As someone who was a participant on Ivan's RS84 buy who did file a paypal dispute after what I suspected was a reasonable amount of time for a reply in the original thread, I think part of the blame is also on the buyers to use common sense to see if a situation is super fishy.





Note: I had both emailed Ivan myself (using the email that was used during the paypal transaction) and looked in the thread and Ivan's profile for an update. I waited as long as I could during the paypal dispute window to make one. I didn't do it because I wanted my money back, I did it because I did not trust that the Group Buy was going to go through.





During all of this, I saw numerous posts in the original thread about people saying that Ivan was a good guy, that he had run buys before, that you should just trust him, etc. In my opinion, this is the largest failing by the geekhack community- assuring others that everything was OK when they had obviously no idea what was going on.





What the mods need to do to ensure this shouldn't happen again is this:





1. Do not allow users that are not connected to the group buy itself to issue statements about the validity of the gb's progress in the thread. Yes, there are senior members in gh that I personally trust. However, I don't think it's fair for those that are disconnected from the actual logistics of the buy to post things like "don't worry, he's trustworthy" or "He/She will pull through, just give it time". Being unavailable through the forum and unresponsive IS cause for concern, especially when handling over $10,000 worth of gh members' money.





2. Do not base Group Buy Leader eligibility over post count, rather keep the current requirements: 25 posts/2 months. High post count/Seniority make no difference in whether or not the person is a scammer. I had purchased my GMK Hyperfuse set off of sethk_ and at the time, he seemed like he was a reputable member of gh. He had a high post count and was a member for a long time. Obviously, his group buy fell through as well. In fact, of the recent issues with group buys they've mostly been caused by members that had high post count/seniority.





3. Require images of paid invoices and independent confirmation from the manufacturer that the order has been placed. In the case of Miami Nights, the payment to GMK was never made. If an invoice isn't made within 60 days (which is a reasonable amount of time for the GB leader to collect funds and transfer funds to their personal bank account and make an invoice), people are still able to file paypal disputes in that time. An image can also be doctored, so to ensure that the order is actually placed, the GB leader should notify the manufacturer to allow an outside party (perhaps an admin@geekhack.org) email to get confirmation that the order had been placed and to put that confirmation in the OP.





4. Allow mods access to a list of group buy participants. This way, if an invoice isn't made in the required time periods, group buy participants can be sent an email telling them that the leader has not abided by the Group Buy rules and to check the original thread for more information. Note: I don't think this email should include advisement to file a paypal dispute- that is the point of Caveat Emptor. Rather, this just provides information for the buyer to make a better decision.





5. Suggest new members to use PMK/MD during the IC phase if it applies.





6. Do not involve yourselves as some sort of intermediary other than the checking the paid invoice phase- I do believe that there shouldn't be any sort of warranty, refund, etc. attached to a group buy. However, ensuring that the group buy get off of its feet is not any of those things.





7. While I like the idea of posting 2 week updates, making sure this happens is beyond the control of the mods. The group buy could be running smoothly and have no updates until the product arrives at your doorstep. Furthermore, how are you going to force people to post updates anyways? Would failure to update result in a ban? In this case, scammers wouldn't not care- collect money and gtfo. Why would they stick around and use time to make up stories about their fake gb?





8. Having a secondary person is also a good idea but one that I have no clue how it would work effectively. If the GB leader doesnt respond to the second person, you're still out of luck.





Finally, as a community as a whole: don't antagonize people that are nervous about where their money is. It's perfectly reasonable to want to know where in the process the group buy is. Not all people have a large amount of discretionary income to spend on this hobby. I've seen numerous posts around the idea of "when you join a group buy you should forget about where your money is and one day you'll have a nice surprise". If we have that type of attitude towards group buys, more scams are going to happen because we're basically asking for it. Being distrustful of group buy leaders should be expected: at some point everyone participates in their first group buy. It can be scary and daunting knowing that your money is somewhere and you don't know whether or not what you receive will be what you want or if you'll even receive it at all.