Can I sue Jon (and a couple of mods) for negligence if someone scams me in SBT?

bcc423

bcc423

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Dec 16, 2008
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Well, not really in my plans. But I run a forum with a buy/sell section, similar to SBT here.

Apparently, one user ripped a few people off. So now, they are talking about suing that user, me and one of the mods to get their money back.
If they can't get their money from the seller that ripped them off, they want to argue that I was supposed to protect them somehow, and the fact that they got ripped off is the result of my negligence and maybe even complicity.

The dollar amounts of those orders are laughable, and I doubt they'll actually sue. It would cost more to file paperwork.

But that got me thinking. Is it possible to argue that forum owners can be held liable for shit that happens among users even when there is a disclaimer stating that all deals are made directly among users and that the administration cannot be held responsible?

I'm going to talk to an attorney next week, but until then I just wanted to ask around what you think.
 


Unless you are privy to the scamming, and they can prove it, you can get fucked over. Otherwise no, they can't do shit and they can't blame you. If you fail to remove scammers from your site after being notified then you may start to run into grey area if they continue to scam people.
 
Rage9 said:
I would slap up a disclaimer and be done with it.
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bauss said:
agreeeed
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bcc423 said:
Is it possible to argue that forum owners can be held liable for shit that happens among users even when there is a disclaimer stating that all deals are made directly among users and that the administration cannot be held responsible?
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You should be able to get out of that if you had the disclaimer in place when it happened. Your lawyer will know best, not here.
 
You could also be more of a dick, get the community to turn on the person and basically black ball them. Then every time you access the BST section you need to click through a screen that says in very large print you are not liable for transactions made on the forum.

I doubt anything would come of it, probably just someone blowing off some steam after getting ripped off. If you take action and ban the offender that ripped them off, I would think that'd work even more to your favor.
 
Yeah, I've had the disclaimer right from the day I created that section.
I'm not really worried about getting sued in this situation. But one of my mods seems to be freaking out.
And she is a really good mod, so I don't want her to stop moderating because she is worried about getting sued.
 
eVandals said:
You should be able to get out of that if you had the disclaimer in place when it happened. Your lawyer will know best, not here.
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Agreed ask a lawyer, but I'd think that if such a thing was really possible there would be no forum BST sections or nothing like craigslist. I just think someone's a little butt hurt and it's probably not that big of a deal.
 
do what jon would do. ban their faggot asses. bounce their emails. add them to your 'fuck off and die list'
 
Absolutely nothing to worry about - I was actually in the same boat with a forum I was running. A guy got scammed in my b/s/t section, tried coming at me with a lawsuit, but had nothing because it's a forum and what I was told by my lawyer is this:

The definition of a forum is as follows:
"a public meeting or assembly for open discussion"
Which compares to a public park. If you're in the park for example, and someone gets murdered while you're there, you cannot be charged with murder for walking your dog. Same goes for the "Park owners" (being the city/state in most cases).

You'll be fine.
 
if they want to sue people over $x.00-$xx.00, I would say you are safe since they won't even be able to afford to sue. :xmas-smiley-016: Buy some xMas presents with the money; they aint never gonna see it bahahahah
 
Put a clear disclaimer that all the BST-Bull shit Threads are not the forum owners responsiblity and you are not liable for any fuckup.
 
vinnythejinny said:
Put a clear disclaimer that all the BST-Bull shit Threads are not the forum owners responsiblity and you are not liable for any fuckup.
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fuck that, you don't need any disclaimers. do these fools know what litigations costs?

business model recognition fail
 
CodSpot said:
Which compares to a public park. If you're in the park for example, and someone gets murdered while you're there, you cannot be charged with murder for walking your dog. Same goes for the "Park owners" (being the city/state in most cases).
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Not sure this is the best example.

e.g. you fail to mention in the above that you are the owner of the park.

e.g. if someone gets murdered IN YOUR HOME, you can be sued by surviving family if the situation was due to your negligence. Likewise, if someone falls down your front steps and hurts themselves, you can be sued. More so if your house is a public meeting place.

I think you're fine regardless, but you should have some type of disclaimer up...
 
You can't sue the forum owner in that situation, having good disclaimer and TOS is the best to not to get into any kind of trouble.
 
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