During the flurry of scams we had in the forum recently, it became apparent that Classifieds needs more eyes on it to guard against the thieving trash who has been diligently trying to ripoff members.

Things have calmed down a lot. As a matter of fact, I've not heard of any new scam attempts for several weeks. When it gets to be more work than it's worth for what they're getting in return, these parasites will move on, but they're sure to keep trying us at intervals.

The last scam attempt I'm aware of was a member eager to get a particular rifle, and who carelessly sent out a money order for 600 dollars, to someone he didn't know, and who he never bothered to check closely. The only reason he didn't lose his 600 bucks was the scammer gave him an incomplete mailing address, and the post office returned the money order to the "buyer". Of course, he damn well knows now to be extremely careful. He's very fortunate.

We have to operate under the assumption that these vermin are with us now and shall remain so, and that there will always be a danger of them making further attempts to steal from members. And for those of you unaware, this is not an issue specific to SIGforum. It seems that over the past year, all the little grifters have decided that gun forums are a gold mine. I know of more than a half dozen forums where these thieves have been sniffing around. I've no doubt that there are more forums infested with these lice.

Our way of handling these theft attempts is simple: we have to make aware all those members who use Classifieds. The threads I've posted about scammers have helped, but we need to have all ads examined, and we need a handful of members who can either post directly in ads or email the authors of those ads, in order to tell them directly that there is a very good chance someone will attempt to scam them. This is especially true with WTB ads.

Consequently, I've assembled a small team of members who will be tasked with this duty.

I first approached member 12131 and asked for his assistance. 12131 buys/sells quite a bit and is savvy to the ways of online commerce. He's an intelligent man and he's got a bit of an edge to him. Fading flowers, we don't need. He agreed to help out and I asked him for the names of a few members who he thinks might do well at this duty. He submitted four names. One member declined, feeling as if he would not be able to do a proper job of it, for reasons I won't go into. The other three, I'm happy to say, accepted and they will be joining 12131 in keeping an eye on Classifieds.

Those members- in no particular order- are:

smschulz

redleg2/9

ensigmatic

I've said before that I don't want to make these guys into full-fledged moderators. These are long-time, valued members. My experience is that turning a member into a moderator alters my relationship with them, and I just don't want that to happen. For anyone who doesn't know what I mean- trust me- it's a compliment.

These members will act autonomously for the most part. I haven't provided them with a lot of guidance. It will take some time and they will work out there own approach as they go along. There'll be no pressure from my end.

When any of these four members appears in a thread in Classifieds, it will be with a purpose, and remember, they didn't ask for this. They will be polite and I expect others to be polite to them. You should consider anything they say to you in Classifieds as having come from me. Any member who has a problem with their intervention should bring their complaint to me. They won't argue with you and you shouldn't argue with them. I don't anticipate any issues, but there's always some hard-charging FNG who wants to scrap.

Again, these guys will be feeling their way through things for a while, so, cut 'em some slack.

Lastly, I will say to our new team- don't be too eager to try out your new powers. Trust me when I say that you'll have the opportunity soon enough, and I am grateful for your assistance.

There are no "quotas" for you guys. Don't feel the need to "do something" because other members of your team keep getting to problems ahead of you. If you get any permissions errors when trying to access functions in Classifieds, just let me know of the error message(s) you get and I will tweak things accordingly.

Excellent


Good choice of guardians

Thanks Mike.

And thanks to the volunteers that have stepped up.

4 upstanding members, not an easy choice to narrow down a group.
Thanks for running a tight ship here.

I don't do much in the classifieds, but glad to know there's some extra vigilance there.

Just another example of what a great place this is! Thank you, Boss for asking for help with this. I’d hate to see the classifieds become a pain in your neck and go away. Thanks also to the volunteers for stepping up!

I haven’t been in the classifieds in a long time, but I’m still glad it’s there.

Thanks for all you do to make SIGforum an oasis!

Thanks for all the efforts to keeping this subforum safe.

Thanks to all five of you for going to this trouble to protect the rest of us.

Para,

If you guys ever need looking further into a person don’t hesitate to call on me. Of course I would need a little more info than just an email, but could even try with just that. I own a private investigations company on the side from my regular job and would do any research for free using the databases I have access to.

This is excellent!

Great idea and great choice of members for this.

This is one of only two forums I visit where I feel confident in purchasing from the members, though I don't buy or sell much. I hope this will make us even safer from those dirtbags that try to scam us.

Bob

Thank you so much for all the effort that goes into this site.

And this is another reason why this is the best site in the world.

Thanks!

Ugh! I hate that there is a need, but that is all for helping!

Nice.

Good call, Para. That’s a solid crew.

Thanks to all you guys for helping out Para and all of us forum members who use the classifieds.

Thanks guys

Good posse boss!

Thank you!!!