Protecting GH users from Bad Trades

[digi]

We've had some people actually threatening to take legal action even recently.  I don't know if they would actually do it, but the threats have been made.  As well as other sorts of threats.  Eventually someone might just go through with it--we have to be prepared for that possibility.  Hence treading this subject very lightly.

Yeah I can understand your stance, but for better or worse GH has kinda become the ebay for mech keyboards lol... but yeah you could rename the threads to 'dispute between X and Y' for example or something

I think we need to clearly identify the actual law, if it's defamation, then could GH hold responsibility just by acknowledging that a dispute occurred between x & y...like you said bladgye.

[Krogenar]

Where would I even find the TOS? I'm looking around, and I can't find it. I was just wondering if there's a clause in it that expresses the caveat emptor policy.

[CPTBadAss]

Where would I even find the TOS? I'm looking around, and I can't find it. I was just wondering if there's a clause in it that expresses the caveat emptor policy.

Last sticky in the Classifieds subforum. Caveat Emptor Thread

[Photoelectric]

Well, if anyone wants to comment from a legal perspective--that's always helpful.  Problem is that from what I've heard from lawyer types, no one wants to post legal advice publicly and associate their name with it.  From the advice I was given, it is not good for GH to have naming and shaming lists.  And as I've already brought it up before--it's also bad from moderation standpoint.

Not only do people not have all the facts (only the parties involved know what truly happened, and even they may not know all the details from each other), but other people join the chorus and casually toss around threats.  So we have slander combined with threats of violence or action from uninvolved parties--that's never good from any standpoint.  And if any other people are involved and named (like roommates), without actually having anything to do with a scam, then their names get dragged in and tarnished.  And again, we have to go through all that and through complaints we receive in PMs and see who's right, who's not right, what's out of line, what isn't.  It's entirely too much responsibility for everyone who is not directly involved in a transaction gone bad.

Again, the best method of dealing with transactions gone bad is staying on top of your financial institutions' rules, PayPal rules, not missing any dispute deadlines.  Even having a public list of names is not going to prevent all the bad transactions, as people can come under new names, or people without negative history can suddenly do something incorrectly.

[SpAmRaY]

Clearly we need a guide to buying and selling, etc.

There will always be scammers and people make mistakes but the best course of action is to be educated and know what your getting yourself into. Sadly that education usually comes at the expense of experiencing a bad deal and learning from it.

[baldgye]

Well, if anyone wants to comment from a legal perspective--that's always helpful.  Problem is that from what I've heard from lawyer types, no one wants to post legal advice publicly and associate their name with it.  From the advice I was given, it is not good for GH to have naming and shaming lists.  And as I've already brought it up before--it's also bad from moderation standpoint.

Not only do people not have all the facts (only the parties involved know what truly happened, and even they may not know all the details from each other), but other people join the chorus and casually toss around threats.  So we have slander combined with threats of violence or action from uninvolved parties--that's never good from any standpoint.  And if any other people are involved and named (like roommates), without actually having anything to do with a scam, then their names get dragged in and tarnished.  And again, we have to go through all that and through complaints we receive in PMs and see who's right, who's not right, what's out of line, what isn't.  It's entirely too much responsibility for everyone who is not directly involved in a transaction gone bad.

Again, the best method of dealing with transactions gone bad is staying on top of your financial institutions' rules, PayPal rules, not missing any dispute deadlines.  Even having a public list of names is not going to prevent all the bad transactions, as people can come under new names, or people without negative history can suddenly do something incorrectly.

Yeah that makes sense, but I didn't think there slander laws in the US (I'm assuming the servers are based in the US)? But wouldn't a way to get around those legal problems without paying for advice would be to list the threads as disputes, as that's essentially what they are, and once a matter is either resolved or been made clear its never going to be, simply closing the thread and deleting any and all posts that arnt from people actually involved?

I think its important to have a record of these things, as with anything on a forum but removing all the name-calling etc from these threads once they are closed would leave the actual dispute and if legal action was taken GH wouldn't be anymore involved than it is already as removing those posts is simply a mod doing mod duties regardless of the thread

[Krogenar]

Where would I even find the TOS? I'm looking around, and I can't find it. I was just wondering if there's a clause in it that expresses the caveat emptor policy.

Last sticky in the Classifieds subforum. Caveat Emptor Thread

Just one easy thing we could do is put the TOS in a more prominent position. Maybe a link on the listing of the various forums, or incorporate it into the template files, so it's always there, always very obviously visible. Visible. Obviously. Visible.

Also, it doesn't mention anything about defaming other users. I'm sure that SMF has a stock ToS that we all had to accept during registration -- maybe that covers some of this legal stuff? There must be some stock language in there that says that the forum owners are not legally responsible for content posted by forum members.