Spams and Scams

[EXtremeAEX]

Not sure if this is the right board to post in. Just some questions I had in mind.

Spam can mean a few different things here, but I am referring it more specifically to the spam creation of accounts. I see many newbie accounts, posting only a few words, especially in the Off Topic Board and Investors Based Games. For all you know, a person could have created 100 over accounts (maybe I exaggerating a bit), and use them to either sell it in the future, or to use it as 'proof'.

Many posts in the Investors Based Games section always have newbies that posts there. Not saying every newbie there is an alt, but they might be created just to bump the post, or fake evidence, to lure others to invest as well, by using their 'personal experience' which can be forged. I think there should be a restriction to the creation of forum accounts, but it can be difficult.

I not sure about the current settings, but does it require an email to sign up? If not, then it should. If yes, then... its email spamming abuse out there. This might not be possible, and against the privacy of the forum users, but maybe the forum mods should use their ip address to spot out a few alts, and prevent them. In my opinion, users should not be able to create multiple accounts, but just to stick to their own account forever. I'll move on to scams now.

Scams are inevitable, I know, but obvious scams should be removed, I think. There is no reason that I should be allowed to live on and scam more victims, right? Despite the warnings and the trust systems, I still think that there might be people who are willing to give it a shot. The person who gave it a chance is not the main point. The main point is that if the scam owner receives more of this, it will tempt him to create more of this ponzis.

Prevention is better than cure, these should be stopped. Both scam and spam. Just another question again, what happens to the scammers? Do they get hunted down and brought to justice? Or they just slip back into the wild with red all over? They should be banned, to prevent such forum abuse.

Not writing my full opinion here, cos no one would read this large chunks or words. Want to see what you users here think too.

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[Welsh]

There is without a doubt users creating many forum accounts aiming to sell them at a later date, it's the latest craze. Although, limiting it would be very difficult and not efficent. People can change their IP's using VPN's. Although the forum does have a 'evil points' system, that only works for known VPN'S. So, there are things put into place to prevent abuse, but it will never stop or prevent or be an hinderance to the user who is creating the accounts.

I would say keep the system as it is, let the users who are creating the accounts get lazy, if they are creating hundreds of accounts, then I would assume they want it done as quickly as possible and would get lazy making it easier to notice, and allow  the moderators to note down the alternate accounts, I'm not sure on the policy of mass creation of accounts but as far as I'm aware it's not against the rules, unless the person was banned on another account as that would fall on the ban evading rule.

I not sure about the current settings, but does it require an email to sign up? If not, then it should.

 As far as I remember, yes it does require an email to sign up, however there is no email verfication.

Many posts in the Investors Based Games section always have newbies that posts there. Not saying every newbie there is an alt, but they might be created just to bump the post

 This would probaly be easily reconised after a while, and would be dealt with by the moderators.

Scams shouldn't be removed at all, there's too much room for abuse and mistakes. Mistakes do happen and someone with a legit business could have a few false accusations against them with fabricated evidence which looks to be solid at first glance, if it was removed and later found out the evidence was false, then the moderators would get that in the neck.

[OmegaStarScream]

Investors based-game section is full of ponzi scheme so it dosen't matter if a Newbie vouch there or bump the thread because it won't be taken seriously by higher ranked users .

for what comes to the email creation then no , It dosen't need email verification and that's why we see shitload of accounts everywhere . but it would be available on the new forum software and there will be also Two factor authentification for more security .

now for the scams ... It's really abused and there is already a serial scammer with shitload of accounts (most likely hacked from the CloudMinr.io database) and he is scamming a lot of people .
If I was the admin , I would personally not allow Newbie accounts to post on the Marketplace which should prevent a make scamming lower .
and no , unless you have the real informations of the users and use them to go to the police your self (and he may be from another country and if the amount is low , they won't give a shit)  , nothing will happen to the scammers , not even get banned , they simply get negative feedback from other users

[Lauda]

There is without a doubt users creating many forum accounts aiming to sell them at a later date, it's the latest craze. Although, limiting it would be very difficult and not efficent. People can change their IP's using VPN's. Although the forum does have a 'evil points' system, that only works for known VPN'S. So, there are things put into place to prevent abuse, but it will never stop or prevent or be an hinderance to the user who is creating the accounts.

I would say keep the system as it is, let the users who are creating the accounts get lazy, if they are creating hundreds of accounts, then I would assume they want it done as quickly as possible and would get lazy making it easier to notice, and for the moderators to note down alternate accounts, I'm not sure on the policy of mass creation of accounts but as far as I'm aware it's not against the rules, unless the person was banned on another account as that would fall on the ban evading rule.
-snip-

The evil points system isn't really effective from what we have seen. It is probably because it doesn't require much coins to get past it. OP you're not exaggerating with 100 accounts, I'm pretty sure that some have near that number. I think that email verification could help slow down this process, i.e. account is unusable until you verify. This would only slow it down a bit, but it's better than nothing right?

Spam is dealt with pretty quickly as long as you report it. There are a few users who have over 1000 reports. Scams aren't moderated for the very reason that you listed. I would like to add that if they were moderated this would cause a lot of inconveniences and a lot of drama; some would complain even if they "verified" scam was removed. It is just not worth it.

[shorena]

-snip-
Scams shouldn't be removed at all, there's too much room for abuse and mistakes. Mistakes do happen and someone with a legit business could have a few false accusations against them with fabricated evidence which looks to be solid at first glance, if it was removed and later found out the evidence was false, then the moderators would get that in the neck.

It would also give a false sense of security which IMHO is even worse than a false positive. If a service is not removed by the mods and mods remove scams, some might draw the conclusion that said service is not a scam, instead of doing their due diligence first.

[EXtremeAEX]

Scams shouldn't be removed at all, there's too much room for abuse and mistakes. Mistakes do happen and someone with a legit business could have a few false accusations against them with fabricated evidence which looks to be solid at first glance, if it was removed and later found out the evidence was false, then the moderators would get that in the neck.

OP you're not exaggerating with 100 accounts, I'm pretty sure that some have near that number. I think that email verification could help slow down this process, i.e. account is unusable until you verify. This would only slow it down a bit, but it's better than nothing right?

Spam is dealt with pretty quickly as long as you report it.
Some would complain even if they "verified" scam was removed. It is just not worth it.

If I was the admin , I would personally not allow Newbie accounts to post on the Marketplace which should prevent a make scamming lower .

It would also give a false sense of security which IMHO is even worse than a false positive. If a service is not removed by the mods and mods remove scams, some might draw the conclusion that said service is not a scam, instead of doing their due diligence first.

Snipped. After reading all this, ok, I agree that there is just a wide a range to remove all these scams (including services), let alone preventing further complications and misconceptions from happening. I guess it is up the the forum users themselves to analyse all the ponzis and sites themselves, and let them learn from their mistakes. But still, there are scammers out there who feed on these 'mistakes', and there should be something to stop them.

I think restricting newbies to only be able to post in a few sections is quite a nice idea, so that only users with more posts and experience take part in the forum, causing less harm, since they are risking a more 'valued' account, in view of them. But again, they may easily buy an account, which might be 'farmed', which once again leads it back to the main reason, account spam creation. 100 accounts is alot, way too much. Email verification should definitely be used, I dont see why they should not do it. Too much stuff going on, too many problems. Ultimately, they are unable to be solved, since users might see this forum as an earning opportunity.

[shorena]

-snip-
Snipped. After reading all this, ok, I agree that there is just a wide a range to remove all these scams (including services), let alone preventing further complications and misconceptions from happening. I guess it is up the the forum users themselves to analyse all the ponzis and sites themselves, and let them learn from their mistakes. But still, there are scammers out there who feed on these 'mistakes', and there should be something to stop them.

I think the best thing to prevent scams as much as possible is an educated customer base. If every single customer would dig into a company or service and share the information you have a better information base than a single moderator or even a team of mods could provide. People also have an incentive to do so if there is no trust party™. Its their own funds they risk.

I think restricting newbies to only be able to post in a few sections is quite a nice idea, so that only users with more posts and experience take part in the forum, causing less harm, since they are risking a more 'valued' account, in view of them. But again, they may easily buy an account, which might be 'farmed', which once again leads it back to the main reason, account spam creation. 100 accounts is alot, way too much. Email verification should definitely be used, I dont see why they should not do it. Too much stuff going on, too many problems. Ultimately, they are unable to be solved, since users might see this forum as an earning opportunity.

We had this "Newbie Jail" and it was considered not worth it. For all I know it was hindering more legit users than preventing any scams or spams as those familiar with the process easily sat out the restrictions, while those with honest questions would often just leave (assumption ofc) and give up. It also resulted in plenty of "why can I post in section X" spam.

[Xialla]

/cut/
Scams shouldn't be removed at all, there's too much room for abuse and mistakes.

well, I'm sure that hundreds or maybe even thousands of guys, which clicked on forum promoted advertisements like banners from BFL and order something (me included before couple of years) can't agree now..

sorry, but tell me one bloody example, when majority of board pointed some company as scam and it became a legitimate, trustworthy and working bitcoin business...and I can tell you dozens of examples, when threads were reported, there were scam accusations against company, endless count of evidence inside and mods don't even bother delete threads or accounts (blackarrow, cloudthink, cointerra, hashfast, BFL..bla bla bla)

you may say, that it is own responsibility of each person here, but generally, it is against bitcoin adoption and is hard to image consequences..

[erikalui]

Multiple account creations should definitely not be allowed but this forum believes that everyone needs their privacy and hence they can create an alt account and share their opinion without causing any harm to their main account. Also, when one account gets banned temporarily, a user is allowed to create a new account and appeal. Besides this, there has not been any specific reason given why these alt accounts should be created. It doesn't benefit the community nor the other users and instead it gives rise to more spam and scam.


With regards to scamming, I have stated many reasons earlier as to why it should be moderated but now I've just given up on it. I prefer using an escrow now instead of getting scammed.

[Welsh]

Multiple account creations should definitely not be allowed but this forum believes that everyone needs their privacy and hence they can create an alt account and share their opinion without causing any harm to their main account. Also, when one account gets banned temporarily, a user is allowed to create a new account and appeal. Besides this, there has not been any specific reason given why these alt accounts should be created. It doesn't benefit the community nor the other users and instead it gives rise to more spam and scam.


With regards to scamming, I have stated many reasons earlier as to why it should be moderated but now I've just given up on it. I prefer using an escrow now instead of getting scammed.

Alternate accounts are allowed for multiple reasons, one which I would 100% agree on is too allow users to share unpopular views and opinions without it being linked to their main account.

Account farming for the intent to sell on afterwards or other 'malicious'(?) acts is an entirely different matter. Although, account sales are allowed, so as far as I'm aware account farming is allowed. Although both are frowned upon by the community.

[erikalui]

Alternate accounts are allowed for multiple reasons, one which I would 100% agree on is too allow users to share unpopular views and opinions without it being linked to their main account.

Account farming for the intent to sell on afterwards or other 'malicious'(?) acts is an entirely different matter. Although, account sales are allowed, so as far as I'm aware account farming is allowed. Although both are frowned upon by the community.

@bold: It id definitely a good option but don't you feel that this is not PURELY a discussion forum? When trading takes place here, this same option creates a lot of problems. I just wish bitcointalk did have a SEPARATE discussion forum and trading forum, where the former would allow creating multiply accounts and where the later wouldn't allow it. Farming accounts doesn't make this forum profit in any case so allowing it doesn't make sense.


Having two separate forums would also prevent these threads popping up to ban signature campaigns as the forums would be completely unrelated to each other. People who are interested in discussions could be at peace then with no spamming from newbies and signature campaign members.

[shorena]

/cut/
Scams shouldn't be removed at all, there's too much room for abuse and mistakes.

well, I'm sure that hundreds or maybe even thousands of guys, which clicked on forum promoted advertisements like banners from BFL and order something (me included before couple of years) can't agree now..

sorry, but tell me one bloody example, when majority of board pointed some company as scam and it became a legitimate, trustworthy and working bitcoin business...and I can tell you dozens of examples, when threads were reported, there were scam accusations against company, endless count of evidence inside and mods don't even bother delete threads or accounts (blackarrow, cloudthink, cointerra, hashfast, BFL..bla bla bla)

you may say, that it is own responsibility of each person here, but generally, it is against bitcoin adoption and is hard to image consequences..

How about DaDice? I personally think they are a scam about to happen, some agree some dont. Can you decide who is correct? What if you are wrong? To what extent can we rely on the mods? Would they refund me if they falsely failed to remove a scam?

-snip-
Plain as the nose on your face and has been addressed here multiple times, no reason to keep dragging it up.

Welcome back. I wonder though when you will come up with more fitting metaphors. Lets ban baseball bats.

[XinXan]

/cut/
Scams shouldn't be removed at all, there's too much room for abuse and mistakes.

well, I'm sure that hundreds or maybe even thousands of guys, which clicked on forum promoted advertisements like banners from BFL and order something (me included before couple of years) can't agree now..

sorry, but tell me one bloody example, when majority of board pointed some company as scam and it became a legitimate, trustworthy and working bitcoin business...and I can tell you dozens of examples, when threads were reported, there were scam accusations against company, endless count of evidence inside and mods don't even bother delete threads or accounts (blackarrow, cloudthink, cointerra, hashfast, BFL..bla bla bla)

you may say, that it is own responsibility of each person here, but generally, it is against bitcoin adoption and is hard to image consequences..

How about DaDice? I personally think they are a scam about to happen, some agree some dont. Can you decide who is correct? What if you are wrong? To what extent can we rely on the mods? Would they refund me if they falsely failed to remove a scam?

-snip-
Plain as the nose on your face and has been addressed here multiple times, no reason to keep dragging it up.

Welcome back. I wonder though when you will come up with more fitting metaphors. Lets ban baseball bats.

Yeah but with dadice its not the same although they have already a lot of red trust, the proofs against them are not definitive, it just made them look suspicious, they havent scammed yet and maybe they wont but there never was strong evidence of them being scammers just suspicious behavior.

Its pretty much like cloudthink where they have been revealing a really suspicious behavior and attitude but its not 100% certain that they are a scam or 999dice which has a provably fair system that can be cheated by the house but impossible to prove they are doing it.

I still cant think of an example that xialla is asking for tho.

[shorena]

/cut/
Scams shouldn't be removed at all, there's too much room for abuse and mistakes.

well, I'm sure that hundreds or maybe even thousands of guys, which clicked on forum promoted advertisements like banners from BFL and order something (me included before couple of years) can't agree now..

sorry, but tell me one bloody example, when majority of board pointed some company as scam and it became a legitimate, trustworthy and working bitcoin business...and I can tell you dozens of examples, when threads were reported, there were scam accusations against company, endless count of evidence inside and mods don't even bother delete threads or accounts (blackarrow, cloudthink, cointerra, hashfast, BFL..bla bla bla)

you may say, that it is own responsibility of each person here, but generally, it is against bitcoin adoption and is hard to image consequences..

How about DaDice? I personally think they are a scam about to happen, some agree some dont. Can you decide who is correct? What if you are wrong? To what extent can we rely on the mods? Would they refund me if they falsely failed to remove a scam?

-snip-
Plain as the nose on your face and has been addressed here multiple times, no reason to keep dragging it up.

Welcome back. I wonder though when you will come up with more fitting metaphors. Lets ban baseball bats.

Yeah but with dadice its not the same although they have already a lot of red trust, the proofs against them are not definitive, it just made them look suspicious, they havent scammed yet and maybe they wont but there never was strong evidence of them being scammers just suspicious behavior.

Its pretty much like cloudthink where they have been revealing a really suspicious behavior and attitude but its not 100% certain that they are a scam or 999dice which has a provably fair system that can be cheated by the house but impossible to prove they are doing it.

I still cant think of an example that xialla is asking for tho.

Exactly, no one can be 100% certain about a scam until it happens, thus scams can at best be removed afterwards by mods. Well, afterwards is not helping anyone, besides maybe the scammers. In removing all evidence of the scam you also remove the possibility to educate others with examples of the past.

[Bardman]

/cut/
Scams shouldn't be removed at all, there's too much room for abuse and mistakes.

well, I'm sure that hundreds or maybe even thousands of guys, which clicked on forum promoted advertisements like banners from BFL and order something (me included before couple of years) can't agree now..

sorry, but tell me one bloody example, when majority of board pointed some company as scam and it became a legitimate, trustworthy and working bitcoin business...and I can tell you dozens of examples, when threads were reported, there were scam accusations against company, endless count of evidence inside and mods don't even bother delete threads or accounts (blackarrow, cloudthink, cointerra, hashfast, BFL..bla bla bla)

you may say, that it is own responsibility of each person here, but generally, it is against bitcoin adoption and is hard to image consequences..

How about DaDice? I personally think they are a scam about to happen, some agree some dont. Can you decide who is correct? What if you are wrong? To what extent can we rely on the mods? Would they refund me if they falsely failed to remove a scam?

-snip-
Plain as the nose on your face and has been addressed here multiple times, no reason to keep dragging it up.

Welcome back. I wonder though when you will come up with more fitting metaphors. Lets ban baseball bats.

Yeah but with dadice its not the same although they have already a lot of red trust, the proofs against them are not definitive, it just made them look suspicious, they havent scammed yet and maybe they wont but there never was strong evidence of them being scammers just suspicious behavior.

Its pretty much like cloudthink where they have been revealing a really suspicious behavior and attitude but its not 100% certain that they are a scam or 999dice which has a provably fair system that can be cheated by the house but impossible to prove they are doing it.

I still cant think of an example that xialla is asking for tho.

Exactly, no one can be 100% certain about a scam until it happens, thus scams can at best be removed afterwards by mods. Well, afterwards is not helping anyone, besides maybe the scammers. In removing all evidence of the scam you also remove the possibility to educate others with examples of the past.

It's true that removing 100% scams afterwards its kind of pointless but it is still a good idea for default trust members to leave a red mark when they consider the site or person to be a possible scammer. With the DaDice example, they have proven to be really fishy and suspicious, the red mark will help people to stay away from the site, at least some people. I mean there are better dice sites, why would you play there when there is a bigger opportunity for you to get scammed instead of using the other dice sites with better rep and sometimes even better site.