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I know that I am going to get flamed horribly on this but I want to put out the idea to the mods and admins for this change.

Because there has been a rash of transaction reports and scammers that have hit the Dakka Swap why doesn't the site make Dakka Swap a fee based forum such as the DCM Forum?

I am thinking that if someone wants to buy or sell stuff on Dakka Swap they should pay a $5 USD or $10 USD annual fees to have access to that forum area. When a person pays via Paypal, the name and IP address of the person is run against a list of banned individuals from the site. If they match a banned individual or IP address the fee is refunded and they are refused access to the forum site. Once accepted into the forum the fee is now non-refundable. Current DCMs are grandfathered in and any future DCMs that are current on their DCM membership get automatic access to the Dakka Swap Forum. Since DCM forum is a fee based forum it should be easy enough to adapt similar coding for this use.

Also, any transaction report can be on the free access site and when a transaction is openned this will automaticly suspend both parties. Buy/Seller access to the Dakka Swap will be suspended but not suspend their Dakka Account so the parties can PM back and forth. If a transaction is not satisfied within 45 days the MODs or Admins can look at the information posted and decided to ban an account from the Swap Forum. This would allow a 3rd party to look at the evidence such as broken or missing models from a trade or if someone shipped an item.

Also, it can be a requirement of all minis sold must have a photograph posted on the topic sale this way a person sees what they are buying. Any topic posted for sale that does not include photographs will be deleted.

This should reduce the number of scammers that post on here because most scammers will not want to spend $5 or $10 each time they are banned. This site is not Bardertown or Ebay so it is not has heavily policed but this is an idea to cut down the number of scammers. Also, this should cut down on the useless topics like "I have 5 ABoR marines and a paint caked MK1 rhino. I want $55 USD or Battleforce Box NOS or NIB only."

So, I have my flare retardant suit on so flame away on this idea.

Pipboy101- The fee idea is probably the biggest knock against the idea I have.

I'm not sure if the higher ups would ever acknowledge any form of responsibility with the transactions people use on the forum. Adding a fee goes towards that idea.

We have Moderators for the forum, but beyond that we take no effort aside from what the community is willing to provide in helping to screen out scammers from the process.

Well, what could be done instead of a fee is have a registered buyers and sellers. What I mean is that you can have open and free trading but a person that wants to buy or sell on dakka needs to register with the mods or admins. THey can send their name address and email to the mod incharge. This can be ran against a list of banned individuals along with an IP check. Then those people that are cleared then they can have access to the DAKKA Swap.

Its a good idea and IMO would certainly go some way to weeding out those who are not entirely honest, however, as WarOne has pointed out, once you charge a fee, then you are legitimising something. At the moment, the Swap Shop is entirely use at own risk - yes it is modded, but whatever trades arise are entirely the user's responsibility - Dakka simply facilitates that meeting.

Once a fee is charged, then I think Dakka, if not totally, but at least bears in part some responsibility for trading, since it is now a fee paid service. And that opens up a whole new can of worms regarding policing that I think Lego and Yak simply don't want to delve into.

That being said, a certain Transaction Report (I think you know the one Pipboy101) that's floating around at the moment, has certainly highlighted a need to perhaps do something although I am not sure what. It is concerning that the user in question has continually managed to return under various guises (but I am sure Lego has a plan for that).

Like I said in my other post we can go without fees and do a registration for people that want to buy and sell. It should not be too difficult to put that together. So, when on Dakka Swap you have the choice to buy from someone that is registered and been screened out for not being banned before or a scammer. Also, people can trade with non-registered sellers and buyers but it is trully buyer beware then. This all can be done without fees.

While this is not a catch all solution to the problem it can go far in weeding out some of the bad apples. The person you talked too keeps on using his same address and paypal account and it seems that alot of the repeat scammers do this. So having a registation type system should help a bit because honest traders will not have a problem with is.

It already exists to a small extent my dear chap, it's called the DCM Swapshop.