Hello everyone.

There has been a bit of a discussion amongst the admin team recently in regard to the for sale sections of the forum. Recently there have been a few scams running through car forums (not just Mini ones) that are supposedly selling parts. These individuals aim to take your money and not send anything in return.

In an effort to stop these scams affecting our members will will be implementing some changes over the next few days.

Firstly in regards to the for sale sections, we will be introducing a 50 post limit. This means that before you are able to post in there you must have 50 posts. This will help members to "know" who and where they are buying items from, and also to discourage individuals signing up to the forum just to use the for sale section.

Secondly the Wanted section will have a 5 post limit members must achieve before posting.

Hopefully you will all understand that this is being put into place to help protect members from some individuals trying to abuse forums.

As always if you have any questions please feel free to PM one of the mods/admins, however please do not ask us to make an exception to this on an individual basis, as this applies to everybody with no exceptions

Thanks

good plan

Should be 50 if posting items and any for cash on collection. To hard to implement tho i guess.

Also, pieces of paper with username and date was a rule on another forum. Seems to work well.

sounds like a good idea to me .

Not too sure what you mean by pisces of paper with username and data Matt?

They take a picture of the item they are selling with a piece of paper also in the picture with the date of the thread start and their username - proves they actually have the item they are selling in their possession.

Good idea

Falls in line with most forums I use, and makes sense.

Many forums turn into "communities" (just like this one) and by setting a hurdle for activity it means you have to put something in before you you can get something out. The security is a bonus.

Steve

Thanks for all the positive feedback everyone, as Andy says, it's to help protect everybody

I've now applied the groups to the relevant forums, so anybody with less than 50 posts won't be able to start a new thread in any of the for sale forums, and anybody with less than 5 posts won't be able to start a new thread in the wanted forum. You can reply within threads still though

Second this totally

or should this be thirded

Excellent idea guys, any decisions you make always benefit the community

Excellent idea.

We all need protecting.

While I agree with the sentiment of the idea, it is not perfect. As you know, the MINI community is wide and varied, and people use forums to sell in other areas where they are having no success locally. I am sure many of you know people from other clubs, and they may want to use other forums to sell legitimately.

As a current ex-MINI owner I am infrequently on the site, post rarely, but have some stuff in my garage I really need to sell. My suggestion therefore is that if someone has less than 50 posts, but can be vouched for personally by someone with more than 50, then this should suffice. A few of you know me from SCNM, and know I am not a scammer!

What do you think to this evolving of the above rule?

Phil wrote:

While I agree with the sentiment of the idea, it is not perfect. As you know, the MINI community is wide and varied, and people use forums to sell in other areas where they are having no success locally. I am sure many of you know people from other clubs, and they may want to use other forums to sell legitimately.

As a current ex-MINI owner I am infrequently on the site, post rarely, but have some stuff in my garage I really need to sell. My suggestion therefore is that if someone has less than 50 posts, but can be vouched for personally by someone with more than 50, then this should suffice. A few of you know me from SCNM, and know I am not a scammer!

What do you think to this evolving of the above rule?

I would def vouch for you 100% Phil if I was asked

Thanks for your comments Phil

We've taken them on board and discussed amongst ourselves, however we have agreed that we cannot make any exceptions to the rules, otherwise it makes implementing them in the first place a bit pointless.

The main reason for implementing them was to help protect our members, but the other reason was to prevent people from taking advantage of free advertising and joining up here just to sell their items, and not be a part of the club and our community.

We hope you understand

Ian, Dave and Andy

Fair enough, rules are rules!

Looks like I'll have to post 31 lots of rubbish to get to my 50

Thanks Chris

Good evening

I have a mini part that I would like to sell and am actually selling on eBay already. I have not yet reached the 50 posts minimum, however it is possible to still post a link to the eBay page please?

The part in question is a Gen 2 gear change indicator.

Many thanks

Mark

Unfortunately we can't allow you to post it, as it would have to go in the for sale section, and you haven't reached the minimum post to be able to start a thread in there yet. I've sent you a pm explaining

Two more posts to go until I can try and sell stuff!

You've done it now