' The only real protection is the insurance offered by HPI . '

Read their Ts & Cs very carefully, there are lots of hoops to jump through if you need to claim.

I think you need an expert for this auto problems. It is really irritating whenever you go to a dealership and get crowded by three or four sellers attempting to sell you something. I came across a site that helped me pick out one of the very best sellers in my area. It was much simpler to look at all of my options, and the sellers were there as soon as I needed them. With xxxx you get the most perfect vehicle buying experience achievable. So stop by xxxx now!

(Edit: attempt at free advertising removed)

Edited by Avant on 27/12/2012 at 18:38

Geography not a strong point with Yanks?

No we don't, Thunderbird. Not for the first time, it would help if you got your brain in gear before your keyboard.

You can't prevent a new poster from registering with a new E-mail address, although we can and do ban persistent spammers if their domain name is the same for each new address. We also disable their account, which usually stops the one-offs.

We take this action because it isn't fair on our advertisers who pay. There's no need for this to annoy anyone else - just ignore them.

To be fair to Avant (as he's the one that seems to do the vast majority of moderating), the point is not being able to tell the difference between a paying advertiser and a scammer - it's telling the difference between a scammer and a straightforward member of the forum like you or me. Once someone has posted something offensive, they can be banned, but there's nothing to prevent them from re-registering under a different name and e-mail address.

What I don't understand (not being particularly good with computers) is why the site cannot detect IP addresses and use these to identify persistent offenders.

I do agree that sometimes it seems to take a long time to remove offending posts, but I imagine that's down to how many moderators are on duty at any time; my guess is that it's mainly Avant and he's not on duty that much. No doubt he has other things to do and maybe the site needs more moderation, in the form of more time/people working on it.

Thank you very much, FP and RT, for your helpful comments.

in fact I look at the forum most days, usually in the evening as a refuge from TV, and Boris the Spider is often there in the morning. We remove links from those who try for a free advert and disable their accounts: this normally sees off the majority who don't come back.

There haven't been many serial offenders until recently - some outfit in Vietnam it seems - and once I realised that he kept coming back I asked our developer for help, and he was able to get shot of the idiot - probably by blocking the IP address.

We act, of course, to protect paying advertisers, who are known. It's mildly annoying for the moderators, but not really an issue for anyone else: forum members normally have the sense not to open the link.

What I find far more annoying is a small minority of posters with too much time on their hands who continually complain (ignoring the fact that the mods are volunteers) and - much worse - make grumpy, unhelpful comments to new, often inexperienced, original posters who are simply asking for advice. Even if the mess they have got into is self-inflicted, we can still offer sympathy; or even if there's not much we can do to help, giving the position straight and without reproach, as Dwight Van Driver does, is very useful and part of what this forum is for.