion" no matter how hard you stick to it, is just not ok. I do have some relevant experience, I was moderator and than administrator for 3 years on local IM forum (leading in my part of Europe) and trust me we cut out most of the BS there. And if I'm allowed to be a bit immodest it became leading IM forum in region greatly because of me. Not here to bragg I'm just saying, if you have opinion and you speak English better than me don't think you have more relevant experience.

Or maybe you even did have similar experiences and you just implemented it wrong, does that mean idea is dumb?

The only reason why I alowed myself to be dragged in this discussion is because I'm pissed when I see injustice, judgemental BS and because I do a lot of business here so I do care about this forum and I would love to see some improvements.

Magic Hat said:
My point is if you use common sense you won't get scammed. I'm 91.4% sure this would reduce more than 87.1% of scamming in this forum. I like making up random percentages too. I gurantee it.

Charging someone $1 to post will do absolutely nothing, and could be the dumbest idea I've read so far.

I think you're on to something with your theories on exploatation, however.
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