Does TR realy protect us?

[petrosc]

I am wondering what the point of TR is, considering that a $10 sale has the same effect as a $10,000 sale (both increase the possitive feedbacks score by 1).

Someone is unlikely to back out on a deal, not deliver or not pay when it comes to low $ transactions. Someone can get a feedback score of 100 with a majority of insignificant transactions, but in this case his feedback cannot act as a reliable indicator of this person's reputation.

I want to bring this matter into attention because me and many others(some members of DNF, some not) got ripped off by another member of this forum, and the only reason I trusted this member and paid in advance was his TR (over 40 positive feedback transactions).
As it turns out, this person has a history of ripping people off and yet his TR is all positive. I cannot add a negative feedback because the deal was initiated outside the forum, but the TR of this forum was what made me decide whether I could trust him or not.

The point of existence of the TR is to protect the buyers and sellers when dealing with a person online, but a TR can also act as a helpful tool in the hands of a scammer.

I do not know what can be done about this, I certainly wouldn't want TR removed from the forum, but if others agree with me that low $ deals should not be allowed to leave a feedback please speculate on a possible solution. Since scams occur in high $ transactions, my suggestion would be to enable Trader Rating for deals above a certain minimum amount of $, let's say $300 to keep it reasonable.

I do understand that TR for low $ deals is important for newcomers to raise their reputation, but if you think about it, for low $ deals nobody looks at the TR, and for high $ deals there is always escrow. After a few successful transactions every active buyer/seller would raise his feedback score.

Anybody else that agrees with me on this or am I the only one who sees a whole in this system?

Thanks,
Petros

[Thomas Nash]

I dont think limiting the price at which a TR can be gained would be a good solution due to people that concentrate mainly on lower value domains and would gain no TR.

You could maybe be required to put a price range in the Tr box but keep it vague for privacy. Ie. Low xx,xxx or something to that effect, it would certainly let you know if someone had just built their reputation up with smaller transactiuon but people might have a problem with announcing the general price of their domains, im not sure.

[Dale Hubbard]

I think that's a good idea. It could be a simple extra couple of fields in the schema, like checkboxes:

$10-$100
$101-$1000
$1000+

Or something like that.

[petrosc]

Both suggestions are reasonable, the only problem I see with that is people not wanting to disclose the price range at which they have bought a name.

[Dale Hubbard]

Both suggestions are reasonable, the only problem I see with that is people not wanting to disclose the price range at which they have bought a name.

No need to link to the thread Petros. Maybe that's the answer.

[Thomas Nash]

Both suggestions are reasonable, the only problem I see with that is people not wanting to disclose the price range at which they have bought a name.

Yes, thats the only problem I could see with this, I dont think there will ever be a full proof feedback system, even ebay's isn't perfect and their a multi-billion dollar operation. I think the best thing to do is just do a little research into the threads they've been posting in/started and see if its an out of the ordinary transaction and just use general common sense. Scammers will always slip through.

[Dale Hubbard]

Yes, thats the only problem I could see with this, I dont think there will ever be a full proof feedback system, even ebay's isn't perfect and their a multi-billion dollar operation. I think the best thing to do is just do a little research into the threads they've been posting in/started and see if its an out of the ordinary transaction and just use general common sense. Scammers will always slip through.

True enough. If eBay haven't figured out a better system, then we can hardly expect it here.

[petrosc]

a full proof system may not be possible to achieve but we can try to make it a bit safer for the sake of everybody here.

[Thomas Nash]

Yes i agree with that I just dont see how we could do it, as a lot of people would probably be annoyed if there was a price limit on a TR and likewise if they were uncomfortable to announce the price of their domains.

Meditate on this I will.

[Welkin]

In my opinion Internet kind of feedback is useless. Not only here, it's the same with eBay. If high feedback score is a purpose of somebody, it could be easily achieved.
Just don't trust the feedback system and make your own user verification somehow before you throw money away...

[Domagon]

Feedback indicates there has been business interaction with others by the person - that alone can be very meaningful; many scammers don't have the discipline, time, etc to put in the effort to manipulate the system.

However, anyone who relies on TR alone does so at their peril ... it's just another tool one can use to better gauge the trustworthness of the other party.

Ultimately, one does best to use an outside 3rd party to handle some or all of the transaction, such as Afternic, sedo, Escrow.com, etc.

Ron

[Honan]

......snip..
I want to bring this matter into attention because me and many others(some members of DNF, some not) got ripped off by another member of this forum, and the only reason I trusted this member and paid in advance was his TR (over 40 positive feedback transactions).
As it turns out, this person has a history of ripping people off and yet his TR is all positive. I cannot add a negative feedback because the deal was initiated outside the forum, but the TR of this forum was what made me decide whether I could trust him or not........snip

Who is the member that ripped you and others off?

Most feedback left for members cannot be traced to any transaction at all

[petrosc]

Who is the member that ripped you and others off?

Most feedback left for members cannot be traced to any transaction at all

here is the relevant thread
http://www.dnforum.com/showthread.php?t=222818

I have a suggestion about the TR issue

How about making it obligatory to add a link to the transaction for each feedback, without which one would not be able to add feedback. A link to the sales page where someone bought or sold the domain, or any other service.

That involves minimum modification in the current TR system, it will ensure that there is tracking on the transactions behind the feedbacks and it will make it possible for someone to check someone's transaction history

[katherine]

I don't think TR is pointless but it's not a protection at all. It's just one component of your global reputation.
I look at TR but I pay more attention to negative feedback than positive.
One bad remark could be OK (sometimes there are misunderstandings or it just doesn't click with some people). Multiple negatives may reveal a pattern of trouble.

A few things to consider:
1. Human people are sometimes irrational and will do silly thing when they are in a dire situation like a sudden need for money...
2. It's not the first time members with TR history are banned for scamming or stealing domains... it took a while to expose them.
3. Dedicated scammers will often take the time to build TR somewhere to foster trust then one day they strike it big with a large swindle and disappear.
4. Some people are domaining as a side activity while others make their living from domains. Full-time/pro domainers will probably be more careful in their dealings because they value their reputation and reputation is everything in this business.

Using safe methods like escrow for large amounts is sound but escrow is not enough. If you purchase a domain via escrow, that turns out to be stolen you are still screwed. You need to exercise due diligence, research domain history and ask questions.

[chickenhawk]

How about a price field in the form but don't display the price of the transaction. Instead have an indicator telling about how much the user has bought (or sold). For example xxx would show for someone who bought 50 $10 names and xxxx would show for someone who bought 1 $1k name.

[acronym007]

Not sure money is an issue with a scammer, let's do the math 10 bad $100 transactions is $1,000 or 1 bad transaction for $1,000. I think it would be great if someone scams they get banned period unless it was an honest mistake or they are willing to fix it by refunding the monies for unfulfilled promises. The only other thing I think might work is adding a Strikes rating underneath the iTrader rating. The strikes rating would be done by the mods so there could be no reciprocal negative ratings to those scammed by the scammer. Three strikes and your automatically out but let's face it, if any of us seen one strike would hesitate to use this person or we might demand an escrow service. Technically I don't believe this would difficult to implement. The only drawback I see is the manual intervention by the mods but it would be necessary, like infractions. Just some thoughts. Best of luck guys, your awesome people sorry you had to deal with a scammer.

Acro

[whitebark]

The problem with adding a price field is two-fold. First how do we know the people leaving eachother feedback put in the correct price-range? Second - many deals go on here where the price is never disclosed - how do you reflect those?

[Domagon]

Price range is bad idea - many people will simply lie about it anyways; creates a potentially uncomfortable situation for one or more of the parties.

[Dale Hubbard]

LINKS to the original transaction are important. If the buyer and seller can't agree on a link, it's probably meaningless.

[zangief]

if the "Deal thread URL" is not optional it would help better cause we can check the previous trades.