Should BHW offer middleman-services?

Scams seemed to be exponentially increasing on the forum in the past periods.

Pros are that obviously a lot of scams would not take place, especially within HAF section.

Only cons I can think of are those many situations within which it is monumentally hard to determine the winning party of any eventual dispute, so BHW needs to be compliant to bother.

Yes: I would argue that BHW's reputation is more credible than that of an individual service's. What commission do you think would be acceptable?

Thread moved to a more suitable sub forum fr forum suggestions and feedback.

Middleman / escrow type services do work well, and I think is possibly on the list of things to look at, however I'm not privy to these discussions.


"Scams seemed to be exponentially increasing on the forum in the past periods. " This is actually incorrect.


Also the majority of scam attempts are when regular members offer to sell and then try to lure members onto Telegram, Skype etc etc.

Instead of falling for these, if the other person actually reported attempted scams, we could act quicker.

As an example we had someone report a person who scammed him on Skype via BTC payment.

The 'seller' had joined 4 days earlier and had 17 posts....

MisterF said:

Thread moved to a more suitable sub forum fr forum suggestions and feedback.

Middleman / escrow type services do work well, and I think is possibly on the list of things to look at, however I'm not privy to these discussions.


"Scams seemed to be exponentially increasing on the forum in the past periods. " This is actually incorrect.


Also the majority of scam attempts are when regular members offer to sell and then try to lure members onto Telegram, Skype etc etc.

Instead of falling for these, if the other person actually reported attempted scams, we could act quicker.

As an example we had someone report a person who scammed him on Skype via BTC payment.

The 'seller' had joined 4 days earlier and had 17 posts....

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Middle man is the way to go though. The current forum marketplace is somewhat outdated.

Jerk55 said:

Middle man is the way to go though. The current forum marketplace is somewhat outdated.

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Nice to get this input after 13 days on here.

MisterF said:

Nice to get this input after 13 days on here.

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Does it matter? I've seen the marketplace and I've already placed my first order, so I'm speaking from experience. You should appreciate the feedback instead of trying to belittle me because I'm new. If you can't handle criticism, you can't grow.

Jerk55 said:

Middle man is the way to go though. The current forum marketplace is somewhat outdated.

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MisterF said:

Nice to get this input after 13 days on here.

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Jerk55 said:

Does it matter?

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MisterF said:

Nice to get this input after 13 days on here.

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You made me laugh so hard I spat my coffee on my desk haha

Jerk55 said:

Does it matter? I've seen the marketplace and I've already placed my first order, so I'm speaking from experience. You should appreciate the feedback instead of trying to belittle me because I'm new. If you can't handle criticism, you can't grow.

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To know if a marketplace work, is outdated, or what needs to be changed, you kind of need to have more than 1 order over 2 weeks. Your feedback is appreciated of course, but think about it .
If I go to IBM and tell them their process is outdated, they will appreciate my participation but they will laugh at me. It's the same thing here, you just sound like you're whining so it's hard to take it seriously.
Or at least give a real feedback, not just "this sucks". Give the solution too if you want to be taken seriously. And don't be offended, since you can't grow while being offended either

Middleman services would be a nice addition to bhw imo and I can already imagine some of the mods as middlemen in any given case.

insightstudio said:

Scams seemed to be exponentially increasing

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I don't know where you see that cause it's actually going down.

Middle man will not help you, it is a good idea and it has been discussed before (I believe) BUT...

Chargebacks? (If payment is sent directly from buyer to seller)

A simple thing to think about.

If scammer wants to scam, he will find 100 ways to do that no matter what!

If people believe in a newly created account with 1 or 10 messages, or even 10 years old account with 30 messages, I mean... What can we do about it?
People will get scammed one or the other way.

Don't buy from people who try to "PM" you "I can help you" "Let's go on Skype" so no one can trace my ass here on BHW and tons of other suspicious "methods".

Just be smart...

Middleman can be kept optional other wise it’ll make marketplace very expensive, also BHW has a dispute resolution Center called Shit List so even in current form it’s pretty good

Could always just bring on a small number of new mods specifically to handle middleman, test it on a small scale in a single marketplace forum that's not so busy, and if it works it's another revenue stream for the forum.

As Mr Pos said, making it optional makes the most sense, and then looking at what happens if one party wants it and the other doesn't, and who pays.

I'd trust someone who is officially affiliated with the forum to provide escrow, but random people still have the potential to make mistakes or even to slip across to the dark side. See how many Jnr.VIPs have crises of consciousness even after selling for years.

I don't know if it would be more work than it's worth though tbh. Are there a lot of buyers that would pay more for escrow? Are there any sellers that would want to cut into their profits for doing the same? Like on a percentage scale of all transactions on the forum, how many have disputes and what percentage function normally without them?

A modified ratings system would probably work better though. Instead of the main differentiator between sellers being blue or non-blue (direct PMs from scallywags etc), having recent sales listings and ratings for every trade would provide a more vivid understanding of each seller.

Obviously then though this can be manipulated.. there might not be a perfect answer. It comes down to hard data which only admin has.. if there are only 2% of trades that even have a dispute and 75% of those are resolved effectively using shit list, why revamp the whole system for 0.5% of all trades? If 10% of all trades have disputes, it's a different story.

Mr Positive said:

Middleman can be kept optional other wise it’ll make marketplace very expensive, also BHW has a dispute resolution Center called Shit List so even in current form it’s pretty good

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Some people have nothing to lose so they don't care if they'll get banned. Also the person that lost their money won't be compensated either.

I've been asked numerous times to act as a middleman here for purchases and have always said no.

For 1, it is not allowed by those above us at this time and for 2, no way am I going to open myself up to that liability.

Perhaps an official escrow service like escrow.com with all the i's dotted and the t's crossed as to legalities and legal jargon that makes sense though.

The middleman system can be useful for certain purchases, but in general probably hundreds of transactions or more take place on BHW every day, compared to the number of SL's these days that go live, it seems minimal.

For a new member it is not really that accessible for them to know that you are not meant to deal with new members, as I don't feel the rules are being read as much as they should.

Jerk55 said:

Middle man is the way to go though. The current forum marketplace is somewhat outdated.

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Very true what @yherrliche said. Just because there is no MM system in place at the moment, this doesn't make the marketplace outdated. You haven't explained how it is outdated, with 1 admitted purchase of recent I wouldn't say that is 'experience'.

Not to mention that the new BHW 2.0 marketplace hasn't yet been released, which may provide new solutions.

a no from my side, that will make the services even more expensive

Its gonna be a logistical nightmare for middle man service for so many small orders. There are hundreds of orders placed each day (Atleast, it looks like it) for varying small amounts.

I think, BHW could do these for orders or deals above a certain threshold like $ 1000. But, then if you are dealing with such a high amount, the buyer and seller would be better served utilising an independent escrow service.