Mods & Members ,

Its been a written and unwritten policy of the Charcha that professional and business advertising is disallowed and a lot of posts flouting this norm have been deleted from the forum .

Looking at the signatures of some realtors on the board , it appears that they are like business cards - photos , phone numbers and contact details ....... and quite often it is read in their posts that ... I do this ... I do that ... etc ..

Isn't this covert marketing / advertising being practiced which is against the norms of the charcha and if yes , shouldn't iit be stopped ?

I thought Charcha was not meant as a medium to solicit business and hence such signatures flout this norm ....... if some one is interested , they can pm the CD member as is again a norm .

Please share your sincere views.

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Fido.

Fido,
If you will remember, BL has said that they were allowed to have their info. in their signature only AFTER they have been in the Charcha forum, long enough and have given some unbased opinion regarding house buying / mortgages etc... Almost all of them do not (if not never) openly solicit any customers except that they sometimes give examples from their own experience. The other factor is that they would have advertised their services (as a logo) in CD after paying the required fee. As you might be aware, CD needs a lot of funding to pay for its day to day expenses as well as webhosting.
I personally have no problems with these signatures.
However, We see that from time to time, we see some people put in their professional signatures and solicit CD's from day one. The mod's have been doing an excellent job in warning these people / deleting their signatures / posts.
Just my humble view.
Peace by TK

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I am a Gents and not a Ladies.

I see no harm in putting in their business information on site. After all, these are the people; we turn to, for all the free advises and (at most) thank them. Mere 'Thanks' can't run the show. I remember a gentleman in immigration field here helped a lot many persons but had to put in after imparting load of free help.

Then there are other kinds of postings (which needs monitoring) when the sole purpose is solicitation, like; “… have anyone used %#$& calling plan ... " and many chip in with what they have or "… I make $$$ per week by Forex and want others to learn the ‘secrets’ and get rich." There is a thin line between advertising and sharing information and I believe there are persons (moderators) responsibly filtering it.

Not vouching for any particular post; just my personal views.

-Ben

You must be referring to Massood ... You know what , I felt that Massood was not on CD for business purposes but you make me think twice now .... may be he did not get enough business out of CD and hence he left .....

So that means some 'experts' help in funding CD and are allowed to put their signatures so that they can get business from 'charcha' indirectly . Or after certain age 'members' can put their business information on CD .

Well I thought that charcha was a purely free advice sharing business ......... Thats what a lot of members , Hiren , G13 , Sudesingh and all have been doing ..

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Fido.

I don't see any problem putting " signatures" as long as they dont dont directly promote their service ..

as TK said, don't forget they have been contributing free on CD forum with their expertise and lot of CD's has benefited.

but again spamming and excessive advertising should not be tolerated even if its an senior user

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'Some goals are so worthy, it's glorious even to fail.' (Param Vir Chakra awardee Lt. Manoj Pandey)

I am surprised by the fact that, none of the real estate guys have replied to this thread.

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Amit Shah
Financial Advisor
Cell : 647-296-2609

I personally have sought help from Pramodji (financial related) in the past by calling the telephone number on his signature. He gave me the best possible help on my query even though he didnt get any financial gain from me. So for me having the signature on the post helped greatly in reaching out to someone who have in the past helped lots of people with his valuable advice. In fact we should be thanking them (Realtor's and financial advisors and anyone similar) for taking their time to help others.

This is just my opinion. Have a good day.
Regards

NYD