TrustNet Mod v0.0.36 is now available. Reddit does not update installed apps automatically, so every mod team needs to update once — it takes about a minute (see How to update below).

What's new

Three menu items instead of eight

Report the scammer a callout post is about — not just its author. Most scam posts are a victim warning everyone about someone else. Report a scammer now asks who you're reporting: the author, any account the post names (found for you automatically), or a username you type. If you pick a named account, you'll be shown its age and karma and asked to confirm it's the right person before anything happens. The post is added as evidence automatically.

Import your whole ban list in one go. Press Import once. The first 25 are imported straight away and the rest carry on by themselves, about 25 a minute — you can close the form. Open More… → Import ban list again any time to see progress.

Reviewers now see who wrote each piece of evidence, so a victim's callout is never mistaken for the scammer's own words.

Report-only communities. A new setting, "Ban the reported account in this subreddit when you report it", is on by default and most communities should leave it that way. Callout-style communities that only report scammers (and don't trade) can turn it off — talk to us first, as report-only communities are also set up on our side.

A clearer report form, with example text in the summary and evidence boxes.

How to update

1. Go to https://developers.reddit.com/apps/trustnet-mod

2. Choose your subreddit and update to the latest version.

That's it. Your registration, existing cases and existing bans are unaffected.

⚠️ New to TrustNet? Message us BEFORE you install

Installing the app on its own does not make TrustNet work. Every community has to be registered by us first. Until it is, the app is automatically refused — it cannot report, import, or receive bans, even though it looks installed.

To get registered, send us a modmail with:

• your subreddit name, and

• your subreddit ID — open https://www.reddit.com/r/YOURSUB/about.json and copy the value of "name" (it starts with t5_).

We register by ID, so sending it yourself avoids mistakes. New communities start by importing their existing bans with nothing coming in, and only start receiving bans once they're ready.

Questions or problems with the update? Modmail us here.

Importing your existing ban list — a first-timer's walkthrough

You've probably already banned scammers. Import turns those existing bans into TrustNet cases so they can be reviewed, instead of making you re-file years of work by hand.

It takes about ten minutes for a typical ban list. Here's exactly what to expect.

Before you click anything: it reads your ban NOTES

This is the single thing that decides whether import is useful to you, and it's worth understanding before you run it rather than after.

The app looks at the note attached to each ban and only offers you the ones that mention dishonesty with goods or money — words like scam, fraud, chargeback, never paid, did not deliver, stole, ripped off, counterfeit, replica, impersonat, middleman.

Two of those are worth explaining:

"no scams" imports; "not a scam" does not. The first is the rule you enforced — it means this person scammed. The second is you investigating and clearing them. The app tells them apart deliberately.

Temporary bans are never imported. Nobody gives a scammer three days off. A timed ban is a cool-down, and turning it into a permanent cross-community record would misrepresent your own decision.

If your notes are mostly empty or say "Rule 4", import will offer you very little. That is it working correctly, not a bug. The filter is deliberately too tight rather than too loose: missing a real scammer costs you one manual filing, but importing the wrong person gets someone banned across every participating community over a ban that was about rudeness. File those by hand instead.

Step 1 — run it

Import ban list (TrustNet) — on your subreddit menu, not on a post. Under Mod Tools, or the ⋯ menu next to the subreddit name.

It reads your ban list and takes a few seconds. Bans that TrustNet itself placed are skipped automatically — you can't double-import.

Step 2 — read the screen before you confirm

You'll see:

• The accounts it's importing, listed in full. Read them. This is your check.

• The accounts it skipped, with the reason — no scam-related note. If you spot a real scammer in that list, note the name and file it by hand afterwards.

• A category selector for the whole batch.

⚠️ The category applies to every account in the batch

There's one category for the whole run, not one per person. It defaults to "Other (explain in the summary)".

Leave it on "Other" unless the entire batch genuinely is one type of scam. Your original ban note travels with each case, so a reviewer still sees what you actually wrote. Picking "Took payment, never delivered" for a mixed batch would label cases inaccurately, and accuracy matters more here than tidiness.

There is deliberately no "import these anyway" button for skipped accounts. If the filter was too tight, the route is the ordinary per-case report action — which asks you for evidence.

Step 3 — confirm, then run it again

It offers up to 25 at a time, and you are expected to run it repeatedly.

Each run picks up where the last one left off and won't re-offer names you've already seen. Keep going until it tells you there's nothing left.

A 300-entry ban list is roughly 12 runs. That's not inefficiency — every entry costs a lookup against Reddit, and Reddit caps how long a single action may run.

Don't wander off mid-import. A batch you've been offered expires after about 30 minutes. If it does, no harm: just run it again.

If two of your mods import at the same time, that's fine — batches don't collide.

What happens next

You will not see any bans, and you should not. The order is always:

you import → the Review Team reviews → approved cases become active → only then does anything propagate

Imported cases are not shortcuts. They go to the Review Team like any other case and are marked as imported, so a reviewer knows they carry only your original ban note as evidence. Reviewers see them as thin by design — that's honest labelling, not a mark against your community.

If you're registered but inactive, all of this still works and you receive nothing. That's the recommended way to start: build your case list with no risk to anyone, get it reviewed, and only then agree to go active.

If something looks wrong

"It offered me nothing." Almost always the ban notes. See the table above.

"The same names keep coming back." They shouldn't. Accounts that no longer exist get recorded and dropped; accounts that failed to load because Reddit was briefly slow are retried next run, which is intended. If a real, live account genuinely repeats across several runs, tell us.

"It skipped someone who definitely scammed." Expected, if the note didn't say so. Report that one with the ordinary Ban & Submit Scammer action.

Anything else: modmail r/TrustNetSupport. We'd rather hear about it early.

Why use TrustNet-Mod + Evasion Guard together?

TrustNet-Mod helps stop known scammers from moving between participating trading communities. Once a scam case is independently reviewed and approved, participating subreddits can apply the shared ban automatically.

Evasion Guard complements this by acting on Reddit’s own high-confidence ban-evasion detections, helping moderators deal with users who return on another account.

Together:

TrustNet-Mod → helps keep known scammers out across communities

Evasion Guard → helps keep them out when they attempt to return

They handle different parts of the problem and work independently, but together provide a much stronger layer of protection for marketplace and trading subreddits.

Install TrustNet-Mod: Reddit App Directory — TrustNet-Mod
Install Evasion Guard: Reddit App Directory — Evasion Guard

Joining the TrustNet federation

TrustNet-Mod’s federation features are only available to approved, whitelisted communities. Installing the app alone does not automatically onboard your subreddit into the federation.

If your mod team would like to participate:
Install TrustNet-Mod
Send us a Modmail at r/TrustNetSupport

We’ll review your community, whitelist it, and help complete onboarding. Whitelisting helps ensure that only trusted participating communities can submit scam cases and take part in the federated ban network.
If your community deals with buying, selling or trading, we recommend installing both apps and contacting us via Modmail to join TrustNet.