Wow. I have been following the threads being referred to here with much interest and shock. Clearly something has been happening between external parties which through diligent efforts of TDA and the team has been uncovered and managed well on the site.

Being a member & moderator on allot of active forums (external to this site) I appreciate the concerns of open posting etc which your (Robinhood) comment above makes referral to. This is however in my opinion what makes a forum a forum. Comments Good, Bad and Ugly are posted and the sites team will take down and manage anything which they feel is inappropriate or breaches the sites user agreement.

This community site (I would even go as far to refer to is as OUR community site as that is how most members I am sure will think of it) is well managed in both a fair and consistent manor. TDA does a fantastic job of this and the ÔÇ£expertsÔÇØ always offer fair and honest advice, feedback and comments.

Calling for the site ÔÇ£to learn from this experience and review its guidelines for making postsÔÇØ is unwarranted and unnecessary IMO as the rules which are in place are fair to all and managed well while clearly staying within the necessary public forum guidelines.

From my point when researching firms to undertake my TD I ÔÇ£interviewedÔÇØ firms from here and external to this site and found overall there to be a huge gap in what was offered to me and how it was offered.

Personally I would point the finger to allot of firms out there and say that more needs to be done to deal with their pressure sales tactics designed to pressure someone in a vulnerable position to undertake something which they do not necessarily have all the facts for. Thankfully I am a strong character who also works in sales (not industry related) and know when a pressure sales process is happening and can easily back of out it.

So for me TDA and the team. Keep up the excellent work. Do not feel you need change the site unless YOU want to. You help 1000's of people like me at a very dark time in our life's. Your hard work and dedication is appreciated!

Colski.

Hi Alan.

Some fair points.

Let's start out by saying we don't believe that the posts were genuine. We cannot be 100% certain, but as our level of confidence that something wasn't right increased we took steps to edit (and subsequently further edit) the material that was posted here.

There was positive communication between the site and a firm that was concerned about the posts. Where a firm expresses a concern about a post we'll always review what has been written and whether we need to take any action.

This has happened only on a handful of occasions over the years. From memory on the last four concerns presented to us before this one (the first of which is several years old):

1 - We had already deleted the post before the concern reached us.

2 - We rejected the concern because we were entirely satisfied that the post was genuine and had very solid evidence to that effect.

3 - We rejected the concern because we were entirely satisfied that the post was genuine and had evidence to that effect. The material was taken offline while it was investigated though.

4 - We deleted a single post from a topic because it became apparent that it was unfounded and unfair.

We have an internal editorial policy and process. We welcome feedback from any firm that is concerned about a post and we'll work with them constructively. We'll take action where we believe it to be justified.

We recognise the concern about competitor interference. We've no desire to facilitate that. If you ever feel that your firm is being misrepresented here please feel free to raise it with us offline and/or to exercise a right of reply on the forum.

Thank you very much colski.

In true public fashion, lets see how many times the post in question is read in the next 24 hours! I think it has jumped several hundred reads in the last hour or 2.

Fair points all round though.

Mark

My only concern is th?¿se concerns are raised, firms named and therefore defamed before the veracity of the comments can be established.

I would like to know if Sadtimes was genuine or not and if not is it possible to establish that person's identity, if so it Should be made known.

Hello again Alan.

In this instance, and at this time, we've decided not to do that.

That is your decision TDA. I think unfortunately the only one to suffer reputational loss from this whole incident is the Forum.

It surely must be a strong possibility the next time this occurs, any firm involved may consider legal action against those that own the Forum. Its not as if you can claim, with your procedures, you are not aware of the risk people may try and use this Forum to damage the reputation of others.

As you can probably imagine Alan we've taken a significant amount of legal advice about our responsibilities in connection to this forum.

That's how we've arrived at the framework that I previously outlined in this post and the policies/rules associated with registering to become a member and to post here.

3365 questions have been asked here since 6th February 2009 (there was also a previous version of the site with an unwieldy forum system that we abandoned). Many of those threads mention firm names. Not one has turned into a legal dispute.

If a firm objects to something that has been written we'll investigate and take action if we consider that to be necessary. Firms have the right of reply in the forum when they are mentioned. Individuals have accepted responsibility for what they write when they register.

I'm sorry to hear that the site has gone down in your esteem. We're going to carry on just as we were though.

Hi Alan.

If you click the little pencil icon in your posts (when you're signed in) you can edit your posts if you wish to.

I know what you mean about phones!

Thanks TDA assistant. Fixed.

Is this common practice for insolvency practitioners to hide behind profile names, Sounds to me like underhanded tactics are being used (this makes me angry). To the TD experts and TDA thanks, this site has helped me a lot in answering questions I have and doesn't make me feel alone in the world of debt as it once did.

Hi Sparky1, I don't know if you are referring to me, however, I am not an insolvency practitioner, but work in the industry. The TD Experts know who I am, and always have and I have known some of them for years and worked along side them in one capacity or other.

My real name is available in the User Profile and I declared my identity and interest when I came on.

Unfortunately, however, I suspect many who do work in the industry do monitor this site regularly, because often firms names are mentioned and occasionally this may be due to statements being made that are not true, as we have seen with Sadtimes.

I am not aware of any, unless Sadtimes himself is someone who works in the insolvency industry (and I would like to know if this is the case) who try and disguise who they are when commentating or responding. Most do so first by declaring who they are.

Hi sparky1.

I'm not sure that you were referring to Robinhood, but just in case you were he (as he has already written) registered using his own name in his profile from the start (which was viewable by any signed in member).

Just very occasionally people pop up here hiding behind usernames with an axe to grind about something that isn't quite what it seems. It's rare, generally arouses suspicion from the start if you observe the forum as much as we do, and there are ways to verify certain things when required.

I'm not aware that any insolvency practitioners have done this. It's sometimes slightly more peripheral than that.

Interesting.

However, unless it has been updated since yesterday, itis still the case that one of the websites mentioned in the original threads contains incorrect information about DAS.

that's a fact.