Bitcoin Forum

Seems like every day I'm hearing about brand new accounts with names very similar to long-standing trusted accounts who are PM'ing people about offers to buy/sell coins. Examples:

1. sndvb (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=413529) impersonating shdvb (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=318030)
2. Blaizedout419 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=413800) impersonating Blazedout419 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=134378)
3. deuthedev (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=413562) impersonating devthedev (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=136592)
4. dooqlas (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=413312) impersonating dooglas (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=3420)
5. 0gNazty (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=393817) impersonating OgNasty (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=18321)

The list goes on ad nauseum. They'll PM a new user with an offer that's too good to pass up, dropping a link to the real user's trusted profile. I can't help but think that there are actually people who fall for this.

So can we revisit the idea of putting some sort of time/Activity-based restriction on new users with regard to sending PMs at least?

I think this is a great idea, I often get messages too regarding great deals I cannot pass up.  Would be wise to stop it, make it so new accounts can only reply to a PM for a bit or something?

+1

It is also very common to get a PM from one of these imposters after inquiring about a good or publicly making an offer for something. It is very obvious to me that they are fake however the amount of money involved is usually large so they would only need to scam one person to make it worth their while.

I think a good balance would be a one post requirement before you can send a PM in order to make these imposter accounts more visible (and hopefully visable enough to get tagged with negative trust)

Agreed. These scammers will also hover in auction and goods section waiting for offers to go up, so that they can message potential buyers and push through a quick sale with a newbie account name that looks similar to the seller's.

Piggybacking on this idea. There should be restrictions on newbie members making new topics outside of the Beginners section.

I agree also 100% on this. I always drop them negative trust when their profiles are linked.

It is not a sale thread these days without a scam attempt

The evil part of me wants to start a dialog with them and play along until the day I take their precious and use it to fund a crypto class for cops.   8)

+1 with the OP

I agree with tomatocage , maybe post it in the "New forum software" section and the various devs can "add" this new feature.

I get 5-10 PMs a week from newbies / literally just signed up accounts asking legitimate questions or asking for help. These are accounts that more often then not become useful members of the community. You can't paint everyone with the same brush.

I agree, I think we should bring back the newly created account limitation and limit them to "Beginner's and Help" for a certain period.


I do this all the time in the Bitcoin-OTC channels, we should partner up.


I don't think it would be too hard to implement in the current forum software.

if you force users to make at least one post before sending a PM then this problem would be solved.

Forcing someone to post for the sake of posting will likely feed the other forum issues of low quality / spam. Also that user would then have to wait 10 minutes before being able to PM me.

I think one post is a very low threshold. A thread in beginners could easily be created/stickied for a "first post".

They need to wait 6 minutes before being able to post after logging in so if they post once they would need to wait a total of 12 minutes. There is a good chance they will be able to learn a lot in that time.

Maybe a flashing bright red "NEWBIE" warning on PMs by newbies would be enough to deter impersonators/scammers, while not preventing legitimate new users from asking their questions?

Onkel Paul

Exactly. How much do you people want to babysit idiots? If someone falls for a scam because the offer was 'too good to be true' then that's their own fault. Anyone can see the relevant details of activity/post count/rank via PMs and if you get scammed by a newb called sat05hi with 0 posts and zero everything else then I honestly don't think adding more restrictions is going to stop these people from getting scammed.


What will forcing them to make one post achieve?


And perhaps a piercing Air Raid siren sound can be blasted out from their speakers once they open the PM?

Making them make one post would give more chances for someone to notice that someone is using a "fake" account and call them out for it and/or give them negative trust. (It increased visibility to the account)

If they don't make a post they are more likely to have neutral trust as of when they send the message.

People should be able to use their brain, I Know it doesn't go on a lot these days but, we can't spoon feed everyone. This restriction would just lead to unwanted messages which the mods would have to deal with.

Maybe, but it doesn't guarantee they will be spotted and they'd likely just try make the post in some obscure thread in some obscure sub and hope it goes unnoticed. Besides, redsnow or someone else usually busts them before they get a chance to scam anyway. I just think whatever restrictions are put in place people will just wait them out and get round them and adding this one just because someone gets scammed once in a blue moon by an imposter seems overkill.

There is a reason why they don't make any posts before sending the PMs. It is not uncommon for them to have neutral trust when the PM is sent.

It is not just the impersonators that is a problem, I have gotten several unsolicited PMs advertising some website or service from brand new accounts, forcing them to make one post will make this much more difficult for these spammers.

They wouldn't *have* to post in the thread but it would just be there if they don't have anything else to post.

When you receive a message, don't you see the person's activity count and membership group (hero, senior, etc)?
I thought the number of scams succeeding would be really low.

These s{c,p}ammers could throw an small auto-translated post into a small regional subforum and bam mission accomplished. I didn't knew that shdvb or Blazedout419 were worthy of being impersonated so I for one would leave the posts by their impersonators undeleted (as long as they weren't too badly autotranslated or too insubstantial).



I actually like this. The ranking "Newbie" could be forum-wide red coloured just like the scammer tag was, both for public and private messages.

Yes you do.

I wouldn't mind a red label, but not a flashing red label as that would become annoying quickly. Maybe add a warning to the footer of the message for every newbie message. I still don't think it's necessary.  

Making one additional post isn't a biggie. There are bots that will do this for them.


Yes, you see all that plus their trust etc and it is very rare for someone to get scammed by an imposter. I've only seen it happen twice (though I'm sure there are a few other instances).


Exactly. Any restrictions that are put in place scammers will just get round them.

I've find this old thread about  a bad story , someone has impersonated theymos and asked through PM to pay the "advertise slot"  :

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=665923.0  




In this case I really don't know what should I think  :-\.

You should think people should be smart enough to not send money to zero post newbie called theymo5.

I am happy to see Tomatocage bringing up this issue, it is really a problem, and yes new users fall for the phising scam from time to time.

I know about  the argument "people should use their brain", but I think if you are new to bitcoin then can you be caught a bit off guard and fall for the phishing scam. Its really a bad situation, that a new user gets scammed on his/her first transaction, not likely that the person will want to use bitcoin again. It is bad for the bitcoin ecosystem.

I support OP suggestion, there is really no need for a newbie to send PM, most transactions/sales are already public in the threads anyway. 
I also think that Onkel Pauls suggestion is ok; any PM from a user with zero activity should be marked with a warning by the system.

I suggest that the sticky with Market Place rules is updated to recommend sellers to always place the payment addy in OP.
I also suggest the Escrow's to always write the payment addy in the sales thread, I think this is good practice at least as long as we have this phishing problem.

Is there a reason why they can post the question publicly?

These fake accounts never converse with any user. They're simply created to fire off a PM to one or more potential victims and are immediately abandoned, never to be logged in with again. They just sit back and hope somebody send to their Bitcoin address.

Well they could, but I'm sure there's a myriad of reasons why someone may want PM rather than just make a thread. If you require a specific answer and know a certain person can answer it it seems silly to create a thread and hope they answer it.


Oh they'll converse with you if they think there's a possibility they can get some free money from you and that's why they're easy to troll.

So at the end the problems are two : the newbie impostors and (obviously) the users that fall in the "trap". I think there isn't a valid solution for those two problems.

The solution is not to send your money to scammers/imposters but no amount of restrictions or hoops we put in place will ever stop scammers from just jumping through them or finding ways to avoid them all together.

+1 , Totally agree with this .
If I were you , I would put it on the New software forum section so the developpers take a look at it and implent it on the next forum release ;)

Compared to the time it takes to create an account and send a PM this would be huge. For all intensive purposes each of these accounts is only going to be able to send one PM before it will be reported and they get a trade with caution tag. As it stands now it takes 6 (maybe 7) minutes to create an account, create a payment address, write and send a PM to someone.

If you force them to make one semi-substantial post then they need to wait 6 minutes to make their first post, spend a minute or two writing/translating it, then another 6 minutes to send a PM. Not only that but if they plan on impersonating someone then there is still a chance they will get negative trust before they shoot off their PM.

At a minimum it will take them 12 minutes per account verses 6 minutes, that is a 100% increase in the effort they need to put into it. More realistically it will be ~15 minutes per account verses 7 minutes which is a ~114% increase in effort.

It used to be that the first number was red when you had neutral trust.

I don't see one. People would likely want to post a question privately because they are embarrassed that they appear dumb, however this does not matter because it is a brand new account anyway.

Plus posting questions publicly means that the next person who has the same question can find it via searching instead of having to wait for an answer

Yeah we'll never cover all the reasons by speculating, or by trying to make workarounds. Maybe they're coming to one of my guides / the forums for the first time via Google, maybe they're embarrassed. Whatever the reasons, we can't simply block all newbies from PMing.

totally agree with this.  def need limits on sending pm's.

although i haven't received a single spam message in months, i'm sure it's a problem.  spammers probably targeting users in the loans/gambling sections.

i would also like to see newbie jail brought back.  when i joined it was an achievement and i felt honored i was allowed to post in the real forum.  thus i respected the right and acted accordingly.  today is just a free for all. btc is dead.  fake troll posts.  all of them are fed by pages of replies.  quite worthless.

I don't care for the idea of completely restricting a newbie's ability to send PMs either, but a very visible warning is definitely something I'd support.


Yes, at least in my limited case. People don't often like discussing their password details publicly (for the purposes of attempting to recover a wallet with a forgotten password; see btcrecover (https://github.com/gurnec/btcrecover)). I'd be lying if I said I've received tons of such PMs (I've only received a handful), but at the same time I'm sure that newbies who have contacted me are appreciative that they can.

(Full disclosure: although btcrecover is open source, I've rarely (exactly once) agreed to a paid password recovery at the unsolicited request of another.)

I cant recall ever getting any spam PMs. If I do, they are pretty easy to spot anyway. Maybe some here are more gullible and a "How To Spot A Spam PM" thread could be stickied somewhere?

anyway, I have seen spam PM campaigns recruiting (the sig campaign I am part of offers me the option to sig and PM spam, but I only use the sig option because; I compare the sig to a billboard [passive advertizing] but spam PMs to telemarketers [intrusive, annoying advertizing])

we can report thread post spammers, is there a similar option to report PM spammers? I think I've only ever gotten ~7 PMs ever here, all legit, except 3 or 4 were to inform me I have broken a rule, and/or had a post removed  :-\

EDIT- I have joined the PM campaign. Don't worry, in my case it's "personal text" not Personal messages. Thanks for the clarification Bad Bear  8)

PM in this context is not personal messages to other members, but the personal text in your profile, it will show up below the avatar.

I don't see what the problem with a line of text beneath avatar would be, obviously. Might have to sign up for that, except I really enjoy what I have there now. my greed wins!
Still, I have never received a single spam personal message. Been here for a couple of years now too. Just lucky I guess.

Personally, I would be suspicious of a "just signed up account" seeking my guidance via PM. Maybe even creeped out.

I've had newbies ask me questions a few times via PM. I expect likewise for other members which are active. Generally they seem to want to know a particular question which they don't want to ask pblicly because of the fear of embarrassment maybe. I don't like to see restrictions and I don't believe restricting personal messages from newbies has a good thing.

Great idea will see when will this task executed

No, I don't agree with this, as I get business orders from newbies who find my thread from Google search, and some of them don't even know what Bitcoin is. Without PM's, they would have to find another way to communicate with me. I think it is pretty obvious to see imposters, as they don't have the same rank as the real user.

There's the other way to communicate with you, but you're not taking advantage of it.

This is a great idea.

I hope theymos implements this.

Yes, because I don't feel comfortable giving out my email. Even if I create a alt email, I don't check it as often as the forum, making business deals slower.

I have only gotten ponzi PM's, 99% from newbie accounts, I normally just delete messages from people I don't know without opening them. Problem solved.

If you use a mail system like gmail, you can setup a seconary email that automatically forwards to your main email, and maintains your private personal email.

I don't want to see this implemented. It is a poor solution to the problem. I am not convinced that it will deter spammers. 12 minutes is nothing. They don't have to wait and they wont. They will create x accounts including the mandatory first post, time taken maybe 5 minutes? They will go drink some coffee, tend to some other scam project in their ring or whatever. When idle they come back and shoot of the IM scam attempt, time taken maybe another 5 minutes? And they're done.


While there surely are amateur scammers on here that would take up to 30 more minutes they would do it. The professional scammers will chuckle at this. They may even appreciate it because they target the gullible and the gullible are now more likely to think they're legit cause hey, no scammer would expend the effort to jump through these hoops! Of course then they get scammed. Some upstanding community member decides it's time for action and suggests x to help the gullible out.


Let me help you with suggested measures to suggest after this one failed:
- Detect if there's any wallet address visible in the PM. If so show a warning in large red font.
- If the newbie account made less posts than they sent PMs, show a warning.
- If any newbie sends a PM automatically open a scam accusation for that newbie with the contents of their PM.

I agree with the restriction. If they can't wait and post enough to remove this restriction, they probably aren't really into this community, we all wen't through the 360 second post limit time.

And welcome to the ghost town.

Off-Late, i am noticing a similar trend on the India boards too. I was approached by people who claim to sell BTC for rock bottom rates (warning bells) and claim that they are some well established names on LocalBitcoins. In fact, they are so brazen, they quote the stats of the names they impersonate and one guy even claimed he was from LocalBitcoins! They contact me through whatsapp, which makes them seem legit. The moment such a contact occurs, i use the cellphone number on a simple google search to check if they have been reported for scams earlier. More often than not, they have been reported earlier. I still see so many people falling into the traps these guys set. Everyone should do due diligence when you get an offer that is too good to be true. Last i heard legal action was being planned against those bozos. The legal system sucks and most people cannot even prove they have been hard-done by these crooks due to the lack of technical expertise on the part of the cops. Better be safe than sorry!

Something similar to this seems like a viable solution to me.

I've raised this issue several times before but nothing has been done about it... It's unlikely something will be done at this point...
Another approach is the use some sort of phonetic matching (eg. soundex algo) and detect if a new user id being created sounds like an existing one... Then you can check if existing id is of some membership level with some trust score etc... etc... If there's a match, apply some restrictions or add some "red" badge to help with scamming...

Many of those look like the same person / group of persons trying to run the same scam. They all put a member level in the sig in the same style. Hopefully if he has enough failed attempts in a row he will give up.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=964719.new#new

Just another similar case i had today, its probably the same dumbo, but if hes doing this all the time , i doubt he didnt have some success in his scam.
Im definetly for PM restrictions , if you have some bussiness as a newbie, make a thread or post in the traders thread, so anyone can expose possible scam.

cheers

Who is promoting 12 minutes as the solution?

I am proposing that users have to make at least one post somewhere before they can send a PM. This would make it so if the user '+omatocage' were to post something somewhere then someone would see it and give it negative trust, as opposed to the new account being mostly unnoticed until it sends a PM to someone, and only to the person who received such PM.

The time it would take for someone to register an account, make one post and send one PM is 12 minutes.