Bitcoin Forum

Dear forum members,
Today I am gonna share an alarming matter which is about bitcointalk account buying and selling. let me explain:

Referrence collected from
After the implementation of merit system in our forum account buy - sell growing dramatically. Its already been an real concern for all. As my thinking generally one person build his/her account after a great hardwork. It takes more than 2 years to reach on targeted rank.But
on the other hand some guys buy high rank accounts through money just only for sign campaign. Its should be stopped. Every single visitor of this forum take decisions about someone by seeing his/her accounts merit,trust,rank. If someone can easily buy that position just by spending some money then what is the price of this rank & hardwork.

I wish all  the forum member will be agree with me. Its our forum and we have to achieve our rank & position by our creativity, knowledge & unique ideas. If the option of buying account not abandoned then all of our effort is worthless.

Finally we see here in the forum that all our DT members are doing hardwork to stop account buy -sell. But account buying and selling is allowed by forum. I think account buy sell should be prevent officially and buyer- seller both should be ban.

Strongly agree with OP. After implement merit system people's are more encourage to buy account. And account farmer are getting this chance to sale account. Reference was posted 21 July 2014 whice is long time ago. That time wasn't merit system. But now merit system is implemented. I think this rule should be change to keep forum corruption free. It's hard to build an account now. So don't let spammer to buy account. If account seller and buyer baned by forum than no one will be encourage to do it.

I was also think similar , but OP has been posted  ;D.


At least it will stop trade account openly. Rule is too old. It should be change with timing. When officially will ban than people will not much encourage. Because if caught buyer/seller account will ban.


Agree with it, although drugs can be sale elsewhere but it's not allowed by government's.

Banning account trades in the forum might finish the deals happening in public, like in Auctions or Digital Goods sections, but they will start doing it in private like how they trade Merits right now, in Telegram groups or other places where the buyer contacts the seller and fix the deal and then picks up the supply from the forum.

Whilst this is certainly true, it doesn't mean they have to be allowed here. People can sell drugs elsewhere or post their ref links in telegram but admins here are not responsible for what happens off site. Personally I don't think allowing account sales here looks good at all. It seems the users of this board don't agree with it either because I see lots of people marked as scammers because they tried to buy or sell an account.

Yeah I am completely agree with that....if we can just close one door of account buy - sell. it doesn't mean that it will completely shut off their activities but obviously it will make those guys to think Twice before deal with this matter and everyone will be careful about it.

There is a finite supply of legendary accounts. Eventually they will run out or become scarce.

When you buy a legendary account:

You are likely to get discovered because you don't understand the way the forum works and what is expected.

You are likely to break forum rules or protocols that will get you noticed.

You might get ripped off by a fake seller - no crypto and no account.

You might buy the account of someone who was a criminal and get busted for their crimes.

You could get banned for breaking the forum rules.

You could get tagged for account purchase.

There are a number of ways that sold accounts get detected.

A few people have mentioned in the past that they would prefer the account sales to be dealt with on forum to increase the chances of them being exposed if they were to be sold. To be honest, even if we did ban account sales it wouldn't have any effect. Other than lessening the amount of threads opened in the marketplace I guess.

Wow! Am I the only one here who is suspecting an Alt account here? The OP's post was garbage, most likely a google translation. Then comes in "Coolcryptovator" and merits him with 5 points for a shitpost.  ::)

And this doesn't stop here. He makes another Shitpost to bump up his signature posts and guess what? Both have a motto of "Scam free Bitcointalk".

I have seen 2 "shitposts" today from users wearing the BQT signature, I will check up with the manager soon.

Or the value of them will just increase. Most people who have them likely aren't going to sell them, though. I feel like this account is a part of me and something I've built up over a long time.


I can't comment on wether it's his alt account or not, but I think it's worthy of a merit. Probably not five, but maybe he just passionately agrees with the banning of account sales?


I think it would. Most people will have no idea how to get them then. They're easy to buy because they're readily available on the marketplace. It's like most people have to go to the black market for drugs, but if a store opened up at the end of their street selling drugs then they'd just go there to get their product.

It is potentially selling your own identity. It can seriously backfire. What if it gets sold to a scammer and the police think it is you ?



The reason account sales aren't banned is because they will just easily occur elsewhere. Usually with account farmers they sell both the account and the email address that it is registered to.

Total prohibition doesn't work.

In the Netherlands  "coffee shops" are allowed to sell cannabis under certain strict conditions.  Maximum 5 grams for personal use.

In the Netherlands drug use is seen as a sickness rather than a crime.


Source: http://www.loc.gov/law/help/decriminalization-of-narcotics/netherlands.php

Other European countries like Germany are considering similar laws.




I doubt it is an "alt". Coolcryptovator has better grammar than the OP.

Perfect English is not part of my criteria for giving merit - I don't expect it to be part of other peoples criteria either.
While I didn't merit it - I can see why others would.

If account sales got banned, they'd just push up the price of accounts. Furthermore, places like bitify and other auction/sales sites will end up getting hit up with this instead and there'll be loads of listings for buying and selling accounts elsewhere anyway. Sure theymos controls the bitcoin board of reddit but not every forum/board that is bitcoin related. Something like this is going to do nothing.

Quite a few of those DT members have bought/sold their accounts in the past also...

i have faked to be buyer of a legendary account, I have come to know that all the people i have met smells scammy, either they want upfront payment in crypto or they have their own front men for escrow.
I think there is no need to do anything, any buyer would be scammed few times and then quit, places like bitify can have real accounts, but we can bump them up if we team up.

When a sold account got red trust, it's just the same as getting banned because almost all of the campaigns denies a red trusted account. Which i think is already a good solution to these account buyers that uses the account for signature campaigns. Not all accounts sold were used in scams, so banning them could be somehow not cool.

I agree with what you said, however, I also don't think this will affect them in any way. I remember being contacted (in PM) by a newbie member back in 2017 who was willing to buy my–then Full Member account for 0.01BTC (I don't know why me in particular, as my account is insignificant on the forum, but I was actively participating in signature campaigns that paid well). They will always find a way to buy–sell accounts on here.

Another dumb post. what should be done, is it should be possible to actually restore your account. and only then maybe deal with account sales.
See, account sellers are mostly providing a service in a void left by cyrus and theymos.

It isn't about "perfect English" but rather creating a topic about an issue which has been discussed literally thousands of time around here. Also, they aren't doing any favour to the community by using google translate except to bump up their signature posts. That's why we have local sections. People who have trouble writing English should stick to those. Else they will end up making useless and low-quality posts.

Not the first time he's done that:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4871094

Useless threads.
Account sellers and buyers should be banned...ok and?  ::)

I hate that argument with a passion.  It's an excuse to do nothing in the face of wrongdoing, and such poor reasoning would never fly anywhere in our world of laws.

I'm concerned about this, of course, but I'm far more concerned about scammers buying an account with green trust and high rank.  Those sorts of account sales can do a LOT of damage.  Fortunately when this happens there are usually signs that the account has been sold (change in posting habits, waking up after a long time, change in password/e-mail, and attempting to do a lot of deals at once), but you can't count on those warning signs existing. 

Thanks for sharing your experience with us. It will help us to keep an distance from this kind of account buyers.

As a new member I admit that may be I haven't got vast knowledge like you. But I think by discussion I can learn and expand my knowledge. I wish I can learn a lot in future by following someone experienced like you and other DT members. In my topic I try my best to elaborate.

That's the reason why I try to put everyones attention here. Honestly it can do a lot of damage if anyone buying an account with green trust and high rank.By purchasing an high rank account scamers will be able to plant his/her fraudulent activities here. which will definitely hurt our forums reputation.

Should we also allow people to sell their identities then? Does this forum allow such things that could be used to commit fraud?


Hackings will happen elsewhere. Allow hackers to sell viruses and exploits here? Where does it stop?


Why is this same logic not applied to drugs or child porn being sold here? Prohibiting murder doesn't work either but that doesn't mean it's a free for all. There are laws for a reason.


Using drugs isn't a crime and shouldn't be seen as one. If something doesn't hurt anyone else then it's not a crime. I'm not sure we should allow shops in malls to sell hardcore drugs to children, though.

Why you reply on shitpost ? If I ware same moto from you that means you are my alt ? I don't know post are from Google translate or not but I strongly agree with OP and I consider this is a useful post so I merited him with 5 smerit. If I am shitposter than I think you are not different from me. You didn't ware signature? If yes than also your reply here for post count. Don't attack personally to some one. Nothing is personally here. If you think I am shitposter , why not report to moderator ?


Since I joined forum I can't see much discussion about to ban account sale officially. Any way I never support account buy sale on the forum.

Good job

There's one thing I don't see anybody talking about here. I don't think it's very practical to ban selling accounts. How could you practically apply a ban like that? I mean, you can see if the quality of posts completely changes at one point of time and the person starts spamming. If they already have the status they want, they may not really post very much at all anymore. I think it's also a good point, that if it would be banned, it could drive prices up more, like illegal drugs. You have to keep in mind, the original account owners put in a lot of work and effort to get their rank up. If they decide they want to move on in their life, maybe their efforts should be worth something. Then if the new account owner does stupid things, they'll just lose their whole investment. They'll get what they deserve.

Look bud I have nothing against you. Also, I don't have "vast knowledge" of any sorts. It's just that using google translate for posting here will only leave a negative impact on your profile. Someone might report you for a poor quality post and it may end up in a ban. If you want to suggest something then Suggest it in your local board and ask a person who has "Good" enough English to post here. If you would have researched a bit, you would have found that this topic has been discussed many times before and doesn't serve any purpose except for creating more spam.

If you really want to learn, then start by learning English as it will help you learn more things. Do more reading and less writing for now. Join Jet Cash's fit to talk program (https://jetcash.com/ask-a-legendary/). It can help you a lot. Good luck :)


Umm, To Warn him ::)


No. But it would raise suspicion, Seeing a shitpost getting 5 sMerit.


I Guess broken English can only be understood by people who write broken English.


Yes, I am indeed "wearing" a signature.


I have nothing against you! It's just that, Posts like these make my eyes bleed! I have Stopped visiting a few sections altogether just to not see posts like these. Don't want Meta to be ruined too!


I have sent a message to Zapo.

If you're caught attempting to buy or sell an account here, you would get banned.  Whether a ban would apply to someone suspected of buying or selling an account, that's another story but it isn't rocket science.  I'm not sure why people here make this out to be some sort of super-complicated dilemma, because it really isn't.  The will to do anything by admins just isn't there.  That's what the problem is.

Thanks a lot for being positive about me. You suggestion means a lot to me. But you will be glad to know that I haven't used google translator for creating my post. All I shared here is completely from my own creation. Although I will try my best to improve my skills and maybe that will satisfy you soon :)

Imposing a rule without a viable way to enforce it wouldn't do much good.

If account sales are banned we're gonna catch a few idiots who attempt to do it in the open and that's about it. I don't see what we could possibly do about sales happening outside of the forum. There are plenty of examples like that IRL too, e.g. Chicago gun restrictions rendered largely useless by Indiana. We can impose such restrictions to make ourselves feel better but I doubt it would make a dent in the actual problem.

Yeah I can't deny that its really hard to stop the activities of account buy - sell. There is a proverb: "Prevention is better than cure".

You can't totally stop account selling and buying when multiple accounts are allowed and you can't disallow having multiple accounts too because the community advocates anonymity. Users has to create new accounts when they  promote something new. I think all the mods, staff and all other else including the DT members are going to just be busy spotting all these account sales and merit abusers.

Forum rules allow account sales but it is discouraged. Simply because the account carries the value of the trades done and the social network that they have set up while in this forum. Someone may mistake that as their old pal while actually its a scammer in disguise who bought that account for scamming only.

As long as they confess which accounts they are owning as alt accounts in the user generated thread made just for this in "Reputation" they should be good. It would make everyone's lives easier then to tag them in case they end up with some wrong doing.

You dont seems to have read the rules/OP's first post. Read what I wrote in the first line and the OP's post and the rules of this forum before you post again.

I have read all the posts we have here so far on this topic and this is what I think...

The problem is in allowing and to maintain more than one account. If a user have a valid reason for creating a new account then let them to create one.
(i.e: in the cases of account ban/hack of kind of stuffs, but limit them only in meta which we already have. Once the issue will be resolved then lock the new account they have created since it has no use left)

theymos has theymos_away (This account is controlled by theymos, but it is less secure. Do not do business with this account. (https://i.imgur.com/1QnnalN.png)), LoyceV has LoyceMobile (LoyceV on the road (or in bed) Don't deal with this account (untrusted devices) (https://i.imgur.com/WwJl0mt.png)) - these are also some example of valid reasons.

Members are creating alts because they know they can make some extra money from it (wearing the signature or joining the bounties or build the account and then sell it  or any other way). I have no problem with people making money but why do anyone need another account when they already have an existing account?

And about confessing which accounts they are owning as alt accounts: Those with responsibility to the forum they will do however think about this - If I create an alt account then would I do the same (considering the stuffs going on with me just because my identity was known to the forum. Even My wife who does not have any clue about this forum was drugged into this).

Anyway, I doubt account banning will work, how many buying selling you will stop by tagging the sellers or buyer? So I doubt that is also working. If we admit the root then discourage creating alt accounts.

or
Possibly?

I agree with the ban on buying accounts. But how can we ban it when they do not openly sell the account? And we have no evidence to believe that they have bought or sold accounts?
I have participated in many telegrams and I also know some people are doing the buying and selling of those accounts.

But do you ever ask why these things happen? Why are there buyers and sellers? I think the merits of the present system are too strict to give merit to others. But if the merit is not strict, then the main account can be buff merit for the secondary accounts.

So how to limit the purchase of accounts, limit spam? The main problem is the Bounty Campaign. Most of the spam is due to bounty, the account is also sold by the bounty. I think it's a good idea to limit rank to signature bounty, from atleast Full Member or Sr.Member to can join Bounty. Bounty pool for Signature should be split less.

This is limited to spam because if the spam they will lose the account Sr.Member that nobody wants to lose. If you still allow Jr.Member or member to join the Signature campaign, the spam will continue to occur, because to get rank Jr.Mem or Mem is not too difficult. Restricting participation in the Signature campaign also limits buy or sell accounts, as not many people are able to buy high-rank accounts.

This is my ideals, my english is not good, hope you can understands.

Well you, an account farmer, would say this. How many accounts are you farming? How many of your accounts have you had banned now? Which ones of these are yours that I've noticed posting in the exact same threads as you:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2247852     Zayn_Nazy     June 30, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2280178     Willie_Linder July 14, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2279012     katherin_panini     July 13, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2271482 Michael_Cox     July 10, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2280138     James_Cline     July 14, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2272791     Sherwood_Archer     July 11, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2271537     Aidan_Davis     July 10, 2018

Besides, you stop it the same way we don't allow users to sell weapons or post ref links here. If they list an account for sale it gets removed or they get banned. As ThePharmacist said, it's not rocket science.


We might as well get rid of all rules then. We can't do anything about ban evasion or rule breaking. Therefore, don't ban people and let them do what they want?

If we went with my suggestion of allowing people to purchase the equivalent rank in things like Silver and Gold Memberships account sales would mostly cease to happen. People only buy them for signature campaigns and half of the time the people selling them are either scammers who don't have any accounts to sell in the first place or hackers/shitposting farmers. If account sales are going to happen then let them safely buy them from the forum. It's win win. There are no negatives to this at all.

Not the same thing. Account sales can easily happen outside of our control. Other rules are broken here and can be enforced here to a varying extent. Your suggestion below sounds good. There would still be plenty of private account sales:

1) Farmers and hackers and scammers would still sell (or "sell") them at a lower price than the "official" price.
2) High merit or high trust or just old accounts would still have higher value.
3) Someone who buys an "official" account may want to get some of that cost back if they decide to leave the forum.
4) I'm sure there would be all sorts of weird deals that I can't even imagine right now, like lease/share/etc.

The net effect would likely be positive though.

We should all be concerned about how easy is to hack / scam / monetize / spam / buy & re-sell accounts / farm / our requests & complains & suggestions being ignored / etc. on this site. The damage has already been made, no one seems to care... I would say that all this happened intentionally over the years endorsed (or compiled passively, as you prefer) by the admins as well as many followers who benefited / made a living out of it. Here some recently taken bitify screenshots :
https://imgur.com/a/9WHIJGa
https://imgur.com/a/BBvOiX1
https://imgur.com/a/oOdV1D1
 
A whole secondary market thrive out of our shadows because of rules being too loose, I have an idea to stop / put a brake against these morally incorrect practices but why bothering if no one cares.. thereof no one to implement nor enforce it...
   

I literally have no idea what you're talking about. I only recognize seeing a couple of these accounts on the forum.

Well, some violations of the rules are very easy to see and enforce punishment, but some are much more difficult. I guess sometimes it's obvious when an account is sold, but sometimes it's not so apparent. Either way, for some reason admins didn't make this rules.

This does sound like a pretty good option. I guess it would require rethinking criteria for signature campaigns though. Then the only real measure of a person's rank would be how much money they put into it. It would definitely be good to support the site though.

Totally agree, some many users are doing account farming, limit the accounts to 2 ip it can be a good start.

Here for Example !

User :  b3rp4u (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2296577)

 🔥🔥 Bitcointalk Accounts Native English Quality Posts 🔥🔥 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4742578.msg44317134#msg44317134)

OP don't you think admin first have to return hacked accounts back to users who are waiting them for months? This is much bigger issue than ban account trading.
And to be honest this has been discussed 2 years ago.

Strongly agree, return hacked account should give  more priority. Some people waiting from years. Also need implement more security like Google 2FA or mobile verification. I think it will be easy if theymos give power to moderator for recover account.

Yeah you are definitely right. Admin should think about those hacked account first. Nowadays hacking has been a common issue worldwide. Everyday many websites are being targeted by hackers. To find a solution every website owners are thinking to strict their website security by integratiing update security system. Hence bitcointalk authorities will find an reliable security system to save their users account from those Evil(hunters).

2 years ago there was no merit system in Bitcointalk :(

You don't need to do anything other than saying that account trading is against the rules, then whoever attempts to trade accounts gets reported and banned, this is really easy to do, just do it, I'm begging you.

https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/mobile/000/014/859/BS.jpg

They just so happen to have the same formatted names as you, registered all within days, post exactly the same way you do, in exactly the same threads you do? C'mon, I'm not an idiot. Lucky for you admins will probably never look into this, otherwise we'd likely be seeing another "why was my entire office's accounts blocked? thread. Your posts aren't utter shit like most farmers though so I'll give you that at least.
















https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/679/161/255.jpg


Just because accounts will get sold elsewhere doesn't mean we have to allow it here. People will sell malware and weapons elsewhere, but we don't allow it here and if they posted such threads they'd be trashed and banned. The same could easily just happen with account sales.


What needs rethinking? Signature campaigns would adapt and most would include payment terms for the new titles just like they did when signatures were changed relative to ranks. You would still be a Junior or Senior Member or whatever but with the additional Copper, Silver, or Gold title underneath that and they would pay for that. People would still have to get merit and activity to rise through the ranks though as you're not buying the rank but the donator title. I dare say some of the better campaigns still won't accept a Newbie with no merit but with a Gold Member title but shitcoin ICOs will.

Feel free to believe what you'd like. Thanks for the semi-compliment about my posts, I guess.

Why do you think the admins have decided not to ban the sale of accounts? I agree that it's not ideal to have people selling accounts. I was just saying that if you can't stop it, then it may be better to just let it be and punish people based on their actions on the forum. Maybe you're right, maybe if it's officially forbidden, then it will deter sales. In the threads I've seen on here where somebody is selling an account, a lot of people always seem to give the sellers a very hard time.

Well I think the official reason is that it will happen anyway regardless and takes time to police effectively, but so will murders and child pornographers but that's not an excuse not to do anything to try stop it from going on. The entire account selling market is rife with scammers and hackers and doesn't do anything good here nor does it look great that we allow it. As with any suggestion to change the rules or implement new measures (good or bad) the forum is largely a free all and overwhelmed by the greedy and nefarious and nothing ever gets done to try improve it so doubt account sales will ever be stopped, but there are more important issues to deal with right now.

Don't suppose you know who these accounts belong to either?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2271547     Luis_Gray July 10, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2274820     randall_boss     July 12, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2273291     Merritt_Baldric     July 11, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2274323         Jared_Burns July 12, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2277232     Charles_Summers     July 12, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2280233     Kimberley_Isham July 14, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2271603         Isaac_Ramirez     July 10, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2271544     Brian_Wood     July 10, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2271623     Owen_Smith     July 10, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2274435b     Stuart_Shook     July 12, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2273233 Dawson_V     July 11, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2274369 Nathan_Weymouth     July 12, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2271455     Luke_Turner     July 10, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2280233     Kimberley_Isham     July 14, 2018,


Posting in the same threads as you in a similar format. I'm sure there's many more I could find if I was prepared to spend any longer looking.

So yeah, I think we should do something about account sales/farming. Plenty of options to curb this sort of behaviour and the forum is better of for it. As long as people can get paid on campaigns and account ranks have value then this sort of stuff will only get worse the longer we leave it.

By the way, what actually is your purpose for farming all those? Claim bounties? Sig spam? Sell them? Why can't you just make those posts from one account? Would be a lot less hassle and good luck trying to get merit for all those. you might actually achieve it eventually with just the one though.

Their posting quality is above average, I have to give it to them. I think these are the new "Call Centers" where these people can earn "Legit money" from. I believe these people have realized that sooner or later spammers will get kicked and it will become only harder to rank up later, So they have started to build up their accounts. Smart move IMO. Account prices should rise drastically once the mass banning kicks off. They could sell these accounts, use these ranked accounts to earn from bounties/campaigns as you mentioned. I don't think they will make rookie mistakes like using same Address for receiving their Rewards. They look more organized than a "normal" Farmer. I believe this is just the beginning and we will see more groups popping up soon, Once the word gets out. "Damned" we are indeed.

That's the reason why I was strongly agreed with OP;


People's are making sound after tagged by DT for account trade. Because this is allowed by forum. So once seller/buyer will get tag , they will spam against DT. If officially ban account sell than there is no chance for make sound.

These "call centers" are becoming a bit of a problem. Whenever I move a thread to the trashcan, and leave a redirect notice I received several messages from newbie accounts that their "team" can provide bumping services, and what not. So, it seems that the whole industry is looking to employ people to spam. But, because there's multiple people doing it, and different writing styles, and more time its much harder to recognize that it is spam.

If you go for a tour on the ANNOUNCEMENT section and if you open any thread with more than 10 pages you will notice that they are full of messages froum users writing "nice project" or people quoting each other. (and if you look at the post history of these people you notice that they do the same on different threads and you can identify the various bumping teams).

Their 'team' is likely just a few of them and hundreds if not thousands of bots they use. Most of them won't be manually writing this generic crap.


The problem here is two-fold. The majority of them are bumping bots but you also just have other farmers just utilising the opportunity to farm their accounts in those threads and not look out of place. Why contribute to a topic when you can just write the generic 'great project looks interesting' posts instead? I've even seen farmer bots copy and paste a post of one of the bump bots which is just some meta bullshit and yet another example of how bad things have gotten here.

I would like to up this tread again since OP was last active: October 01, 2018 and I don't think we need create another thread. Just few point I want to highlight. I don't know reason behind account sale why is it allowed by forum. Since there is few argument with DT and reputed members I would like to hear from admin or mod about account sale. If account sale would not ban officially then is it right to tag account seller or buyer ? If not then there should be official instruction that account seller or buyer should not tag. Or just ban account sale officially so that no one will able to do it on forum inside. Because after got tag peoples attack DT members or who caught them. And they are legal to attack since they haven't broke any forum rules.  

From OP poll most of user don't like account trade. I believe Most of reputed users never like it. So admin couldn't reconsider this matter?

Theymos probably won't change his mind on the issue, but he usually lets the community decide on what is and what isn't trustworthy behaviour and people are free to leave feedback for whatever they think is scammy behaviour. I think the official reasoning why we allow it is that we can't stop it or enforce it efficiently therefore it's allowed. I think in the past theymos has said he doesn't mind or thinks it's okay if people can make money off their old account or something and I've gone through a few opinions on account sales. When I first came here I was against them and was very surprised that they were allowed. Then I kind of warmed to it and thought that it wasn't that bad of an idea or big of a deal and was just another way people could make money here. But then over the years things got exponentially worse with sig spam and the account selling market became more shady and spammy. Accounts became big business and people were farming them in the worst possible ways by shitposting and botting and then of course because accounts had great value hackings became rife. Now I just think they cause more hassle than they're worth and contribute to the degradation of the forum and the majority of people selling them are just scammers who don't even have accounts for sale in the first place. The rest are usually either just spammers or hackers. With the merit system it's going to be very very hard to farm high ranked accounts now but I think lower ranked like Junior and Member will still be done as it's not that hard to get 1/10 merit respectively.  Personally, I think if we're to continue to allow them then we should also just add more donator ranks like Silver and Gold Member as that would essentially kill the account market in the process as people would much rather buy the benefits of the ranks from the forum rather than some shady black market where nine times out of ten they're just going to be scammed.


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Oh, and this farmer above has currently reactivated and further proof that they're the same is they started waking up at the same time after a period of absence:

Thanks everyone who participate here on my thread and sharing their brilliant thoughts about account buy - sell issues. Unfortunately its been a long time my account was not active due to my accidental injury. Feeling good to back again with all you guys.

I hope the forum members can clean up the bitcointalk forum, besides the hardworking ones, there are always cheaters. Since the new regulations on merit, the status of buying and selling accounts became more common

I beleive theymos should reconsider the account buy - sell issue again. In current situation its rising question to users where those acccount sellers & buyers are showing their activities regularly.

Its really concerning IMO how its possible for a new member achieve the ability to handle an purchased legendary /hero/sr member account. After spending a lot of time and gaining experience user got his/her valuable rank. But on the other hand those  buyers being the owner of these higher reputative account by spending an amount of money only. Its really disappointing.
 

Even now if someone get caught for using the purchased account or selling it will cause them negative trust.Ranks in this forum is only for people who want to wear signature and it has nothing to do really with the contribution.If a spamming legendary account wearing a signature means the problem is also from the campaign manager who let them to do it.