A "Reference" is someone who has traded with you and is willing to vouch that the trade was successful.
The reference list is the primary tool which MOTL members use to decide if to trade with someone and the sending order.
The Logic behind this is simple: the more references a person has (meaning the more people he has traded with) the more reliable that person should be. Thus most cases a person with more references than you will ask you to send 1st. if you have a similar amount of references most likely you will send same time.
However many rippers take advantage of the reference system and fake their reference lists, hoping to find a "newbie" (=New member") who's not experienced enough to see the difference between a fake list and a genuine one. Whether you are new to trading or not, the following tips will help you identify the fake reflists and stop the trade on time. The couple of minutes you spend reading this article will save you a lot of time and trouble in the futureMost of you first encounter the references in the Haves/Wants forum when posting an offer on someone's list or when someone posts an offer on your list. The 1st thing you notice is:
quote:
John Doe
Member
From: USA
Confirmed Refs: 16
At this stage the number "16" should mean absolutely nothing to you. Its there for your convenience, but at this point you shouldnt do anything based just on that info. with a little more effort you can determine if that number is real
ok so lets say you want to trade with him. he tells you something like "i have 16 references and you have none; you are going to have to send 1st"
The next thing to do, and you should always do it, is to view his actual reference list. you do that by clicking on the link where it says "Confirmed Refs: 16"
You now should be viewing his reference list. The 1st thing you should notice is something like this:
quote:
Confirmed: 16
Motl: 12
Denied: 0
Unconfirmed: 4
Confirmed: Again you cant base a decision according to that number alone. he may have 16 references but they may all be fake. The only exception may be if he has a HUGE amount of references for example over 100. such an amount is virtually impossible to fake and most traders who have that amount are honest, but still you should examine all the rest of the Data
MOTL Refs: Those are references which have been given by other MOTL members. Some people assume that they are harder to fake and count only those references, but its a misleading assumption since those references can be faked as easy as non-motl references. Since many people are not members of MOTL its possible that someone will have many non-MOTL refs. You have to examine it along with the rest of the data.
Denied: Those are either references which the MOTL Reference system decided that they are fake (usually coming from the same IP/Computer) or that were denied by the recepient for some reason. If a person has many denied refs it should bring on a red light. view the denied refs comments for the reason that they were denied
Unconfirmed: Those are references which were submitted but havent been confirmed. you should ignore that number, it doesnt mean anything for our purposes. he may have a 10 or 100 unconfirmed references- until they are confirmed they dont play a part in your decision.
Now comes the really important part: Checking the references themselves. Scroll down and you should encounter the reference list. Here is an Example of what it can look like:
quote:
John@hello.com John (1) 09/15/2000 Traded > $100
jake@hello.com jake (1) 09/15/2000 Traded > $100
skizzik@hello.com Skizzik12 (2) 09/15/2000 Sold > $100
jack887@yahoo.com mtgguy (1) 09/15/2000 Sold > $100
cardz887@att.net.com winter (3) 09/15/2000 Sold > $100
magicgather887@pacbell.net Kavu (4) 09/15/2000 Sold > $100
Go over the list closely... Do you see anything suspicious?
The Column on the left is the email addresses of the references.
well 1st look again at the first 3 email addresses:
John@hello.com
jake@hello.com
skizzik@hello.com
As you can see they all come from the same server- "hello.com" which for this article lets say its a free email service like yahoo or hotmail. if you spot too many references coming from the same email service, especially if its not a popular one like yahoo hotmail or aol, it should raise some suspicions, Since free email addresses are easier to create.
Look at the next 3 email addresses
jack887@yahoo.com
cardz887@att.net.com
magicgather887@pacbell.net
All contain the numbers "887" and in most cases this shouldnt be considered a coincidence. A similarity in the Email addresses may point to the fact that its the same person. The number may be something that the ripper uses in all his aliases like his birthday or something. if you see too many similar addresses you should understand that there is something wrong here.
Now to the middle column which states the MOTL username of the reference and # of references (only if it belongs to an MOTL member).
Go over the MOTL usernames, clicking on them to open their profiles. search for similar data, such as same locations, same interests or same AIM handles. too much similarity may indicate a fake reference list. For example if all of the Profiles have "Ohio" in their locations, you should be cautious. Also if too many of the profiles have a red "Banned" in them, it may be a previous MOTL user who was banned and now re-registered under a different username and is giving references to himself.
The number between the brackets i.e. (2) show the number of references that member has. Start going over the numbers and clicking on them to open the reference list of each of the references. if all lists are similar (meaning there is a chain here of several members all being references to themselves) that list is probably a fake.
Even if you determined that the list is real, you should now Email those references to see what they have to say. Them most convenient way is by clicking on an option in the reflist which says Send e-mail to 10 randomly selected, confirmed references.
Read the replies. while it may delay the trade it will help you verify if the references are real. If you get very few/none replies it may indicate that the email addersses are just temporarily addresses which were created only for the fake reference list.
Most people dont bother to actually email the references and thats why most of the times the creator of the fake email addresses will not monitor his alternate email addresses hoping you will be satisfied only by the looks and size of his reference list.
While all this may seem a little complicated, once you get the hang of it it will take you a couple of minutes even seconds to determine if a list is fake or not. If you suspect a fake reference list or feel something is wrong, dont do the trade. go with your instincts and common sense.
If you have any comments or questions feel free to post them here.
Hope this helped,
Good luck and safe trading
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