Forfeiting scammer accounts to me

[marcotheminer]

Just a thought. Anshar and leevalle both took out loans with me (worth 0.06 together) and never paid back.

Now, would it be possible to become in control of those 2 accounts, so that I can somehow make up for my losses (kind of like a bank seizure of an asset to refund a loan)

I understand it would take effort from a mod, but this is just a question, not a request, for the time being.

[Foxpup]

so that I can somehow make up for my losses

Can you rephrase that without using the word "somehow"?

[shorena]

Why should mods do that? They have no way to verify your story in the first place and IMHO your trade is your "problem" be it good or bad.

so that I can somehow make up for my losses

Can you rephrase that without using the word "somehow"?

selling the accounts

[williamj2543]

I don't think the account could possibly be transferred to you. The passwords should be encrypted therefore you can never find out the original passwords of the scammers.

[KWH]

Just a thought. Anshar and leevalle both took out loans with me (worth 0.06 together) and never paid back.

Now, would it be possible to become in control of those 2 accounts, so that I can somehow make up for my losses (kind of like a bank seizure of an asset to refund a loan)

I understand it would take effort from a mod, but this is just a question, not a request, for the time being.

When you loaned you took a risk, the risk of default. Part of doing business, live and learn.  
Now you see why almost no one accepts ID as collateral.

[Bitcoins101]

I usually try to get to an agreement with any borrowers about what happens to their account if they default. For example, let's say that a user with an account worth .3 BTC wishes to borrow .085 BTC for 10 days, with a repayment of .1 BTC. I'll say that in the event of a total default, the user has the option to sell the account back to me for .05 BTC. If they get negative trust the account becomes worthless anyway, so the extra few bucks is better than nothing.

In theory, that works beautifully. In practice, you end up spending two months for the buyer to "pay back next week" and for bitcoin to go down 40% before finally getting your money back.

In other words, it works in preventing pure defaults, as long as the account that is borrowing from you is worth more than the loan amount. If the account isn't worth more than the loan amount you're making a mistake in loaning to them in the first place.

In your particular case, I'd recommend inquiring to these users about their accounts. I bet leevalle would give you his account if you took down his ID. Anshar may be willing to sell his account to you for a nominal amount if the sig campaign proceeds thing doesn't work out. There is always a solution - if someone permanently defaults on a loan and isn't senile, dead, or in prison, then you're doing something wrong.

I don't think the account could possibly be transferred to you. The passwords should be encrypted therefore you can never find out the original passwords of the scammers.

Pretty sure admins can change someone's password without knowing their original password.

[williamj2543]

I don't think the account could possibly be transferred to you. The passwords should be encrypted therefore you can never find out the original passwords of the scammers.

Pretty sure admins can change someone's password without knowing their original password.

I guess they could manually do it through their database. Assuming they hash the password with salt multiple times, they would probably have to manually do this. Unless the passwords are stored in plaintext...

[Bitcoins101]

I don't think the account could possibly be transferred to you. The passwords should be encrypted therefore you can never find out the original passwords of the scammers.

Pretty sure admins can change someone's password without knowing their original password.

I guess they could manually do it through their database. Assuming they hash the password with salt multiple times, they would probably have to manually do this. Unless the passwords are stored in plaintext...

Even if they can't reset someone's password, they can just change the recovery email. How do you think they recover accounts that have been hacked?

It's a very simple process.

[marcotheminer]

Why should mods do that? They have no way to verify your story in the first place and IMHO your trade is your "problem" be it good or bad.

so that I can somehow make up for my losses

Can you rephrase that without using the word "somehow"?

selling the accounts

I would most likely participate in 1 signature campaign for a month to recoup losses.

[b4basit]

what's the rank of that two accounts & you give loan to them without collateral? 

[malevolent]

Lol, no.

[marcotheminer]

what's the rank of that two accounts & you give loan to them without collateral? 

members

Lol, no.

Thanks for the valuable input [/sarcasm]. You can laugh at me, but please do try to add constructive feedback to the idea.

[DiamondCardz]

Admins don't have time to recover accounts so that you can make back BTC on a loan. You'd have to have sorted it out with the person you gave a loan to, as an admin likely isn't going to get involved even if he promised to give you the account in the event of a default.

[haploid23]

Common sense would tell you this is not possible. I could claim anyone defaulted on a loan, and now admin must give me their account? You took the risk, it shouldn't be mod/admin's problem.

Suppose you do get their account. What do you intend to do with it, sell it?? Make hundreds of post to rank up to join sig campaign? How much would the account be worth after it's known to default?

[notserp]

shoulda got the accounts as collateral before you gave the loan

[Dare]

Lol, no.

Thanks for the valuable input [/sarcasm]. You can laugh at me, but please do try to add constructive feedback to the idea.

That's valid feedback; you asked the mods a question, and one responded and said no. He didn't elaborate on it, but if the answer's an unconditional "no" (which I would expect; the mods have no control over your personal decisions on loans, and even previous agreements with the users concerned are questionable) then there isn't much to elaborate on.

[ACCTseller]

what's the rank of that two accounts & you give loan to them without collateral? 

members

Lol, no.

Thanks for the valuable input [/sarcasm]. You can laugh at me, but please do try to add constructive feedback to the idea.

A likely solution to this kind of problem in the future would be to gain control of the account prior to funding the loan.

It would essentially be that you would be buying the account from them with the option/requirement for them to buy it back after "x" number of days. It would be important that the repayment amount is less then the value of the account because he could just buy another account if it was not. You would also be taking on a lot of risk because of the possibility of him being in the middle of a scam with that account, the account being close to being banned, ect.

The transaction would work something like this: It is your opinion that a specific senior account is worth .45 (it is up to you to make this determination). The person who controls the account needs a loan for .2 BTC. You give him a repayment address (or you have a public one). He gives you the password to the account, and a password to set it back to once the loan is repaid. You save the 2nd password and change the password and email to something only you know. You send him .2 BTC. Two weeks later (or another mutually agreed upon time) he repays you .25 BTC (or other mutually agreed upon amount) to the repayment address. You change the password to the password he gave you above.

You need to note the large difference between the repayment amount and the repayment amount because of the high risk involved. You also need to remember that if you wish to earn from a signature campaign you will need to put effort into posting so when calculating your ROI you should deduct some amount for this time/effort.

If you are trying to recoup a loan after the fact then your only recourse would be to give negative trust and hopefully his time to create a new account to get to "member" level is worth more then the amount owed to you

[PotatoPie]

Although I have not been here that long, you would have major problems enforcing this and proving the loans. This would just lead to the mass sale of accounts which I don't not think is allowed here. You would also have everyone trying to say a high valued member scammed them.

[Bitcoins101]

Although I have not been here that long, you would have major problems enforcing this and proving the loans. This would just lead to the mass sale of accounts which I don't not think is allowed here. Wrong. Sales of accounts are allowed in all capacities. You would also have everyone trying to say a high valued member scammed them. Non-issue. People do that nowadays too, but unless they have proof or extremely substantial evidence, nobody cares. Heck, even if you do have evidence, you're still unlikely to get something from a trustworthy member. For example, Stunna still owes me about $30 in BTC from their sig campaign in August, but other than sending him a couple PMs (which haven't been responded to, of course), I'm not going to do anything about it. It's not worth the time spent and bridges I'll burn trying to go after him for a few bucks, especially when some members here may think he has a counter-argument.

Regardless, it's not up to staff anymore to decide whether or not someone someone has/is scamming. That's why this particular idea of moderators forfeiting the accounts of scammers to the lender is not going to happen. If you want a scammer's account, offer a nominal sum of money for it - as long as that amount is more than $0, you're paying above market value for an account with red trust. Then, clear the issues with the account, get it back to neutral or positive trust, and flip it to make back the money you lost on the defaulted loan.

[Yuki1988]

The account anshar https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=332491 is at full member rank, it is pretty dumb IMO that he decided to scam 0.03 btc instead of joining a sig campaign or directly selling the account.

Although I have not been here that long, you would have major problems enforcing this and proving the loans. This would just lead to the mass sale of accounts which I don't not think is allowed here. You would also have everyone trying to say a high valued member scammed them.

For your reference: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=303414.msg3269475#msg3269475

As it has been answered, yes Forum accounts are allowed to be bought or sold, and you may have more than one. The reason being, it would be impossible for the staff to weed out all account sales and multiple accounts. We just couldn't do it, so by allowing it, everyone is aware that it happens and knows to watch out for it if they need to. If we said no buying/selling accounts and no alt accounts allowed, the many people who could slip through the cracks would be able to do far more damage, as the community wouldn't be on guard the same way it is now.

That being said, buying/selling accounts isn't always bad, people can use the accounts for paid signature advertising, giveaways, and whatnaught, rather than using them to scam. There are scammers, and those that use alts responsibly. Some people have alt/purchased accounts so that they may speak their mind without fear of people associating certain ideals or policies to them. For example, and established business may not like to post their personal opinions which may be unpopular on the account that also is used to faciliate trade.

I hope this clears it up a bit better.