Does TR realy protect us?

[petrosc]

I am wondering what the point of TR is, considering that a $10 sale has the same effect as a $10,000 sale (both increase the possitive feedbacks score by 1).

Someone is unlikely to back out on a deal, not deliver or not pay when it comes to low $ transactions. Someone can get a feedback score of 100 with a majority of insignificant transactions, but in this case his feedback cannot act as a reliable indicator of this person's reputation.

I want to bring this matter into attention because me and many others(some members of DNF, some not) got ripped off by another member of this forum, and the only reason I trusted this member and paid in advance was his TR (over 40 positive feedback transactions).
As it turns out, this person has a history of ripping people off and yet his TR is all positive. I cannot add a negative feedback because the deal was initiated outside the forum, but the TR of this forum was what made me decide whether I could trust him or not.

The point of existence of the TR is to protect the buyers and sellers when dealing with a person online, but a TR can also act as a helpful tool in the hands of a scammer.

I do not know what can be done about this, I certainly wouldn't want TR removed from the forum, but if others agree with me that low $ deals should not be allowed to leave a feedback please speculate on a possible solution. Since scams occur in high $ transactions, my suggestion would be to enable Trader Rating for deals above a certain minimum amount of $, let's say $300 to keep it reasonable.

I do understand that TR for low $ deals is important for newcomers to raise their reputation, but if you think about it, for low $ deals nobody looks at the TR, and for high $ deals there is always escrow. After a few successful transactions every active buyer/seller would raise his feedback score.

Anybody else that agrees with me on this or am I the only one who sees a whole in this system?

Thanks,
Petros

 

[whitebark]

LINKS to the original transaction are important. If the buyer and seller can't agree on a link, it's probably meaningless.

Even this is not perfect. I could have a sales thread with 25 domains for sale ranging from $1 - $10,000. Which did they buy - did they bargain down the price etc? What about offers by PM threads? Deal gets made by PM - there is nothing to see on the thread.

CYA - use escrow, deal with only those you know personally, half up-front with rest upon delivery etc.