We are now charging to post ads in our Personals section in most cities. It wasn't an easy decision for us to make, but we ultimately felt is was the only thing we could do to protect users and make the user experience more beneficial.The spam was very heavy in Personals and very difficult for us to manage. After fielding many great user suggestions on how to deal with the problem, we found that users would like to pay a very small fee so that their ad would not get buried. 99% of spammers are not willing to pay to post their ads.
Users who post in Personals can now post with confidence knowing that their ads will not get buried under spam. Additionally, this lowers the likelihood of users responding to fake ads. We've also implemented a feature which allows users ads to stay online for 365 days in most Personal categories which means more bang for your buck (literally...a buck).
If you want to remain completely anonymous, get an AMEX or VISA gift card, which are sold at most grocery stores and online. They work just like credit and debit cards, only they are prepaid, and no personal data is attached to them.
- Carl
Very nice to see this feature is up, but we really need to be careful on spamming issues.
ReplyDeleteIs the preauthorization charge more than a dollar
ReplyDeletePlease.Now only the spammers post in the personal section.Just browser through and you can see all of the posters are spammers. Now backpage takes bribes to post in the personal sections and the spammers who pay win. It would make more sense to make it easier to flag down spammers. Instead backpage gave in to the all mighty buck
ReplyDeleteI think it's a good idea to charge for the personal ads. If someone is really interested in meeting online then 1 dollar is worth it. If it prevents spammers from corrupting the whole forum---great!
ReplyDeletedear Carl @ backpage . com
ReplyDeleteYou must have me confused with someone who won't hunt you down
and f&*( you up for sending me spam. When will you freaks learn.
You can call it whatever you want but if someone did not request it - it's SPAM.
Any thing that will prevent spammers is fine. It is always a shame that it has to come to this.
ReplyDeletespamming sucks
ReplyDeleteI think $1 is great point . .
ReplyDeleteI think this is great
ReplyDelete