delete loans & investments forum

[alice]

Why is Investment & Loans even a forums? It's scammer's paradise and a breeding ground for scammers.

For example, here are the statistics for a couple of popular loan threads:
Kenced's Loan Service (for small amounts, at that) - 6 scammers, 2 legitimate
Noball's Loan Service 6 scammers, 5 legitimate

There seem to be a higher overall number of scammers using the loans forum than legitimate users.

So far I've also shut down 2 extremely dodgy people asking for $400 loans by calling them out. One of them deleted the thread out of embarrassment without replying, and the other one completely dodged me and made a bs claim about how they received the loan offsite so they no longer need it. And these were people with 20+ reputation, for the record, waiting for an opportunity to exit scam a good amount.

Also, the loans forums seems quite toxic as well and filled with children asking for minuscule loan amounts of $1 to $10 without a reliable way to pay back anyone. 90% of the threads are $0 to $10 loan requests that were obviously made by 12 year olds who have no real way of paying back anyone, and even if they were reliable, it's just bs to have a forums for petty and trivial investments.

 

[alice]

There's a disclaimer for people who want to offer loans. They take the chance loaning to people who have a high chance of scamming. It's quite beneficial for users looking for investments and the occasional person who needs a serious loan, which I have needed before. I offered loans around a year ago and it turned out bad, so I stopped. If you don't want to risk losing money, don't create a thread.

So you do admit that you tried to start a loan service and that it turned out bad due to scammers?

I'd also imagine that anyone who needs a serious loan would use a serious loaner such as their bank or PayPal or an official service, not McM.

 

[alice]

I do admit that it turned out bad. A few times I did need a loan though, and that section helped me find one, and create a trustworthy relationship with some members. Not everyone here is a scammer. When I first asked for a loan, I had around 15 reputation, which was a big risk for some members to give me a loan.

If the loans forums doesn't get deleted, it should at the very least be restricted to members with at least 10 reputation with minimal loan amounts of $50. Something else to consider would be promoting a loan reviewer who has to manually approve threads after deciding their legitimacy.

Also, I still don't see as to why you wouldn't just use an actual loan service.

 

[alice]

get a loan from you fucking bank and invest in businesses irl or in stocks. Most likely gunna get scammed

I know, it's kinda extremely dodgy to see servers and service teams asking for loan amounts of upwards to $500 to start their service, but they probably wouldn't dare take the loan from say PayPal or their bank account, probably because they don't have confidence in their project and know it'll likely flop.

 

[Landon]

If the loans forums doesn't get deleted, it should at the very least be restricted to members with at least 10 reputation with minimal loan amounts of $50. Something else to consider would be promoting a loan reviewer who has to manually approve threads after deciding their legitimacy.

Also, I still don't see as to why you wouldn't just use an actual loan service.

Because most legitimate loan businesses require you to be above the age of 18, which we know 90% of this market isn't. Legitimate loans have binding legal contracts, hence the reason of getting "under the table" loans, as it's not as big of a deal.

Anyways, no.
There's a disclaimer, it's up to users to deal with who they loan. It's a risk you can decide to take, no one forces anyone to loan here. A review of their reputation, time on site, loan need, and method of paying back (legit checks, such as pay stubs) can help lower the amount of scams happening. Removing the section will serve no purpose- just because of scams. Might as well remove all the sell forums because scams happen in those forums too.

Removing the forum removes legitimate users who might need help on a financial situation (once again, small situations. In no way is MC-Market a place to request a mortgage for a house).

 

[alice]

Because most legitimate loan businesses require you to be above the age of 18, which we know 90% of this market isn't. Legitimate loans have binding legal contracts, hence the reason of getting "under the table" loans, as it's not as big of a deal.

Anyways, no.
There's a disclaimer, it's up to users to deal with who they loan. It's a risk you can decide to take, no one forces anyone to loan here. A review of their reputation, time on site, loan need, and method of paying back (legit checks, such as pay stubs) can help lower the amount of scams happening. Removing the section will serve no purpose- just because of scams. Might as well remove all the sell forums because scams happen in those forums too.

Removing the forum removes legitimate users who might need help on a financial situation (once again, small situations. In no way is MC-Market a place to request a mortgage for a house).

Okay, so you say that 90% of the users who ask for loans are below 18. This is exactly the issue and why 80% or more loans appear to be scams by users with 5+ reputation even because they don't have a reliable way to pay you back, so your suggestion to "be cautious" doesn't mean anything because there's literally no way you could know.

It's also absurd to imply that the other market forums are even as half as bad as the loans & investments forum which literally is a breeding ground for scammers. The loans forums has no place on McM if you want the overall forums to grow, as there are even high reputation users attempting to ask for obnoxious $400+ loan amounts by coming up with a fake product idea or some random bs. They don't care about getting banned, and guess what? If there wasn't a loan & investments forum, the community would probably be a lot more active than in its current state because there wouldn't be hundreds of banned people for scamming loans.

 

[Landon]

Okay, so you say that 90% of the users who ask for loans are below 18. This is exactly the issue and why 80% or more loans appear to be scams by users with 5+ reputation even because they don't have a reliable way to pay you back, so your suggestion to "be cautious" doesn't mean anything because there's literally no way you could know.

It's also absurd to imply that the other market forums are even as half as bad as the loans & investments forum which literally is a breeding ground for scammers. The loans forums has no place on McM if you want the overall forums to grow, as there are even high reputation users attempting to ask for obnoxious $400+ loan amounts by coming up with a fake product idea or some random bs. They don't care about getting banned, and guess what? If there wasn't a loan & investments forum, the community would probably be a lot more active than in its current state because there wouldn't be hundreds of banned people for scamming loans.

People who want to scam, will scam. Period. Case closed. Saying if there was no loans section would result in less banned users is absurd. They’d scam for something else. This entire argument is based off literally two threads you looked at (and most likely threads that support your point). If you can provide a general statistic that ‘80%’ or more of loans are scams (in a large sample test, not 2 threads) then you might have a valid argument.

And once again, disclaimers exist for a reason. If you are not comfortable losing money, don’t loan. They are the same as investments- you win some you lose some. Don’t gamble what you’re not willing to lose.

 

[alice]

People who want to scam, will scam. Period. Case closed. Saying if there was no loans section would result in less banned users is absurd. They’d scam for something else. This entire argument is based off literally two threads you looked at (and most likely threads that support your point). If you can provide a general statistic that ‘80%’ or more of loans are scams (in a large sample test, not 2 threads) then you might have a valid argument.

And once again, disclaimers exist for a reason. If you are not comfortable losing money, don’t loan. They are the same as investments- you win some you lose some. Don’t gamble what you’re not willing to lose.

It's not absurd at all. I bet if you looked at the statistics for 100 loans granted vs 100 accounts sold, you'd see a lot more loan scams than account scams. It's a lot more convenient to scam someone for loans and come up with some bs than to verify say an account or use a middleman, which you can't do with loans. The loans section does encourage people to scam; the accounts section doesn't.

 

[Landon]

It's not absurd at all. I bet if you looked at the statistics for 100 loans granted vs 100 accounts sold, you'd see a lot more loan scams than account scams. It's a lot more convenient to scam someone for loans and come up with some bs than to verify say an account or use a middleman, which you can't do with loans. The loans section does encourage people to scam; the accounts section doesn't.

You are assuming people only come to the loan section to scam.

Let’s assume that’s true (keyword true). We remove loans. People start coming to another forum to scam. That forum is removed- people go to the next.

You are assuming users who scam will only scam via loans, which is just false. They’ll find whatever way possible to scam if they really want to.

But like I said, that was a hypothetical. Obviously, people don’t use the loan section to just scam like you think, but with you’re logic- this ‘solution’ creates a new problem. Might as well remove all forums so scammers can’t find a way to scam.

 

[alice]

You are assuming people only come to the loan section to scam.

Let’s assume that’s true (keyword true). We remove loans. People start coming to another forum to scam. That forum is removed- people go to the next.

You are assuming users who scam will only scam via loans, which is just false. They’ll find whatever way possible to scam if they really want to.

But like I said, that was a hypothetical. Obviously, people don’t use the loan section to just scam like you think, but with you’re logic- this ‘solution’ creates a new problem. Might as well remove all forums so scammers can’t find a way to scam.

Did you even read my last post? I never said people only scam in the loans section. I said you'll find far more loan scammers than account scammers because it's far more convenient to scam for loans due to the reasons I mentioned in my previous post. There will indeed always be scammers, but there'll be a lot less scammers without a loans section. It's about weighing benefits vs costs of having a loan section, and the costs outweigh the benefits (but the same doesn't apply to the other market forums).

 

[Mick]

While I do agree that the investments and loans forum does have its problem, I think that there are other changes we can make rather than just removing it entirely.

I liked your idea for only allowing people to see the loans forum if they have 10+ rep I think, but I don't think that makes sense for investments.

What are our thoughts on splitting it into two separate forums, with the requirements for each being:

• Investments. To see the forum, no requirements. To post in the forum, 20 rep.
• Loans. To see the and to post in the forum, 10 rep.

These numbers are just rough, but I think something like this would be an improvement. Let me know what you think about this change.

 

[blob]

While I do agree that the investments and loans forum does have its problem, I think that there are other changes we can make rather than just removing it entirely.

I liked your idea for only allowing people to see the loans forum if they have 10+ rep I think, but I don't think that makes sense for investments.

What are our thoughts on splitting it into two separate forums, with the requirements for each being:

• Investments. To see the forum, no requirements. To post in the forum, 20 rep.
• Loans. To see the and to post in the forum, 10 rep.

These numbers are just rough, but I think something like this would be an improvement. Let me know what you think about this change.

Investments should be 25, as investments are generally higher.
As for loans, I think it should be 15. How ever, if you want to do a shop, there should be a requirement about that, as if you scroll through that forum, there are numerous thread shops only doing super tiny loans.

 

[alice]

While I do agree that the investments and loans forum does have its problem, I think that there are other changes we can make rather than just removing it entirely.

I liked your idea for only allowing people to see the loans forum if they have 10+ rep I think, but I don't think that makes sense for investments.

What are our thoughts on splitting it into two separate forums, with the requirements for each being:

• Investments. To see the forum, no requirements. To post in the forum, 20 rep.
• Loans. To see the and to post in the forum, 10 rep.

These numbers are just rough, but I think something like this would be an improvement. Let me know what you think about this change.

I'm not sure about how I feel about splitting it up. All loans people give in the end are pretty much like investments I would assume? The mentioned requirements sound like a decent start but I would recommend keeping both at 10 rep and in the same forums for the sake of reducing clunkiness.

Something else to consider would be to split up loan requests and loan lenders into two subforms, and to add more selectable thread prefixes such as the loan reason. Some reasons could be "personal", "bills", "games", "food", maybe even "investment" or "startup", etc., so this would also allow for easier moderation of the section and members could better pick who they want to lend money to.

You could perhaps also add more rules as well, such as requiring to mention in the thread how exactly you plan to pay someone back, and staff could be rougher with sketchy people in that section. In the end, any requirements are better than none and it should weed out most scammers.

 

[Satan]

You could perhaps also add more rules as well, such as requiring to mention in the thread how exactly you plan to pay someone back, and staff could be rougher with sketchy people in that section. In the end, any requirements are better than none and it should weed out most scammers.

The issue with putting more rules and definitions into this controversial forum section is that the forum exists literally for investors/lenders to make their own decisions.

Trying to make it difficult for a user to get a loan or investment successfully by putting in mandatory information that for all we know could be fictitious is pointless and would do little to nothing in reducing the # of scams that happen in this form. There's already a very noticeable disclaimer at the top of the section when you browse these threads and have a link to the wiki explaining more details of how MCM deals with these kinds of dealings. I personally don't find anything wrong with the forum.

Just do your research and weigh your gut feeling in and go ahead or deny giving someone your money. Serious users who do intend to pay back and have a plan to do so should just put it there to attract lenders and investors. Not the other way around of forcing them to.[DOUBLEPOST=1540520062][/DOUBLEPOST]

Some reasons could be "personal", "bills", "games", "food", maybe even "investment" or "startup", etc., so this would also allow for easier moderation of the section and members could better pick who they want to lend money to.

This wouldn't be bad.

 

[alice]

The issue with putting more rules and definitions into this controversial forum section is that the forum exists literally for investors/lenders to make their own decisions.

Trying to make it difficult for a user to get a loan or investment successfully by putting in mandatory information that for all we know could be fictitious is pointless and would do little to nothing in reducing the # of scams that happen in this form. There's already a very noticeable disclaimer at the top of the section when you browse these threads and have a link to the wiki explaining more details of how MCM deals with these kinds of dealings. I personally don't find anything wrong with the forum.

Just do your research and weigh your gut feeling in and go ahead or deny giving someone your money. Serious users who do intend to pay back and have a plan to do so should just put it there to attract lenders and investors. Not the other way around of forcing them to.

Sure, investors/lenders can indeed make their own decisions, but preferably within a confined environment that's designed to weed out scammers as much as possible beforehand. Why not? Most loan requests from people with 0 to 3 reputation are probably scams, and I'd assume we would all want the loans forums to be more professional as well. Right now it's filled with children and dodgy people, and although they could come up with something fictitious as you mentioned, chances are that they won't do a good job at it. Most scammers and children do not appear to be very good at lying, particularly due to their insecurity caused by the fact that they know they plan to scam someone.