Remove the Investments/Loans forum

[Justis]

During my time as scam resolver, I came across so many reports for failed investments/loans that it made my stomach churn.

In response, I insisted that a change of policy was necessary to protect our community. After receiving Mick’s approval, I drafted this Wiki, and posted this thread to ward off the excessive losses accruing in that forum.

However, even with these limits, investments/loans continues to be the place that short sighted scammers go to to rack up their final grab.

Any section brings the risk of scammers, but most services come with an implied requirement of visible progress over the duration of the deal, and most deals involving products are over with within a day or two. Failure to respond within that timespan brings suspicion, and action can quickly be taken.

Investments/loans, however, allows for the debt to be legitimately held by the receiver of the funds without suspicion of scamming intent, since it is mutually agreed upon. This allows those with ill intent an excessive window of time with which they may contact many other users in private and seek additional funds.

Banks acquire the personal information of the people they loan to, so they can take legal action, and even still, they do credit checks before issuing loans. Many of our users are children, and are both not reliable to be loaned to, nor capable of taking legal action if they’re scammed.
Our userbase simply isn’t the right one for investments/loans to be offered to or requested by.

The section should be completely removed before it does any more damage than it has.

 

[myokan]

The loans section should never have existed in the first place. There are laws and regulations to loaning for a reason. Even though it's legal to loan to a friend or family without these laws and regulations, that doesn't apply to this "loan service" BS.

 

[NovaLegion]

Loans need to go. Most of the adult population have issues with repaying loans. It's just not worth the risk.

 

[Joshua C]

I feel like, this is a user's mistake.

If you can't open your eyes, and see there are active loans already on a person and keep on loaning them its actually your fault.
The only users who can make posts in the loan/investments, if they verify their identity, such as I think a Utility bill works very greatly, or a driving license.
But again we are a 13 years old forum.
There are still some people who returned money, and there are people who offered money.
I would only agree to the point of the section being strictly monitored, and restricted to numbers.

 

[Orochimaru]

Damn I liked it, but whatever ig

 

[Mv_]

I've made a decent amount of money giving out loans to people who needed it, most of which were successful (was scammed once, charged back via PayPal and won). However, I agree with removing the section from the forums as a whole would greatly benefit the community.

 

[jxhdvn]

I believe I suggested this in the past: https://www.mc-market.org/threads/424593/
What changed everyone's position on this? Are we just doing it in light of recent events?

It's been suggested to remove the section many times in the past - I want to know if you still would find this statement to be accurate despite everything people have said about it pretty much being a huge scam opportunity, because a lot of that can be argued still applies even in light of the recent events. They could have checked if Harrison had multiple loans out or take precaution

"However, even with these limits, investments/loans continues to be the place that short sighted scammers go to to rack up their final grab."

That's a point we've made, I just wanna know why now you decide to do such a thing despite there being many, many scam reports regarding loans for quite a while now

I'd like this to be implemented but I'm struggling to see how it took something like this to bring the issue to light when warning signs were made. That's a bad thing on your part that it took something this bad to address it

 

[NovaLegion]

I believe I suggested this in the past: https://www.mc-market.org/threads/424593/
What changed everyone's position on this? Are we just doing it in light of recent events?

It's been suggested to remove the section many times in the past - I want to know if you still would find this statement to be accurate despite everything people have said about it pretty much being a huge scam opportunity, because a lot of that can be argued still applies even in light of the recent events. They could have checked if Harrison had multiple loans out or take precaution

"However, even with these limits, investments/loans continues to be the place that short sighted scammers go to to rack up their final grab."

That's a point we've made, I just wanna know why now you decide to do such a thing despite there being many, many scam reports regarding loans for quite a while now

I'd like this to be implemented but I'm struggling to see how it took something like this to bring the issue to light when warning signs were made. That's a bad thing on your part that it took something this bad to address it

There's a lot more reasons to get rid of it. But too many people only cared about what big profiles thought before this.

 

[DarkKnights22]

Damn, 80 agrees, make it happen Mick

 

[Mick]

Due to the overwhelming support that this suggestion has received, I'll move this to pending for us to remove the Investments & Loans forum in a future announcement.

Thank you Justis and everyone else for your input

 

[Mick]

This has already been implemented, we just never got around to marking this suggestion as accepted.

Thank you very much for the suggestion! I'll move the thread now.