Bitcoin Forum

I wanna buy an account and i wanna knw the kind of things i should watch out for when im buying a membership account on this forum

why do you need the account? --> Sig campain --> full member+!
How much BTC do you got for the Account?

better buy with escrow!

greetings

I would say the most bare minimum would be the member rank and trust as they are the main factors for signature campaign. Another optional but recommended thing is the post quality. Although some campaign doesn't enforce historical post quality rule, it would be better as you would have much more choices.
#forgot about signed message. They are the most important since the owner can reclaim the account unless you have proof that the ownership has been changed to you.

most important of all "Use Escrow"
also check to see if the seller is actually the owner of the account and it is not a hacked account. ask for a signed message from a known bitcoin address that was associated with that account long time ago.
like an address that was posted a month ago on an un-editted post/

Important thing is :
-Seller must prove account ownership
-Buyers must use escrow

Look at this section
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=93.0 and check some of those WTB and WTS bitcointalk account thread. Read the comments. Price range depends from the account's quality.

The important thing is use an escrow and sign message with their address, like what said a guys above me.

Also if you find an escrow here the list: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=108716.0

Sign message from last bitcoin address, post quality, have ever been banned or not, and trust. That's what I should do before buy an account. And maybe you too.. :)
escrow are recommended :)

Use an escrow when dealing with someone to minimize the risks you might face. Escrows do a good job on keeping a deal safe and secure. Also, when buying an account, ask the seller first whether the account has been banned in the past or not (though I am not sure on how to determine this one) so if the time comes that the bought account will be banned for some reasons, it will not receive a perma ban (a previously banned account is likely to receive a perma ban if the account commits an action against the forum rules or break the rules per se.) Also, buy accounts only with trusted sellers out there because there are still scammers willing to risk their name to just get some couple of BTC on their hands.

There is no way to know if an account have been banned or not, so the seller can lie without consequences. You will only know if your bought account gets banned

I am listing some imp. things you should know while purchasing an account -

1. You should ask for account link to verify rank, posts and other details.
2. Always check posts so if the seller doesn't requested any loan from that account.
3. Make sure that the seller shows a demo of the account to verify if its banned or not, use skype share screen for that

You probably don't want to hear this but you'd be better off growing your own account the normal honest way. The money you make from a sig campaign would take months to earn back what you shell out for a decent ranked account, so you could save the initial outlay of btc and simply use the time it will take to browse these boards, post, ask questions and learn about btc. I've been here years and trust me I've still got a lot to learn.
In a few months you can raise your rank, develop actual relationships and become a known and trusted member. If you buy an account and just start posting whatever to fulfill a campaign quota you will quickly make yourself obvious and be shunned or ignored and in the end have an overall empty and depressing experience here.
The choice is your's

when buying account you must use escrow for trade,also check accounts post history and trade history
also check the trust ratings of the users. most important is escrow, without escrow you are taking risk of losing of your money

1. Most account sellers doesnt tell anyone the name of the account they are selling or it will be flagged as sold account and maybe will get red trust
2. for me this is very important to be sure the account didn't got banned in the past
3. not needed. account can be checked by a trusted escrow.

I would say the following points are important:

* Use an escrow even for low amounts <$10. There are scammers that scam for less.
* For expensive accounts ask for a proof of ownership, like a signed message for a bitcoin address that was posted by the account
* Check the activity and the potential activity
* Ask for trust rating. Don't forget trust ratings not in default trust.
* Ask for bans in signature campaigns.
* Ask if the account got accusations against him in threads or so
* Ask if the account was banned from forum before
* Ask about post quality, though that is not so important
* Ask about where the posts happened, that's not so important too though.

You can let the escrow verify these things since a sane seller would not give out the profile link. It would be too risky.

Best suggestion here so far for me but of course it will take time and I doubt OP will do that because majority of btc users especially the new ones like to increase their btc fast.

Thanks for this post. Now I know a lot. Good share.

especially if you have just started using bitcoin i think it is much better to use your own account and post with it and increase your activity on your own to Member. because in the way up you can learn how the signature campaigns work and pay you and also improve your posting quality along with your bitcoin knowledge.

Look who's the account seller. I can't guarantee the account's quality if the account seller still newbie


how to prove it ? Because he/she can tell lies ...

^^ The buyer/escrow needs to inquire with the admin as well to get to know if the account was banned before. The escrow can also get an idea with the posting style of the account and checking the posts but it's a tedious job. That's why it is not preferred to buy accounts unless the seller is a reputed person of the forum.

I strongly suggest raising an account vs buying.  Chances are it is from an account farmer and you begin with low quality posts.

And you do not know account history it could be on last chance before ban for all you know.  Not knowing history is a big red flag in my mind.

That's why I enclosed a sentence stressing that it is difficult to know if the user was banned in the past or not. To prevent this, buy from a trusted account seller in this forum.

think about that if no one can know if that account is banned or not, why it should matter?

no point in determining if it is banned or not if you can not be secure at 100% about it

also he should require for a signed message which would proof that its not stolen and its also ok with buying full members

Are people still farming accounts, well at lease there is still a market for it, you really need a lot of free time to farm accounts on Bitcointalk.
Becoming a members is about a 2 month posting activity or so why not just wait.

As long as there are people who want to bypass the system there will be a market.  Chances are as there will always be account's for sell.

I still think people should raise their own account's.   Buying account's is just not a good way to start.  But I know there are those who will still do it.

it is not just people who farmed an account.
i am sure that there are many users that decide to sell their own account that have been using for long time, for many reason like needing the money or maybe they don't care if they start from scratch since not everyone is in signature campaign.

I think it's very few legit account's that sale.   Most that have been using for a long time really don't want to start over. 

Personally I cannot imagine starting over and putting in a few more years.   The amount of money the account brings vs signature campaign does not compute for a sale of a good long term account.

Most accounts sold I think are farmed.  I could be wrong but I predict this.  Or there was that hack it's hard to tell how many accounts came out of that.

The main purpose of buying account here is for the sign campaign,
most sign campaign required member rank or above, of coz there is some can be joined in even Newbie rank.

Also, you can think of like a investment, buying a low rank acc with cheap price,
join a sign campaign, raise the activity, after few months / or even few weeks,
rank up and sell the acc with a better price.

Things to consider are the ff:

*Check the post quality - If you're buying an account, make sure to check the post quality. Low quality may go cheaper while accounts with high quality posts can be pricey.

*Proof of ownership - Most people around this forum always asks for a signed message from an address that was posted long ago. The longer the better. This is the basic and a must.

*Negative trust -- It's up to you if you'd like to buy an account with a negative trust. They come with a cheaper price but I'd say no to this. If you aim for a sig campaign, most managers wont accept people with negative trust or if they do accept, they'll cut your payment in half because of your trust.

*Escrow - Ask any reputed guy here to escrow when buying an account. Some charges a fee while some just accepts tips but you can ask your escrow to check the account for you to see if there are past issues like sig campaign bans and such.

Ownership: You should ask the seller to prove the ownership by signing a message for you...

Quality of Posts: The boards where the account made posts must not be off-topic mostly, and all should be constructive in order for you to be able to get accepted in a signature campaign, if you are buying one for the same regards...

Escrow: Never do any trade without having an escrow, I got scammed once and so advising you to strictly follow this rule...

No necessary, some Sr member can be banned from automated signature campaigns which will reduce your profitability. The average increase of pay from full member to Sr member is around 0.0004 and the price of the account is nearly double. Post quality plays a huge part in pay per activity campaign as most only accept good posters.

I want to be quoted this kind words.
Btw. i tried to buy one account without signed message and holding escrow the money for a month but i didnt buy it.

I will be simple scared to do something like this...reason is simple. you don't know, how many posts were deleted before deal, you don't know, how and where is account involved and there may be lot of misunderstandings in the future because of this.

another point is, that maybe you will have different opinions than original acc holder so you will not be able to express yourself and your ideas. it is like buying other identity for this board..is better to build your own with own acc.

Though when searching for the membername in bitcointalk it should become clear if something fishy happened with the account. I dont think its so very easy to scam with that when a buyer is investigating first. Mostly there are many interested persons and some of them will investigate and post their findings when they find bad things.

This won't work without an escrow however. Most sellers would not expose the account that they are selling to a third party which they don't trust, this reduces the value of the account and potentially get negative trust.

This thread really make sense. Enjoyed reading it and learned a lot.

Use escrow
If possible have escrow assess the account to see if the trust is there and the owner is not lying about the activity.
Check through the PM/post for suspicious activity
Make sure you dont pay too much for an account, check the average prices on hte marketplace
That should be it

Even with escrow you can still lose.  You would really have to make escrow hold it for a extended period of time past when you get the account.   

With leaked databases that were flooded on here a day ago from Cloudminr.io , chances are some accounts for sale will come from this.  It is possible you buy an account and original owner comes back and want's it and can prove that they did own it before hack.

I really suggest people making and raising their own account.  It takes time, but if you like bitcoin it should be fun.

i see what you mean. i don't see myself selling my account either.

but as i said not everyone on this forum is in a signature campaign. and i have seen people who want to sell their own account which was posting just for their own and not for any signature campaign. granted it is rare but they exist :)
i have seen somebody who was selling his account because he was not interested in bitcoin anymore and lost a lot of bitcoin gambling so left the forum.

p.s. and i think someone who wants to but an account for signature campaign should not care if it was farmed or not since he will do the same!

I agree. Some sellers show the accounts to interested persons but this is something only noobs are doing. The risk is high the account gets a negative for that.

I often escrowed account trades and before i secure an account i ask the buyer which things i should check with the account. So the only one knowing the account at this point is the seller and me.

But what happen if the seller take back his account by proving the ownership of old address after sell the account to someone? Is it still possible right?

Please respond, I'm curious about this one.

No need to worry if the buyer have signed message from the seller when buying accounts, that would serve as proof of account transfer and he cant claim it back

If old buyer has a address staked, and it was not the one to send signed message I would guess it could still be taken back.

I have not heard of any  situations of this happening.  But if you stake a address with an account you should be able to recover it with help of mods and proving you own staked address.

So I would be careful as far as what address seller uses.   I still would not suggest for anyone to buy an account.

Not necessarily. It's entirely possible that this will happen and if you read some threads in Meta it has happened before. Some scammers will sell their account then try claim it was hacked to get it back.

better to change the address to one of your address and sign it again and reporting that you have bought the account(a bit too drastic but it's the only way to avoid trouble afterward), because you never know with who you're dealing with

Or you can just sell the address that you staked along with the account.

by that you mean giving the private key of that address to the buyer right? if doing this it'd be good to use pgp or another form of communication, pm privacy is not guaranteed.

Well when you buy an account you ask the seller to sign a message that that account is sold to you, and you must keep this message for future, so you are protected. - my opinion

its not just your opinion, i agree with it as well. by stating in the signed message that the account will be sold to you, the seller can no longer claim the account back as theirs using a signed message.

This is the most important part of this thread IMO. OP don't miss out on what's quoted above.

Quick question about signed messages: Now, from what I understand, for a signed message to be valid, it must have been fron an address associated to the account from a post or something at some point. If a person were to purchase an account, and then decide to resell it for whatever reason, how could he legitimately prove ownership without having access to an address that has been associated with the account for an extended period of time?

The buyer can't proof that he is the legitimate buyer except he got a signature from seller that says that the previous owner sold the account to him. The new owner should have posted a bitcoin address so that he can proof, with another signature, that he held the account since then.

When selling an account then the message should contain the date of sale, the account to be sold and the buyer who bought it.

Well from this i conclude that this is our opinion and every user should consider this as a must for their account.

I agree with you, a date should be included in the signed message, i dont know if we can verify when has been signed the message can we?

this is why always use escrow when buying a forum account because escrow is the witness that the account is soled and he will protact everything regarding it and also there is one more way which is signing a message if you use your mind and choss wisly your account is going no where after buying, ps also ask the escrow to check the account post history because people made crap posts mostly is some other languge and then sale it

i think theres more risk on buying an account.

You have to double check if they dont have some password recovery setup, or the other secret pw security question answer to be super safe.

And even using escrow, they only provide the pw on the account so the 2nd point I mentioned I see it happen more with them entering by security questions.

if a date is included in the signed message, that should be sufficient proof the message was signed on that day if the message can be verified as valid; the signature for the message wouldnt be valid if any part of the message or signature were to be changed.

Something to consider if you want to buy an account are The Rank lever of tbe account at least Sr. Member, Post quality, and Trust level of the account also the price of the account you want to buy

you should also extensively search the account's posts and history once you know the name of the account to see if it is involved in any suspicious activity, scams, has any open loans, etc. for obvious reasons.

Yes i know that, but i was wondering if we can verify when was that message signed if there is no date in the message.

Make sure the seller signs a message just to prove that account is theirs and not stolen or hacked. There are many scams outhere, beware!

yes, the signature of the signed message is only valid for that particular message. the date is just a part of the message. if the signature corresponds to the message it should be verifiable without issues.

I think he is meaning something else like: The signed message "xxxx and address xxxx and signature xxxx" has been signed on Tuesday 21 July 2015. If i understand his question

well theere is no "date" field in a signed message, all there is are an address, message, and signature. if the message is dated the date would be included in the message, and the signature would be different compared to is the date was not included in the message as the message would be different. if youre asking if the date the message was signed could be verified or seen with the date not being explicitly stated in the message, no, i dont believe there is a way to do that.

i dont think so anyone will tell you account username before the payment or deal because no one like and trust sold account and that is why escrow is must to buy the account you can ask the escrow to check the account for is it  involved in any suspicious activity, scams, has any open loans

actually, ive done a few account deals on here before, and every single time the seller has opted to inform me of the account's name at my request, sometimes before i even confirm that i will purchase the account.

When i would knew the seller told the account to others then i would not buy anymore. So i would ask him. When he tells me then im out.

Why? There are some people on the forum that give sold accounts negative. If one of these asks the seller, they dont have to be interested in fact, then the account is at risk. Why should i buy such account then?

Its simply not worth then. So i think its not smart to reveal the accoun to anyone other than the escrow. He can check everything and the account is safe until its really sold.

I still search a fast way to check for potential activity. Anyone knows one? Accounts with high post counts are no fun to count the 2 week periods.

nice to see a different perspective on the matter, as you run an escrow service; maybe ive just gotten lucky so far with the accounts. as for counting activity, it would likely be possible to create a script that could do that; bit-x's signature campaign bot can read through posts and get a rough character count, section the post was in, and other info that is used in calculating posts for a sig campaign. im sure there's a way to get the dates of the posts in order to calculate the activity. im sure bitcoin boy could implement something like that in a day with the existing code from the sig campaign bot.

IMO these are the most important things to check when buying an account on this forum:
1-it's not hacked, Ask to sign a message from an old address.
2-it doesn't have a pending loan, check recent posts and the loaning forum for anything related to the username.
3-it doesn't have any negative trusts even the untrusted feedback.
4-it isn't involved in anything controversial (again by recent posts and search/looking around), it may receive negative trust later if it was involved in anything controversial.

I see many sellers says about potential activity and i have seen that it takes some times to count them.
My question would be: Is there any bot or any tool that would automatically check the potential activity of an account.

You should be careful the account is not hacked or else the owner may get it banned/claim it later. signing a message by an old BTC address in a previous post can confirm this is the real owner I think.

i would think that bit-x's sig campaign bot could be modified to calculate potential activity as well, its already implemented to take a lot of info from people's posts. as i said above already, one could ask bitcoin boy to add this feature to the bot, or ask for the source to work off of. im not sure if hes willing to give up his code though. im rather surprised there isnt such a tool already seeing how often accounts are traded on this forum.

I'm sure he could add it, but the question why?   You can calculate it yourself pretty easy.   I guess I'm not into the buying and selling of accounts but I think potential activity is not to hard.  See if one in each period... count the periods.

If you really want it you could ask bitcoin boy to make one.   He is very talented.  Not sure what it would cost. 

sebastianju pointed it out earlier; it can be time consuming, and it would be a great tool for the community, especially for the escrow services who are trusted to verify these sorts of things, sometimes free of charge. might as well give them something to make their services a bit easier to provide.

They might be able to get it banned later, but my understanding is there's no way to reclaim an account once it's been sold and the information is changed.

Yeah, i even think it could become a service. Either selling such bot for cheap, since its usefulness is limited, or having a website you enter the profile id and it counts the potential activity.

Guess someone needs to work on that idea and he could charge some pennies for a count. I think there are many professional account traders. They might use that service, and get a screenshot. Or, when it is a website, then the website owner could create a service thread an post a signature signed with a bitcoin address he posted. Then, on the website, automatically a signature is created that states the potential activity. The text can be copied and the escrow can verify that the account, named in the signature message, really has the mentioned activity.

That is the perfect idea to count the potential activity for each account :)
Every account seller may contribute to this for a bot like this on.
It would help us and would save us time.

There is a way to get it back supposedly by contacting the admin "Theymos" and signing a message from an address posted in an old topic/private message, That wasn't working recently though.

Ahh, interesting... I think that's a catch-22. If they allow it, people who buy accounts can reclaim them. If they don't, people with their accounts hacked are screwed.

IMO, people shouldn't be able to sell accounts regardless. It's basically selling reputation, and is one of the big contributors to all the scams around here.

Theymos do it, but is a low priority duty, and priority will be even lower if there is evidence that someone is trying to claim back a sold account.

how much is the range of price on every activity level?

it varies, but generally, full members are around the 0.1 range, seniors around the 0.2 range, and heroes are usually above 0.5 BTC. however, these numbers arent set in stone, price varies on activity, trust feedback, quality of posts, etc.

thanks.
is the marketplace the only place they are being sold?

ofcourse. buying and selling of physical and digital goods belongs in the marketplace. however in some case, some users tend to post in local boards to to find potential buyer/seller from their country

well thats where items are traded and sold. aside from digital goods, auctions is a good place to buy an account as well, sometimes for cheaper than you might get one in the digital goods section. just be aware that some auctioners have some special rules regarding bids form newbie accounts, which most people bid from to remain fairly anonymous.

i think some are sold out of this forum, to have few tracks, maximum privacy i guess

maybe on litecointalk or another crypto forum

That is actually an even better suggestion. A project that is open source and can scrape the posts. It is even better because the accounts only are known to the one checking it, you dont have to trust another party.

I wonder if such a crowdfunding will work...

The risk of sellers reclaiming an account can be negated by the seller demanding a signature from the seller. This signature should be signed with an old bitcoin address that was posted by the account to be sold, in the past. The older the better. Ideally quoted by other persons so that it cant be edited. The signature contains the date of selling and the new owners forum name.

The buyer then can proove that he bought the account since only the real owner can sign a message with such an old address.

So i suggest posting an address, that you can sign a message with, on here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=996318

Regarding selling reputation... thats correct and thats something not ok. But it happens. The more reason to not trust someone simply because he has trust. Its not avoidable that such accounts are sold. Im not aware of an account that was misused that way yet though.

Mostly accounts are bought for taking part on signature campaigns. Its a good income for many people in the world.

By the way... i now took the suggestions on this thread and opened a thread to check out interest in such a potential activity counting bot. We would need someone saying what he would charge for creating it and would need to know if traders are interested into funding it.

Its on here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1136181

No, it can't be verified. The only thing you can verify is that the address that was used to sign the message is old. When it was posted, and hopefully quoted, on the forum some time ago. Only when the account holder is the one from that time or if he sold the account and gave the private key for that address to seller it can be possible that this signature could be created. And the buyers name included proofs that it is not an old signature.

I believe you should not set your hopes on an escrow because what will you do when that escrow is not on the forum anymore?

You should be able to proof your ownership with a signature showing it.