Classified Verification Overkill

[Alan92RTTT]

I don't recall 3si having big colorful icons saying verified or anything. Maybe I missed that.

No 3SI does not have verification status icons. But you have to be verified to swell there so a buyer can assume that the seller was verified. As their is a "not verified" option buyers need to know who has and has not been verified.

[cjbyron]

I understand what you are trying to accomplish. And just so there's no typical misunderstanding, the reason I bring this up is from my past legal experiences with internet fraud as a server administrator. That's why.

But at the end of the day this site provides basically the same level of provable verification or buyer protection as 3si or other car forum. Give or take. While at the same time requiring a very high degree of personal information that has easy potential for identity theft. Yes I know some of that was relaxed with blanking out some info. Will all do it? Dunno. But at several levels administrators have a legal responsibility to protect information collected. And sometimes that responsibility is two-pronged and can backfire.

Verified from a transmitted image equates to the same as: "I read it on the internet, it must be true". LOL

I'm not saying that striving for a better way is a bad thing. But let's be realistic and factual on what things mean in the legal world or the ability of said verification system or info to have an impact at all. Words do matter as well as their usage and application.

Some people's past practices on other forums or online in general should matter too. Good or bad. To ignore that IMO is contrary to the very thing trying to accomplish (buyer protection). ref: inperfectdarkness's post.

That's all.

[Black_Sunshine]

I pretty much agree with CJ. Here's my suggestion:

Since you are accepting money to keep the site going, find out what it would take to get a credit card system/ shopping cart in place. You then do a charge of $1.00. Since secure credit card transactions are only approved by Visa/Mastercard with the correct billing address, it should suffice as verification. The second portion of the verification would be for us to email or pm you the transaction number and include our current telephone number. You could match up the cc info to our pm/email and that would be it. During check out, just force a text field to include our user id.

Even if people don't have credit cards, they should have debit/check cards that would work the exact same way. If you have paypal, you have a checking account and should definitely have access to some sort of debit/check card.

You could also use it to accept the annual membership fee and use the verification process. That would save people time from having to verify to sell at a later date and would save them $1.

I don't understand the need for instant gratification for seller privilege on here. If the verification process takes 2 days, then it takes 2 days. There isn't anyone on here who doesn't have other ways to sell stuff, such as ebay if they really need to sell something right away and they think someone will buy it instantly. With additional mods, you could slot the people who are waiting in queue to be verified as unverified sellers until they can be verified. This will give them access to post in classifieds fast. Just have one of the mods take care of this function.

Lastly, please remove the verification from the WTB side of the classifieds. We shouldn't need to verify ourselves if we just wtb something.

[Alan92RTTT]

Tri your suggestion works great to prove that a person is there. But the desire is to have contact information just in case.

Verification should only be required to reply in wanted(ie sell), I'll check the settings.

[MK_94_3000GT]

why a pm? the damn customer review was public. i really ought to post it here so that everyone can be warned, but in keeping with YOUR wishes, i'll pm it to you.

if all that is verified is the address, it should say so. currently it makes unverified members look sketchy--regardless of buyer/seller quality; while it makes verified people look reputable, which in this case--is clearly NOT the case. that's the only issue i have with how it's set up (other than my personal issue with smallz, aka lil john)

Although rare, I have to say I agree with you. This should not be a place where we welcome those who steal or don't pay for what they buy. I say this because there are several known scammers and this is their new home too and its upsetting to say the least

[BadHabit]

Why all the commotion? We all have some concerns yet,I don't think we are going to find a way that EVERYONE will agree on,I signed up on day 1 and it was pretty painless..
BH

[Black_Sunshine]

Alan, wouldn't the cc process supply you with the correct address as well?

[Alan92RTTT]

No, the CC process does not provide the address.

It "might" verify it but it does not provide it.

I will be looking at what I can do via the paypal API's as we have a paid merchant account.

If I can verify whats entered into the profile that would work.

[Black_Sunshine]

So how do online stores work if it doesn't provide a billing/shipping address? Weird. Well good luck figuring it out. Btw, I can't find any info on sponsorships.

[Alan92RTTT]

I'm 99% sure all website shopping carts make you enter the information and then you can send it in for verification.

The sponsor information link can be found at the top of the "sales/sponsors" page.