Dear TER,

I have a few suggestions for TER to fight against rip-off.


i.  Rip-off Board:  The creation of an exclusive Rip-off board. This board would be for members only, and would contain pertinent information about the scam artist, such as:

  - Name and alias used

  - Webpage
       ~  It would be great if the actual pictures were captured
          (This way it becomes a permanent record. You can delete your ad, but we got you babe .)

  - Telephone number(s)

  - Favorite scamming method
        ~ Bait & Switch
        ~ Pre-pay
        ~ Upselling or hustling for additional $$$
        ~ Rushed session, etc
 
  - Collaboration
        ~ Exchanging Rip-off info with other review boards
        ~ Contacting web-hosting service about false advertisement (such as Lovings, Eros, Exotics, etc.)
        ~ Maintaining statistics of Rip-off by web hosting companies
         
  - Suggestions
       ~  Maintaining some FAQs about how to avoid getting ripped-off


This could turn into a powerful tool to keep the providers honest.  Consider this scenario, if a provider pulled a scam stunt ...

  - A TER rip-off review is posted

  - Provider is contacted by Eros, etc for verification of personal information (bait & switch).  If they don't comply, down comes their ad.

  - If enough complaints are filed about con artist who take the money and run, or something along those lines the web-hosting firm may never do business with that provider again.  After all, there is something to be said about truth in advertising!

Eventually, these con artists will be barred from posting false ads on the web -- thus, saving us all a lot of heartburn, time, energy and $$$ .

Just some food for thought.  What are your thoughts?



Cordially,

- The “K” Man


-- Modified on 6/6/2002 6:34:50 PM

-- Modified on 6/6/2002 11:10:34 PM

You bring up a lot of good points.  Most of which we have addressed in one way of another.

Exclusive VIP rip-off board -  that is not inline with the way we do things at TER.  We would like everyone, VIP or NOT, to be able to find out about rip-offs.  

We currently keep permanent records on Names/phone number/and actions on all providers, not just rip-offs.  We cannot stop pictures here because we do not have the licenses to do so.

Collaboration - We really don't share well with other review boards. Most malls have VIP memberships here.  Unfortunately a large portion of income comes from the bad providers.  That income is hard for a lot of malls to "give up"  The best way is the users to complain directly to the mall.

Keep the providers honest - Most of the time, honest providers are, dishonest ones are not.  I don't think many convert from one to the other.  We just let every one know which is which.

Hope this helps.

-- Staff