Improving the Marketplace. Post your suggestions here!

[Freeze]

Alright, so before you start reading, there’s one thing that must be made clear:

That no matter how well you try to prevent people from getting scammed, they will. However, you can implement certain rules and restrictions to make it a lot harder for people to get scammed (especially exit-scams). At the end of the day, greed is human nature and you can never truly trust people over the internet.

I’ve been here a short while but I’ve already seen 2 large scale exit scams by “reputable” users (CucuYeL and Vaypah). They both gained trust over time by being friendly, acting professional and overall just being extra nice to people and acting knowledgeable on certain topics.
I personally helped around 13 different people successfully chargeback via PayPal when they got scammed by CucuYeL even though the payments were sent as Friends and family. I’ve also seen more people offering their help and services to make this Vaypah scam a little less painful to deal with.

So there remains the question of how you can make things better. How can you make traders less prone to scams? How does the MPGH staff help ensure the minimum possible risk of people being a part of something like this?

It’s going to take some effort and re-working of the way things are currently being run. For starters and something that has already been suggested by many people:

I. Middle-Man system.

I’ve already seen @arunforce ‘s reply to that, in him saying:

“Yeah! Not only are they working for free, we will take their money from them too! Flocks of people will be lining up around the corner. Brilliant!”

Obviously a very valid point. However, there are still possible solutions to this to help everyone feel rewarded, safer and to properly implement the Middle man system.

For starters, Middlemen should be charging a fee for their service. Although some sites offer this service for free, and people are free to make donations to the middleman, there’s also several sites/services that offer middleman services with a certain fee so as to not waste the Middleman’s time.

Furthermore, implementing much higher requirements and a very rigorous process for people to qualify for becoming a Middleman will further help. Some examples I can think of as requirements are:

• 5,000+ Posts.
• At least 2 years of activity on MPGH (cumulative).
• Preferably a moderator/minion.

That’s just rough requirements that I could think of to justify someone having that middleman tag.

II. Restricting titles.

Now what do I mean by this? Well, for example:

Most people who scam others have the Anti-scam user tag or a similar title that somehow “proves” that they’re legit. I know most traders will know that this isn’t a sign of trust but to a new user or anyone else, they may get influenced by that and put their trust into those users.
So, simply by restricting image titles, titles and signatures that may mislead someone into thinking that the person they’re speaking with is reputable… it should further reduce the chances of new users and old ones alike from getting scammed.

III. Currency exchange requirements.

Perhaps one of the most common scam. A new/slightly known user posts a currency exchange thread. Garners interest and a real vouch from someone trustworthy and then others assuming that person is “legit”, then go on to place their orders but ultimately get scammed.

As with the middle-man requirement suggestion, I’d suggest getting at least some sort of requirement/qualifications necessary before you’re able to make a thread there. Maybe even some sort of max currency allowed to be exchanged by certain users limit would work.

IV. Vouch requirements.

Now this is something that is going to be an unpopular opinion but honestly, the vouch requirements should be higher and not solely based upon the number of posts and being here for 3 months.

Something along the lines of raising the requirements to something like this:

• 2,000 posts.
• 5 months membership.
• Approved by the majority of the marketplace staff.

Now that last one in there adds a bit of annoyance to both the marketplace staff and the person applying as they’ll have to go through an additional screening process. However, this will help the marketplace staff/admins to differentiate between someone who’s simply been posting to get the voucher status and someone who doesn’t “shitpost” and genuinely posts when they feel they’re making an actual suggestion/adding value to a conversation/discussion.

Those are just some of the suggestions I have and I will be making more detailed suggestions regarding this matter soon. Those were just some ideas off the top of my head that could perhaps work and help the entire MPGH community.

I'm interested in hearing what you think of these suggestions @Dave84311 , @arunforce , @Flengo , @Hero , @Hugo Boss , @Hunter , @Psychotic , @Hova , @DarkLordXYZ , @Saboteur

I like the last idea.

[Rob]

Anything above $20 must be rolled via staff in giveway.

[AlwaysWin123]

Start an Escrow service for 5% Of the full price.

It will help many people and some retards who are scared of getting scammed lol.

[Rob]

Add a SE/Refund mega thread for "is this dead" or "SE able?" type discussion

[WeakHands]

Anything above $20 must be rolled via staff in giveway.

it is a good idea, a lot of people make fakes giveaway, win reputation and then scam a lot of people.


All giveaway above of 20 or 25$, to start should give the prize to a staff.

First send the money or prize, then create the thread.

[kutzki]

Make a "Trusted" usergroup l.People have to show their ID/PASSPORT and other info in order to be in tbis usergroup.So every user will know who is the 100% safe to deal.

Moreover MM service is in need!

Add feedback future .Whick will include positive or negative feedback for every deal have been done with the user.

Sorry for bad english.

Idk about the usergroup part, but verifying your ID/Passport would be an excellent way to prevent scammers, if you have their ID on hand (and there are services you can get to verify such information), then you can save people a ton of time and energy and put something like a "Verified By ID" tag on their profile, and you can also have picture verifications (dunno if this is actually practical but an idea) for "Picture Verified" tags. For the ID tag verification, you can charge people like $15 to get that verification to offset the cost of the actual ID Verification service. Feedback feature CAN be useful, but other sites have it and people still manage to scam (multiple times).


I know that requirements are getting super old, but maybe much more stringent requirements to sell, aka Vouch copy required, any user with under 100 posts/reg date within the last month require approval from staff/moderators before posting a selling thread, (Not thread approval, user approval to sell) and if they fail the approval (looking through their posts, backchecking skype and comparing with Google to see if the users Skype is on anyone else's profile and they are either banned on another website or known to scam, etc.) then they must wait 1-3 months, pending mod approval or something of that sort? Seems like a lot to go for less scam reports, but it'll also give mods/staff more time for other more important things like idiots on the forum, spammers, and focusing on improving the site (contests, news, bringing the community close, etc.) rather than just maintaining it at the standard we've become accustomed to? Idk, this might sound like a lot, but I think this is our best bet to be the safest marketplace out there. It's already better than most, but it could be even better with some (I'd say minor, but let's be honest), major tweaks, and any fiscal responsibilites the site would ensue, make the users deal with (charging for verification for example). Alright I'm done. :P

[Predator]

@Hova & @Ahlwong Please relay this to the rest of the team.

This is regarding "lifetime" warranty on account shops. Its been a known fact that lifetime warranty means for the duration of the shop's existence but there have been a few cases where the shop suddenly closes within a week or two. So compared to shops that ACTUALLY have lifetime warranty (at least open for a long time), shops that close in a short period of time should not be able to use "lifetime warranty" as an excuse. On top of that, it wouldn't be fair for put these short term shops in the same regard as long lasting shops if you group them as shops with lifetime warranty.

I suggest putting a set duration of what lifetime warranty actually means. Is it more than 1 month? 2 months? Etc...

After that, any shop that closes under that time period and does not replace the account must refund the buyer completely in full.

[Allura]

@Hova & @Ahlwong Please relay this to the rest of the team.

This is regarding "lifetime" warranty on account shops. Its been a known fact that lifetime warranty means for the duration of the shop's existence but there have been a few cases where the shop suddenly closes within a week or two. So compared to shops that ACTUALLY have lifetime warranty (at least open for a long time), shops that close in a short period of time should not be able to use "lifetime warranty" as an excuse. On top of that, it wouldn't be fair for put these short term shops in the same regard as long lasting shops if you group them as shops with lifetime warranty.

I suggest putting a set duration of what lifetime warranty actually means. Is it more than 1 month? 2 months? Etc...

After that, any shop that closes under that time period and does not replace the account must refund the buyer completely in full.

Would like to see this rule implemented. Also maybe some additions to this rule/clarifications.

• Minimum warranty for lifetime should be from the date of purchase (I believe 3-4 months is fair to use the word lifetime)
• Only users with 6 months membership and 2,000 posts should be able to use the word lifetime (we don't want to get new members using this the word lifetime, then just leave after a month)

Also any news on this suggestion @Predator

[Predator]

Would like to see this rule implemented. Also maybe some additions to this rule/clarifications.

• Minimum warranty for lifetime should be from the date of purchase (I believe 3-4 months is fair to use the word lifetime)
• Only users with 6 months membership and 2,000 posts should be able to use the word lifetime (we don't want to get new members using this the word lifetime, then just leave after a month)

Also any news on this suggestion @Predator

I agree on a set duration for lifetime. However long it is should be left to the marketplace staff to decide. 4+ months is a good start though.

Don't agree on the restriction to use the word "lifetime". Pretty extreme if you ask me since it doesn't change anything about the shop. It's just a marketing ploy people use to attract customers. I don't see any reason to set a requirement to use a phrase.

[Allura]

I agree on a set duration for lifetime. However long it is should be left to the marketplace staff to decide. 4+ months is a good start though.

4 months is a good start

Don't agree on the restriction to use the word "lifetime". Pretty extreme if you ask me since it doesn't change anything about the shop. It's just a marketing ploy people use to attract customers. I don't see any reason to set a requirement to use a phrase.

For example.
1. PersonA joins MPGH Today
2. He sells Netflix accounts, spotify accounts etc. under market price (meaning, he sells them much cheaper than everyone else) and provides "lifetime warranty"
3. 1 month later, he he see's an increase in people asking for replacements and a decrease in new sales.
4. He leaves MPGH, no loss to him, he has taken the money and run, all the people who bought accounts from him have been screwed over.

Tbh, I feel like any sellers which provides warranty should have at least premium. I see so many noobie MPGH accounts selling things with warranty and they leave a month later. I'm not dumb enough to buy from new members/untrusted members, but some people don't realize this and get caught up with this scandal.

Even if just the duration rule got approved. I'd be happy, because I know I wouldn't buy from noobies, so it doesn't affect me. But it could impact a lot of other buyers

[Rob]

Please add a sticky or two of, "OFFICIAL CAN THIS ITEM/COUNTRY/WEBSITE BE REFUNDED/SE'D"
Pretty sure most of us are fed up with these threads

[Academy Awards]

Please add a sticky or two of, "OFFICIAL CAN THIS ITEM/COUNTRY/WEBSITE BE REFUNDED/SE'D"
Pretty sure most of us are fed up with these threads

Yeah, it's like every 1 out of 2 threads now a days.

[generator]

add the middleman again

[Subspontaneous]

Let me preface this with I know EBOOKS IN 2017. But some of them are actually legitimate.

But personally I think that a requirement to post an ebook on this site is you have to give a copy to a moderator. So if the person does scam them they are not left empty handed. Because you know just as I do even people with high rep can still scam you.

Think this would be a good alternative or addition to just "getting the satisfaction" of getting someone banned.

I thought of this as I was just scammed for an Ebook and reached out to one of the people who received a vouch copy explaining the situation. And all he wanted was a link to the scam report as proof I was actually scammed.

Was wondering if anyone else thought this would be a good idea.

[reaver04]

Is it possible to get a list of Google Play games that have been refunded successfully without the owner getting banned?