Nationwide Scammers

[westwoody]

Maybe we could have a sticky at the top of the index page for these.
Or a sticky at the top of "neighbourhood watch"?

A couple of them are running identical ads on LL in multiple cities.
"new in town Andrea" is an example, in Winnipeg, Toronto, and other cities. No phone, deposit by email transfer.
Excellent scam, and it must work or they would not keep running it.

Guys keep getting suckered and these assholes make doing business more difficult for real ladies.

 

[JimDandy]

Totally agree. The good news is that I now recognize these ads from their picture without even having to open up the ad to view the details. Even the new ads, I can often guess from the wording at the top of the ad that they are part of this collection of fraudulent ads you are referring to. I guess LL must be making a lot of money off these ads. I sometimes see 8 variations of the same fraudulent ad on the first page of LL alone.

JD

 

[badbadboy]

Starts with LL.

They happily get the advertising revenue and never do a thing to stop this behaviour.

You can report these ads all day long but nothing is ever done about it. A real report function would have a drop down menu stating why you are reporting it. Enough people point out these thieves are running a scam should get the ad terminated.

In my mind they are in the same league as BP.

 

[Corym]

Here is what I would do, start a new listing service but all ads are reviewer verified and endorsed by said reviewer. All ads will have an overall rating of the SP. Reviewers are well established contributors on this board and others. Advertisers must have a proven track record before Ads are posted. Advertisers would go thru a screening process. If you are a long time member of this board, you can pick out the reputable SPs that will be posted on the new site. Just my two cents worth.

Corym

 

[JimDandy]

Here is what I would do, start a new listing service but all ads are reviewer verified and endorsed by said reviewer. All ads will have an overall rating of the SP. Reviewers are well established contributors on this board and others. Advertisers must have a proven track record before Ads are posted. Advertisers would go thru a screening process. If you are a long time member of this board, you can pick out the reputable SPs that will be posted on the new site. Just my two cents worth.

Corym

A good idea but it would only as good as the reviewers.

The scheme you describe would require reviewers to be trustworthy. We would need to find a way to actually rate reviewers. The higher the rating of the reviewer, the higher the weight given to their reviews. At present only reviewers with a lot of posts are informally given a high weight. But even that can be faked. A person could create a new account, start creating fictional reviews of previously reviewed providers and give them similar feedback, build up a fake rep, and then start creating false reviews of themselves, or girls they are pimping out, a pay for good review scheme, etc.

You can see the challenges with what you are describing.

JD