I've been on BTCJam for a few months now and both invested and borrowed heavily.  I've been scammed by 3 users which I put down to my own lack of caution.  Could more be done to help new users navigate the site and be given tips to spot scammers?  Sure!  But that's not a fault of BTCJam - it's just a lack of a feature they could have.  I currently administer a facebook group for users of BTCJam, we're almost 300 members strong - I won't post a link because I just signed up today and think that would be frowned upon. In that group we discuss tips and our experiences with various users.  Since connecting with some of the other strong members of the community I am confident investing.  Two amazing sites have spawned from the group for helping investors - one scrapes data from BTCJam and compiles awesome charts and figures on each user, and the other is a full-fledged community site (launching soon).

Let's not forget the philosophy that makes Bitcoin awesome - no central, top-down authority.  This is community - for BTCJam to become stricter on borrowers would also be to become more authoritarian.  Not that there should be no rules - but Bitcoin and BTCJam is so new that us early adopters are the ones who bare the effects of the teething pains and make this industry/community safe for all of our friends and family to join us here in the future.  I'm happy to pay the costs and put in the work to make it safe - I'm not going to pass the buck to others.

For all of it's teething pains - BTCjam is one of the most important developments in recent history.  Access to capital at any time without pleading to the banksters is too important - I'm thinking mostly of it's use to the third world where startups can acquire funding by sitting down with their phone for 20 minutes. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater here!