Bitcoin Forum

We know the scam on this forum is not moderated, and that we have hundreds of scammers who have negative feedbacks and active flags that should warn all members to stay away from them when it comes to trading or any other type of activity that can result in financial loss.

Yet despite these visual warnings, many fall victim to these same scammers who send them PMs and offer various methods of earning, or help with unconfirmed transactions, blocked crypto exchange accounts and similar things.

What would definitely make their job harder is the automatic ban on sending PMs to everyone or at least to lower ranks. While some may say that everyone should take care of themselves, watch Trust ratings and always be vigilant - why not take away the most powerful weapon of scammers right now - and that is to prevent them from doing their dirty work in the background via PM.

Yeah it might be a good idea if a user has a trust flag and at least 10 more supporters than opposers on it...

But can't newbies pm newbies so they could just make a new account?

This shouldn't even be a debate able issue although, won't that be equivalent to a ban because, they seem pretty much like the same thing to me. At least they could cause no further damage to the forum and it's legit users. Though, in other for the later corrective measures to be implemented on suspects, the aligations should be verified to be true and in cases where the scammer has refused to return that which has been taken should the victim request for a refund. At that point, we are sure the scammer deserves what he or she gets (permanent/temporal ban or restriction from posting or pm).

Actually, that's the used of trust system and flagged in the forum so that community will help moderators to deal with this kind of issue. There is a lot of additional work for moderators if user with red tag as scam will be banned too and we don't need anymore the negative trust system if that implement because all negative trust in that case are already removed in the forum. Theymos want this forum to become an open forum that's why trust system is unmoderated.

Everyone should read the forum rules and features in meta during there first visit so that they will inform on how  forum works especially the trust system function. No one will be scam if everyone read the Do's and Don't here. The problem was most of the newbie are too careless on dealing here.

If a forum rule is created for confirmed scammers and is enforceable by the mods based on a certain criteria, wouldn't that make trust moderated?
What would determine a confirmed scammer may be a barrier; we have had debates even among top ranking members about correct use of feedback and flags, so such a restriction would lead to lots of drama.
It would also create a false feeling of security as other members would assume anyone who can pm them are less likely to scam.

P.S; I would suggest members with active flags have a warning banner show up when they message other members or newbies, below x days total log in time. I do not know if this is currently implemented, but it could help to protect forum members.

I'm not against such idea, but as you say, trust system isn't moderated and it's very unlikely that such restriction will be implemented. Though, before trust systemadded scammer tags to some members and I think that some people still have such tag.
I haven't received messages from someone with negative trust or active flag against him recently, so I don't remember, is it any kind of warning is displayed there? If not, it should be. Something similar when you receive PM from newbie. But warning should be bigger and brighter.

Who will define confirmed scammer?

You mean like those with type 2 or 3 flags?
How many members on average per month get a type 2 or 3?

For those that are conclusively proven to scam then sig ban, no pms, no starting threads  etc is a good idea.
I would ban them completely.

I believe the trust system is good enough to heed as a warning. I know there's a warning for new users, but is there a warning for DefaultTrust negative rated users within the PM? If that's not implemented, that might be a good idea. I haven't got any PMS that I could check I don't believe, at least without digging. At the end of the day, even DefaultTrust has conflicting opinions on certain users, and I think having a warming within the PM area itself, is better than outright censoring a user who is viewed as untrustworthy by DefaultTrust.

I think blocking transactions from these guys will still be hard to implement even when discovered the tx or any identity used. Also exchange wouldnt care probably unless they have enough time to listen with these scammer's issue.

How about totally restrict a PM message for those who have trust flag that has been so many negative tagged and feedback. Sometime with small chances they can still send some wouldnt noticed the idea of trust system. So they wouldnt know if legit and scam, mostly newbie falls for it.

It will definitely create an influx of newbie accounts. I do not think that this is the cure-all solution, my solution would be IP banning if that is possible. Most games that I play do this when they detect cheaters in their game, it is pretty effective because the rate of cheater drastically gone down. Although in this case, it will be different, I do not know much about the administrative functions in this forum so I do not know if it is entirely possible at all.

Newbie accounts are a completely different story, but they still have a limitation of sending PM, so they cannot act on a larger number of users in a short time, which means they will be detected very soon and probably get a perma ban.

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You didn't understand me well, I didn't mean any transactions as such - but the services that these scammers offer through PM to those who have problems with withdraw, stuck transactions or blocked crypto exchange accounts.

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Warning is unfortunately not something that all members understand, especially those who have major problems with the basics of the English language. The administration should find a way to disable those with malicious intent from doing their dirty work through private messages, so if a member has proven bad intentions' confirmed from many DT1 members we should move from warning to prevent them from doing more damage.

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Here is just one example of a member who has zero value for the forum, who sends private messages to other members in order to scam as many people as possible. It is completely incomprehensible to me that he can still do what he wants, because the forum no longer wants to have anything to do with him.

DreamerBT tried to scam me for 0.1btc using the fake telegram manager trick (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5286427.0)

this is a good idea, lots of accounts get red flags or newbies dirty my inbox, they give a call-to-action campaign or an airdrop, I'm not sure if they are the team behind that project.  IMO, it's a good idea to cut PM access on newbies or accounts with more than 4 red flags..

there have been cases where users have been IP banned before. and there are also cases of people who were IP banned(due to evil score/points) even though it was their first time registering on the forum.


All Internet evil, mapped: evil score visualization 2 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4101785.0)

I think that is another waste of time because we know that they can create another accounts and scam again and that would be more dangerous for they have already neutral trust after creating the another account. For me, educating new members would be the best way to avoid getting scam by these scammers. Like having a good welcome message to them about the forum and the activities of the forum. This can help newcomers to be wary or being caution.

1. The scammers may need to discuss in private - at least in the case of red trust feedback - with the ones giving the feedback.
2. If one wants to scam by PM, he'll find a way, with or without blocking PM.

I don't say the idea overall is bad, but it may need to be refined. For example they cannot users with PM lower rank than.. Hero, or Sr for example? Since it's expected that a Hero or a Sr was here long enough and not fall for this. Just another idea (which may be good or not).

Why would anyone be such naive that they will believe anyone from a forum? They have their responsibilities and they should protect themselves. Now, if this one get implemented, imagine some got trapped by PM, will the forum take the loss? No. Then I think this idea isn't a better one.

Agreeing to the people who wants to have some kind of message or note reminding the member that the one messaging them has a negative trust is better compared to completely banning them on sending PMs. I know they have scammed someone or a lot of people but simply removing these feature in the forum just because they have negative trust is something that might be unfair for them, I mean not all negative feedbacks have the same weight as everyone so having a ban for all of them would simply be unfair for the ones who can still have a clean rep.

Not all negative tags are always fair. Of course, there is also a rule about unsolicited PMs that can be applied to each forum member. Agree, how many of you adhere to the rules about unsolicited messages in a PM? Many do not even know about this rule. Thus, those who have been given negative trust are not always scammers. And it is they who may have the ability to resolve conflicts through private messages.
In any case, we should always have our head on our shoulders, and we always have the opportunity to check the trust of the person who writes to us in private messages.

Auto-ban who ? If DT gives you 2 negative (for example) you are not able to send PM to newbies ? (sorry if I misunderstood)
Trust: +0 / =0 / -0 ratings do appear in PMs, so there's that at least
And also would assume most of the scams happen outside the forum, like Telegram etc.

Nothing is automatic here. Bans, locked accounts, reports, feedback, DT etc they all have human intervention in one form or another. I guess besides profile settings "ignore newbie PM" and "ignore user posts/pm" , but you get the idea. I doubt the first "automation" would involve something serious like bans, be it only for PMs.

That's right, but then again Lucius is pertaining to those confirmed scammers.
I guess this could be a fine idea but I think not for now... this is debatable and there are things need to be considered upon implementing it.
IMO, maybe the suggestion of the OP could be considered through the severity of the red trust of the user(for confirmed scammers) e.g if the user received 30 negative feedbacks then the account should be prohibited to create PMs to avoid future frauds.

A single report for unsolicited PM is enough for a temporary ban. Your idea isn't bad, but I don't think this way, we can prevent scammers. Forum registration almost free, so they would dare to create multiple accounts. And who knows if they have multiple accounts from the beginning? On the other support flags would be manipulated as well, so determine a real scam would be complicated for moderators which would raise questions about moderators transparency. Since feedback is visible on the message, so would help to prevent scams. Those are greedy, you can't save them anyway...

That would mean someone's ability to PM depends on who's on DefaultTrust, which varies quite a lot.

Yes. And that's why I don't think this will ever be implemented. I'd like to see this implemented, but it won't help much anyway. A scammer can just PM using a Jr. Member account (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5111462.msg49839701#msg49839701) without any negative feedback anyway.

I don't think it's going to help:

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There's another thing: this forum aims to be as free as possible, which is one of the reasons why scams don't get moderated. Another reason is that Mods don't want to decide who's a scammer. I think the Trust Flag suggestion is the best so far (apart from the variation in DT).

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Quickseller (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=358020;dt) for instance has an active flag with many supporters, but I wouldn't want him to lose PM-privilages.

Hasn't he got a type1 flag which can be for any reason?

Type2 and 3 flags are the only sensible or credible threshold for "scammer" that we have right now.
If someone is a confirmed scammer why would you worry if they lost their PM privilege.
Makes zero sense

Besides if QS wants to reach out he can use primenumber7  or one of his others.
I see no reason not to delete confirmed scammers accounts.
The counter arguments are kind of weak considering the state of the trust system.
Credible accounts even alts take a bit of time and that's if they are merit source DT atls.

This won't be a deal anyway. Imagine that one day I decide to scam someone via PM by offering him to boost his transaction's confirmation time or double his bitcoin, etc. More likely, this user will fall into scam because I have some trust and have a better profile than others (Of course I write it just to show you an example).
So this isn't a deal, it's a bad way of solving the dilemma. Instead, we have to create some threads and pin it where we will talk about how to get rid of getting a victim of scams. When I offer this kind of benefits to user to scam that I mentioned above, user don't have to trust my trust rating, he/she has to be critical and ask question like: "How are you able to accelerate my transaction?" And he/she has to do some research at the same time. Also, when I ask for a deposit on my address and offer him double bitcoins, he has to ask: This user has good trust rating but it doesn't matter, how is he going to double my bitcoins? There are no ways of it, nor cloud mining, nor trading, they carry risks and in overall ROI of mining is low, by trading you can't profit that much in a short timeframe, so, this user lies to me, I have to ignore him and tell the community about him and his methods.

So... We don't have to act like a bandaid, we have to fix the problem from the root.

Right and the roots has to be from the users. We just have to be vigilant ourselves as we make the security of our funds our number one priority. Disabling PM from the so called confirmed scammers won't do the trick. By the way who're the confirmed scammers when the forum doesn't moderate scam and the dt system isn't yet perfect to be used as judgement on who scammers are or aren't.

Putting into consideration, we have conflict of increase in the system. Also there has been previous situation when users with high green trust scammed users of their funds meaning not everyone with a red trust is a scammer and not every one with a positive trust should be trusted. OP I understand you're just showing concerned and trying to help but this won't be the perfect solution also there no point helping individuals that aren't ready to be helped by educating themselves and been vigilant.

The problem is that how can we identify the user who are scammers because even though them refused to send us a personal messages them will also trapped people based on their platform, losing ability to community or interact with them, that does not grant a chance for isolation via people because investment is the option to scam people which many people has be complaining about, therefore you can pm me but due to the content of the message I might lose interest knowing that it's a strategy to scam me.so if any one noticed a scammers, the scammer should be totally Ban, I think is the best option for them.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the discussion. From all the posts, it can be concluded that the majority still has a negative opinion about this type of ban. While the question of who is a scammer and who is not can always be asked, freedom of expression still seems to take precedence over any bans - this is definitely good news for scammers.

Imagine that in real life, instead of prison, criminals remain on the loose with the inscription "warning - I am a murderer" and that the system says : "beware of them, we cannot protect you."