But the plan was not that one or two people 
could simply say - "this is a scam" and we 
would post it as fact. 

There are certainly cases where there's some 
kind of personal issue going on. But there are 
also situations where it's obvious to people 
who know what they're doing that - for instance 
- something is a fan-made cel or very likely to 
be so. Someone who's just gotten into 
collecting might not know the difference and 
could easily get ripped off by someone who is 
selling it as the real thing. (NOTE - this is 
JUST an example) Since things like the 
Cartoon Network's programming have 
introduced a lot more people to anime, that 
means that A) there's more "newbies" and B) 
there will be more people ready to take 
advantage of them. It happens in every similar 
market. 

I think at the very least a site which lets 
newbies know in simple terms how to protect 
themselves from scammers, combined with a 
POSSIBLE section of KNOWN 
scammers/current scams (i.e., people who 
have been tossed off eBay because of their 
activities but have returned, those selling a cel 
that someone on the forum can prove THEY 
own) would be a very useful service to them. 
I'm kind of a newbie myself, and someone at a 
convention tried to trick me into buying 
something that was falsely advertised. Luckily 
I knew enough at that point to recgonize it for 
what it was. But that was just good timing. 
 
I don't really think that setting up a site with 
some info about possible scams and ways to 
recognize them is comparable to the Third 
Reich. There is a big difference between 
keeping someone informed and keeping 
someone controlled. I'm not sure who even 
introduced the term "police force" into it. But 
don't take THIS as a personal attack, either. 
You raise some important issues, but not 
ones that are impossible to address. 

Ayaka