Donors and Scam Quitting. 2500$ In a week

Believe it or not but big part of those who get scammed are not new members but the same people that are undercutting each other on gold prices. As far as I know PAK didn't scam any of new members, only "traders wannabe" got scammed.

But yeah, I agree that education would help.

 

That's a fair point on who Pak targeted.

Glad you agree education may be our best chance. It can be done in a way that's easy to implement and non intrusive to existing members but may save a lot of new members and create a overall healthier trading environment.

Every new member scam prevented also means more members stay around to use everyone's services and donate ect

 

I agree completely with what you said.

My main thing is I think new members place more trust in donor rank than other factors. Every few days a report a scam post says " he was a donor so I thought it was safe ect

I just think the environment leads them to believe that.

Everyone here was echoed these 3 primary points

#1. Use a official middle man if possible and pay the small fee.

#2. Value vouches the most of any sales statistic. Some members have thousands.


#3. A donor is someone who donated to support the website it is not a sign of trust or security against scamming


Which of course would alleviate a huge % of scams if new users read all the stickies, click through multiple stickies ect . But it just isn't happening.


A easy solution I see without stepping on any people's feet would be having a one time dismissable popup upon entering a marketplace that covers the 3 points above everyone says

New member education revamp could save 100s of members a month which would add more long lasting members to the site, promote official middlemen, increase donations overall and help everyone.

That's primarily the conclusion the thread has came to by a few people. New member education, the question is how.

 

It really comes down to vouches as well,

Really need to see whos handled the big money and not ran compared to someone donating and offering services instantly.

If you read vouches you see whos had the oppurtunity to scamquit 5-10k at a time without doing so.

Problem is people see $100 donor and dont even check vouches then assume the person wont run with their $200 and repeat next week.

Also comes down to < does the provider make good money or are they struggling, if you notice someone hasn't had a ton of active trades etc etc or isn't within a nice income bracket it adds more risk to it in general.

Really need a more visible way to view vouches at this point , kinda like a legit feedback system with neg and positive results <3

Brad I really like how you've stayed ontop of this thread , keep it up!

YH

 

Very good points.

And thank you, I just like seeing the community come together for discussion. Even a 10% increase in safety from a small change could dramatically help.

 

What's your #1 way of solving it?

Yh

 

I dont get how donating gives you trust. Always look at vouches/join date. That should be the bases for trust, if you trust someone who joined yesterday and donated 500 usd then thats ur own fault.

 

The only solution I've seen so far thats plausible is probably new member education revamp hitting the 3 points everyone echoes here.

1. Donors doesn't mean trust or security it means they supported the website

2. Vouches and quality of vouches are number one.

3. If you want complete safety just use a official middleman

I definitely don't believe donors equals trust, you don't, 90% of the people posting here don't . But people getting scammed every week do because they list it as the reason they trusted the user in the scam report.

New users just see big donor amounts and assume security.

 

Reputation is earned, not bought. Time, consistency & quality are much more important than some Donator Rank. You should be very suspicious of people who show up and start trading large amounts, donating big, and generally rushing to build their reputation on Sythe. It's usually a sign of a Ban Evader or someone trying to score a big Scamquit.

Time is a resource. Many people on this site have been trading regularly for 5 years+. They have done countless transactions. And they run competitive businesses on the site. They offer good rates. If you choose to do business with some donator newkid simply because they are gonna pay you a few cents more per mil, then you are taking a risk. I'm not sure if that risk is ever worth 5-10% more in price.

To each their own, but many experienced users on Sythe can trade without ever being scammed.

 

Yep, and this is exactly what I'm addressing here

People do that because it works, because they can leverage donor status to scam victims. Because we can repeat it all day to ourselves but a huge % of the sythe community believe donors are more trusted.

Yes they are naive/ uninformed ect, but usually it's the informed who have to help protect the uninformed in life. No one can save everyone but it's still a worthwhile pursuit to duscuss changes that can save some

 

It's the world wide web. Scams will always happen. Donor status or not, long activity or not. Mods / ex mods have scammed in the past, people who have been active for years have scammed in the past. Do your own research and you should be fine. If not then that is life. Cry about it for some hours and move on.

 

I don't even know what you are saying tbh. Your main point is "scams are going to happen no matter what" and I think that's common sense.

That doesn't mean things can't be done to lessen the ease of scamming. Systems protect the naive, and uninformed, the weak, ect.

People also seem to point this at me like I've been scammed by a donor or something lol. I haven't.


I just don't like how the report a scam section is the most active area of the forum, and a decent % of reports mention they trusted a donor. That should be a pretty easy fix by improving new member education.


If less people get scammed people stay longer and spend more money . Meaning businesses like yourself who are here to make money, profit greater overtime.

 

Hiding a donor status wont help anything let alone the fact it would be unfair towards sellers who did invest into Sythe to get that little trust bonus.

Even if you do your homework on a user, he has vouches, he has a donor status, he is a long term user of the forums, there still is a chance that you can get scammed and nothing will change that. Nothing will "lessen" the ease of scamming. Sythe rules, warnings and middlemans are available to make trades as safe as possible.

The problem where most scams come from is impatience. People don't want to wait for a middleman to respond, people don't bother with PM's, don't want to google a discord/skype username to check for previous scam reports, don't want to lookup the risks of buying an account, so on. Nothing will combat people their impatience. Am i saying everyone who gets scammed is impatient? No, but there are alot of cases where it involves around it. As an ex dispute mod on another forum, i should know. There is no bullet proof method in preventing scams anyway and i think Sythe is one of the forums they put the most effort into avoiding scams.

 

Please tell me where I ever mentioned hiding donor status lol

I agree that's one of the worst ideas possible.


I also agree with you completely about impatience being a major source of scams. That is a brilliant point no one brought up yet.

But there are many things that lead to scams and some are more preventable than others.

Any solution can not inconvenience honest donors like yourself in any way, that's a given. That's why in my opinion the only solution brought forward so far is simply new member education on what donor status does and doesn't mean.


What would be the disadvantage to a better system to educate first time market place viewers?

The way I see it it would only lean them towards more reputable members like yourself, for them to value vouches over donor status and use middleman services more.


I also agree with you that sythe as a forum puts a lot of effort into preventing scams and squashing scammers once reported . I just think the idea of having to read several stickies to get the 3 golden rules of value vouches, donors doesn't mean trust and use middlemen if possible is outdated and contributes to the ignorance of the average new member.

 

How about we all just be nice people
and stop
the scam
together
then
we
can
all
be
friends
and
have
a
nice
day
not
worrying
about
who's
next

 

That would be wonderful. Unfortunately though, there will always be evil people in the world who prey on the weak and uninformed .

 

Unfortunately I don't think you could ever get rid of scam quitting entirely, people tend to lose interest in the game / websites and think well I'm never coming back here might as well gain something. I agree with maybe stopping people from putting "$2500 donor" in their shop / thread title and stuff like that but I don't think that will really change the average persons mindset and to be honest trading with someone you don't know you always have a risk of being scammed without using an OMM. With that being said I'd much rather trade with someone who is reputable and has donated a significant amount verses someone that hasn't donated anything. It's a tricky one..

 

I didn't read all the replies to this thread, but I'll just leave my thoughts on this. This has been a problem for as long as I've been on Sythe. There is no solution to stop scam quits, there are always going to be people here with malicious intent. Users just need to make more educated decisions and not evaluate someone's trust based on a meaningless rank. There is already plenty of information throughout the forum on safe trading practices and there are middlemen usually available to help you trade with even the sketchiest of users. The problem is people are lazy and impatient.