Hello all,
We wanted to write today to address some recent changes to the private messaging system on the BeechTalk forum.
For most of our history, private messaging was a privilege afforded to every member of BeechTalk, regardless of age of the account, post counts etc. It is not this way on many forums around the Internet, but it has been the case here, until very recently.
About a month ago, we experimented with a restriction for private messages that limited sending to "Active" members only, as defined
here. However, we have now removed this restriction and, accordingly, all BeechTalk user accounts can now once again send private messages.
So why did we put this restriction in? In recent years, we have had an ongoing problem with scammers who join the forum under a fake account and then abuse the private messaging system in an attempt to defraud honest members. The scam works something like this:
A BeechTalk member will post a "WTB" (want to buy) thread in the Peddler Talk forums, and a scammer who has registered a fake account will private message that user saying that they (or a friend, etc) have one for sale. They usually include an external email address and other details to take the transaction off the forums. Once they have stolen funds from one or more unsuspecting users, we are usually notified and remove the scammer. But then the cycle repeats.
We have tried numerous, proactive counter-measures to defeat this, but none have proven 100% effective, with the sole exception of the "active user" private message restriction we mentioned above. That
did effectively solve the scammer problem, but the number of other problems it created, and the number of honest users it inconvenienced, make the cure as bad as the disease. That is why we removed it.
However, because we do expect the scammers to be back and attempt to abuse private messages again, we are now trying a new tactic. Every private message sent from a relatively new user account will now be tagged with the following message when received by the recipient:
CAUTION: This sender is a newer member of BeechTalk. Use extreme caution before engaging in financial transactions, clicking links, etc.
This is somewhat equivalent to the warnings many companies place on external emails and URLs, so we feel it is both appropriate in this context, and familiar to most of our users. We do not expect it will be a perfect solution, but it should help considerably and we will continue to monitor the situation closely.
We apologize to those of you we inconvenienced in the interim, that was not our intention. We are simply trying to protect our members in the best way possible, though admittedly this particular attempt was a failed experiment in the end.
Thank you all for your patience, help, and messages during this time, and we will continue to update as needed on this situation. In the meantime, if you receive a private message from a user that you believe to be fraduluent, please use the
Contact link to report it to forum administrators as soon as possible.
Thank you!
The Jeffs
