New policy on scamming and reporting bad trades

Dear GTP-ers,

Now that GT5 has been out for a while and the marketplace has been available for two months, the moderators have conducted an informal internal review of the subforum, and we've decided to make a few policy changes that we think will be better-suited to the forums.

In the past, our policy has been for members to report bad trades to the moderators, but this will no longer be the case. I myself have received close to - and in all likelihood, over - one hundred reports of users deliberately carrying out bad trades. Although this represents only a tiny proportion of overall trades, it is a very disappointing statistic.

In response to this, the following changes are going to be made in the subforum: moderators will no longer be investigating reports of bad trades. These are simply too time-consuming, and yield very low results. Of the one hundred complaints I have received, only a handful of the accused have actually been on the receiving end of moderator action. As such, the policy for bad trades is changing: if you believe you have been the victim of a bad trade, then please use the Grief Reporting function on the PSN homepage. If you contact a moderator about someone who has been ripping you off in the Marketplace, you will be redirected to the the PSN site, or at least to this thread.

Please be aware that the rule regarding public accusations of wrongdoing is still in effect. Do not accuse anybody of improper conduct on these forums - even if you have evidence to substatntiate you claims. Once again, we request that you use the grief reporting function on the PSN site. Anybody who does post an accusation on the forums will be met with severe moderator action, most likely a warning or an infraction. Even if you seem to think you are doing somebody a favour, you will receive a penalty for your actions. This is because all trades are entered into at your own risk. The moderators, adminsitrators or the forums themselves cannot be held accountable if a trade does not go as you had planned. As many of you may know by now, the latest GT5 Patch allows for the backing up of game saves. This allows players to back up their games before enacting trades. Which means that they can recover cars lost through scams or server errors. We strongly encourage all members to do so. This is for your own protection.

Thank you,

The moderation team.

Okay, it seems that some people need reminding of this rule: do not publicly accuse someone of wrongdoing. Even if you believe you have undeinable evidence in support of your claims, you still may not accuse people. It only ever leads to infighting and flame wars, which usually lead to mass bans. Just because the moderators can ban people, it doesn't mean we want to. But don't doubt that we will if you leave us with no other option. Use the grief reporting function on the PSN homepage.

This ban on accusing people also applies to the report post function. Some people seem to think that it's entirely acceptable to use the report post function to report bad traders. So that there is no doubt in your minds, I will say this: it is still banned. I've just had to issue a flurry of warnings and infractions to people for doing just this overnight. Don't think that just because a reported post is between you and the moderators, it is okay to accuse others. Chances are that you'll be the one to be n the receiving end of moderator action for ignoring instructions.