Scammers

harrisonm said

I totally agree with everything above. However, it is possible for an honest person to be new to the forum and have something good to sell. I know red lights start flashing when people talk about a third party has the part. So what is the answer? Is there a rule for how long you have to be a member (or how many posts) before you can sell items? And even if that rule did exist, scammers could easily join and do their time with polite posts and then start scamming. I guess we just have to be careful.

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Most scammers are using bots and scripts. Lots of forums require a certain number of posts before they can send PMs for this reason. Most scam accounts will post gibberish or posts that just read weird (Google translate).

Not sure if a certain number of posts are required here or not before people can PM. But it ain't hard to post a half dozen times in an intro thread or use an intro as a way to say "just joined to get ahold of a member with a want ad".

Impossible to stop every scammer, but the more friction the fewer will succeed. Plus, our mods can't be online 24/7/365! They work hard enough in general discussion.