Some people are able to provide the private keys when accounts are sold.

The real issue in my eyes is the fact that he was trying to act as an escrow service when doing so is not appropriate. There are many warnings out there that say to use escrow, but a newer user may not know who is and is not appropriate to use as escrow.

Why is it that you suggest people to use escrow, and when you give specific recommendations you choose people who have a very long history of trading (with many successful trades)? The answer is because those particular people have the lowest chance of scamming.

Using the same logic, someone who is somewhat "trusted" but has a less extensive trade history has a higher chance of scamming but the chance is still generally low. Going further down the spectrum, someone who has virtually no trade history and is trying (or offering, or accepting a request to) escrow will almost certainly scam.

Your arguenrny is invalid in both this case and in others. In this case it is invalid because he is paid a fixed rate if he makes no posts or 1,000 posts.

In other cases your arguement is invalid because campaign operators have an incentive to stop spam because spam with their campaign is not effective advertising.

The op is probably right. I saw (and stopped at) 4 pages of nothing then one liners of useless posts

Going back on topic - it appears that Chris_Sabian was recently added to CanaryInTheMine's trust list. I noticed because as of when this thread started Mabsark has zero trust feedback, however he now has a positive report from both CanaryInTheMine and Chris_Sabian. I had noticed that Chris had given Mabsark positive feedback a few days ago, but it was showing as 'untrusted'

When I look at the Hierarchical view of the default trust network, I see that he is roughly in the middle of his trust list, that appears to otherwise be in roughly the order that people were added in. It also appears that KaChingCoinDev was recently added to the bottom (last active November 10 2014), as well as sjc1490 who appears to have given Canary feedback several months ago, along with FACTOM which I have no idea why he is on his trust list as he was registered ~a month ago with 7 posts and no trade history.

I am not 100% sure on the above three (although if they were previously on his trust list, their position was recently moved, because I know that suchmoon was ~the 2nd from the bottom. I do know for certain that Chris_Sabian was not on default trust network previously

+1 on this.

Many of the people on his trust list should not be on the default trust network, which is giving them power that it is not approbate for them to have.

One thing to add is that you (CanaryInTheMine) recently removed someone from your trust list because they made an off the cuff response to an off topic thread saying they might sell their account in the future. I would say that the majority of the accounts above are potential accounts that could be sold in the future, some with the possibility that their owner has no idea of the power they hold and are selling.

Correct me if I am wrong (with documentation of course) but I don't think there is anything in the NXT protocol that forces someone to have something of actual value to back any assets issued in the NXT marketplace. If you are the one issuing such assets then there is nothing to force you to provide any kind of actual value for such assets.

I would think a more appropriate warning would be to say that all collateral must be held by a trusted escrow, however I would think that someone with 50 BTC worth of crypto assets would probably already know this. Your post implies that you would be willing to send 50 BTC of collateral to a lender directly for a loan of similar size. Most scammers would be more then willing to do this, but never fund the loan, however if the collateral does not have any actual value (meaning there is a liquid market of willing/able buyers to convert the collateral to BTC) then it would mean nothing if/when a lender tries to scam you because they would have just stolen worthless collateral.

I have in the past however I am really not in a position to be buying accounts now.

if you were able to provide 120% of the repayment amount worth of NXT as collateral then I would be willing to lend up to 5 Btc. I am somewhat skeptable though as you do not mention escrow until the lender isn't set up to receive NXT. (I of course accept escrow)

To most people being on default trust is in itself a stamp of being able to be trusted (even though it was not designed to be this way) in some people's eyes.

I think it does walk a fine line to advertise a default trust account like this but there are non scam reasons to buy an account like this.

Edit: I think most people would consider giving your competition to be scamming

The most likely kind of account used to potentially scam is one with positive trust but not on default trust and these should really not be traded

If it is in default trust then it is worth more then 1 BTC probably closer to at least 2-3 BTC. The buyer can try to scam with it but doing so would be stupid because it is not difficult to get it removed from default trust when it shows signs of scams.

A potential use would be to start a business that requires trust ( for example selling gift cards or for lending collateral loans - escrow can add enough time for this process that it may turn away potential borrowers)

there should be limits as to how many people can be on your trust list if you are on level 1 default trust. This will prevent the privilege of being on default trust being given out as a "thank you" for your customers.

There should be different formula for calculating positive trust if multiple people give trust feedback that are not trusted by different people. For example if everyone that gives you positive trust are all trusted by badbear then each additional trust rating by someone on badbears list should count for less while someone on theymos' list would count for more. You should not be able to receive "green" trust unless you are trusted by people that are on at least two different trust lists.

Negative trust should cause a profile to turn "red" at first with one scam report but would go away after n time without a second scam report. This would prevent someone from being able to continue to scam but would prevent someone from abusing the trust system and would force scam reports to be community reviewed (and a 2nd person agreeing on default trust) after a scam accusation is opened (as it should be after giving negative trust)

Are you able to offer actual NXT as collateral?

very nice. I don't have a specific deadline (I reserve the right to purchase a template when I have one that I wish to purchase. I probably will keep it open until at least the end of the weekend

giveaway threads are allowed. They go in games and rounds in gambling. If you want to give away altcoins then it must go in the altcoin section but you cannot have people make an insignificant post in order to claim their altcoin

He ended up giving me an address, message and signature. However the signature did not match the address (meaning that he either did not sign the correct message or does not actually control the address in question)

EDIT: I just received a PM from the OP with a correctly signed message from an address that I was able to verify is associated with a hero member account.

I think that anyone with zero trade history who is offering any kind of escrow services should be considered a scam (regardless of ownership history of the account). While most people are smart enough to decline to use them, there are a few newer users who may fall for it.

A couple of examples are:
Raganius (someone tried a similar scam on me with this one - it did not work)
Veritas Escrow Service
cryptasm (he is a hero, but only completed one trade)
Cainy's BTC Escrow Service
This is by far not an all inclusive list.

I think the amount being asked to lend is too much for a senior account, but if you are comfortable lending this much for a senior account that is up to you.

You would need to change the password, email and BTC profile address. It would also be advisable to get a signed message from an address on an old, unedited post (edited a few mins/hours after it was made is probably okay). After you have done all this then you send the BTC that you are lending to him and provide a public repayment address. Once he repays to the public repayment address then you change the password back to what it was previously so he can access it without you telling it to him. If he forgets what the password was previously then I would require a signed message from the address you sent to (or some other address that makes you certain you are giving the account back to the right person - or some other method to give you certainty you are giving it back to the right person).

If he defaults then you would either need to use it in a signature campaign or sell it to make your money back. If you are using it in a signature campaign you need to factor in your time when determining how much you will make from it.

EDIT: I also change the signature on the account to message you with any questions regarding the account and that it is being held as collateral for a loan.

I received the following message from someone tipping me of the same as well. It was in regards to the atleticofa hacked thread in meta. I told him to post his evidence in the thread, but it doesn't look like he ever did.

For the lack of a better word, the obvious puppet is obvious (lol)

I refuted your claim that badbear is not a business by the fact that he has done business on here and that the risk and experience to the person doing business with him is the same. My other examples all very much run businesses but you ignored those.

you are ignoring the facts that I presented. You instead steer the conversation away from my actual arguement because you cannot refrute it.

You are also incorrect about the sale of accounts causing scams. It reduces scams by putting value on an account so someone can choose to sell their account instead of scamming. A person's rank is essentially "proof of time spent on the forum" and there is no reason to trust someone solely on the fact they have spent a lot of time on the forum (or essentially paid for someone else's time on the forum). Signature campaigns are what allow Bitcoin related businesses to grow and advertise as other firms of advertisement are prohibitively expensive. Not allowing signature campaigns would further centralize Bitcoin related businesses into few large early entrants.

Since you do not believe in innocent until proven guilty, you were accused of owning ASICminer shares and bashing the competition in order to cause your shares to rise in value. You have denied this but have not proven that you do not own shares. Under your own logic you should be labeled a scammer until you can prove you do not own such shares.