Bitcoin Forum

I like to check the lending section on this forum because is quite funny and sometimes i notice a guy who has some trust and is looking for loan without collateral, most of the time he gets it because he has good trust but then you check his trust and its all from previous loans. What has this guy been doing with all these loans? Like i saw a guy with literally more than 15 feedbacks from loans. Does he really need those loans or is he "buying trust" because it just seems weird. Other thing is that most people that do that look for really small loans

If it was "without you noticing", you wouldn't be posting this thread  :D

Exactly how is it any of your business what people are doing with loans? Why does anyone ever take credits from banks anyways?
There are much better ways of getting trust here than taking/providing loans. Sure, there could be potential abusers but that is part of the system. Every system in the world has his abuser.

There's no harm till a person is repaying his loans. It's not actually buying trust but it's building up trust and there are many members who do that but are trustworthy as well.

Who exactly are you referring to? If the loans were not from someone who is reputable then it would probably be best to disregard the positive trust reports when deciding if you want to loan to that person (with or without collateral)

He said with you noticing...not without him.  :P


Same thing they do on BTCJam they call it "reputation building loans". I guess it is an easy way to build trust rather than via selling or escrowing etc... I noticed that when I was doing loans the people I lent were very concerned about me leaving feedback for them.  Building a reputation here is not really an easy task, but most people really do not need one unless they trade here. I do understand why people want lots of green next to their name though as it does provide some benefits.

Yes im pretty sure there is people here that do that, get loans or give loans for the sole purpose of building trust, i mean you could ask for loans of 0.01 and repay them with a interest of 50% even and you would basically be buying trust for 0.005 btc

This is may undirectly attempt to buy a trust. But actually we can clarify what account that can be trust. Just because he can repaid the loan so he can being trust. For someone who has been a long time being this forum , we can clarify it.
The problem is someone new on forum and looking a trust member ( trust from loan ). That's why we must keep educate someone pure new to this forum and lead it into right direction :)

People should not hand out trust for tiny trades like that. I am willing to guess a majority of the lenders and borrowers would stop loaning if the ratings stopped.

That's why I put it between " " :)



And that was probably OP's point

I would say a lot of the loans are for gambling if they a frequently borrowing not that it is any of our business  :D Yeh that should be a limit to what entitles positive feedback from a trusted member, i mean if i borrow 0.01 and pay back 0.013 then i should not get any trust for that imo if i borrowed 0.4btc and then repayed would be nice to have some trust because i was clearly trust worthy.

If I can say my personal 'story', I gave a loan to an user and he repaid very quickly but after he also started to send me a lot of PMs asking for a positive trust... a lot of things are not changed.

It's normal people do take small loan for mostly for rating. Better lender stop giving feedback for small loan.

Everytime I do trade with new users they always try to forced me to give positive trust. And I mostly time deny that by saying I don't give trust feedback before 3-4 transaction with me. So sometime those user try to do some small transaction with me and I stopped trading with them so they won't ask feedback again. Only give them who are doing really genuine trades.

I think lender also try to do this and stopped giving feedback to trust abuser.

I don't see why someone shouldn't leave feedback for loans that they complete. If someone borrows 0.01 BTC and pays back 0.015 BTC, make sure you leave that in your feedback. If someone has proven themselves trustworthy with 0.01 BTC, that doesn't mean they are trustworthy with any larger sums.

500 positive feedback from the most trusted members of the forum for 0.01 BTC each, doesn't make that person trustworthy with 5 BTC, maybe with 0.05.

I don't believe in giving positive trust to any member as it's like giving a person a reputation of always being trusted. I had given a person positive trust earlier when I had completed a trade with him successfully and he turned out to scam someone else. The people who he scammed almost blamed me for giving him a feedback just after one trade and that was a lesson learnt by me that I cannot take the responsibility of even a known person being trustworthy. They try to abuse the trust system then.

But newbie don't understand this logic. They just understand that user has many feedback. and they care for feedback not amount.

The whole lending thread is somehow to gaun trust ratings from another user. Especially the no collateral ones.
For the lenders that want collateral:
Most of the lenders want an amount of altcoin etc as collateral that is 120% of the loan amount. The question is, why dont just exchange the altcoin to bitcoin and use it? Why give someone 12$ for 10$ in a short period of time and pay 11$(+ interest back)
That literally makes no sense at all...

Some loanees are easy to spot as trying to build reputation. I had previously been aware of Oscarftw and sickler, both whom have defaulted and left.

Exactly, now I (rarely) leave a positive, negative or neutral trust to someone (only few cases, because I really trust that user).




This is why are named "loans". The interest % is normal, and for the question about the altcoin (as collateral) maybe it is because who want s bitcoin wants also to 'save' his altcoin (so he does not want to exchange it for bitcoin).

I think another thing people overlook is how absurd it is for escrows to leave positive trust to those who use their services. Completing a deal through escrow requires 0 trust at all, yet you have users like this (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=353680) who now have fairly high trust ratings just from using the same default trusted escrow multiple times (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=353680). It is much easier to buy default trust through escrow than through lending, the second party in the trade can just be your alt account and all it costs you is the escrow fee, which is barely anything.

Agreed. If I'm going to do a trade with somebody, I will definitely look at the trust/references first to see what kind of transactions they have been involved with including how much, who sent first, etc.

Trust isn't 100% perfect. It's only an initial indicator of what you're dealing with.

He does initially look trustworthy but even a cursory look shows that all his feedback come from escrow and buying carded gift cards. I would definitely not trade first with that person and hope others would do the same due diligence before engaging in trade. We can't expect the trust system to hold our hands 100% through the trade process.

There is an arguement to leave positive trust for larger transactions and for more complex transactions in order to leave a more reputable paper trail of the trade however as a rule you should not be leaving positive trust when you escrow.

It is especially absurd to be leaving 5 trust ratings for small trades when he might as well have been trading with himself.

I think it doesn't exist an 'how to' for the trust system, everyone can leave his positive trust (as much times he wants) but it is normal that everyone should also trade with his own diligence and check always the (complete) 'history' of that account.

I think it depends because here is the thing, if an user gives a collateral for a loan and he repays it that doesnt mean he is trustworthy it means he didnt want to lose the collateral. And also as i said before giving loans without collateral is stupid for this reasons

I don't think that 'buying trust' would have actually been a thing if most people cared to create a personal trust list and therefore there wasn't any need for a default trust. This along with the fact that the whole trust concept would have been more meaningful if people were looking at the ratings and evaluating the volume and worthiness of the ratings from the trust page and not from a programmed overall rating.

The exact same thing happened to me as well. I did a trade with someone for PayPal to Bitcoin for a fairly small amount (< $50) and everything went smooth. He asked me to leave some trust so I did. Less than 24 hours later, he ended up scamming someone for $100 or so. The person he scammed was fairly close to leaving me negative trust, as well as one other person who traded with him, just for dealing with this guy. He suspected that I was an alt account of the scammer, as well as the other guy the scammer traded with.

I think a wise decision would to only leave feedback to users who you've traded over x BTC with. Whether it be 0.5 BTC or 3 BTC, I suspect that would cut down on feedback buyers.

Very easy to buy trust here. I could ask for like 20 different loans, build up trust from untrusted, and probably trusted members, only lose like 5% from generious interest, and never actually use the loans. Paying 5% on 1 btc total is 0.05 and you could make MUCH more money from scamming with your positive trust than 0.05 btc. Trust with loans should be disregarded.

The same logic can be used for trades as well, not just loans. You can never be sure whether a person has done a trade just for trust, or is really interested in the trade.  :)

Which is why everyone should actually click the reference and decide for themselves whether the trade holds any value in trust. I never trust loans as valid trust, but I look at things with how much money they COULD have stolen, like holding 10 btc in there website or something.

Indeed, and i think no one should trust people who give loans because they lose nothing if they require collateral, and i know a lot of people with a lot of trust points just because they give loans wich is stupid. I would consider a loan or a trade to be a positive trust point if it is big enough.

Building up trust is the same to me, if he really needs the loans, yea okay but why would a person need so many loans? And when most of them are small loans its just weird. Thats why im saying to not trust people just because they have green on their trust

Wow! thanks for pointing that out!
I use SebastianJu as escrow always because as per my experience he is the fastest and best , after certain Feedbacks i already asked him to not give me anymore feedbacks so to make my profile look like full of his feedbacks and i asked him now to remove all his feedbacks for Escrow except one.
I don't really care about it , i use my well known name on here and i can be easily tracked back , why would i ever scam anyone . Am fine with always using Escrow. I easily make a good profit with trades and the btc community have provided so much to me and it'll keep providing it.

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My first ever trade was of selling stellar to some guy and as i remember until 2 months ago , sofia was selling these cards without any problem . He/she still is , but since it is considered taboo now , so i've stopped it! Most of my trades are for account selling not Cards , learn to read properly.
Also , QS prefers leaving tags for useless things and not leaving feedback for trades. I could care less, knowing pretty well what kind of person he is.
There is always a bigger picture around here for some people and some will know it ;) , i could care less about it , even if someone negs me out of frustration (as many here does) , it would be fine as long as i use Escrow . So , why bother :D :D

How about 780 BTC and few people that verify it?

Then a mass of bullshit neg ratings?

Would you give me $80K USD to hold for you?

Trust no one unless you are willing and able to lose every satoshi.

How is that relevant to what he said?

Lol, I wouldn't trust Satoshi with 780 BTC. My point was that I dont see the problem with someone leaving truthful feedback. I've done small deals with people, and I've left them positive feedback, I just carefully explain my risks and the details of the trade, its up for whoever is trading with that person next to interpret their trade scores. I've left people positive feedback when I served as their escrow agent as well, but again I left that I had 0 risked bitcoins, and explained that I had served as escrow and that things had gone well. The Bitcoin value isn't the only thing that is worth knowing about someone's trading history. How well their communication, shipping times, etc are almost as valuable information as how much money they have been trusted with in the past.

Since you asked, I figure I would trust you with around 1.5-1.75 BTC, unless you have personal issues with me, in which case I'd trust you with 1 BTC or a bit less. And damn, your feedback page isn't pretty. I didn't see many claims that had anything to do with your financial trustworthiness, but damn do you have a lot of enemies. How many enemies someone has is also worth noting.

I've been in the Bitcoin scene for quite a while, you don't need to worry about me. I've never been scammed, because I've calculated trustworthiness to a near perfect science. Self interest my friends, people won't go against their own self interest, unless there are other motives towards screwing you over, which is how I factored that I'd trust you with less if I was one of your enemies (I'm not as far as I know).

*edit* Btw bick, you could probably ask to get your negative trust spam removed. The people with 100 negative ratings for you in the form of poems and stories actually make it difficult to read. Pretty sure that falls under the trust spam category that you could ask to have removed.

Leaving positive trust is not bad, whats bad is that people may not look at the ratings or what they mean exactly and they would blindly trust someone that for example gives loans wich require no trust at all since he would probably ask for collateral so he is not risking anything

I agree on escrow guys not leaving feedback so easily. A good example is OgNasty for escrow...he did not leave me a feedback until at least 15+ escrows were done successfully. I think trust here should be VERY hard to earn as it does provide you with a lot of potential to scam. Several months back I was not at home and my hot wallet machine was down. I was able to get a 5BTC loan in roughly 20 minutes with 0 collateral due to my trust score. Most of the escrows are also default trusted level 2, so their ratings do count as extra. I do not think a user who takes a micro loan should get feedback left for it right away.

These are good thoughts and I agree, but how can they be enforced without the trust system being moderated?

It can't be enforced ever. Which is why people must CHECK the trust and why it was there. I don't blindly send 5 bitcoin to anyone with shiny green trust. I check each individual trust, check reference, and see if it is valid, then form my opinion after that.

I already seen peep be selling the trust even posting threads asking if its ok to sell trust because he is on the default trust list. Its absurd that this is happening especially with theymos having so much money to make a better forum and stop all the scamming. -10btc to anyone who buys or sells trust, thats just fucked up man.

No issues "personally" with anyone really as I have met very few people in these forums to make that sort of assessment. For only seeing me from forum posts 1.5 to 1.75BTC sounds like a fair start heheheh. Only person I met that I have problem with is Josh Zerlan. We all know why he is not to be trusted. The others I am at war with are circumspect basing on how they attempt to manipulate consumers or support those who manipulate consumers here in these forums.

The more enemies the better given the lack of ethics for some of these people I will gladly wear red from each of them 100x over as the spam indicates. It is a badge of honor to me and I'd rather it be left there so when I am proven right it hangs there as a reminder. Look hard at Marto74 and Loshia as an example of being proven right in the longer term. Fraudster and shill symbiotic relations there all clearly documented still in the trust ratings.

I posted a thread about the trust spam and nothing was done, Dogie was slammed with the same spam and nothing was done. I don't care really my business / profession doesn't hinge on this trust system at all and any dealings in this space I am certain if asked I would never hold 80K USD again given what Avalon did with the chips I had weeks of sleepless nights till that was resolved and I got coins back in the rightful owners hands and I was relieved. Ugg never again. Within my field of education I am well respected with hardly anyone you would call an enemy at most adversaries and even then that is pushing it as I often train my direct competitors to be better educators.

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As for the Trust System being able to balance itself out or self regulate sort of mentality, I don't agree with that entirely, and there have been some discussions on how to better the system hopefully those discussions lead somewhere but for me it will NEVER trust anyone unless I am willing to lose 100% of what I put in. Currently my foray into BTC mining is a net loss. BTC purchases net gain. Overall even. I know risk. I have seen reward and loss.

Personally those in the default need to be more proactive in verifying any person they add and I mean VERIFY who the hell they are not just based on past reputation in dealing within the forum. Most of the recent issues with Default Trust have stemmed from unvetted people abusing it. Something with Quickseller stinks to high heaven I don't really like anyone that is completely anonymous being on the default trust too many ways to abuse the system in that way.

The default trust system is what you make of it. Should anyone trust anyone who they don't personally trust? Absolutely not. Default trust isn't about who is trustworthy, its about who is trustworthy to leave accurate feedback for others. An absolute scumbag could be on default trust, as long as they leave people accurate feedback. Feedback for someone does not mean they should be trusted, and the only difference between trusted/untrusted feedback, is "trusted" is where newbies or anyone for that matter should begin investigations before trading. I certainly don't trust everyone on default trust, nor should anyone.

People get too caught up using the green or red numbers as 100% absolute scores which is rediculous. The only thing that default trust does, is creates a group of people to oversee their own feedback. All that does is discourages trust spam, as it holds members to community created standards. I could count probably 10 people on default trust that hold any additional weight to their feedback over anyone else in my opinion. No offense to Dooglus for example, but although he is on default trust, I have never dealt with him personally, nor do I know anything about his character/logic/rationale so I wouldn't trust his feedback implicitly any more than I would anyone's. A two post newbie that has a feasible claim, a reference link, and an explanation of the situation is more valuable than a default trust member's feedback with fewer details. Its a good guideline for newbies who have absolutely no impressions of anyone, but anyone who has been around for years has seen individual's business practices, they have had interactions with other members, and can judge things for what they are, on a case by case basis.

I don't really have any impression of all of the quickseller threads. Thread volume and complaints means very little to me by itself, and I haven't read the claims to fact check. If its valid, Badbear will remove him from default trust, or things will be resolved. The funny thing is, if you tag 20 people as scammers, 19 of which actually are, and then they band together to make 10 threads about how corrupt you are, its not going to look too good. People on default trust are supposed to be able to read through the BS while not missing actual issues. Hopefully anyway.
 

Well you can leave someone a positive trust feedback as long as you deem the user as a trustworthy one or you completed a trade with him/her. Loans aren't different. Also, why do you care on how those loans were used? It should be none of your business after all. But I partly agree that somehow, the trust rating is being abused.

Well most of the times banks do the same, they ask you what are you going to do with the money. You should care because if he is using the loans to gamble, that doesnt guarantee its gonna pay in the future