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nospam
Joined: 20 May 2008
Posts: 28
Location: London
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 Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2009 11:13 am Post subject: IP addresses on all ads. |
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I've asked this before but have been ignored.
PLEASE put the IP address of the poster on ALL ads. From this the approximate country of origin can be seen by all.
This will help to get rid of 90% of the overseas scammers who currently make up some 20% of all the ads on here.
It's a 10 minute job to implement and 20 mins if you want to include a little flag. |
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montyzuma
Community Moderator
Joined: 25 Jul 2007
Posts: 7537
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| Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2009 11:15 am Post subject: |
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| hi nospam i will point this in the right direction |
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who_kerr
Joined: 04 Jan 2009
Posts: 489
Location: on a street corner
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| Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2009 12:42 pm Post subject: |
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Yes good idea, why not give all the personal details of the people posting adds !
Did you even consider the legal implications of soing such a thing ???
But yes go ahead and do it gumtree as nobody from the UK is a scammer, see my thread above. |
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nospam
Joined: 20 May 2008
Posts: 28
Location: London
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| Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2009 1:08 pm Post subject: |
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| who_kerr wrote: | | Did you even consider the legal implications of soing such a thing ??? |
Yes, and there are none. Have you read the DPA?
It's common practice across the 'net to display the IP address of a poster especially if - as is the case with Gumtree - the poster's identity is not authenticated.
If a poster feels that posting his (probably dynamic) IP address is not something they want, they are within their rights not to post in the first place.
Yes, I know the UK has many scammers - see my post earlier today of the poor chap who got stabbed in East London - BUT we have to start somewhere. By posting the IP and associated country of origin we can at least weed out the 10% of 419 scammers and the 10% far-eastern spammers from the board.
I don't even know if Guntree tracks the IP addreses internally, so when a scam is uncovered that those details can be passed to the police to help with their inquiries. |
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nospam
Joined: 20 May 2008
Posts: 28
Location: London
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| Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2009 1:09 pm Post subject: |
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| (ah, I see you also posted the same news item in another thread...) |
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Dave#
Gumtree Teamster
Joined: 08 Oct 2007
Posts: 140
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| Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2009 2:43 pm Post subject: |
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| I'm afraid scammers use proxies and vpns to appear in the UK |
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montyzuma
Community Moderator
Joined: 25 Jul 2007
Posts: 7537
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| Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2009 2:52 pm Post subject: |
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not all of them
a good proportion of the puppy pets scam can be seen to be from cameroon via spam origin locator |
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nospam
Joined: 20 May 2008
Posts: 28
Location: London
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| Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2009 5:05 pm Post subject: |
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| Dave# wrote: | | I'm afraid scammers use proxies and vpns to appear in the UK |
Most are too thick to do that, especially the 419 scammers. Please do not use that as an excuse for not performing this simple request. That's a bit like "there's no point in finger-printing a crime-scene as thieves use gloves".
Prove your point by putting the country online and let's see how many £2,000 2007-model BMWs are posted from the UK. |
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Dave#
Gumtree Teamster
Joined: 08 Oct 2007
Posts: 140
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| Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2009 6:38 pm Post subject: |
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| nospam wrote: | | Dave# wrote: | | I'm afraid scammers use proxies and vpns to appear in the UK |
Most are too thick to do that, especially the 419 scammers. Please do not use that as an excuse for not performing this simple request. That's a bit like "there's no point in finger-printing a crime-scene as thieves use gloves".
Prove your point by putting the country online and let's see how many £2,000 2007-model BMWs are posted from the UK. |
I'm not saying that the fact that people use proxies is the only reason not to publish IPs next to posts, privacy would be a greater concern for me personally.
But it's an interesting thought, i'll raise it internally. |
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swanseagerbils
Joined: 26 Aug 2009
Posts: 17
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| Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2009 6:57 pm Post subject: |
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how about when placing the ad, under required information ask the person placing there ad to provide there city & country of origin? and make that visible on the ad?
That way if the ad desription or reply you get varys from the city country given you can just steer well clear of it.
just a thought im no computer expert or legal representative, but im sure this would not be breaking any laws.
steve |
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montyzuma
Community Moderator
Joined: 25 Jul 2007
Posts: 7537
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| Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2009 9:24 pm Post subject: |
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hi swansea
the trouble is scammers lie
gumtree is meant for face to face trading in your local area
which , i suppose was meant to get past the problems of buying and selling over the net
what is happening tho is that scammers gravitate to a free ads site and flog gooods of value whether it accomodation, pets mobil phones etc etc and when people are presented with a bargain common sense goes out te window
if anyone mentions paying by western union or moneygram they are scammers 100% if the word i am out of the country are mentioned run away
loads of per scams at present and they are always soomewhere else
ive been moved to belfast for work ok why are you advertising in london then thicko |
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swanseagerbils
Joined: 26 Aug 2009
Posts: 17
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| Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2009 10:25 pm Post subject: |
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lol again thats true ! 
one thing i have noticed with these type of ads is they havevery poor english, so i supose thats one way of spotting them to.
its good to see though that there have been some convictions on scammers though ... which have been posted on the site... at least some are being cuaght.  |
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nospam
Joined: 20 May 2008
Posts: 28
Location: London
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| Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2009 10:30 pm Post subject: |
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| Dave wrote: | | privacy would be a greater concern for me personally.... |
Dave, please do not use privacy as an issue. For many years before redirection numbers we all had to put our own telephone numbers on ads.
If you think that a full 123.456.789.123 IP address is a "privacy" issue, then display only 123.456.789.xxx
If this is an issue, then simply display the country of origin. That will not be a privacy issue (surely!!), but will instantly weed out most of the spam/scan rubbish Gumtree is hosting.
I have offered before on behalf the community to assist with coding this for you f.o.c. if you do not have the resource. This offer was ignored. |
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montyzuma
Community Moderator
Joined: 25 Jul 2007
Posts: 7537
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| Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2009 10:39 pm Post subject: |
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they tend to work from standard scripts
but when you get them off the scripts
their standard of english goes to pot
plus they will readily give you a 07 no. that looks liks a standard mobile no.
but if you phone it it sounds strange and takes you abroad |
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nospam
Joined: 20 May 2008
Posts: 28
Location: London
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| Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2009 11:25 pm Post subject: |
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| montyzuma wrote: | | 07 no. that looks liks a standard mobile no. |
Usually 070xxx which is a mobile redirect. |
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nospam
Joined: 20 May 2008
Posts: 28
Location: London
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nospam
Joined: 20 May 2008
Posts: 28
Location: London
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montyzuma
Community Moderator
Joined: 25 Jul 2007
Posts: 7537
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| Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2009 11:25 am Post subject: |
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both gorn  |
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jonin60seconds
Gumtree Admin
Joined: 18 Mar 2009
Posts: 1291
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| Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2009 12:03 pm Post subject: |
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| montyzuma wrote: | | both gorn |
Which proves that we catch most of scams instantly or shortly after |
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jonin60seconds
Gumtree Admin
Joined: 18 Mar 2009
Posts: 1291
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| Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2009 12:04 pm Post subject: Re: IP addresses on all ads. |
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| nospam wrote: | I've asked this before but have been ignored.
PLEASE put the IP address of the poster on ALL ads. From this the approximate country of origin can be seen by all.
This will help to get rid of 90% of the overseas scammers who currently make up some 20% of all the ads on here.
It's a 10 minute job to implement and 20 mins if you want to include a little flag. |
There are much better solutions than IPs because these can easily be masked. We are working on some longer term solutions |
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nospam
Joined: 20 May 2008
Posts: 28
Location: London
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| Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2009 12:25 pm Post subject: |
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| jonin60seconds wrote: | | montyzuma wrote: | | both gorn |
Which proves that we catch most of scams instantly or shortly after |
True. Indeed, there are a lot of us that help. However, you haven't answered my question: where did these get posted FROM? You are keeping IP addresses aren't you? |
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nospam
Joined: 20 May 2008
Posts: 28
Location: London
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| Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2009 12:27 pm Post subject: Re: IP addresses on all ads. |
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| jonin60seconds wrote: | | There are much better solutions than IPs because these can easily be masked. We are working on some longer term solutions |
... but - here we go again - IP addresses can be used in the SHORT term. This can be implemented before close-of-play tomorrow if you wanted. But it seems you are doing the best you can to avoid this form some reason.... |
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jonin60seconds
Gumtree Admin
Joined: 18 Mar 2009
Posts: 1291
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| Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2009 1:13 pm Post subject: |
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| There is an argument that we can be sued for publishing private information so we can't do it. Forget privacy, it's against the law. What else can I tell you? We just can't do that. |
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nospam
Joined: 20 May 2008
Posts: 28
Location: London
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| Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2009 2:26 pm Post subject: |
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| jonin60seconds wrote: | | There is an argument that we can be sued for publishing private information so we can't do it. Forget privacy, it's against the law. What else can I tell you? We just can't do that. |
Would you like to quote the sections of "the law" that you are referring to?
My suggestion - which I get the drift you are going to ignore - is NOT to publish "private" information, but to just give an indication as to which country the poster is from. This is not "personally identifiable" information, but will assist in the potential purchaser's decision as to whether to proceed with a deal.
Other sites, such as eBay and Kijiji publish the location of the item, for example.
Gumtree's rationale was "as a local London classified ads and community site...". Allowing users from, say, Nigeria or China, to post ads goes against this.
SO, you have NO argument as to why you do not implement a simple IP->country display for ads.
BUT, as I get the feel from your attitude, you are NOT going to do this, thus, I give up. |
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jonin60seconds
Gumtree Admin
Joined: 18 Mar 2009
Posts: 1291
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| Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2009 2:50 pm Post subject: |
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I don't believe you are hearing us: The dodgy guys use UK based proxies which make them look like they are in the UK and so their location would say UK, so it will not help anything, hence the reason we are working on much more robust solutions which unfortunately will take a bit longer.
Trust me we have some of the brightest developers working hard here to implement the best solutions, we take this very seriously |
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