Bitcoin Forum

I believe this is not a new problem, it always exists in this forum and there is no specific solution or penalty  ::)
Unknowingly, I glanced over and saw information about this guy (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2752710). Let's take a look at his merit: here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;u=2752710)
It includes 17 merit from one user, XinXan (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=440960)

Now let's take a look at the posts which received merit:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5221586.msg53729298#msg53729298
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5221724.msg53733662#msg53733662
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5222445.msg53752875#msg53752875

All posts inform the service. Are they worth for those merit  ???
About XinXan, his history does not give such merit to anyone, not an active user in merit.

So my question, what is their relationship? It seems that Merit is being abused without any punishment for such things  ??? Any other comments, let me know what you think  ::)

I already asked him the question  (http://archive.fo/wip/5Lpgd) if they have any relations. Let's see what he will answer, or he just gonna deleted my comment, since it's self moderated thread.
We have no proof to do anything but it's really suspicious. For me this is just an alt account.
I don't think someone will tag it only for those transactions, theymos already warned the DTs to be careful tagging merit "abuse" without proof. If it was sold or purchased merit with proof we could have tagged him but...

Not the first merit abuse example on bitcointalk forum.
It is not easy to prove anything is this or other examples, but I see similar things happening almost every day.

given you 50 merits, not for this post but a general hand towards ranking up . I don't have time to give you individual merits for posts, but I checked your last few pages and IMO you aren't a bounty pajeet fucker so you deserve a rank up dude

anyone who wants to moan about it can touch my furniture.

Very likely this is about XinXan is sending merits to his alt accounts, or he is selling merits. I read somewhere that the average price of 1 merit on black market is around $5 or more, so it doesn't surprise me that there are such suspicious transactions.

I think there is very little that can be done, everyone is almost completely free to give his merits to any post, no matter what the post is about. I think this kind of thing primarily discourages some users who have a very good post/s but no one rewards them with even 1 merit.

XinXan is active enough to send merits but not enough to post a single post since June 2019  ::)

TEAM360 said there :


XinXan may be part of TEAM360 and sent some merits to make this account more "legit" for people.

the greatest thing I have read today lol

Not sure that there is any relationship between them or not. But it is really quite suspicious. Team360 received the first 1 merit from crypto1010 and the second merits from XinXan at the same time (05:38:10 PM and 05:38:34 PM) And the first merited post was deleted. You can see that post here: http://loyce.club/archive/posts/5372/53728092.html. (Thanks Loycev)
https://i.postimg.cc/Bbp7hqVV/IMG-20200203-210909.jpg

Everyone's free to give his merits to any post, but abusing it and traffic of merit is a different thing.

If someone's discouraged by the fact that a member's earned merit for a subjectively undeserved post and gives BitcoinTalk up for that reason, then their purpose being a member here is pretty clear. You don't write for the merit, you do it for the forum and because you just want to share an idea and some effort with someone else.

To me it looks like TEAM360 is an account trying to be boosted by XinXan, hence might be his own. Unless we've proof, that'll remain just a mystery though.
What looks pretty shady is that he's clearly offering services ("From 29th Jan to 31 Jan(The Year of 2020) I will provide free promotional service." (https://web.archive.org/web/20200203145735/https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5221586.msg53729298%23msg53729298)), but two posts below he says "I don't offer any service here". This thread (https://web.archive.org/web/20200203150219/https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5222445.msg53752875%23msg53752875), which is his too, clearly offers services too.

The sketchy part comes with XinXan's activity. No posts since 12th of June 2019 (https://web.archive.org/web/20200203150338/https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=440960;sa=showPosts), yet he gave merit ('coincidentally') in the past month. Things get even sketchier when you put TEAM360's thread (https://web.archive.org/web/20200203150219/https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5222445.msg53752875%23msg53752875) next to an ANN thread created by coinliker (https://web.archive.org/web/20200203151020/https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5204175.msg53169120%23msg53169120), a member XinXan has given merit to (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;u=440960) on the 7th of January. Both threads are using the general structure. Even the first paragraph is centered and bolded in both threads. I doubt TEAM360 was so inspired by coinliker's thread that he decided to go for the same thread structure.

The thing I cannot link though is the level of English these users are using. While TEAM360 is using a lower level of English ("but not reached much people", "Don't run add for your project" etc), the other mebers have a noticeably higher level of English. It could all be about intentionally using a lower level of English to lower the chances of the users being linked together.

you are amazing bro. Calculates all posts and gives 50 merits in this one post.
but he deserves it.
But am I worthy too?
Please check some of my previous posts. 8) 8)

sell 1 merit for $ 5 or more?
that's a pretty high price but for those who want to get merit and move up the rank quickly it certainly becomes a shortcut.
Those who use the services of buying and selling merit only make junk posts that fill this forum.

I can barely read English nevermind Indonesian!

but yea - what I can see I think you are deserving..

stay lucky my man!

thank you for the appreciation bro.
I was active in the local Indonesian forum and there where I came from.
Only a few posts in English.

If 5$ would be high then what is 15$ for per merit? ;) I have seen on Fiverr where many gigs are open for selling merit for 15$. I have also create a topic about it. You can see here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5218052)

Btw @tafik123 you are really lucky. Congrats you for receiving 50 merits from TMAN (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=98986)

One more connection I am getting here from the investigation of marlboroza- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5218834.msg53757311#msg53757311

XinXan has given 5 merits to coinliker too. He has been tagged for selling fake reviews.

https://i.imgur.com/gu4KHEg.png

Team360 has posted a list of earning method-


If we check coinliker youtube channel, first 3 sites were recommended within the last week.

https://i.imgur.com/92y0thD.png

marlboroza can bring some more proof, maybe.

So Xinxan's account could be hacked and now it's used for other purposes, there are too many ways to think in this case.

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I will do the rest with the merit you gave me  ;) Merit should be circulated on this forum, whenever I see a worthy post, I will send merit  ;) Thank you very much!

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I was surprised at the price of a merit, it was terrible  ::) as I said above, maybe his account was hacked, he didn't work for a long time.

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Thanks for your information, but I don't have the authority or ability to check it, I just want to hear from everyone.

@TMAN, If there is an honor gift of the most generous merit sender, you must be the winner. I hope someone can make a thread to vote the most generous merit sender someday. And I will guarantee to vote for you. Anyway, those who got 50 merits from you are definitely so lucky members. Indeed they are good posters, but not all good posters are lucky as them, for example me (still not lucky)..  :D  

Yes, it is a shortcut, rank up in short time. But we must know, it is the way to lose your account immediately. Someone will report it soon and the account will get "perma ban". Then say "goodbye" to the account because of the fool mistake!!  ;D

Maybe someone will dig up something relevant about his account and the possible connection with the accounts he sent merits. I think it's somewhere in 2015 or 2016 buying/selling accounts on forum become something that has become negative and DT members start to tag such accounts. Before that it was quite normal, selling and buying accounts was a legitimate business, and some members have a dozen of them, which is not against forum rules.

Problems arise when these accounts are used to abuse signature campaigns or for merit abuse. Airdropped merits on these accounts have become something that can be sold for a decent price. For example, Legendary accounts get 200 merits (in my case), and if you sell them for only $5 each it is easy $1000.

LOL  ;D Very easy money for anyone  ;D I'm thinking about making money by selling merit, well, I'm going to get rich quickly with the amount of merit I can earn  ;) Just kidding  :P
In the end, problems like this continued and I think no way to stop them. I didn't complain when I didn't get the desired amount of merit, I find cheating in merit seems too easy  ::) It's not fair to many people out there

Many have sold services in a number of cases before that might have happened to many people on this forum, but are there steps to stop it? ???
By posting rubbish they still get examples of achievements as shown by the OP, only by posting like that then he was given to him. :o

I saw many in the marketplace, many merit abuser selling merits. They sell each merit at a much higher price. Cost per merit is $20!  :o You can check here :  https://www.fiverr.com/dollydeval/supply-bitcointalk-merits-for-your-bitcointalk-account?ref_ctx_id=72b2b24c-2675-4e12-8695-d6011172768c (https://www.fiverr.com/dollydeval/supply-bitcointalk-merits-for-your-bitcointalk-account?ref_ctx_id=72b2b24c-2675-4e12-8695-d6011172768c)

https://i.ibb.co/hCMp2gf/20200205-171237.jpg

Many merit abuser may not have been caught by the community. But what I see is that, the users can not go too far by buying merit, they get stuck at a limited rank.

Merit selling is not a big issue just because you won't be able to rank up more than member without being spotted.
You have a really high chance of loosing the account together with the investment you made when buying merit. If it's just to participate in bounties, that you are not so harmful for the community, of course you cheated your way up which is not nice, but you can't go any further up without consequences.

If 1 merit cost 20$ then you need to spend a bit more than 1BTC just to rank up from Hero to Legendary, I don't think anyone will make such investment only for ranking up.
Prices are ...
5000$ to rank up to Hero,
3000$ to rank up to Sr. Member,
1800$ to rank up to Full member
180$ to rank to Member.

So I saved myself 31680$ just earning my meirt for free :)

Here's 2 more from me! :D Too bad you need activity, not merit, to advance to Legendary.. I really hope you're going to rank up soon enough - you really deserve it.

If someone's stupid enough to pay $20 for 1 merit which could be earned by simply posting a helpful thread/reply on the forum, they deserve their loss so let them be. They'll take down with them the members who've sent them merit too as they'd all become suddenly suspicious, so it's a win situation for us.

From what I've seen, those users who can't rank up due to lack of quality posting will give up in the end. Merit is such a good measure to stop them but I wish it wasn't a requirement for the top members like you and LoyceV Mobile to rank up.

No, as you can see, there's no punishment, no tagging restrictions, nothing happens  :D
Finding undetected users is unnecessary  :D Because there's no remedy or solution, nothing, I'm just posting here to see what everyone's opinion is about, this topic doesn't work to denounce such users.

Thanks for the merit, but you really need to send it to someone who could really use it and need them to actually rank up. I have no where to go any higher so basically those merits are just for prestige, and kind of a lost ones.

Back to to the OP, I have not received any answer to my question  (https://archive.fo/5Lpgd)even tho the guy was online some hours ago. This kind of shady behavior is exactly what I expected, the whole case is a bit fishy. Let's wait and see how it will go.

I always keep a little bit of Merit for those who deserve it, I'm never running out of them.

TEAM360 surely saw your message and most likely this thread too. They probably prefer to now go through PMs with potentially interested people rather than answering our questions. He/she knows what they're doing isn't right.

XinXan is also active (last active a day ago), but no response to this thread. Taking into account that he gives away Merit, he must know about the existence of this thread too.

Buying merits outside the forum can also be very risky in the sense that fraud is very likely to happen, unless an escrow is used - but would any trusted member agree to such a deal? I have no doubt in that, I know there have been cases where there are some reliable escrows that have mediated the purchase/sale of accounts, which is not explicitly banned - but definitely not desirable.


There are merit sales at a more affordable price, but I think some people do not care too much for unethical acts, they buy accounts before, now they buy/sell merits. This is something that is difficult to prove, and sanctions are very rare - which seems very encouraging to those who choose to do such things.

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What I would also like to mention is the unethical distribution of merits between the alt accounts. Some have made considerable progress in this way, but they still stay shitposters, and only merits which they could get, they gave to themselves. If I had 2-3 alt Legendary accounts my total number of merits would certainly be much bigger than it is now. But I never wanted to play dirty, those who cheat on others actually cheat on themselves.

Let no one get me wrong, a lot of members deserved every merit they got.

just seems like a lot of unnecessary work to create multiple accounts to xfer merit back and forth from and/or working with those to trade merit or even to buy it. However, people do it every day. They also buy legendary and hero accounts daily.

There is no trust or security here other than what one is willing to risk as you can truly never trust anyone here simply based on their account rank and/or merit.

I think the buyer is only newbie who want to post images. They think copper membership is a bit expensive than buy 1 merit. The cost of copper is $ 26,67, while 1 merit is $ 20. They can save $ 6,67 to buy some food ;D
No one will buy 1 merit for $20 if they're a member or above. It's a very stupid thing if someone member do it.

To be honest, I don't think the merit is so expensive  ::) Its actual price will be much lower, in places and people that we cannot see, $20 is just the price to start a service, I think nobody wants to buy it.
Certainly the merit trade is always going on in this forum  :D
There is a little difference in my mind.  Certainly they already know about the issue we are talking, but this is not a threat to them, because it is not a complete allegation and no flag was sent. So all they need to do is stay silent, no matter what is going on  ;D silent to overcome the storm  ;D

But couldnt these accounts on fivver be traced for selling merits to these accounts buying them? If they are gigs selling certain amount of merits I believe they can be traced eventually.
Bad form for anyone who is participating in such a manner to stoop so low just for a fast way to rank up. :-\
Just be creative enough and you can receive merits quite easily.
I just spent 1 minute in creating a picture when they was giving some out during the 10th anniversary party.
And even theymos sent 15 to me.
So it isnt too hard in needing to spend any amount of crypto/money for those tick offs of achievement on your name. ;)

Who needs to buy merits when we have @TMAN aka 50Merits   :D

https://i.imgur.com/ABN6QDA.png

Why not we just hire him and see from which account he or she is going to merit and then just report?

Maybe, Team360 has bought some merits to rank-up... Many new people coming here making announcements believes that they must have some merit and greater rank so people can take their project seriously and I keep telling them that you do not need merit or bigger rank for your influence you just need a unique idea a perfect team and something that can make you better then and trusted then others.. people just wants to be secure...

I think that we are not aware of merit market, Its already selling I see.

I hope people must learn that merit is something that must be earned not bought and it has nothing to do with your ideas you can get influence if you are genuine... that's all.

Regards

Would you pay someone to break the BitcoinTalk rules just to see who they are? $20 a merit? I would not. One day or another they will get exposed, just like this guy OP is accusing. Lies are short, right? :)

And sometimes people will do anything possible just to get up to that minimum rank needed for a sig campaign.

Umm, We will not be breaking but we will be helping don't you think? Or instead of getting merit just ask him from which account he is going to merit? _{can also be done without paying him or getting merit for real..}

If price of 1 merit is $20, Imagine how much money TMAN dumping already $1k is big already so only fool would buy those merit with that price. I cant blame but wonder why there are so eager to pay for a huge amount to get merits. Obviously its for bounty campaign but if they will joined altcoin campaign it still a gamble without assurance.

I am dumping merits too but not for money but for their efforts and quality post here. Hoping for a positive change soon for this merit issue.

Well, by "hiring" I understood something completely different. :D

Without a fool, no one will buy per merit with $20. The thought of buying merit and rank up is just stupid idea. People who buy merit to rank up. Their purpose is to join the bounty or join the signature campaign. But they do not understand that, if they give something good to the community, they will be able to earn merit. But they want to do it in a shortcut way.

Not bad :D I gave away cycled $189260 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=topsendat) worth of sMerit :D

That's why theymos wrote a long time ago not to worry too much about Merit abuse. It's a tiny fraction at a high price.
I kinda expected people to start selling quality posts instead of selling sMerit, but I guess the users who sell sMerit aren't the same users who create quality.

There is no way these two aren't alts of each other, or at least related in one way or another through this service of team360 or whatever it's called. Better yet, they could be bought merits.

Unfortunately merit farming is a widespread issue and according to some people, on local boards you are able to obtain a lot of merits for an extremely cheap price.

From a sig campaign point of view though, it shouldn't be that big of an issue if the campaign manager does his due diligence in terms of at least just glancing over the merit sources

This is so generous, There is a great saying

—Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

It's difficult for them to join campaigns that pay with bitcoin. But there are many signature campaigns in "bounties" board that users just fill a form and get accepted. Some managers don't even check merit history and previous posts.
These merits rank up users and cause them to have bigger pay rate.
Although those bounties are not that profitable these days, there are many users interested in them and perhaps they become profitable again if we have a bull run.

They can overcome such storm because of lacking evidences that these two account are connected or related that is why there will be no flags to be sent and no one will get punished yet until that person got caught cheating their way of ranking their account. IMHO, it's much better to personally earn merit rather than buying and just use the money to invest something like that.

I don't think someone will open a selling quality posts service although it is quite interesting LOL  ;D If someone has time to create quality articles, I guess they will focus on their own account. It is also related to the security of the account  :D Selling account  seems more profitable than selling quality
Can you give some examples?
But it will be a big problem for altcoin's bounty campaigns  :P Most of them only require your rank to be greater than the newbie  :D
Not really, it depends a lot on the project being developed. To be honest, most of them are shitcoins, but there are a few bright spots in them

Here is what I think about your furniture  ;D

https://media.tenor.com/images/1b0f2bd8e8c29412b91bcddccfa67a7a/tenor.gif

Touching my furniture = touching the thing in my panties (if I am wearing any at the time)

seldom used slang for tickle my balls!

Yeah, I understood that. It just reminded me of Rick James and the Murphy brothers for some reason.

Being a non native and understanding me gets you a merit dude!

Tonight I shall drink in your name.