Bitcoin Forum

Hi everyone, I want to know what is the reason that some easily start topics for selling their bitcoin account, if this trend continues some scums can easily buy their accounts and it can ruin the forum in the long term and defame the forum and also it damages the logic of membership improvement here, what are moderators doing?

The logic is we can't stop the sale of accounts whether it is banned or not. Most accounts are bought and sold for signature campaigns and not used for anything nefarious (though that of course does occasionally happen), but if you wanted to scam you can just easily create a new account and do so.

Yes but when they advertise in the forum for selling accounts then it is not difficult to stop them, if some of them become banned then no one at least does not advertise here.

What is the harm in it?!

sorry but i do not undestand the problem!!!!

If account sales were banned, people would simply sell them on other websites which the administration has no control over. The idea is that since it will happen anyway, it is best if they are sold here. Account sales are more transparent to outsiders and less risky for both parties if they are done here, as opposed to a third party website.

I am saying the logic of account membership for example when a person has 10+ feedback or no negative feedback shows he is trustable, but when the account is buyable everyone can sell his/her account easily meaning that selling trust

That is why it is still recommended that people use escrow for large deals, even if the person they are trading with has a good reputation. As long as you exercise some degree of caution when trading and make sure the account you are trading with doesn't look like it has been bought, you should be fine.

Does it? Feedback doesn't equals trust; it means they've (allegedly) done a successful trade. People can also fake feedback or buy it easily enough. I could create an alt account leave a load of feedback for fake trades and would you then trust it? No. The feedback is there as a guide and you should make your own mind up about the individual user but don't just blindly trust someone as you can easily be deceived.

Yes, you are correct and feedback are not trustable but it is easier to trust to a guy with positive feedback compared to a guy with negative feedback

Don't forget that when an account is sold, it usually gains some nice red negative feedbacks by trustworthy members that remember us it was a bought account.
And considering that the feedbacks from those members in default list weight way more than others, we can argue that selling trust is not easy doable.

Are you talking about selling BitcoinTalk accounts? 

I don't think there is a way to stop it at all, perhaps someone more intelligent than me could think of a way, but all it takes is for someone to post on a new account, and then the whole thing is covered up.

this practice is counter productive. It gets account trading to go further underground which makes people to be able to do more potential damage when they can buy feedback without detection

That doesn't happen as much as it used to unless the account looks like it's going to be used nefariously. Some people used to leave account sellers negative on sight as well but that doesn't really happen either now.

Frankly speaking, buying accounts to scam is a gamble. Accounts around here have value inherently for a number of reasons, Signature Advertising, Business opportunity, Scam opportunity, etc. If you want to buy a newbie account with no trust, it doesn't have much opportunity involved, so it would be cheap. If you want a legendary account that already has trust, you would be paying for all of those reasons. If someone wants to gamble on scamming they will need to put in a very large investment for a decent chance, say 5 BTC for a legendary account with a bit of trust. If you already have a bunch of bitcoins, rather than wasting it on an account which may or may not get flagged right away, why wouldn't you use those bitcoins to make more bitcoins legitimately?

I'm not saying account  buying for the intention of scamming doesn't happen, I'm sure it does, but its a lot more uncommon than people purchasing accounts for the purpose of signature advertising which is a more guaranteed and legitimate way to make BTC.

I wasn't aware of it, thanks for pointing it out.
I have some difficulties to imagine a fair use of a sold account; it always seemed to me deceiptive at least and leaving neg on sight to buyers/sellers was a good antidote.


Mmm, not sure. It's clear that underground selling is unavoidable, so the selling of accounts isn't forbidden on the forum.
But why we should make the life easier for them? At least, with this pratice we can stop an horde of wannabe scammers. The most dangerous ones probably act already under the radar anyway. I don't know, mixed feelings about it.

EDIT:


Isn't it still somehow deceiptive? I mean, in this case, from the point of view of the sig-campaign owner.

I can see why some people may find it deceptive, but that all depends on the circumstances of the individual and the account in question. I don't really find anything deceptive about someone buying and posting from GenericBitcoinUser69 to earn them some bitcoins, but would if say someone like DannyHamilton decided to sell their account and the new owner tried to pass himself off as him. Thankfully most active and respected members here are unlikely to sell their account, though of course there is always the possibility it could happen so you have to learn to stay vigilant.


It's not really about making it easier for scammers. You could argue we're also making it harder for them too. If account selling was banned it would jusy push the practice off site and without the use of escrow etc more innocent people would likely get scammed out of their money and/or accounts.

Sure, selling the account of a known and well respected member would be a way bigger problem, but IMHO even when the account is from an unknown member I tend to see it as an unfair thing, like I wrote in the edit of my previous post (I saw Salty's reply only after I posted mine, sorry for the mess):



Not sure if I've explained enough clearly my position (just in case): I'm not for banning account selling on the forum. I agree that it can't be avoided so it doesn't make much sense try to stop it.
I was just arguing about the practice to give them a negative feedback and I was referring to the recent lack of this practice when I wrote "why we should make their life easier?"  :)

Well I still don't think we should give the account negative feedback merely for changing hands unless there is good reason to (perhaps you strongly suspect a scam). Maybe a neutral one as a warning if you're concerned would be better, but that's just my opinion. Imagine if some kid has saved up $100 or more to buy an account because he sees it as the only or best way to acquire bitcoins and as soon as he does he finds it has been ruined by negative feedback even though account selling isn't against the rules.

No worries.  I won't be selling my account at all.

Note that if a person with positive trust sells their account, then they really weren't a trustworthy person in the first place.  Therefore it doesn't really matter which account owner you are actually dealing with.  Either way it would be an untrustworthy person with positive trust.

In some exceptional cases, like maybe the kid example, I suppose that few posts or PMs of explainations could easily end in the retreat of the negative feedback, if said explainations make sense. I hope I'm not wrong, but I imagine it has already happened.
Anyway, always nice to read opinions from staff and older members.

I bet there was little doubt about that. :)


Wondering if I'm reading this right, but doesn't it imply - in other words - that a sold account should have a negative trust with no exceptions?

I don't think that's what he means. I understand the logic, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the person wasn't trustworthy; if the user decides to stop using BTCtalk and wants to profit a little bit, he/she could sell the account. Other users that are aware of the deal that's going on can leave neutral (doesn't necessarily have to be negative feedback; users who've left positive feedback can also delete their feedback) feedback stating that the account has been purchased. It's just like another sale of a good, imo.

But selling accounts with positive feedback is like selling a personality of a good person to a buyer in real world, it can easily change the equations :).