netsmithUK

#toptip If its high value there are always escrow services such as https://www.escrow.com/fee-calculator#GBP (charge £10 on a £200 transaction)

I agree checking location is an indicator you can use, also continually checking it after contact has been made to see if it changes might alert you to something dodgy but going back to your statement of, if you've thought of it so have they, then it only takes them to set up an account per region they want to target (not per person they want to target) so its not really adding any protection as such and if you are prepared to do deals outside your region anyway then it brings even less to fewer people. Perhaps the place to start is to collect all the things together that people use to protect themselves. Just a simple list of personal precautions taken and then make sure we spread that as far and wide around the club as possible. Lets make this thread a positive on by people posting their top tips here. Try and keep them short and start them #TopTip then I'll pull them together into a list. Chris

No knocking any suggestions - keep them coming - Im just trying to make sure a) the pain of anything we do add does not outweigh the gain it brings b) no one thinks that anything on the site we do makes them safer, to the point where they don't have to worry about it. The location thing, if they lie when asked, they can lie when entering the details so Im not sure what it brings. If there was a plugin that automatically pulled their location from their IP address, its equally worthless as you can get around that easily with a VPN. So that fails both my points - ie extra step for everyone but no really benefit.

Also - if anyone wants to restrict their trading to anyone with a certain post count or reputation score, you have that now both are shown and you can make your decision based on that. If someone isn't at the level you've personally set yourself then you just ignore the offer. I don't think its the clubs position to tell you what that level should be, otherwise that might me suggesting false confidence in the trades and suggesting the club is saying 'you are safe'

I think someone else mentioned it - if they ask for friends and family route, you could always say 'no' and then offer to pay the fees on the goods and services option. (if it makes financial sense of course) If they say no to that alarm bells should really be ringing

Personally I think the 'friends and Family' option was not introduced by PayPal for the good of its users as opposed to limiting their liability. If you use this route they lose their 5% commission, if you didn't and lose money to a scammer they lose all the money and have the additional overhead of trying to resolve it. In that one decision they moved a lot of their scammer headaches into something they don't have to be responsible for

The only thing I can think of that significantly reduces risk is using Paypal and not doing choosing 'friends and family'. As soon as anyone asks me to use a different process or do it as friend and family (unless they are really friends and family) I walk away. Im not having a dig at anyone thats been scammed here - its happened to most of us at some point, just talking about how I protect myself. Any other method and you run a risk, no matter how convincing someone sounds. Chris

Not sure how that really helps. As soon as the scammer sends details of their location the other party can make that decision based on borders anyway?

Im all for the club doing what ever it can. On the main site I even go as far as putting a warning in all trade messages that are sent through the site. What we see here is the true scammers being called out, what you are not seeing is all the good deals that people have done but people signing up to just sell unwanted kit (ie not be part of the community) Nobody posts about them. I am a bit reluctant to introduce restrictions that make it harder for those people to list for the sake of maybe deterring a relatively low number of scammers. In particular, with restrictions that don't really provide any more protection. As other have pointed out even with a reputation or posts restriction there is nothing to stop scammer DMing people directly and making offers. Think we already have a pinned post at the top of the trades section that gives tips on avoiding scams (if there isn't I'll add one) Maybe I can add something to every actual trade post that reminds people of the risks and makes it clear they have to be sure before sending anything on trust? (not sure that is possible but will look into it) Chris

Im locking this thread - discussion can continue in this existing one

How is that connection made?

I've locked the account in question on the main site and in the forum so they won't be able to access them until they have contacted me. I prefer not to delete them completly, rather label them so others can still find the references to them and any posts they may have made. Will review the 50 posts approach, its quite a hurdle for those people that legitimately have stuff they just want to sell (and I think they out number the scammers - I could be wrong) Scammers no posts can still contact members directly with offers of things for sale so I'm not really sure it brings a lot of additional security. Im open to ideas? Chris

Its an age old debate as to when a model stops being the model you bought. I remember all the debates about Clodbusters back in the day, when the only original bit is most cases was the gear boxes (sometimes not even that) and people still called them Clods. My general rules of thumb was that things should be generally recognisable as the original model. The body and main chassis plays a big part of that but things like wheels, shocks etc you have a bit of leeway on. Not suggesting you change anything if everyone is happy - just an interesting discussion as always. Cheers Chris

@speedy_w_beans Not wanting to interfere or stir anything up - your thread/competition and you run it really well - The question just caught my eye and made me think about it, so this is purely from a 'slow thursday conversation' point of view but I would have thought to say 'This is the fastest blackfoot' point of view (or any other model) it would have to be a model consisting of the right body on the right chassis? My rule of thumb would be that anyone watch who saw it fly by would say 'look at that blackfoot go!' which they wouldn't be able to if it were sporting a wedge shaped body designed in a wind tunnel? Surely having the fastest blackfoot means how fast can you make it go with the contraints of a body that makes it a blackfoot? Otherwise its its more a statement about the chassis types. and you have one record which covers, blackfoot, monster beetle, frog etc. because the body doesn't count. Just a thought and no harm or disrespect intended and sorry if the topics already been covered in this very long thread. None of the records are going to ever be anything I could be competing for - well done to all that take part! Cheers Chris

Apologies for the delay but I think the model database is now up to date, so you can now log your models correctly against it in your showroom. Chris

Al done - https://tcphotos.net/rc_cox You just need to go through the password reset process (This password is independent of any that are used on the club sites)

Thats is truly tragic news. Shodog had been around the club since literally month one, nearly 20 years ago. Undeniably passionate about his collection and had a real eye for quality. He will be missed for sure. He'd just started rebuilding his TC show room https://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom.asp?id=34 but sadly had only started to scratch the surface.

Sorry - need to work out a quicker way of doing this. In the meantime if someone can provide the definitive list of what I need to add, being sure to include the chassis types against each model I'll get them added. Cheers Chris

Just to explain why this is so complicated is from the start of the forum (and demonstrable in most other forums you can visit) what a percentage of users think is appropriate/funny for an image on a family site is very 'varied' Even now, knowing that they are checked I still get things sent through that I know could cause offence to visitors. I didn't want the forum to become a mess with this type of content so thats why we have avatar moderation. Unfortunately there is no easy way to do this other than set the upload size to 1kb for images. That isn't because we are expecting anyone to send an image that small, its basically to turn the avatar upload feature off while still allowing me to display user avatars in the forum. Regards Chris

Hi Goudar I got you email and avatar request. I batch these requests up and process them at the same time, so there can be a lag before you see the results. Regards Chris

I really meant context in relation to this old 'comments' thread. I've regenerated one of you thumbnails and it looks to be showing now - the other is not showing because there is no image for it to base it off. It looks like you deleted the first image on the model or didn't upload one into slot one, which is what the thumbnail is based on. Just upload an image to this slot and it will be used. The old photos recovery page is still there https://www.tamiyaclub.com/recoverpictures.asp

This needs a little context please. This is an old conversation about comments that I think was resolved? Not aware of any lost photos problems for years, which were as a result of major issues with the server and having to restore what I could from backups. Chris

Is this the list? 58699 M08 Concept Chassis Kit 47466 1/10 RC XB Super Storm Dragon 58692 - unimog 406 cc-02 Item 47470 - Top Force Evo 2021 If so, can someone supply the chassis types for those missing them. If not please list the things I've missed and inc chassis types and I'll get it sorted

Done http://tcphotos.net/Superluminal and go through password reset routine.

Done http://tcphotos.net/billyb and go through password reset routine.