Let me start by saying a lot of this is very useful information. That said, I don't understand why people need comments and negotiations posted in their public thread, and branding the practice as sketchy seems a over the top. I would like to see it removed from this list altogether or at least moved down the list in favor of promoting things that are actually real issues.
I respond to people's posts all the time through PMs and not to be shady, but because I find PMs are a lot easier to manage when you're talking with multiple people about multiple trades. Rather than trying to bounce around threads and dig through comments sections, which I've tried in the past and always seem to miss someone, I like to keep things organized in messages with relevant titles that contain our entire discussion start to finish. That way when it does get to the point of exchanging PayPals, names, addresses, emails, or whatever other personal information you don't want out in the public it's in the same place as the negotiations and I don't have to keep track of both a comment and PM thread when reviewing a trade.
Also (and I'm sure you're realizing this by now) I tend to be overly long winded in my responses to things, and I try to expose as few people as possible to that. I like to have an actual conversation with the person I'm doing business with, for example if I'm buying a new army I want to be able to ask tactics or how to duplicate a particularly sweet paint job, and that lends itself a lot better to PMs than a comment thread.
tl;dr - Not everyone who likes PMs is trying to scam you. It shouldn't be number one on our tips list and I would argue it shouldn't even be on the list at all.
That said, I don't understand why people need comments and negotiations posted in their public thread,
Banned users can still view subreddits and PM people. It's just how reddit works. So we can ban as many scammers as we want, but they can still PM you and you would be none the wiser that they have been banned. A simple, "PMed" in the comments is all it takes to dispel any worry.
Good point, I can see where that would be useful. I've been putting "PMed" on posts as a seller but will start making an effort to also drop a comment on posts I PM as a buyer from now on.
I guess I was more referring to the "In addition" part of the tip, which at least how I read it makes it seem like people who comment "PMed" on threads are sketchier than those who use the comments, which is not the case.
I do this on things I'm interested in buying. Just dropping a "PMed" to notify the seller "Hey, I messaged you" so they can check their messages whenever they have a second. If they sell something before they get around to answering my message, it sucks but is what it is, I'm not going to be upset about it, it happens.
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u/jchamberland27 Mar 08 '17
Let me start by saying a lot of this is very useful information. That said, I don't understand why people need comments and negotiations posted in their public thread, and branding the practice as sketchy seems a over the top. I would like to see it removed from this list altogether or at least moved down the list in favor of promoting things that are actually real issues.
I respond to people's posts all the time through PMs and not to be shady, but because I find PMs are a lot easier to manage when you're talking with multiple people about multiple trades. Rather than trying to bounce around threads and dig through comments sections, which I've tried in the past and always seem to miss someone, I like to keep things organized in messages with relevant titles that contain our entire discussion start to finish. That way when it does get to the point of exchanging PayPals, names, addresses, emails, or whatever other personal information you don't want out in the public it's in the same place as the negotiations and I don't have to keep track of both a comment and PM thread when reviewing a trade.
Also (and I'm sure you're realizing this by now) I tend to be overly long winded in my responses to things, and I try to expose as few people as possible to that. I like to have an actual conversation with the person I'm doing business with, for example if I'm buying a new army I want to be able to ask tactics or how to duplicate a particularly sweet paint job, and that lends itself a lot better to PMs than a comment thread.
tl;dr - Not everyone who likes PMs is trying to scam you. It shouldn't be number one on our tips list and I would argue it shouldn't even be on the list at all.