Originally Posted by Village Genius You are assuming everyone will always be honest. To use the last thread as an example, Jordan could have typed up those logs herself (I am not saying she did) and completely lied about his communication. It is not always easy to see who is lying. Some cases are clear cut, but certainly not all of them. IM logs can be made up and anyone can say anything. The iTrader does not focus on an investigation, it focuses on how many clients of yours ended up happy. The fundamental problem with Anthony's iTrader could happen to the threads as well. No one would leave a bad rating for him, meaning they are either idiots or became happy in the end. If the vast majority of his clients ended up being happy the threads are the ones that conveyed inaccurate information; not the iTrader. Anthony was not banned as a result of that thread or any info in it, a member who had not even posted there came to me with proof that he scammed. The thread accomplished nothing.

I am not assuming everyone will be honest, I know that they won't be. However, it is fair to allow both parties to be given the chance to post their side of the story and let any future clients who come across it make his/her own decision. If you wanted to hire Jordan, which would you prefer as a reference:

1.) A few words saying something like: "Scammer, liar, thief!"?

or

2.) A detailed description of what actually went on during this transaction, whether it be truth or false, as well as the other parties response?

Given option two, it would then be much easier for you, the client, to make your own assumptions and contact both parties (if you wanted to) to dig deeper into what happened.

The iTrader could be false as well, but just as you guys said (Moderators), you can't be the ones to investigate and judge, so what makes the iTrader reports any more reliable than an actual thread? At the very least, you're getting some kind of information to go off of if given a thread.

I could easily gather 10 people on my MSN contacts list right now, get them to register here and make false iTrader reports on anyone, including myself.

The thread did accomplish something. It warned others of his poor project management skills which happened to be true. It saved me and countless others out of wasted time and perhaps even money. Not only that, but it still serves (if it isn't deleted) as a contribution a long with other threads on various other forums as evidence of his poor services.

If it wasn't true, then Anthony would have poked his head in and responded, but he didn't because he knows that he was in the wrong and had no defense.

I'm not saying that the iTrader system simply doesn't work, but not allowing these threads certainly doesn't help at all. (Sorry for using myself as an example again, but I don't go around studying peoples iTraders). My iTrader rating is currently around 83.3% or so, which I find embarrassing due to how hard I work to keep every one of my clients 100% satisfied. There is no telling how many people have turned around from hiring me because of that low rating, especially since they couldn't find any testimonial threads about my services.