Tackle

That reminds me, I must put the kettle on 😜

You lost me at "IMPACT" 😢

Scammer ?, new member, no feedback, no other airsoft related sales, & why only 2 of the eBay collection offered ?.

I've got rid of him (but he'll be back🤬), I don't think I've heard of anyone who's had a pm saying "my mate/uncle etc has what you're after, email him at xxxx xxxx.com" who actually got what they wanted ?

I'm just kidding, give it a try a few times in a safe area before game on, I'm sure it'll be fine.

Looks great mate, what's the worst that could happen 🤔

Hey All, As most are aware we've got a constant battle on our hands with scammers, in particular they like to target the "Wanted" ads. Case in point a member yesterday posted up looking for a reasonably rare bit of kit, so I warned him to be wary of any offers he receives, sure enough today he confirms a scammer contacts him with said bit of kit, his username was Croshting475, upon checking his profile I see he'd received negative feedback from 4 members approximately 2 weeks ago, which is great, it all helps others. BUT the guy was still here, still trying to con people, as negative feedback on its own doesn't automatically let the admin team (or us minions) know there's a scammer in our midst. So I'd appreciate it if you identify a possible scammer, stick a post on this thread, ideally give his username with the @ symbol in front of it, for example @Tackle, as that makes it easier to go straight to his profile, we'll look at it, maybe pm you for further info, & if needed ban his thieving ass🤬. Thanks guys, & remember, NEVER paypal friends & family, or bank transfer, no matter what sob story they give you. Cheers Mark

He's now posted it over on zin 👍.

Yeah, all them two-faced bastards that crawled off to fb cos it was "better", their worse than the people's popular front of judea......

Possibly not, maybe the less technically minded jizzbuckets will be kept out ?, but then the post count limit would hopefully befuddle those using vpn's, to be fair whoever thought that an airsoft forum would be a good place to offer the services of a witchdoctor & his potions, but doesn'tstop them trying. Multi layered is the way to go, just like irl, make your place look more secure & less attractive than your neighbours, so the scrotes go elsewhere........send em to zin, they need the business lol 😆

The way I see it, a country or regional ban would potentially lock out a large percentage of scammers, & it's not that drastic when you consider the number of viable posts we get from the likes of china/india/Russia etc etc, pretty much zero. Then add add a post count before classifieds access is granted, again that would deter many, but even if some are persistent & attempt to spam posts or waffle about airsoft, it's likely we'd soon weed them out by their lack of knowledge & possible poor grammar ?. That then just leaves the relatively small number of uk based scammers who play, or at least used to, think Steven Glennie etc, who may have the knowledge, but probably not the persistence to try to accomplish the post count access, but it's a lot of work to get there knowing your first dodgy deal would probably get you banned & back to square one, which will hopefully be made more difficult by members keeping their wits about them when it comes to paying for stuff, ALWAYS GOODS & SERVICES VIA PAYPAL, & if its swaps, insist that whoever has the lower feedback needs to send their item first.

Very true, & regarding "buyer beware", I wonder how many buyers that get scammed, primarily on here as it's probably the busiest UK forum, are the types who just sign up for the classifieds access, without reading other threads, in particular the horror stories & warnings regarding scams & sending money ?. One might argue that those are the people that bring it on themselves, & are technically the "enablers" that the scammers rely upon ?.

Don't get me wrong, anything that deters them I agree with, but we've seen so many different attempts, regular appearing sales threads, wanted ads being targeted, & even people introducing themselves & engaging in very public chit chat in an apparent attempt to integrate & appear trustworthy, before making their scam attempts. & let's not forget the sob stories, "my friend/brother/son is sick or has passed away unexpectedly, I've got all this stuff here & I don't know what it's worth but there's bills to pay", all in the knowledge that there'll be someone who'll throw caution to the wind to get a quick bargain. Membership approval (maybe the demi mods can help filter those ?), blanket bans on certain countries or regions, & post limits before access to classifieds is granted all sound viable.

But surely anybody can say whatever like in an introduction thread, pretty sure it wont be like: "Gor blimey guvnor, an introduction thread, you've got me bang to rights & no mistake"

Naah, they're very nice, just not enough of them to call it an addiction YET 😏 (Give it time🤣)

Yep a decent test ride is the plan, what is stupid is the number of dealerships that DONT have test ride bikes, about 10 years ago I considered a GS1200, nearest dealer didn't have a test bike, so I said "fine, what about that secondhand one your selling ?" Dealer replies "your not getting it, the GS is our top selling bike, we don't need to offer test rides" My reply meant I wasn't welcomed back there🤣

Blimey, he's in to everything, so many hobbies😏, he's clearly single lol. Seriously though, how on earth do you combat this ?, vpn's mean you can't hope to ip block, I'm guessing those aren't solely uk forums, so does it go back to blocking new members from certain countries or regions ?