Bernard:

I sincerely appreciate your comments and concern. You are one of the old-timers, who have shown great support for OnTheDash and ChronoTrader over the years.

For me, it is entirely a matter of time. I have a demanding job, a wonderful family, and the watch thing is supposed to be a hobby. On a given night, or over the course of months, I can engage in something creative and satisfying (photos, writing, research, databases, etc.), or I can patrol for the bad guys. Migrating the discussion forum and ChronoTrader will be an enormous undertaking, which will have some satisfying aspects and also involve some tedious work.

If someone can suggest a path forward, as to how we can collaborate and share the burden, I will be interested. But in the short term, this is just not the kind of project that I am ready to undertake (meaning, putting everything else aside, and spending all my time working on the forums).

Jeff

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

: Hi Jeff,
: I can understand you take this personal. That was never my
: intention. I think you know that.
: I have repeatedly underlined all the fantastic work you did and
: still do for OTD.
: But that doesn't mean we cannot reflect on certain things. The
: thing to reflect on in my opinion is the Chronotrader platform.
: We all know that you don't have the time to scan everything. We are
: not asking that from you.
: So of course others will have to step in and help. These scammers
: have all the time in the world. Time that you don't have.

: And they are making victims. Believe me. Almost every week.
: Otherwise they would not be here.
: I have been a victim twice. Once here and once on OF. It's not very
: fun to admit how naive you have been.
: People telling you how stupid you have been. In the OF case I was
: scammed by a very known VRM and OF member.
: When I wanted to post a warning about that scammer on VRM my post
: was deleted. Finally it turned out that several other VRM
: members had had issues with that guy.
: So when you mention only 4 reported cases of people being ripped
: you will allow me to believe that in fact the number is much
: higher.
: I cannot speak for Chrono24 but I can for Ebay and OF. On Ebay a
: buyer has the Ebay protection program. So it's impossible to
: lose money there.
: OF you need to build up a reputation first as an active member with
: a minimum of 200 post, then you get a security check. And then
: at last every sales post is reviewed by several moderators.
: It doesn't mean that every buyer is safe 100%. Any trusted member
: can turn to the dark side at one moment, exactly what happened
: to me. But chances of being scammed are so much smaller. I think
: we will all agree on that.

: So again, it might take money, time and people to improve things
: just a little. I am prepared to help. I know some others that
: are prepared to help.
: But I am also ok with leaving things as they are. I will accept
: that. If we think that it is not worth the effort.
: But that doesn't mean we can't reflect. And that doesn't mean we
: cannot tell people to be careful.
: In short that was all I wanted to say.

: So again, my apologies if my message sounded ungrateful.
: In fact I can only be grateful for a fantastic place like OTD. And
: I really mean that.

: Best regards,
: Bernard