Back in 2001, the forum was just starting out. The members mainly were customers of the Modelsport shop, and had a real interest and passion for the hobby. As the forum had aimed to be a community to bring together enthusiasts of RC cars, there was a sense of friendship and people didn't mind helping out others with advice, knowledge or even free parts.
As the forum grew, our membership shot up as the reputation the MSUK-forum built became known as THE place to go if you wanted to find something out about your RC car. However, with this increase in forum traffic, naturally, it brought an element of life that we never like to see - the scammer trying to make quick cash. Case in point, was 2007, a young man who decided that our 13,000 members were a prime target to make money. Due to the legal/court involvement on our part, we cannot use his real name or identify the member, so we'll refer to him as "Tom".
Now, the easiest way to scam someone is to sell something you don't actually have. So, Tom realized that he could do his deed by jumping on the idea of the most popular RC car of recent times, a HoBao Hyper 7. He spent around....oooooh....10secs on Google images to find some pics of a Hyper 7 in decent condition, and then listed it for sale on the forum. He threw together a vague description and story about how he'd bought it, loved it, took care of it, but as times were tough, it needed to be sold, and he was asking a mere