THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN BUYING AN ACCOUNT

[talkbitcoin]

how much is the range of price on every activity level?

[subSTRATA]

how much is the range of price on every activity level?

it varies, but generally, full members are around the 0.1 range, seniors around the 0.2 range, and heroes are usually above 0.5 BTC. however, these numbers arent set in stone, price varies on activity, trust feedback, quality of posts, etc.

[talkbitcoin]

how much is the range of price on every activity level?

it varies, but generally, full members are around the 0.1 range, seniors around the 0.2 range, and heroes are usually above 0.5 BTC. however, these numbers arent set in stone, price varies on activity, trust feedback, quality of posts, etc.

thanks.
is the marketplace the only place they are being sold?

[Hexcoin]

how much is the range of price on every activity level?

it varies, but generally, full members are around the 0.1 range, seniors around the 0.2 range, and heroes are usually above 0.5 BTC. however, these numbers arent set in stone, price varies on activity, trust feedback, quality of posts, etc.

thanks.
is the marketplace the only place they are being sold?

ofcourse. buying and selling of physical and digital goods belongs in the marketplace. however in some case, some users tend to post in local boards to to find potential buyer/seller from their country

[subSTRATA]

how much is the range of price on every activity level?

it varies, but generally, full members are around the 0.1 range, seniors around the 0.2 range, and heroes are usually above 0.5 BTC. however, these numbers arent set in stone, price varies on activity, trust feedback, quality of posts, etc.

thanks.
is the marketplace the only place they are being sold?

well thats where items are traded and sold. aside from digital goods, auctions is a good place to buy an account as well, sometimes for cheaper than you might get one in the digital goods section. just be aware that some auctioners have some special rules regarding bids form newbie accounts, which most people bid from to remain fairly anonymous.

[Amph]

how much is the range of price on every activity level?

it varies, but generally, full members are around the 0.1 range, seniors around the 0.2 range, and heroes are usually above 0.5 BTC. however, these numbers arent set in stone, price varies on activity, trust feedback, quality of posts, etc.

thanks.
is the marketplace the only place they are being sold?

i think some are sold out of this forum, to have few tracks, maximum privacy i guess

maybe on litecointalk or another crypto forum

[SebastianJu]

When i would knew the seller told the account to others then i would not buy anymore. So i would ask him. When he tells me then im out.

Why? There are some people on the forum that give sold accounts negative. If one of these asks the seller, they dont have to be interested in fact, then the account is at risk. Why should i buy such account then?

Its simply not worth then. So i think its not smart to reveal the accoun to anyone other than the escrow. He can check everything and the account is safe until its really sold.

I still search a fast way to check for potential activity. Anyone knows one? Accounts with high post counts are no fun to count the 2 week periods.

nice to see a different perspective on the matter, as you run an escrow service; maybe ive just gotten lucky so far with the accounts. as for counting activity, it would likely be possible to create a script that could do that; bit-x's signature campaign bot can read through posts and get a rought character count, section the post was in, and other info that is used in calculating posts for a sig campaign. im sure there's a way to get the dates of the posts in order to calculate the activity. im sure bitcoin boy could implement something like that in a day with the existing code from the sig campaign bot.

Yeah, i even think it could become a service. Either selling such bot for cheap, since its usefulness is limited, or having a website you enter the profile id and it counts the potential activity.

Guess someone needs to work on that idea and he could charge some pennies for a count. I think there are many professional account traders. They might use that service, and get a screenshot. Or, when it is a website, then the website owner could create a service thread an post a signature signed with a bitcoin address he posted. Then, on the website, automatically a signature is created that states the potential activity. The text can be copied and the escrow can verify that the account, named in the signature message, really has the mentioned activity.

That is the perfect idea to count the potential activity for each account
Every account seller may contribute to this for a bot like this on.
It would help us and would save us time.

That is actually an even better suggestion. A project that is open source and can scrape the posts. It is even better because the accounts only are known to the one checking it, you dont have to trust another party.

I wonder if such a crowdfunding will work...

[SebastianJu]

You should be careful the account is not hacked or else the owner may get it banned/claim it later. signing a message by an old BTC address in a previous post can confirm this is the real owner I think.

They might be able to get it banned later, but my understanding is there's no way to reclaim an account once it's been sold and the information is changed.

There is a way to get it back supposedly by contacting the admin "Theymos" and signing a message from an address posted in an old topic/private message, That wasn't working recently though.

Ahh, interesting... I think that's a catch-22. If they allow it, people who buy accounts can reclaim them. If they don't, people with their accounts hacked are screwed.

IMO, people shouldn't be able to sell accounts regardless. It's basically selling reputation, and is one of the big contributors to all the scams around here.

The risk of sellers reclaiming an account can be negated by the seller demanding a signature from the seller. This signature should be signed with an old bitcoin address that was posted by the account to be sold, in the past. The older the better. Ideally quoted by other persons so that it cant be edited. The signature contains the date of selling and the new owners forum name.

The buyer then can proove that he bought the account since only the real owner can sign a message with such an old address.

So i suggest posting an address, that you can sign a message with, on here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=996318

Regarding selling reputation... thats correct and thats something not ok. But it happens. The more reason to not trust someone simply because he has trust. Its not avoidable that such accounts are sold. Im not aware of an account that was misused that way yet though.

Mostly accounts are bought for taking part on signature campaigns. Its a good income for many people in the world.

[SebastianJu]

By the way... i now took the suggestions on this thread and opened a thread to check out interest in such a potential activity counting bot. We would need someone saying what he would charge for creating it and would need to know if traders are interested into funding it.

Its on here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1136181

[peligro]

But what happen if the seller take back his account by proving the ownership of old address after sell the account to someone? Is it still possible right?

Please respond, I'm curious about this one.

No need to worry if the buyer have signed message from the seller when buying accounts, that would serve as proof of account transfer and he cant claim it back

Well when you buy an account you ask the seller to sign a message that that account is sold to you, and you must keep this message for future, so you are protected. - my opinion

its not just your opinion, i agree with it as well. by stating in the signed message that the account will be sold to you, the seller can no longer claim the account back as theirs using a signed message.

Quick question about signed messages: Now, from what I understand, for a signed message to be valid, it must have been fron an address associated to the account from a post or something at some point. If a person were to purchase an account, and then decide to resell it for whatever reason, how could he legitimately prove ownership without having access to an address that has been associated with the account for an extended period of time?

The buyer can't proof that he is the legitimate buyer except he got a signature from seller that says that the previous owner sold the account to him. The new owner should have posted a bitcoin address so that he can proof, with another signature, that he held the account since then.

When selling an account then the message should contain the date of sale, the account to be sold and the buyer who bought it.

I agree with you, a date should be included in the signed message, i dont know if we can verify when has been signed the message can we?

No, it can't be verified. The only thing you can verify is that the address that was used to sign the message is old. When it was posted, and hopefully quoted, on the forum some time ago. Only when the account holder is the one from that time or if he sold the account and gave the private key for that address to seller it can be possible that this signature could be created. And the buyers name included proofs that it is not an old signature.

[peligro]

But what happen if the seller take back his account by proving the ownership of old address after sell the account to someone? Is it still possible right?

Please respond, I'm curious about this one.

this is why always use escrow when buying a forum account because escrow is the witness that the account is soled and he will protact everything regarding it and also there is one more way which is signing a message if you use your mind and choss wisly your account is going no where after buying, ps also ask the escrow to check the account post history because people made crap posts mostly is some other languge and then sale it

I believe you should not set your hopes on an escrow because what will you do when that escrow is not on the forum anymore?

You should be able to proof your ownership with a signature showing it.