As someone that used the classifieds a lot I wouldn't personally think it's necessary to be mandatory at all, as mentioned throughout the thread it's commonly known that the safest way to protect yourself is how you pay. Ranging from bank transfer/PayPal F&F through to PayPal G&S and/or collecting the item(s) in person at an agreed location.
It's seemingly hard enough for folks to follow the rules currently in place, let alone adding more... and then the burden of having to moderate that. I've gone through the classified rules below and highlighted in red the ones which are already not followed on a fairly regular basis. No shade at the mod team at all, I'm aware it's a lot of traffic to try and stay on top of... it's purely to illustrate a point.
Forum Specific Rules (action will be taken against your account for disregarding these)
- Failure to comply with the rules will result in you receiving a ‘Forum Warning’. Warnings start with the verbal kind and steadily increase in respect of seriousness/repeat offences right through to a ban and deletion of all posts and topics along with your user account. Find out more about ‘Forum Warnings’.
- All sales / trades must take place between two adults (i.e. over 18 years of age).
- All sales and swaps must use the sales template. Add additional information to let buyers know your trade preferences or location for collection. This will help sell your gun or gear as listing without pictures rarely sell.
- All sales must have an asking price. The price must be in UK Sterling £.
- All sales and swaps topics must have a picture, all pictures must be taken by the seller (adding a piece of paper with your forum name and date helps, but is not a rule). Do not use a retailers pictures - take your own.
- You must have access to the item that you're selling. You cannot be selling items that you do not own, are not able to post immediately or being sold on the behalf of someone else.
- You must include a picture of every item that you are selling. It is not acceptable to just show a box or use a stock images. Pictures must be visible in the listing (whilst we do allow links to other forums, simply placing a link instead of a picture is not permitted).
- Do not list the same item twice simultaneously. I.e. don't 'double list' an item. You cannot have an advert in both Sales and Swaps section for the same item, just select "For sale or swap" for advert type.
- Once your item(s) is/are definitely sold/you've found the item you're looking for (even if the sale happened elsewhere), please mark the advertisement as 'complete' by visiting the listing and clicking 'Set as Complete'.
- Second hand airsoft-relevant items only. No selling/swapping of any other items, this includes offering items such as consoles for trade. There are no exceptions to this rule.
- No sales of knives, real guns, airguns, or any item of any description that readily fires metal munitions, metal munitions themselves, or any other weapon of any type, aside from IFs and RIFs within the legal limits. The following limits are on all sales with no exceptions:
<370ft/【??? ?】s for full auto systems with a .20g BB (1.3J is the legal maximum)
- <520ft/【??? ?】s for semi auto systems .20g BB (2.5J is the legal maximum)
- <520ft/【??? ?】s for single fire systems .20g BB (2.5J is the legal maximum)
- You must communicate with your buyer/seller once a transaction is initiated (i.e. ignoring their PMs or topics asking what's going on with a sale/purchase).
- If you complete a trade/sale of any kind via the forums, please leave feedback for the seller/buyer, this allows us to see who we can trust or who we need to keep an eye on. You may leave feedback by going here.
- Any suspicions about the item(s) or seller should be sent via PM to a Moderator. Use the "Report this advert" link at the bottom of the listing and include a message (this will flag an issue for Moderators to look at).
Just seems like an unecessary addition which won't stand to curb much of the 'dodgey' activity, the bulk of which in my experience happens in PMs in response to wanted ads rather than classified listings themselves.
I was the seller of the item, all prices I provide in listings are inclusive of postage and G&S fees. When a buyer chooses to pay via F&F due to my feedback reputation it's appreciated but by no means pushed, or even mentioned on my part for that matter. Every item I send* is sent with tracking and the appropriate amount of compensation on it to ensure coverage should it go missing. With full transparency being that the buyer couldn't have possibly known that at the time of sending funds. Apologies to
@Kriszif they feel I've overshared here.
*Where possible, PF48 with £150 compensation is as good as you can get on RIFs if you're abiding the 'prohibited items' rules laid out by the various couriers... assuming my information is still up to date here, which I believe it to be. For the most part I tend to arrange delivery/collection in person for RIFs in lieu of being able to provide adequate compensation coverage.
Aaaaanyway, this isn't about me as a seller, just highlighting that not having G&S doesn't necessarily mean the buyer, seller or both are entirely up shit creek is something goes awry courtesy of outrwonderful postal service... depending on how the seller sends it.
TLDR - I don't think it's a necessary change, but I'll follow it should the rules be updated... as I do with all the existing rules.
I don't trust people in general but our world isn't black and white either. Other people vouched for you on this forum in the past so I was like why this guy should pay money to paypal. Again, this is just a gesture of good will.
