Known thieves using the Swaps & Trades Forum to "sell" coins?

How can this be allowed? A member who stole coins from dozens of people using his previous account, returns with a new account. Despite being clearly identified as the same person he is charitably allowed to remain. Now having completed the minimum five swaps he's able to start offering some high value sales. 

ARE WE REALLY THIS GODDAMN STUPID?

Original account.

New Account.

In what bizarre world is it permitted to be asking for free coins in one post and selling them in others?

Identified as the same crook.

Coin sales currently running -
https://en.numista.com/forum/topic70568.html
https://en.numista.com/forum/topic70569.html
https://en.numista.com/forum/topic70564.html

The activities of this crook raise a few questions. (see below) Until they can be resolved, please take action to remove these "sale" posts. Don't tell me he's complying with the rules and your hands are tied. At least one of his five minimum feedbacks is from his previous account and therefore fraudulent.

May I suggest making a change or two to the rules to prevent scammers like this from degrading the forum - 

"Anyone with a moderator's warning on their profile will not be allowed to use the Swaps & Trades forum to sell coins."

"Anyone making posts asking for free coins will not be allowed to subsequently offer coins for sale."

Please act, and do it quickly before people start to get fleeced.

That's a BOLD move by him maybe if he doesn't need the coins he can send them to some of the people he swindled as some sort of compensation.

Matt

It is very wrong!! I regret leaving my feedback now as it allows him to sell. I agree with Myeackle he should be sending them out as a compensation to the ones he has swindled in the past.

Thanks to whoever was responsible for the rapid shutting down of the sale posts. Good job guys.

Citeer: "pnightingale"​Thanks to whoever was responsible for the rapid shutting down of the sale posts. Good job guys.

All threads locked (unless I missed one, let me know in case) and several moved to trash except few ones that contain some information related to coins. If you spot another case, you can directly send me a PM so I can check.

Your 2 proposed rules seem quite interesting (at least to me). I added them to next meeting for discussion/approval.

Citeer: "pejounet"​

Citeer: "pnightingale"​Thanks to whoever was responsible for the rapid shutting down of the sale posts. Good job guys.

​
​
​All threads locked (unless I missed one, let me know in case) and several moved to trash except few ones that contain some information related to coins. If you spot another case, you can directly send me a PM so I can check.
​
​Your 2 proposed rules seem quite interesting (at least to me). I added them to next meeting for discussion/approval.

Thank you my dear Pejounet. ​

Citeer: "pnightingale""Anyone making posts asking for free coins will not be allowed to subsequently offer coins for sale."

​That might be a bit too harsh; it's perfectly possible that someone who was previously poor enough to ask for free coins had lucked into a large inheritance (or a really good estate sale lot, or found something nice with a metal detector, or, I dunno, got a rare WAM cent in change) and wants to sell their new stuff on Numista.

It is also perfectly possible, and much more likely, that someone who was asking for free coins early on in their career had then progressed far enough to start selling coins without leaving Numista in the interim; in fact, had I joined Numista back when I first found out about it (for the sake of the argument, let's say 2011), I might well have asked for free coins a few times, which would then have prevented me from selling coins later in 2019 or whatever.

Citeer: "January First-of-May"​

Citeer: "pnightingale""Anyone making posts asking for free coins will not be allowed to subsequently offer coins for sale."

​​That might be a bit too harsh; it's perfectly possible that someone who was previously poor enough to ask for free coins had lucked into a large inheritance (or a really good estate sale lot, or found something nice with a metal detector, or, I dunno, got a rare WAM cent in change) and wants to sell their new stuff on Numista.
​
​It is also perfectly possible, and much more likely, that someone who was asking for free coins early on in their career had then progressed far enough to start selling coins without leaving Numista in the interim; in fact, had I joined Numista back when I first found out about it (for the sake of the argument, let's say 2011), I might well have asked for free coins a few times, which would then have prevented me from selling coins later in 2019 or whatever.

Indeed, there is place for some fine-tuning on this rule: The point discussed here is no matter the value, Numista shall not be a place where you register and ask for free coins 2 days after. With your example, asking for free coins in March 2011 would not prevent you from selling coins in August 2019 but should certainly in April 2011.

Two (caricatural but still accurate) cases of forum posts to illustrate:

1. "Hello, I'm a young collector and I'm happy to join Numista. I try to collect XYZ coins." - If somebody wants to send free coins, fine with that.
   
2. "Hello, I'm new to Numista. Can anybody send me some coins so I can start collecting?" - Not really.
   

Come to think of it, technically, I did ask for free coins on Numista at one point - someone posted a list of coins they're willing to give away for free, and I asked for a few of those.

(I never did receive those coins, incidentally, despite having regularly asked at the post office whether I had anything new for the next five months or so; and, IIRC, the member who originally sent them had by now already left Numista for unrelated reasons.)

(Still don't have any coins from New Hebrides - though I did pass up on a chance to get one of those for under $10 about a year later; but by that point New Hebrides had already stopped counting as a separate country.)

Is there not a way to permanently ban these accounts? 'Koleckoiner' who scammed many users on here used the exact same name and address which 'Vintage Coin' uses now. You think the genius would think to at least use a different name

Citeer: "January First-of-May"​Come to think of it, technically, I did ask for free coins on Numista at one point - someone posted a list of coins they're willing to give away for free, and I asked for a few of those.
​
​(I never did receive those coins, incidentally, despite having regularly asked at the post office whether I had anything new for the next five months or so; and, IIRC, the member who originally sent them had by now already left Numista for unrelated reasons.)
​
​(Still don't have any coins from New Hebrides - though I did pass up on a chance to get one of those for under $10 about a year later; but by that point New Hebrides had already stopped counting as a separate country.)

A different case here: you're not asking coins, someone is willing to give free coins and you said "ok, I'd like this one and this one then".

Your case is "driven by the offer", while the case we want to avoid are "driven by the demand". (Pretty sure my wording will ring a bell to people who took some economy course )

Citeer: "pearcem12"​Is there not a way to permanently ban these accounts? 'Koleckoiner' who scammed many users on here used the exact same name and address which 'Vintage Coin' uses now. You think the genius would think to at least use a different name

Unfortunately there is no efficient way.

No address is required to register then there is no way to know this (name and address) before somebody does a swap with a specific member. Even in the case we would ask for these information, we would not have any efficient way to verify what is accurate and what is not.

Even though it can be a clue, IP blocking cannot be apply as shared IP does not mean same user/person.

Email blocking is not efficient as anybody can get dozens of email addresses in couple of minutes.

Citeer: "pejounet"​

Citeer: "January First-of-May"​Come to think of it, technically, I did ask for free coins on Numista at one point - someone posted a list of coins they're willing to give away for free, and I asked for a few of those.
​​
​​(I never did receive those coins, incidentally, despite having regularly asked at the post office whether I had anything new for the next five months or so; and, IIRC, the member who originally sent them had by now already left Numista for unrelated reasons.)
​​
​​(Still don't have any coins from New Hebrides - though I did pass up on a chance to get one of those for under $10 about a year later; but by that point New Hebrides had already stopped counting as a separate country.)

​A different case here: you're not asking coins, someone is willing to give free coins and you said "ok, I'd like this one and this one then".
​
​Your case is "driven by the offer", while the case we want to avoid are "driven by the demand". (Pretty sure my wording will ring a bell to people who took some economy course )

​I realize that it's a different thing, which is why I said "technically".

Agreed that the rule should be applied with common sense and probably does need to be reworded. There's something very wrong though when a guy can have sales posts and begging posts running at the same time. It's actually very saddening, the way this loser has exploited people's trust and generosity. We would be better off without his kind.

We can't change human nature but surely we can create a community where such people are unable to operate their petty scams.

I think the rules to permit an user to swap could be harder than the ones for people who only want to manage their collection in Numista.

So, in that scenario, you have to complete all the profile, including address (new fields) to get access to swap pages.

2nd - the only address you could use in a swap was the profile one. It can be hard to control, but can help others users to identify the good swappers.

3rd - only when you confirm swaps, the address is revealed.

I think there is great value in having the discussion about how we as a community help create a forum that is positive and supportive of new members. Along with that is a role for watching for "wolves" who would cause harm or swindle unsuspecting members.

In addition to trying to identify the rolling accounts, there may be other strategies that would help. I like the idea of having to link my address to my account, though I think I would want that information hidden from other users until I agree to release it for a swap. Perhaps the welcome information for new members should include additional warnings about safety, or should have a mentor liaison who could help identify possible scams.

Just a couple of ideas, and to say I think that this fits well with this being a community, and with those who have been members for longer taking responsibility to watch over our newer community members.