Restrict NEW members from sending private messages?

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12 hours ago, TGO David said:

Update for February 7, 2022...

I am making some headway on this.  There are several features within our forum software that can be combined in just the right way to make it so that new members can receive and respond to private messages, but not start new private messages of their own.  This would cut down on the number of scammers who sign up and then try to message people who've posted "Wanted To Buy" type advertisements, seeking to scam with them with the usual sales pitches.

Stay tuned. 

 

I don't envy you trying to balance everything and get this solved, but I do want to toss out another opinion, based on some observations elsewhere; I recently saw a forum stop selling firearms so as to reduce their membership's exposure to the uptick in scammers doing what they do, scamming people via the internet. They still allowed the sale of accessories, but stopped member - member commerce in firearms occurring within the confines of their forum. This was done with full (or mostly full) concurrence of the membership. I'm not sure,  but I would imagine scammers targeting that board are using high end accessories as "bait"  now-a-days. My point there is that scammers will find an alternate route to relieving an honest forum member of their hard earned money and each restriction placed for the good of the membership should be weighed against it's own impact on the membership. I know limiting PMs by a new member is a far cry from stopping the firearms classifieds altogether, but boards end up like they do by incrementalism, not in one giant leap (usually).

I honestly think that each  member reporting a suspected scam to the site admins without hesitation and  membership being appraised (by some common banner type link?) of the most current scammer info for this board is the absolute best defense against the evolving trade-craft of the internet scammer.

In other words, I think it would be hard for you to keep outsmarting each new scam method with new member rules or intricate code changes, and it would be more effective and less intrusive for all members to look out for each other. (I think the alert that a PM is coming from a brand new member is a great idea if you can pull it off.)