I have had a few reports of new users popping up on the forums offering parts via PM at prices that are too good to be true, and these parts never arriving once sold, and the user ignoring PMs and emails chasing them up.

This looks at face value like fraud/theft, so I have put together the following online purchase safety message.

When considering purchasing items from a forum member the following are absolutely essential:

1) Check the user's posting history. Have they only just registered and have very few posts to their name? They may have done this simply to get access to the PM system.

2) Get contact details from the seller, phone number (ideally not a mobile/cell phone), address. Simply having an email address at a provider such as Gmail or Hotmail and an account on a forum is not sufficient information to chase up any issues.

3) NEVER EVER pay via PayPal gift. If anything goes wrong you have no way of getting your money back. Reputable sellers will agree to pay the fees if they really want to sell you an item, and you then have PayPal on your side should anything go wrong. A gift payment is exactly that, a payment you can never get back should there be a dispute. A bank transfer is similarly risky as it is generally one-way only.

4) Consider the possibility that something could go wrong, even if the seller is genuine (such as items going missing in the post). What information do you need to be able to sort it out?

Be very, very careful about who you trust. Membership here is free and open and unlike a paid-for club there is no list of member's contact details to fall back on should there be an issue.

I cannot stress enough just how dangerous PayPal Gift payment is. DO NOT SEND MONEY BY PAYPAL GIFT. You have absolutely no comeback at all should anything go wrong. It is against PayPal's terms and conditions to sell goods and use PayPal gift for this very reason and I cannot understand why PayPal continue to offer it, giving it is used so fradulently.

I hope the above helps out and prevents members having money stolen but unscrupulous persons using the forum.

Any information anyone has about members who have been operating similarly to the above would be very welcome - please PM me.

Martin