Classifieds - Page 2

I made this suggestion before, now I make it again:

Why don´t you force people to fill out some form prior to advertising dogs, like

for adult dogs:

Country of origin
Pedigree - which club FCI/AKC/something else
HD result - either the result or no
ED result - either the result or no
DNA - yes or no
Date of birth
Official titles
Proven stud / dam - yes or no

for puppies:

Sire - date of birth, titles, health tests
Dam - date of birth, titles, health tests
Pedigree - which club FCI/AKC/something else
Date of birth
Dewormed - yes or no
Health checked - yes or no
HD/ED guarantee - yes or no - timeframe

only the basic stuff

This would be pretty easy to fill out, not instead of the personal text, but on top of - visible for any potential buyer.

There would still be scams, but for a unhonest seller it´s less dangerous to conceil something, than to lie openly in an ad, visible for everybody.

Further on it would be very productive to install a "report abusive" button for ads, too...

Or we could charge a small amount for ads and most of the scams and stuff would probably disappear. Plus Oli could make a few cents off them.

Personally, I think you are correct GSA Admin. If you charge to advertise most of the scammers will scram!

Susie - I don't think I could talk Oli into the type of system you are wanting. But I will never say never. It won't happen in a week or month but I promise the next time Oli gets in a programing binge, I will bring it up. I will copy your suggestion to an unsent/draft email so I can have it ready when the time is right. I just want you to know the admin are in almost 100% agreemment on the points you are making.

Yes I also agree that more information is needed.

1. scammers will have a harder time.

2. It might help sellers to sell their dogs/items easier if they gave full information to the buyers from the start.

Can't say how many times I have looked at an ad and wondered about the pedigree (telling me who the g. g. .grnd parents are does not work

What titles of animal offered or direct parents same for health test. 

How about the price, a good picture or two  the registration number etc a way to contact you other than a foreign phone number, emails would be good.

Reading serious only no time wasters is not a way to get me to inquire. Of course if you had all the information needed about the dog posted we would not have to call and ask then be wasting your time and ours. 

Rider, my basic rule of thumb has always been that an ad that makes no mention of health certs & titles on the parents of pups IS speaking volumes to the reader: it tells us that there are no health certifications & titles.

If an ad mentions grandparents, uncles, cousins, half-siblings, etc., but says nothing of the parents' accomplishments, that ad tells us the parents have nothing that made them breed-worthy in the first place, save for working reproductive organs.

I'm actually OK with an ad not including the price; sometimes, when a seller is contacted by a person who they'd rather not place their dog or pup with, the easiest way out is to quote an outlandish price that no one in their right mind would ever pay. If the price is in the ad, that option is lost...

Hexe all you said is so true and how I go about reading an ad and whether or not I want to look further. 

So true if you have nothing good to say about BOTH parents it says volumes.

I just hate when little to nothing is posted that is needed to sell  the dog and then they say no time wasters.  Well if they posted as much about their dog that a buyer may need,  they would not have people call them and ask the questions then say no because they did not meet the buyers requirements.

Then they are mad because we wasted their time.

 

I'm not convinced that having to pay a LITTLE to place ads would weed out all that many scammers. Many would calculate that the value of sales coverage they get would outweigh a small outlay on advertising. Having to answer questions / provide info would however be quite off-putting. But on the other hand if you can 'read' what's not in an ad, as Hexe says, it can tell you an awful lot ! Why not some small permanent banner under the ads to remind buyers they should look for enough details. Permanently in front of their eyes, it might serve to cue the buyer to due diligence AND remind the seller they should be able to include relevant information.

to all of you!

Hundmutter, guess you are right about the money aspect, this won´t help.

About the banner - a lot of people looking at ads are newcomers, they don´t know how to "read between the lines", because of that I really believe in "the more (written) standardized information, the better".

It would be an eye opener for even inexperienced buyers, reading several ads, some of them with a lot of informations, and some of them almost blank.

On every ad placed here we have a large warning " Avoiding Scams ", I wish everyone using the classifieds would read it first. I doubt some of them do, we have caught so many of these scammers over the years but there will always be some that get by us. Believe me I spend most of my time here hunting them down!!