Hey everyone. In the last 3 months there have been 2 successful scammers selling fake goods. I’m working on a solution, possibly a subscription of 20-30 bucks a year so anyone selling will have to put in a credit card. But until I have time to set all that up I have a suggestion. Foiling is a small community. It’s probably a 3 degrees of separation world and we don’t foil alone. If you’re buying something from someone you don’t know get their local spots, and who they foil with. As a community we can easily track that down. I’d be happy to vouch for any of my friends selling gear and I’m sure you’d do it for your friends. I’m open to any and all ideas. I have tight spam controls (that often get criticized) but the scammers are getting better. With AI you can fake a lot of foil knowledge. But you can’t fake friends.
Sucks that it has to come to this. Anyway to offer a benefit for subscribing. Kind of like a Florence membership. $20 bucks. But you get a credit to use on the Unifoil site. (Add in $20 merch like hats or sun shirts)
Pay to use the forum or pay to post for sale ads?
unfortunately ikitesurf had to shut down one of the best classifieds of its time due to this issue. I really don’t want to see that happen. I hate facebook even though marketplace does work.
I’d be very supportive of any kind of control of for-sale posts. Paid is one way, but probably not the best way.
The best way would be a “vouch” system of some kind. Perhaps there is a setting or some other way in the forum software to have “verified” or “vouched for” setting. Rules could be a certain number of other posters with at least a certain number of posts need to vouch for you. Anyone could post for-sale, but everyone would also know not to buy from people without the verification or vouched tag
$20-30 memberships to sell might cause buyers to give even less care about the transaction. They see the seller is “validated” and just hit send.
Ultimately buyers need to take basic precautions.
- Get on video calls for high value purchases - people are friendly and fun to talk to, think we’re a long way before foil scammers can replicate a FaceTime call between two foilers with AI. We’re all talking to each other on here anyway…it’s so easy.
- Don’t post your number/email in threads - this happens all the time and scammers can easily insert themselves into the process. The forum could probably filter these and prevent contact details from being publicly posted.
Every hobby/sport with expensive equipment has this problem. Think just about any mitigation can be gamed by scammers - except video calls.
When I feel unsure I do the full paypal protection. It’s good for the buyer and seller. Create a paypal invoice, buyer/seller protection, film yourself putting it in the box with the shipping label, signature required, shipped to the address on the paypal account. Every single step to protect yourself. PITA, sure, but it only costs maybe an extra $40 on a $1000 sale? Worth it for peace of mind.
How useful is the goods and services fee from PayPal? Do they handle scammers?
I was thinking something along these lines. Out source the problem to a 3rd party that handles scammers like PayPal, eBay, maybe FB?
Would it make sense for people to just hop on a video call before the deal? That’s how I handled a recent parawing purchase from this forum and it worked great.
Not sure if charging to use the forum is the right move.
To sell is what I was thinking. Not just to post. And it would be good to have the forum pay for itself at some point.
I wonder if there is a better platform that can be included in the forums. This is the place to buy/sell and I’ve had a great experience so far, but a platform more like marketplace where listings could be sorted and pictures easily added would be better.
I wonder if something could be incorporated like pinkbike. I think its a good platform that seems would integrate into the forum nicely.
Happy to help research this more.
Thanks. The forum is hosted on discourse.org. There’s a ton of paid plugins we could look through. I think having to pay a couple bucks to support the forum to sell gear wouldn’t be a bad thing. The forum costs about 2k per year to run.
There are probably some very technical folks on here who can get you on a cheaper hosting platform and keep it running. $2k sounds like a lot!
I have personally sold a bunch of gear, along with a few buys on so many different forums and various sites. At some point, with only a couple of exceptions, there was an attempted scam. Most of them are so easy to spot. I usually have a laugh and shut them down trying to set up a face to face meet to do the transaction. If not located near me. "Oh that’s great, my brother, cousin, sister etc. is right near you, I can have them meet up with you, much easier. After that its usually crickets. Ikite classifieds was a great marketplace to buy and sell gear. I think the administrators got tired of the the constant feedback of the scammer problem from the users.
I recently sold a board to someone that drove 2.5 hrs to pick it up. He only had a check, which I never do. In this case it was just obvious it would not be a problem. (too long to go into). Just read the room. You can usually get a feel if the person you are dealing with is legit. The check transaction worked out fine.
Erik,
I looked around a bit and found this plugin which may be of help. I’m not sure it solves all problems, but I think it could help. This would allow users to add feedback for other users. Of course with all community features it could be mis-used and manipulated. But it looks like something to try. Not sure it costs anything, doesn’t look like it.
It
I have helped admin some forums in the past.
Right around the time Erik set up PP, I loaded a foiling forum as well. The cost was going to be similar. When I found this forum, I torpedoed mine as it was serving the same purpose.
IMO, Erik is on the right track with a small fee to cover the hosting and management. I’d gladly pay it.
I’ve bought and sold quite a bit on the forum. Most have at least a phone call, some a video call. A few of those have ended in new connections and riding friends, so its a net positive regardless of the sale going through.
Also, if you see someone selling that you’ve had a good interaction with before, give their posting a 
I have sold multiple items on this forum and have always given my mobile and offered video calls.
As a buyer it’s pretty easy to spot scams. If you can talk with the seller and video chat to verify the item you can get a good sense of things. If not completely sure you can purchase the payment protection although there are probably ways a scammer can get around it and make things painful.
I think the plugin to allow user feedback/reviews is a good option.
As for a small fee, I’m not sure it completely solves the scammer issue but I’m fine with a small fee to help with forum costs.
Bottom line IMHO is that buyers need to do their due dilligence before sending someone money.
Seems like there’s a split conversation happening. Scamming vs the website fees.
Scamming will always be a thing. You can be scammed as a buyer and as a seller. Other than the aforementioned friends/connections route there’s next to no way to truly, completely, stop scammers.
If the site is looking to cover costs. I honestly would like to see the first step as charging all professionals, brands, shops, and individual accounts that are promoting and making money on this forum. Add a little “Paid Account” badge next to their name so we know where they are coming from. IMO there’s is a lot of for profit activity here and I’d rather see those entities foot the bill before it’s kicked down to the average foiler who is simply trying to recover costs.