very very poor taste - last night's e-mail re poor traders

[Stevebass4]

just logged into my e-mail account and noticed a message from Bugface.. and while i understand the need to keep people informed of bad traders - is it standard policy of HCW to divulge the person's home address for the world to see

I really find this quite disturbing that this info would be disseminated in such a manner. Does HCW not value one’s personal privacy?

I do hope the admin and mods re-thing the way they give out peoples personal infomation

[Aleja]

As someone who is out $7 to one of the mentioned bad traders, I'm glad that other people are warned about her. I think it was in very poor taste for these traders to conduct themselves in the manner that they did. It seems that without the address, bad traders could simply change usernames and continue their bad habits.

[ElaineHN]

Yep, I have to agree ... the bad traders made the choice to rob other people of money, postage, coupons, etc. According to info on the trading forum - http://www.hotcouponworld.com/forums...-included.html they were given more than one chance (with multiple attempts at communication over about a 4 week period) to make things right before being 'outed'. You don't get put on a bad trader list if you TRY to resolve problems, respond to the traders, mods, etc. I'd say they brought it on themselves.

However ... one suggestion might be to publish the STREET name but not the house number ... and the CITY & STATE but not the zip code. (I don't really care one way or the other ... but it might be worth considering.)

[MissChele]

Steve - I agree with you! Seems like a waste, especially if they are probably going to use a different ID or addy anyway. Granted, I have traded only a few times and have not been burned but this seems to be an extreme way of handling the problem. That info is already on the Bad Trade listing on HCW - I would think that would be enough.


Just my .02

MissChele

[Stevebass4]

Originally Posted by Aleja As someone who is out $7 to one of the mentioned bad traders, I'm glad that other people are warned about her. I think it was in very poor taste for these traders to conduct themselves in the manner that they did. It seems that without the address, bad traders could simply change usernames and continue their bad habits.

i am more concerned with the fact that HCW would think that is ok to notify their entire membership of someone’s home address.

and while I agree that it’s awful that there are bad traders – we are not talking about a LOT of money but rather a small amount but that is neither here nor there and who knows why things happen.

I know at times I might be slow BUT I would be irate if a website, any website thinks it's ok to send my PERSONAL information out in a mass e-mail

[MariaT]

I'm willing to bet that the address used for bad trades is not their own personal address.

[sbp]

From the Trading Rules FAQ:

To help protect our members HCW instituted a bad traders listing. This list will only be viewable to registered members and include the bad traders user id and address (city, state, and zip only). By participating in a trade with another HCW member you agree to this information being made public on the board. After 2 bad trades the offending user will automatically be banned.

This is one of the terms that each and every one of trading members agree to, before they are able to post in any of the trading forums, so it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone if their information is outed due to bad trades.

We wish there were no bad traders, but unfortunately they are out there. And while it may seem like small trades that don't amount to much, if someone is repeatedly doing bad trades, it can add up very quickly.

[bugface711]

I will address this and leave it here for members to read, and even to discuss but if the thread becomes insulting, it will have to be closed.

We do respect the privacy of our members. Members who join the site, make bad trades and leave them unresolved are put on the Hot Coupon World bad trader list with partial address. This is agreed to when you agree to become a trader at Hot Coupon World.

If a member tries to return with a different member name, our traders have access to part of the address so they are not also scammed before we can remove the trader again.

We are very dedicated to keeping these people off of the board, and this is one way we do that.

[little betty]

steve i think your right . only becuse it's not anybody else's bees wax! if they are a bad trader they should be banned and never be able to get back on.tha't the way it's been. let's just give it a long shot and say i bought a diffrent house and it belonged to some one on the bad trader list. no one would trade with me. i just don't think it's right.i understand hcw wants us to be aware but not giving out the home addy.

[queenofthehivemomof5]

The email was not sent to everyone at HCW it was sent only to members of the trader group. As this is the group of people that bad traders have an affect on. If you have signed up for the trader group here at HCW you are aware that if you do not fulfill your trading obligations you run the risk of your information being shared with other.

Other bad trading lists share a whole lot more information than just the street, city, state and zip. They share first and last names, all known email addresses etc. While we do respect ones privacy to an extent we want to give our members some measure of protection against bad traders. When members are listed on the bad trader list we have already banned them, and will continue to watch for then returning to our site with new Id's as best as we can. But providing a list of with some identifying information helps the member in some ways. There have been instances where a bad trader has come back and our members sniffed them out based on the information provided in the bad trader list.

All of that being said, the information is there in the bad trader listing and the email was to serve as a reminder. If you will look at the trader score of one of those listed this week you will see that she had (as of last night) 27 bad trades. I am saddened to think that someone scammed 27 or more of our members out of coupons and money.

I had discussed with our bad trader mods that we would list the street name and we just had not gotten that written in the rules before the email was sent out.

In the future we will send an email to all members of the trader group and the new trader in training when a new bad trader is listed.

The bad trader listing will include from this point on street name, city, state, and zip code.

If you are concerned about your privacy we strongly suggest that you don't have unresolved bad trades or ask us via PM to remove you from the trader group.

When all is said and done HCW has some pretty active trading forums and we just don't have a lot of tolerance for members that come to our site to scam our traders. We ask for all our members cooperation to report bad trades ASAP so that we can hopefully prevent someone from scamming our community.

I am respectfully asking that this thread not to turn into a drawn out argument on this topic. We are trying to protect our members and still protect the privacy of the bad traders. We encourage members to also report bad trades to Garnette's bad trader list as well....and she does not really take measures to protect your privacy. If you are concerned about your privacy you really should not be giving out your information to strangers on the internet (and I should also note that HCW does not collect your name and address when you register, if we have this information for bad traders it is because they have given it to the other traders)

If you have further concerns please PM me directly and we can discuss.