Trade Status - What is it? Why should I avoid those that don't have it.

Hi All,

I just wanted to take some time to explain what is and why we have the "trade status" scheme and why you might want to consider avoiding those that are clearly traders but aren't a member of the scheme.

Trade status is less about "labelling" certain individuals or identifying them so you can avoid them. Though I appreciate this may be the case on other sites. The intention of trade status on this site is to reinforce a "link" of trust and to highlight those people that we believe to be trustworthy. And conversely highlights those without trade status and who have either not gone through the process, have failed in their application or have had trade status removed.

Applying for trade status is 'free and easy' and I'm sure most with trade status would agree. Therefore whilst on this site, if you are approached by someone selling/promoting services, products, etc (even via PM) and you suspect they are doing so for the purposes of profit I would highly recommend not engaging with them and reporting the incident to us via the contact us link. (http://www.vpcuk.org/forums/sendmessage.php).

Ultimately the trade status scheme is to help protect members but also to help those good and decent traders from being tarnished by those that are not good and decent.

We have been running this scheme for a long while now and there really isn't any excuse for those that should be registered as traders not to be. (Unless they have been denied trade status or had it removed for some reason). Anyone looking to promote or sell their business, products, services, etc, even if they are not car related on this site (either publicly, through PMs, chat etc) need to be registered for trade status. (If you have been operating as a trader and approaching people on this site, even via PMs or chat this may be taken negatively into consideration during the application process).

Hopefully this post has gone some way to explain what the trade status scheme is (to highlight those members which are approved traders), why we have it (to protect members and the decent traders) and why you shouldn't deal with any suspected trader that doesn't carry trade status (because the application is easy and free, must be a good reason, protect yourself).

We will continue to try and protect members and traders, we are now looking into extending the process which automatically limits accounts for those that send PMs/Chats which match certain criteria's to identify the member as a spammer or as a disguised trader. (This would be similar to the automated process we deployed to catch previously banned members, if you find your account limited and you believe it shouldn't be contact us via the contactus link).

Those that are registered under the "trade status" scheme have the user title of "Trader". The following are a list of users currently registered under the scheme, if you spot someone who should be that are missing or someone who shouldn't be there then please let us know via the contactus link :)

(Up to date as of 30th December 2015)
caseyt5
churni
d5kerry
don kalmar union
Elk Performance
graemewelch
GRN Motors
Keri-WMS
Kingsford
Merc85
Nathlm
NorfolkVolvoSpares
partsforvolvos.com
readview
ron
Rufe
shark_90
silveruser
spokoluzik
swampy
Tim Williams
Tomcat
turbo-tuner
Vikki@RicaAlcester

And those that are registered as insurers. (Same as trade users but we allow a maximum of 3 insurers to operate on the site - User title Insurer):

ChrisKnottIns
DAN@ADRIAN FLUX
Tim@Prestige


Cheers :)

After a PM I've had I feel this needs a bump.

If you are looking to use the services of or buy something off someone who seems to be running a business or trade and they don't have "Trader" underneath their name you really really need to think why that is!