Recently, there was a massive phishing scam on the platform in which scammers created many non-verified accounts and sent messages to members trying to lure them to web links where they would be asked to give money.
In response, the Home Exchange team has temporarily stopped the ability for non-verified members to send messages to full-members of the community.
In my opinion, this should be made into a PERMANENT change. I believe that the risk of encouraging scammers and nuisance messaging is far more damaging than whatever minor benefits are gained by giving messaging ability to non-verified members.
Instead, I urge the Home Exchange team to consider another alternative which is less risky but is better for encouraging honest non-verified members to become fully verified and paid members.
This alternative would be to give non-verified members the FULL functionality of the Search algorithm, and to allow non-verified members to see the complete photos, narratives, amenities, and approximate locations of the member’s homes which are displayed by the search results. In my opinion, this would be a greater incentive for non-verified members to become full members because they would get a MUCH better idea of the range of homes available to full members. Non-verified members would NOT be able to send messages of any kind or to offer exchanges to any homes.
I can say from personal experience that I have described the benefits of HE membership to many friends, colleagues, and family members; and some have joined and become full members. But many more have not joined, and one of the primary reason is the very limited narrative, amenities, and photo examples that they see when trying to view homes using the limited searching abilities available to them.
My suggestion would reduce the risk of scammers getting into the system and defrauding members, but would create a new functionality to encourage non-verified members to become fully paid verified members.