Suggestion for staff to make exceptions in certain situations

[Capaldi]

For a TL;DR, it'll be at the end of the suggestion.

I whispered a chat-moderator a situation regarding Groovy and Kenced. Here is the situation:

• Groovy needed a $25 loan
• Kenced loaned Groovy $25 for a $42 payback on September 6th, 2018
• Groovy said he worked in designing something for Apple (yes, the company who makes iPhones)
• Groovy said he was getting paid $6k on September 6th
• September 6th comes around and Groovy still has not paid his loan. He says he cannot pay it back yet.
• From September 6th onward, Groovy made thread after thread (or comment after comment) wanting to buy things for well over the payback amount. He wanted to purchase $150 worth of accounts. Still didn't pay off the loan.
• It's now September 13th and I was sent a screenshot that Groovy admitted to scamming 10 people. I highly believe Kenced, but at the same time, there is no gif evidence of him admitting to scamming so nothing is being done until there is.

Now, when I messaged this chat-moderator, I specifically asked if Kenced was able to provide proof that Groovy never paid back the loan if Groovy would get banned, this chat-moderator asked a moderator and said this had to be handled through a scam report.

Although it was blatant that Groovy was buying things of such high value, even if Kenced provided proof that he was never paid back the loan, Groovy would still not be banned until 1) he admitted to scamming or 2) didn't pay the loan after the scam report was open and he was told to by Justis or Bucket

Scamming is not a light thing, so I was pretty shocked when nothing was done in this case, other than, "This has to be done through a scam report". If a member is supposed to pay someone and says they can't, but are using the same payment method to purchase other things, staff should handle it by banning the user for blatantly scamming. There is no way around it, if someone says they owe someone money but at the same time, say they can't pay them back yet but are buying things worth more than the payback amount, they are obviously, obviously scamming. It's just common sense and I am unsure of why staff don't make exceptions in cases like this.

If Groovy was banned sooner, I highly doubt that the same 10 people would be scammed the amount they were scammed if something was done when it was first reported.

TL;DR:

If this suggestion thread gets some steam, I'd like to add the policy to the investments and loan wiki as public knowledge so nobody's surprised when they're banned for failing to return a loan on time when it's apparent that they have the money to repay it.

 

[Justis]

The only reason the policy of "this needs to be handled through a scam report" has caused issue in this instance is due to the current backlog preventing scam reports from being dealt with within anything to be considered a reasonable timeframe.

If our situation was within normal parameters, the scam report would have been submitted, approved, and the repayment demanded long before the pattern of having made other purchase offers despite owing money could have been observed as evidence of scamming intent.

However, this policy you're suggesting is not a bad one, so long as it isn't brought out arbitrarily and enforced without warning.
If this suggestion thread gets some steam, I'd like to add the policy to the investments and loan wiki as public knowledge so nobody's surprised when they're banned for failing to return a loan on time when it's apparent that they have the money to repay it.

 

[Capaldi]

The only reason the policy of "this needs to be handled through a scam report" has caused issue in this instance is due to the current backlog preventing scam reports from being dealt with within anything to be considered a reasonable timeframe.

I personally wasn't thinking of the backlog. Regardless if it takes a few days to weeks to get scam reports out, this type of situation should be handled by any moderator, not just scam resolvers. There are 5 moderators but only 2 scam resolvers. Getting to the report would take longer than it would for a moderator to handle it. I am sure a moderator would not mind receiving a message or a whisper to ban someone who got a loan, failed to pay it back but purchasing things of higher value than the loan. If that moderator did, they shouldn't be staff. People on the staff team should care about the site and the members. If they said to report it or use support request, I would be fine with that and I'm sure others would too, because at least it would be taken care of by someone than one of the two scam resolvers and having to wait double or triple the time to get it resolved.

However, this policy you're suggesting is not a bad one, so long as it isn't brought out arbitrarily and enforced without warning.
If this suggestion thread gets some steam, I'd like to add the policy to the investments and loan wiki as public knowledge so nobody's surprised when they're banned for failing to return a loan on time when it's apparent that they have the money to repay it.

Personally, I don't see a need to make a note, unless that was needed for legal issues, because it should be common sense; If you don't have the money to pay what you owe someone, you shouldn't be purchasing other things in the process. And more so when you say you get paid well over that amount from your work and when that payback date rolls and you're not able to pay it back but somehow able to purchase things like accounts, graphics, etc? That should be obvious.

when they're banned for failing to return a loan on time when it's apparent that they have the money to repay it.

That basically sums up my entire suggestion. I'll add it as a TL;DR.

 

[Jerry]

A policy like this might work however how are you going to enforce it when support tickets take weeks to be reviewed, support through shout box is shut down, and scam reports take forever?

 

[Capaldi]

A policy like this might work however how are you going to enforce it when support tickets take weeks to be reviewed, support through shout box is shut down, and scam reports take forever?

Because the support won't always be backed up like it is now. You have Kram and Lotus, who are going through reports. I've had several reports that I made weeks ago and they're being handled.

Mick is going to be promoting new staff sometime after September 23rd and if those staff are as active as Kram and Lotus, they will be promoted fast and the support won't take weeks to a month or so.

 

[Mick]

The only reason the policy of "this needs to be handled through a scam report" has caused issue in this instance is due to the current backlog preventing scam reports from being dealt with within anything to be considered a reasonable timeframe.

If our situation was within normal parameters, the scam report would have been submitted, approved, and the repayment demanded long before the pattern of having made other purchase offers despite owing money could have been observed as evidence of scamming intent.

However, this policy you're suggesting is not a bad one, so long as it isn't brought out arbitrarily and enforced without warning.
If this suggestion thread gets some steam, I'd like to add the policy to the investments and loan wiki as public knowledge so nobody's surprised when they're banned for failing to return a loan on time when it's apparent that they have the money to repay it.

I'll move this to pending for us to discuss for implementation because adding this policy has nothing but advantages in my opinion.

Thanks for the suggestion Eclipse.

 

[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.