MY RANT ON MEMBERS FOR PROFIT !

[451-74Charger]

My take is this,
Im not a parts dealer, but IF you are happy to take $400 for $800 in parts, your done, thats it, dont complain if someone else turns around and sells for $1200.
If you were not comfortable with the price, no body made you sell.
Now I do understand that parts/cars are sold here to fellow members at a lower rate to help them out, so here is my proposal.....
Create a sub forum for "Dealers" to post sale/wanted, clearly stating that if you are posting in a member section and found to me a dealer/flipper, then you will be banned.!!!
Then at least give them a place to post, after all, they may have that impossible to locate part that you need and would be willing to pay for.
The Wanted section should be clearly marked "For enthusiast wanting items for THIER car" etc. again, if misused, Ban the sorry SOB.!!!

We should find a way to co-exist without having to drag this forum down, like so many others.

[NGC414]

Yikes I didnt realize vectors were bringing that kind of money. I sold a staggard set of 15x10s and 15x8s a couple years ago for $350.

I have mixed feelings about the minimum post count. IMO The more turnover of items in the for sale section is a big asset to any automotive web site. If a guy is new and legitimatly has items to sell or is parting out a car and I need some of those parts, that saves me a lot of time and headache. Also if I have extra parts its nice to be able to post them up and get them sold. Even If a person joins for the sole pupose of getting rid of their collection of parts, that is a big contribution to the site IMO. It helps members find the parts they need. Thats more important than most posts to me.
Im not a high post type person. I will post if I happen to know something or can offer info to help another member or if I have a question, but other than that I dont usually post.
That being said the real problem is the people who buy with the intent to just re-sell. But that is a reflection of a persons charector and not post count and there is no real way to eliminate it. I would suggest having moderators monitor the for sale section and delete the shady ads and ban or suspend members who are obviously doing this. Maybe finding members with established trusted history on the site and allowing them to help moderate the for sale section.
I personally dont think this is something that can be eliminated, but it certainly can be minimized.

[Ponch ®]

Dixie Lee aka Mopar01 just posted 20 more Vector GL wheels for sale and still has his ad in the parts wanted section saying he is looking for Vector wheels.

I just saw this post. Funny you mention him. A couple of months ago I had a set of Vectors that I was selling for a friend. He contacted me a couple of times, but the first time I had another buyer lined up (who fell thru) and the second time they were already sold. I just saw those ads you're talking about...he's selling sets of Vectors for twice as much as what my friend was asking for his. Looked in his profile and, surprise surprise, every single one of his posts is either in the for sale or wanted. I would have been pretty annoyed if I saw those same wheels I sold being flipped, especially since I was selling them cheap to, ostensibly, give a fellow member a break

I know why there's some trepidation about instituting some minimum post count rule for sellers, since you never know when someone that has that ONE part you've been looking for is trying to sell it but can't post an ad because they don't have enough posts. On the other hand and speaking for myself, if I'm looking for a part and I see that the guy selling it only posts in the for sale section, I'm probably not gonna buy anything from him. But if it's an established member that regularly contributes in other areas of the board and has built some sort of reputation, I'm definitely going to want to deal with him.

Troy runs this board (rather well, too), so I'm not going to pretend I know how it can be done better, but I like 451-74Charger 's idea of a Dealer only subforum. Maybe charge them a couple of bucks per month/quarter/year to help offset some of the costs of keeping this site up.

[skip68]

I think 451-74charger has a great idea for a dealer section.  NGC414 and 451-74charger are right on the money.   We DO need parts dealers because they do contribute far as finding parts.  We have guys here that do this but they don't post wanted ads.   We can police this with little effort.   There are several members that are sellers and have little post counts. These members are not a problem and I don't want them to have to post more just so they can sell.  They are not the problem.  Put 451-74charger and NGC414's post into one and there is the answer.

[bakerhillpins]

Skip

Thanks for bringing this up. I realize that there are several issues with how this can be handled on DC.com but your recent posts in other sections confirmed some of the shenanigans that I thought were going on here with regard to the same person with multiple emails/profiles. Fortunately for me his greatly lacking personality kept me from spending any time reviewing his cars.

I'm a bit late to support you here but life has been bizy.. thanks. 

[General_01]

I think 451-74charger has a great idea for a dealer section.  NGC414 and 451-74charger are right on the money.   We DO need parts dealers because they do contribute far as finding parts.  We have guys here that do this but they don't post wanted ads.   We can police this with little effort.   There are several members that are sellers and have little post counts. These members are not a problem and I don't want them to have to post more just so they can sell.  They are not the problem.  Put 451-74charger and NGC414's post into one and there is the answer.

I have lurked around the 1971-1974 Charger Board and they have the post count rule. While this helps with the rip-off artists, it hurts the members because the dealers cannot post unless they have quite a few posts. Not good in my book. Especially with a 71-74 Charger where not a lot of repro parts are being produced yet.

[Bobs69]

Yikes I didnt realize vectors were bringing that kind of money. I sold a staggard set of 15x10s and 15x8s a couple years ago for $350.

I have mixed feelings about the minimum post count. IMO The more turnover of items in the for sale section is a big asset to any automotive web site. If a guy is new and legitimatly has items to sell or is parting out a car and I need some of those parts, that saves me a lot of time and headache. Also if I have extra parts its nice to be able to post them up and get them sold. Even If a person joins for the sole pupose of getting rid of their collection of parts, that is a big contribution to the site IMO. It helps members find the parts they need. Thats more important than most posts to me.
Im not a high post type person. I will post if I happen to know something or can offer info to help another member or if I have a question, but other than that I dont usually post.
That being said the real problem is the people who buy with the intent to just re-sell. But that is a reflection of a persons charector and not post count and there is no real way to eliminate it. I would suggest having moderators monitor the for sale section and delete the shady ads and ban or suspend members who are obviously doing this. Maybe finding members with established trusted history on the site and allowing them to help moderate the for sale section.
I personally dont think this is something that can be eliminated, but it certainly can be minimized.

If someone doesn't have enough posts to advertise that part that you may need, who the hell cares, something allways pops up.  Probably be made rust free by the aftermarket given time.   

I'm learning the hard way, but if there is no minimum post rule then education is the key!   I also see the point of if you are happy with the price you sell something then don't cry when it goes for a higher price.  Then again, I think those guys just ruin the hobby.

[Ponch ®]

I think 451-74charger has a great idea for a dealer section.  NGC414 and 451-74charger are right on the money.   We DO need parts dealers because they do contribute far as finding parts.  We have guys here that do this but they don't post wanted ads.   We can police this with little effort.   There are several members that are sellers and have little post counts. These members are not a problem and I don't want them to have to post more just so they can sell.  They are not the problem.  Put 451-74charger and NGC414's post into one and there is the answer.

I have lurked around the 1971-1974 Charger Board and they have the post count rule. While this helps with the rip-off artists, it hurts the members because the dealers cannot post unless they have quite a few posts. Not good in my book. Especially with a 71-74 Charger where not a lot of repro parts are being produced yet.

I don't know...I think a small number of minimum posts (50 is what I see at other forums) is reasonable..

[greenpigs]

I guess I should clarify what I mean.

  If you have 10 posts you can list 1 time in the for sale section, which is 10% but I don't wanna do the math on 5%.   Anyways it isn't about total post count just how many are interacting with the members before selling to us. So the more you post that increases how many different times you can list for sale.

So 250 posts would be 25 listings, which I think is a resonable amount. Now if you have a LOT of things or come across parts often this may be a problem but for most it should work. No such thing as everyone being happy or getting what they want.

[Bobs69]

I guess I should clarify what I mean.

  If you have 10 posts you can list 1 time in the for sale section, which is 10% but I don't wanna do the math on 5%.   Anyways it isn't about total post count just how many are interacting with the members before selling to us. So the more you post that increases how many different times you can list for sale.

So 250 posts would be 25 listings, which I think is a resonable amount. Now if you have a LOT of things or come across parts often this may be a problem but for most it should work. No such thing as everyone being happy or getting what they want.

To add to this, how about a rating for a seller like ebay has?  Course that won't help with guys like dixie lee who changes his screen name, but he's easy to spot.

[skip68]

I think the post limit idea will hurt more good guys than bad.   Like I said before, we have lots of guys selling but only a few are bad apples.   In my book what dixie lee does makes him a liar and a thief.  It's not what he's doing but the way he does it.  It completely goes against Troy's goals.  Today we only have a few of these guys and we need to stop it now.  If we don't, next thing you know we will have 20 or 30 of these idiots.

[NGC414]

Again IMO, a member parting out chargers, who joins the forum just to put those parts for sale in the classifieds and never posts anywhere else is a huge asset to me. Parts are hard enough to find, guys like that are the reason I can afford to get my charger back on the road. The more populated the classifieds the better.
A minimum post count only limits parts available to current members, and discourages new members posing in the classified section. It also leads to a bunch of meaningless posts. I am a member of another site that has the minimum rule. It was a pain, I made a buch of meaningless posts to get my 50, so i could search for the parts I needed.
The real problem is certain people buying just to resell. I think we should seek out and monitor those people and give some type of consequence rather than punish everyone or discourage new members with parts to get rid of.

[nvrbdn]

Again IMO, a member parting out chargers, who joins the forum just to put those parts for sale in the classifieds and never posts anywhere else is a huge asset to me. Parts are hard enough to find, guys like that are the reason I can afford to get my charger back on the road. The more populated the classifieds the better.
A minimum post count only limits parts available to current members, and discourages new members posing in the classified section. It also leads to a bunch of meaningless posts. I am a member of another site that has the minimum rule. It was a pain, I made a buch of meaningless posts to get my 50, so i could search for the parts I needed.
The real problem is certain people buying just to resell. I think we should seek out and monitor those people and give some type of consequence rather than punish everyone or discourage new members with parts to get rid of.

                     

[moparstuart]

I dont like the practices of these people, but we are a capitalistic society and we take the good with the bad . No one is forced to buy from these scalpers .  Post a buyer beware notice and let the system work .   

[Khyron]

I dont like the practices of these people, but we are a capitalistic society and we take the good with the bad . No one is forced to buy from these scalpers .  Post a buyer beware notice and let the system work .   

can't agree more.

[skip68]

I agree to but they need to stay out of the wanted section.   I know you take the good with the bad but if you see the bad then try and make it better.  You don't just turn and walk away like it's not there. You do what you can to fix it.   I think with this site having about 9,000 members it's doing DAM GOOD.  I'm just pointing out some predators and we need to find a way to fix the problem.  Don't tell me we can't control this.  I am just ONE person out of 9'000, don't think for one second I can get away with posting the "F" word all day long.  I would be slapped so fast my head would spin. We can and should monitor this problem.    Every body has opinions but it seems like we all agree what these guys do is wrong.  The people have spoke.    Chuck.....

[nvrbdn]

the problem skip has and i agree is that if you scalp and someone buys, ok i guess, but dont take advantage of my kindness thinking im giving you a free-bee to help you out and you turn and sell cause you know someone that needs it and will pay. thats low down.

[Khyron]

I vote for Chuck to be Ad Mod :-)

no, im not being sarcastic, He's on to something and well, sounds like he would be good for it :-) As long as he's fair

[69charger2002]

i see it once in a while on here and moparts as well. the thing that gets me is when you have an item for sale(not at a discounted price even) but yet you have a wanted ad for that exact item. Well let's assume Joe Blow sees your wanted ad only, and says wow i'll help a fellow member out, and then gets "haggled" down to nothing, and then it pops back up on here or moparts for triple the price.. that gets me really mad. Capitalism is great, it's free and a great way to make money.. but the sob stories or blatant advantage-taking of someone is just wrong.  i am the first to admit i buy and sell lots of cars/parts, but anytime a member here has needed anything, i always try to make the price less and help out members here. i've even given away free parts as well. It's what got me in the hobby, and i don't forget my roots. It is truly aggravating to see the same people put the same ads up knowing they are just trying to make a quick buck..

[skip68]

I agree again...  I don't want to change anything about how the classifieds are running or make guys like Sal or Trav and all the others change what they do.   I just want to regulate a few bad apples.

[Bobs69]

I agree again...  I don't want to change anything about how the classifieds are running or make guys like Sal or Trav and all the others change what they do.   I just want to regulate a few bad apples.

Lets just call them out publically on their own for sale or wanted add.  You know, like "Oh yeah at it again eh?  You ever get tired of using people?"  Or something more clever and not so obvious.................hey everyone its dixie lee he changed his name to bag-biter queen69 beware!

[Khyron]

LMAO @ bag biter!

[skip68]

I really hope Troy can help us put a stop to these guys.

[jb666]

Well, coming from someone who's given parts away only to see them for sale later on.. Or to be badgered to sell things dirt cheap because I'd be "helping" someone out (that I've never talked to before).. Or to be gouged for parts.. It's not pleasant.. But, I HATE being that "guy" on the forum that just came on board, AM HONEST, and want to place an ad to sell, but you can't because you don't have 50 posts... So there has to be a happy medium...

When I was very active (and selling parts like crazy) on the Corvette Forum, there used to be a thread titled "read this before buying/selling" with a complete list of members that were scammers, re-sellers, and con artists... It was kept up to date by one person and you never had to go past the first post. It was a HUGE help... Word of mouth can be a powerful tool... Take advantage of it.

[skip68]

I hear you Jeff.   But lots of guys won't read it.  I feel that once a person is caught, they be tossed out.  Done and problem solved.  Then we don't have to worry about the bad guys.  The best way to take care of scammers is to get rid of them.  I fail to see the purpose of keeping a scammer around and trying to keep members informed of the scammer.  If you are here to sell only that's fine, just stay out of the wanted sections unless you have the part a member is looking for.