Bitcoin Forum

On 5.12.21 I downloaded a virus posted in phoenix miner forum and had my BTC stolen.  The post was from account stef_stef which was probably hacked itself but I see that the account was Last Active:   July 31, 2021 so I thought I would at least try to message them to see if they'd be willing to return my BTC as it's been sitting here 1MJuFBK113sY3ayJRF7gHUnSK7KPKuSBJi since it was taken but I get this warning when trying to message them, "User 'stef_stef' has not chosen to allow messages from newbies."  So my question is do I need to have 30 posts to no longer be a newbie and then I will be able to message them? Thanks.

You suppose to be a Jr member by now, but you are only short of posts activities, if you have 30 posts activities already, you will be able to send message to those users and you will be a Jr member by the time. Also, you can be mentioning those users on your posts.

It's activities - thanks, DdmrDdmr

It's very simple that you can not message them if anyone opted in not to receive messages from newbie. You will need Jr. Member rank at-least. I am not sure if copper membership will disable this restriction or not.

The best you can do is to mention the user on the topic or post. If they use search and if he searches for mentions regularly, then he will see your post about him.

It’s not really 30 post, but rather 30 Activity points that you need to reach Jr. Member (since you’ve already got the required Merit). That will take longer than making 30 posts (read  FAQ: Everything you need to know about forum 'activity, account ranks and merit  (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2766177.msg28250551#msg28250551))

You can bypass the restriction by acquiring a Copper Membership (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=credit;promote), but It requires paying to obtain it: Newbie PM opt-in (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2728840.msg27932988#msg27932988)

The account stef_stef (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=967914) is banned by the way, and was reported here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5182222.msg56992289#msg56992289

I understand now, thanks for the info.  How can you tell if they are banned when it states activity was months after their reporting to be banned?
Since it's my only current option I will post the message here.

to:  stef_stef

I see that the BTC hasn't left this address
  1MJuFBK113sY3ayJRF7gHUnSK7KPKuSBJi
so I thought I'd ask if you'd be willing to return it?
  37ST476CwnD66QAEuhJHGiDu9Ek7ib871n

You are right, if a user enabled not to receive emails from newbies in personal message options (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2776678;sa=pmprefs), newbies will not be able to send email to the user, but I think the option not to let newbies to be able to send message to higher ranked users is by default, which means someone would have to option in for it to be able to receive emails from newbies. This is what I noticed on my account, I will like your correction if I am wrong.

You can check the username on BPIP.org, you can use the site to know if a user is banned on this forum. The user is banned  (https://bpip.org/Profile?id=967914) already, scroll down the webpage to see that under Meta Log details.

The forum does not show banned accounts, so we can’t really see the date the ban took place. This information does appear on the forum’s ModLog (https://bitcointalk.org/modlog.php), but the data shown gets chopped-off after a relatively short time (so it is no longer visible). There are people who scrape data from the forum that can see this status, one being BPIP (see https://bpip.org/Profile?id=967914), where the Meta log states that the account was banned on the "5/12/2021 7:23:45 AM" (mm/dd/yyyy).

An account can, nevertheless, perform a login after being banned, thus the date of Last Active corresponding to "July 31, 2021, 07:04:33 PM". I believe a banned account can browse through PMs, but not send them nor post content (they see a message stating that "you are banned from posting or sending personal messages on this forum").

Not to mention /Not at all.

Thank you for your help it's much appreciated, I am in your debt.