Scam adverts - time to react
Discussion
They are not all pre-approved (we have around 800+ adverts added daily so it would take a lot of work to go through them all, as well as someone with a lot of car market knowledge to be an expert on all manufacturer prices). We do have various filters in place to automatically pick up scammers, but they keep changing their methods and so it is a continuous battle to keep ahead of them.
Thus we rely heavily on user support to report them (using the Report to Administrator link on the top right of adverts). We do not have moderators for the classified section like we do the forums, maybe this is something to think about in the future, but if you do report anything using the link then the advert will be removed from being navigated to through the site (though you still will be able to get to it if you know the direct URL)
I did read in the Sunday Times last week that this is an increasing problem across the sector, and that eBay are spending multiple millions into ways to stop scammers. We dont have their budget but are working hard on some new things before christmas that will hopefully have an impact on the scammers.
Hope that clears a few things up...
Thus we rely heavily on user support to report them (using the Report to Administrator link on the top right of adverts). We do not have moderators for the classified section like we do the forums, maybe this is something to think about in the future, but if you do report anything using the link then the advert will be removed from being navigated to through the site (though you still will be able to get to it if you know the direct URL)
I did read in the Sunday Times last week that this is an increasing problem across the sector, and that eBay are spending multiple millions into ways to stop scammers. We dont have their budget but are working hard on some new things before christmas that will hopefully have an impact on the scammers.
Hope that clears a few things up...
Kinky said:
cuneus said:
If member joined time < 30 days and if member posts < 50 then no adverts
or you can just stick your head in the sand
This could not work - as we'd have newbies posting garbage just to get their quota up. Quality over quantity.or you can just stick your head in the sand
How many scammers do you think could be bothered to make 50 intelligible posts ?
cuneus said:
or you can just stick your head in the sand
Think your being a bit harsh there, PH have even had a front page news article on the fact that there are scam adverts and there doing "stuff" to reduce them.Reporting them helps with the ones that do make it through.
I'm certain that if they did implement rule of no adverts until 50 posts etc then the scammers would find a way around that.
Which could lead down the path of character recognition for entries, which is an awful system IMO.
Kinky said:
cuneus said:
If member joined time < 30 days and if member posts < 50 then no adverts
or you can just stick your head in the sand
This could not work - as we'd have newbies posting garbage just to get their quota up. Quality over quantity.or you can just stick your head in the sand
After 10 "crap"-less quotes, they can have their ads.
But each "crap"ped quote zeros the count.
All interesting ideas, keep them coming... 
The ratio of members on the site who advertise cars compared to Joe Public who have cars advertised is less than 5%, thus if we then limited to just members, the amount of cars for sale would drop massively. If you work this out then on the amount of times you change car, say the optimistic around every 3-6 months, then you are looking at a very low number of cars in the classifieds, and thus it wouldn't be a very useful resource for the general public out there, or the members of the site, and would slowly die IMO. And not the 3rd best known site for selling a car in the UK after Autotrader and Ebay.
As I said in the post above, we are trying hard to beat these scammers and added a new tool to the backend today which helps us out even more, with more to come. I don't think the answer is to put a restriction on the selling of cars on the site, as this site has grown through the ease of use of it, and not dragonian rules to combat the minority... I think that should continue.
Though all ideas are fully welcome and could help towards coming up with new features or improvements for the member base, and the classified section.
Believe me there are a lot of discussions behind PH Towers about this issue and we are working hard to combat it.
The ratio of members on the site who advertise cars compared to Joe Public who have cars advertised is less than 5%, thus if we then limited to just members, the amount of cars for sale would drop massively. If you work this out then on the amount of times you change car, say the optimistic around every 3-6 months, then you are looking at a very low number of cars in the classifieds, and thus it wouldn't be a very useful resource for the general public out there, or the members of the site, and would slowly die IMO. And not the 3rd best known site for selling a car in the UK after Autotrader and Ebay.
As I said in the post above, we are trying hard to beat these scammers and added a new tool to the backend today which helps us out even more, with more to come. I don't think the answer is to put a restriction on the selling of cars on the site, as this site has grown through the ease of use of it, and not dragonian rules to combat the minority... I think that should continue.
Though all ideas are fully welcome and could help towards coming up with new features or improvements for the member base, and the classified section.
Believe me there are a lot of discussions behind PH Towers about this issue and we are working hard to combat it.
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