Bitcoin Forum

Who would have the coins and desire to buy multiple accounts here to put out a message?  ;)

Obviously don't assume that the user who emailed me is still the original owner of that account...

This is what I and many others received (thought I imagine the price is different for everyone):

MajidBC
Full Member
Account
« Sent to: SirWilliam on: August 29, 2014, 09:03:41 AM »
« You have forwarded or responded to this message. »
   Reply with quoteQuote ReplyReply Remove this messageDelete
Hi,

I want to buy your account. I asked one of staffs of this forum, he answered it's not against the rules. I can prove it, if you want. Are you interested? It's easy money. We can do it by a third person's help.

MajidBC
Full Member

   
Re: Account
« Sent to: SirWilliam on: September 01, 2014, 09:42:52 AM »
   Reply with quoteQuote ReplyReply Remove this messageDelete
0.250 BTC

Is 0.25 BTC for an account too cheap?

Haha, well it is MY account after all, I imagine more prominent or senior account owners are being offered more.

But, market prices aside, I wonder how long this has been going on. It certainly would explain sudden mass postings of totally fabricated FUD that seem to come up every time there is positive news....

Buying/selling accounts isn't against the rules but unsolicited PM spam is. You can report these type of messages and they'll get dealt with pretty fast.

Oh I did report them.

I just think that everyone should be aware that this is going on and have their own opinion about how many senior accounts may have actually been bought and are currently being put to use in a coordinated propaganda effort.

And like I said, who would have the coin and time to do this?

I've left negative trust with reference to this thread.  Will remove if it has been proven that what op mentioned is false.

Most people are aware that accounts can be bought/sold and that's one of the reasons they're allowed so people know it goes on. How do you know they're to be used for 'propaganda' purposes though? You'd be better off just creating a new account for that. Accounts are usually purchased for sig campaigns.

No, you would certainly NOT be better off creating new accounts. Can you not understand that posts by a senior member, who may be known by many users, carry more weight and generate more views than someone who registered 2 minutes ago?

Sig campaigns? HAhaaaaaa you really believe someone is mass buying shill accounts at .25 bitcoin each for a sig campaign.  :) that's cute.

Very interesting to see how quickly this thread is being attacked, isn't it  ;)

Today a lot of people just attack others. I think it is they purpose.

True. And for others it is their job and they are paid to do it  ;D

Would love if there was some indicator....

Maybe "time since last password change" or something.

Or a history of IP geo location for accounts.

Yep, and many people think that this kind of job is like robbing and it is not fair.

Seems to me.. He's a true believer of the saying "old is gold"... :P :P

Haha, you really believe someone is buying accounts for propaganda purposes? Now that really is cute and a little extreme. Can you provide evidence of how he is trying to mass buy accounts and for propaganda purposes? I dont think you're really thinking this through. So you really think people go around throwing money away to buy accounts for this purpose when there's a good chance they'll be banned? No. Sure, higher ranked accounts carry a little more weight but you can do more damage with an army of newb accounts you can quickly create for free. Unlikely people will want to risk their money this way. And many people do buy several accounts for sig campaigns as you can or could make your money back in less than a month. This practice of trying to buy accounts is common and I've seen it happen several times and many have been banned for sending the unsolicited messages.


Saying things like that leads me to believe that you're pretty paranoid and irrationally jumping to conspiracies here and are incapable of looking at this from any other angle. How has this thread been 'quickly attacked' exactly?

People have a whole range of uses of accounts and there is a clear market..

Accounts here actually seem to be a better investment than most the scammy dice sites and HYIPs... the price in $ has been increasing with them and they by their nature increase in value..

It depends.  To some people that is a lot to others nothing.

You'd be basically selling your identity if you sold your account. And you (personally) would be socially responsible for how the account was used after you sold it, since people would think that it was you.

But that account is anonymous.

Very strange this isn't against the rules, how does the website benefit from not banning this? Surely it damages the sites credibility as it will lead to even more fud.  Why bother have the new member posting rules if the site owners are not concerned about credibility of content?

Wrong. People don't give a fuck about newbs. Hero Members impose respect, it's psychological. I wouldn't sell an Hero account for less than 1 BTC AT LEAST. It takes fucking forever to achieve Hero status.

The rationale is it can't be stopped or policed effectively and if accounts are allowed to be sold openly people will be constantly aware that an accounts can and are sold, so that's why you shouldn't necessarily trust an account or hold it in a higher regard merely because of member status.


And nobody would give a fuck about a Hero member who does nothing but troll and post fud. People aren't going to respect their posts if they're posting shit just because they're a Hero member.

That makes me feel so darn important...

Even though I'm not. :D

That much is obvious. The first thing I do when I see a post with a dramatic title is check who posted it.

As for nonsense about sig campaigns, we all know that there is NO possible way to make money buying accounts as anonymous and recently registered as mine for .250 BTC EACH! If someone shows me how to make over a quarter bitcoin a month (as some poster claimed) buying accounts that are only a year old and just have full member status, then I will start buying up crap accounts with my BTC today LOL!  ;D

The purpose of this mass buying of accounts is NOT to turn a quick profit, since there is no way to turn a quick profit buying up crap accounts at .250 each (or more). The purpose is to prevent people from instantly dismissing whatever they want to push by AT LEAST posting the FUD under accounts that don't scream "NEWBIE! REGISTERED TODAY!"

I have heard form others who had the spam offers to buy mundane accounts for relatively large amounts. I would appreciate it if they and any others would post in this thread. Even better it would be nice to hear from users who sold their accounts and are now using new or other accounts, but somehow I don't think they will want to add to this thread  ;) .

So let the finger puppets spam this thread with threats to report it to moderators, blatantly nonsensical arguments and personal attacks, but why don't the rest of us try to have a serious conversation about what is going on with this campaign of some unknown but deep-pocketed entity overpaying for non-newbie accounts.

Thanks

While that is a lovely strawman you've built. I'll stick to reality, and rather than "a Hero member who does nothing but troll and post fud" think in the vein of "a few hundred accounts ranging from full member to hero who post a large number of new topics and replies including false news, reasonable-sounding FUD and exaggerations of bad news, as well as personal attacks and accusations of paranoia against anyone who tries to expose or even discuss what they are doing in the forums"  ;D

It is a strong point. Of course they would argue that it can't be stopped so why not have it out in the open?

But it is indeed a HUGE problem for credibility and it creates a playground for whoever wants to manipulate the discourse for whatever purpose.

I find it interesting that this transparency about the sales of accounts does not seem to apply to the discussion of large-scale and well-funded organized campaigns of the buying of accounts.

Every time someone mentions it there are threats and attacks.

Of course I am not saying it is easy to counteract but it does threaten the legitimacy of the entire forum.

Dramatic like this one?


Better start buying then because this has just proven how completely wrong and ill-informed you are on this matter. I made 0.52 last month and I've been here less than a year. Used to make much more than that when I was a Full Member too. Take a look over in the digital goods section for evidence of this and look at the responses to people when they ask why the accounts are being sold for so much or anything at all. "Signature campaigns" are the answer you will see over and over again. Everybody knows (apart from you) that 99.9% of accounts sold here are done so for signature campaigns. In the past you could get between 0.4-2.4btc with a Full or Snr Member account alone per month per account (a Snr account takes nine months to achieve btw) so buying a few accounts is very profitable. People want them to earn money because you can't join a high-paying signature campaign unless you are at least a Member. You can troll and post fud from your throw-away Newb account though and then just create a new one if/when you get banned.


Wrong again - very easy to make a quick profit as I've already explained. Do you have evidence some sort of astroturfer organisation are buying accounts for such uses or is it just your own biased opinion again? I've already explained several times how you can see a return on investment on accounts even purchased for 0.4 which is what the going rate for Snrs was up until recently, but I don't think you're willing to accept it.


What does 'mundane accounts' have to do with anything? The mundane the better for signature campaigns. All that matters is their Member rank. The higher the rank the more valuable the account is because the more you can earn from signature deals. Yes, that's right, signature deals. Is it merely a coincidence the guy trying to buy your account is on one?


Haha Finger puppets and 'deep-pocketed entity'. How can you claim to not be paranoid when making claims like this makes you sound exactly like your typical paranoid conspiracy nutter... or maybe you're just a troll and I'm being trolled here? Maybe your account has been sold/bought and is being used for the purposes you describe, so maybe I am wrong. The only person who is talking nonsense here is you and you're not trying to have a serious discussion at all but the opposite. You're making stuff up and acting like a child and sticking your fingers in your ears and going la la la and refusing to listen to any facts or alternative viewpoints at all.


:o As opposed to your argument which is based on absolutely nothing but your own minsinformed opinion? Pretty much all the fud or attacks or trolling I see here is from brand new or newb accounts so I don't understand your logic here at all. Who is this organisation that is buying a few hundred accounts at 0.2 or more a piece? The Illuminati? Calling you paranoid isn't an insult because it's exactly what you are being when you make ridiculous claims like "funny how this thread is being attacked". Attacked? You've been 'attacked' because someone was offering an alternative answer; one that you didn't like because it doesn't fit your agenda? That was a completely laughable accusation made in such an alarming conspiratorial fashion which conspiracy nutters often do to try and divert attention and play the victim and to make out as if the responses they have gotten are complete proof that they're right and are on to some conspiracy that they've just exposed.

Hahaaaa, how predictable, a little too uncomfortable for the mods?? Ooops, better move it so it gets less views!  ;D

You're either a troll or a moronic conspiracytard. What does this thread have to do with the discussion of Bitcoin? It's about this forum and everything pertaining to this forum goes in Meta.

The accounts are most likely not being used for propaganda. The thread was moved to the correct section because Meta is about discussion of the forums. Face the facts - stop believing that you are right and the entire world is wrong.

And remember kids, account selling happens due to only one thing:

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/378800000754658088/38ceaa2e17aadb8bb325ad0e4928bd6e.jpeg




Illuminati confirmed.

The most reason for buying forum accounts is signature advertising. I heard someone is earning $2000 per month from 10 Senior accounts.

Since the Primedice closed the doors, the signature stuff is not profitable anymore.

Lots of campaigns with closed doors and that pays 0.05/0.1 BTC bt 50 posts. You really luck if you get 1 BTC/month with 10 accounts with signature programs.

Even in the digital goods subforum we see little account trades, because gain with signature is hard, but the accounts still takes time and efford to rise.

At this moment, buy full member accounts for 250mBTC can't be justified by signature purposes, since the ROI will take long and there is always the risk of the original owner claims his account back.

Campaigns come and go. I'm sure there will be more deals arriving soon and maybe a Pay Per Post campaign eventually. Maybe now would be a good time to buy accounts since they've resultingly become cheap, and PD may also offer a fixed rate and who knows what they'll pay.

This isn't a new topic, people have been buying/selling accounts for a long time, the moderators don't care. Does it hurt the credibility of the forum? No, this isn't ebay. The fact that you can buy and sell things here is a just a feature. A forum is a place to talk about things, your username doesn't hugely effect that, unless you have built a reputation, but that can be removed pretty quickly if the buyer doesn't maintain the integrity of the account. Does it make the marketplace section a little trickier? Yes, but its always been tricky. There is no protecting people from scammers, find a reputable escrow service, and be ever vigilant.

What purposes could people have for buying accounts? Yes sig campaigns are the big one, then scamming and such comes in too, but really sig campaigns are so much more profitable, they are sustainable, so you can keep getting a payout every month, as long as you don't get banned for spamming, the pay keeps coming in. If you try to scam with the account and someone catches you before you can scam them, your account is now worthless, and you just threw out whatever you paid for the account, so scamming is really a gamble.

Back to the point, you are openly allowed to buy or sell accounts, we don't have the ability to enforce it, so by saying that its not allowed, without having the ability to back it up would give members a false sense of security. If it is allowed, then people are always on the lookout for suspicious behavior.

I'll sell my account for 10 BTC. PM me if you're interested. I'll just create a new account if someone actually buys this one and then I'll sell the next one. I'd like to know what propaganda they're pushing first, though. If it's just going to be used for pointless stuff that helps them and doesn't hurt the community, I'm cool with that.

It is nice to help others while making some money.

Someone would pay you 10btc for your account and you might still reject it?  lol

Yes your account is anonymous, but it's just you with a different name. Your personality and a lot about you can be figured out by your posts and interests.

I don't post a lot, but I'm always curious about the age of an account. I generally assume that an early adopter has more skin in the game and I am likely to offer higher regard to an older account. I don't give as much validity to member status because I see many of the same users spouting foolishness every day.

i think most accs are bought for altcoin propaganda not BTC one

I would disagree with this. If someone suddenly starts to post in different ways then it should be clear that it is not the same person posting. Also your "identity" is only known to other anonymous people whose identity you do not know yourself.

What you would be selling is the time you have put into posting on your account and nothing more.

Oh my god...lmao. This is amazing, I love it! xD Looks like you have your own YouTube fan club, Vod!

0.25 BTC?
I will sell mine for not less than 10BTC
Maybe..... ;)

I am still against the endorsement of account trading. It leads to getting more accounts hacked and problems like that of Zedicus/buyo.

Account trading would still continue, but the incentive to buy will be less as the buyers know sellers can claim back anytime easily. There should be an automated process in the new forum to get back accounts.

There's a news coverage of this thread in cryptocoinsnews:

http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/bitcointalk-accounts-are-being-bought-and-sold/ (http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/bitcointalk-accounts-are-being-bought-and-sold/)

Came to this thread from that news article. This place is fu€ked for allowing accounts to be sold in the first place.

I would agree, but it's not like they encourage or support accounts trading. They simply don't forbid it, and what's not forbidden is allowed. Also, there's not much anyone can do to prevent it, they could suspend such accounts, but they would need to be 100% sure that those have been bought/sold.

On the other hand, when you reach hero or legendary rank, it's nice to know that your account is worth 'something'.

Haha. Must be a slow week in Bitcoinland. Glad they didn't go with the paranoid and alarmist headline SHOCK HORROR: BITCOINTALK ACCOUNTS BEING BOUGHT FOR MASS PROPAGANDA.


Exactly. It's not like this forum permits scams either but we let the community police itself on such matters. We can't be expected to babysit users or eradicate scams but whatever we did or didn't do one thing I know is people will always complain either way. I'd also just like to state that I was actually against the selling of accounts initially and was surprised to see it was even allowed here (as well as mods not doing anything about successful or attempted and blatantly obvious scam attempts) but I soon saw the logic in why they don't act on them. Hopefully in time others will as well, though I don't think there's any right or wrong way to handle this situation and is just down to personal opinion.

I was unaware until very recently (last 24hrs) that the site allowed (if not supported) purchasing accounts.  I guess with anything else, buyer beware for what you're getting yourself in to.

That said, I find it surprising that so many unscrupulous people would exist on this site - just goes to show you there is no end to scammers pushing the fraud, fud, and anything else on you.

Yup, exactly.
The account could be hacked and the hacker decide to sell the account.
The account seller could have malicious intent and claim the account hacked after selling it while it isn't.
The account may be very close to getting banned for breaking rules.

At least we have a trust system, as well as other means of verifying someone's reputation (ie #bitcoin-otc, localbitcoins reputation).

It's not perfect, but it does work most of the time.

i like freedom here and it should stay like it is

And how exactly you prohibit people from doing so? You can't do nothing about it. If you ban account trading here people just move somewhere else to post account trading information.

Hi cryptohunter!  :-*

Fixed. I've still yet to see any proof of accounts being sold to be used for 'mass propganda'.

How are we 'greedy beyond belief'? How do we benefit or profit from it exactly? I don't think you're capable of looking at this from any other perspective and are blinded by your own bias here. It's been stated multiple times why it's allowed. And I think if you read satoshi's writings you will see he was smart enough to know it was inevitable that criminals would take advantage of bitcoin. Maybe you should join or start a forum that policies and censors anything you don't like with an iron fist if you're so against the way this one is run and if you think you know what's best.

Okay, I do apologize for my tone and ignorance to previous information posted on the subject. I just am curious as to what is a case scenario where a bought account could be used for good?

Somebody invented a charitycoin and they want to lively up the campaign? Even still, this is a form of impersonation. Just because its not a crime doesn't mean its not dishonest.

And just because Satoshi was smart enough to see that bitcoin would bring criminals doesn't mean the forum shouldn't try to dissuade them. As a matter of fact, I am certain they do take certain measures to accomplish this, only perhaps not when it comes to this area.

Can you please humor me and tell me why buying and selling accounts is allowed? The reasoning wasn't stated in this thread, other than because they can't stop it. Thank you.

Whether traded accounts are used for good or bad is down to your own personal opinion of what 'good' and 'bad' is. The overwhelming percentage of accounts sold are done so almost exclusively for signature campaigns and not used for nefarious purposes. Do you think that is a bad thing? I don't. Merely buying an account does not equals impersonation. Most are likely just honest or at least neutral people trying to make a bit of coin the easiest way they can. It may not be a crime but it may also not be dishonest either. Frowned upon, maybe, but not necessarily dishonest unless the person in control of the account does dishonest things with it. Can purchased/sold accounts be used deceptively and to scam? Of course, but so can accounts you can freely create yourself. Most people are not going to waste money trying to buy an account when they're likely to fail or get busted before you can successfully scam and then that account is ruined and worthless. 

I think the main rationale and reasoning for allowing accounts to be sold is because allowing them lets others know that the practice can and does go on and banning them may give people a false sense of security, not to mention banning their sale will not stop the behaviour from happening and only push it further underground and into obscurity. 

This forum also doesn't moderate or ban scammers, but that doesn't mean we allow or encourage them nor do we profit from it in any way from it.

This is your point of view.

Maybe, but you need to include people from all countries, backgrounds, religions, political persuasions, etc. After taking all that into account and extracting a common denominator I bet that you'd have a pretty sparse definition of what "good" is.

Monitoring is underway.

I'm collecting two lists, one of account sellers and the other of account buyers. I will be sure to post this information, links and dates so everybody can see who to avoid from now on.

You are not pretending to be a specific identity. When you post on here you are posting from a username (under certain circumstances this can even be changed). When you make a post, you do not represent that you are any specific person.

Also when you sell your account, you would also be selling any kind of "identity" associated with such account and this should be obvious to anyone selling such account.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=358020

Why would you assume that? It is commonly known that people buy and sell accounts. It is illogical to assume this. 
Incorrect. See my above response. Regardless of if this is true or not, it is very immature to give something more weight just because a certain person said it; you should listen to specific arguments and facts not who is making the statement.
In order to impersonate an identity, you would need to not own that identity in the first place. When you use the term impersonate you are implying that the identity does not belong to the poster, but in fact it does.

I have seen a lot of people advocating for PoS to replace PoW (I suspect to attempt to pump PoS scamcoins - all altcoins are scamcoins IMO). It is possible that these are purchased accounts, however it would not be any different if people were posting from newbie accounts as either way their argument is flawed.

I think banning all sig campaigns would be a good idea. I have an ad in my sig because I spend a lot of time in this forum plus I am an investor in the company that advertises in my sig and I support them. I can use the money but I dont need it, and as for quality of posts, in my case, I dont really know if that has changed much. I am very engaged in some conversations, some I just feel a need to chime in on, sometimes I want to make a little joke. Nothing that is going to change the world, but I get a lot of good use out of this forum, have solved more than a few issues thanks to my fellow helpful members and do my best to be respectful and polite (which considering the behavior of some of the trolls in here is quite a feat sometimes)

Still I can appreciate what sig campaigns have done to the general atmosphere here.

If the sig campaigns were removed it would strike a serious blow at who ever it is that is buying accounts. I understand that they have ulterior motives for aquiring these accounts and want them for manipulation purposes, but they have an easy time because their expenses are compensated with these sig campaigns. Fine by me if it all gets curtailed.

Also, the manipulation I speak of, especially in the securities section, I believe there are laws regarding this type of behavior, arent there? I've heard of people using sock puppet accounts to manipulate stock prices online, and that is in the traditional stock market. You can be sent to jail for such things. What I'm saying is- bitcointalk admins could be culpable if there is legal action, so I would crack down hard on that kind of stuff, not sure how, but "turning off their water and heat" i.e. removing their sig income, would definitely be a start.

I just discovered this "Meta" section of the forum looking to complain about a paid trolling ad I saw in the services section, and I've spent all day here. Funnily enough, this section is a lot more interesting than much of the rest of the forum. To me at least. I guess its time for me to go outside and play...

Bolded - I also want to know! :P

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/bitcointalk-staff-quietly-bans-people-speaking/

I'm not so sure this is completely accurate though. Because if it was, I wouldn't be able to write this message.

Please, please don't ban me. I promise to be nicer when talking to the mods, starting now.

No, you're right, its fascinating. Like reading a crime thriller. Some of the scams that people come up with are pretty novel and entertaining to watch go down from the sidelines.