Bitcoin Forum

Hello

I am tired of all these scammers on this forum. I want to sell or buy something seriously but this forum only got trollers and scammers.
People are buying accounts on this forum with high ranks and try to scam people with this! This forum needs to add a new rule for this and needs to ban people who login from different IP-address on accounts. I was a member of this forum in 2013 and it was much better. This forum needs to be more stricter!
I hope it will change in the future.

I said this multiple times, merits system is useless if you let people sell their accounts or gift merits to old accounts

This only created a scammers pool in the forum

I know that most forums are also experiencing this kind of problem. But on bitcointalk the real users who seriously want to buy or sell goods have decreased because of people selling their high ranked accounts. On other forums people get banned for selling their account but on this forum it is allowed, this is a REAL problem.

Have you tried to use an escrow service? Take a look at this list https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=276897.0

If you doubt that you are dealing with a scammer low or high-rank accounts always make sure to use an escrow service.


The merit system is nothing to do with scammer it only helps to clean spam. There is no place in the online without scammer so always do safety ways to keep your dealing safe.

The trust system is supposed to help to protect us from scammers, but it doesn't seem to be working. Reputation is probably safer, but that is subjective.

Caveat emptor still rules I'm afraid.

btw - if anyone wants to set up an advice site I have the domain name BitcoinScammer.com which is unused at the moment.

I do not think there is anyone who risks losing his high-ranking account, "especially after the creation of the merit system" in order to scam someone for $10. Most cases of scam are from Auto-buy URLs or members with low ranks.

Also, we can’t blame the current system as there are no warnings to take precautions before making any deal or modifying the trust system.

Nursing the thought that scammers will be totally eliminated is like day dreaming because as long as you are involve in any thing thing online you are bound to come across scammers, the only thing to be dine is to be careful and never trust any member base on they forum rank a legendary member can scams likewise a newbie. If you must doing any transactions with any member just hire the service of an escrow we have well known members who offer escrow services.

Considering the fact that a user has to actually scam someone or carry out some underhanded business in order to be red tagged, then it seems to me like a retroactive system.
The positive ratings work in the same manner. But all in all it is just recommendations of who to trust and who not too. And not a definite proof of illegality.


Merits and ranks should never be used as a criteria to judge the credibility of a member

I wouldn't agree that the merit system is useless, but I definitely would like to see an end to account sales.  There is certainly abuse happening, not only with merits but with trust too.  If a green-trusted account falls into the hands of a scammer, it can be disastrous for unsuspecting newbies looking for deals with trusted members--or anyone else who thinks green trust means more than it does.

Yeah, I'm sure Theymos will get right on that.  This forum doesn't even take any action against scammers when they're discovered, so it's unlikely anything is going to be done.

Scams are not forum--moderated and if you fall into their hands it's down to you not taking proper measures or probably trynna be greedy or something.
Why deal with an untrustworthy individual when you have access to the forums official list of escrow services

Most sold/bought accounts usually end up red tagged and as such dealing with such accounts is foolhardy.
It's not about ranks or merits but about reputation.

This forum is the "darkweb" for the lazy ones.

Firstly if you want to sell or buy things your best bet would be an exchange.

The forum is not a market place or trading floor those are only done at the risks of the individuals

I don't really get it how is selling and buying of account the fault of the forum

No one can access the account from same IP address forever,because I am using various devices to access my bitcointalk account from our mobile,personal computer and from office system.So if we have a rule like that then how can I get to access my account all the time?

This rule would also effectively ban anyone from using Tor or a non-static VPN. It's not exactly logical for a crypto forum to be banning users who have an interest in privacy and security.

Many users trade here effectively and safely, as can be evidenced by the hugely busy Marketplace and all its sub-boards. If you do not personally trust the account you are dealing with (which may including signing a message from an old address as proof the account has not changed hands, although this is not infallible), then you should be using a trusted escrow service.

I use university WiFi, mobile data and home WiFi. This will make me stuck... my registration op is 300 miles away...

I know of members who just use public WiFi also, what’re they going to do (especially when the shop shuts)...

I understand you benefit from the system and that's why you defend it but if you take a look at Digital Goods -> Invites & Accounts...you can easily understand how free merits allowed previous spammers to gain a pool of accounts which they can use to scam newbies, they farmed accounts before the update and now have a collection of Hero members, Sr. members, etc...legendary too.

If admin gifted merits in a different way, using perhaps actual influence on the forum(ex. how many replies you got/length of your posts/views) instead of posts made, this would have been a lot harder. You wouldn't see accounts with barely 300 posts and 250 merits.

@coinify, if my airdropped merits get taken from me, it’s only going to make things harder for everyone else to get merits isn’t it?

Imagine the scene we’d have if there weren’t any airdropped merits.

While we’re at it, I’d like the million bitcoin satoshi got too because that was just an advantageous situation also... ;D

The digital goods section is fairly useless too, I do t know why you’d bother going there...

The forum is doing its best to protect people from scammers.

Of course account selling should be banned. The forum admin do not approve of it. However to say it is banned could lead to even more trust being placed on the rank and merit of an account. Knowing that you could well be dealing with an account that says legend but has been sold to a scammer last week does kind of make people more inclined to trust NOBODY and go for an escrow this means it is net positive really in the fight against people getting scammed.

Solving things often seems easy and simple but game theory/ psychology are complex things with many levels. Finding an optimal route is not often as easy as most people including myself think once someone smarter has pointed out the holes in our simple solution.

Merits are very good for stopping accounts powering up compared to not having them.

Aren't there merits sources already? Admin could just extend the list

Currently we have 119 merit sources as per the stats and there is no specific source per boards so digital good section also may hav some person as merit source who is more active there but I don't think posts in those sections are worthy to merit.