Abuse or not?

[LFC_Bitcoin]

Is account farming common here? How much can somebody make by doing it? Surely it's far too much effort to create dozens of accounts with new email address, passwords & usernames. You'd have to remember the log in details & post constructively on dozens of accounts to upgrade their membership limits.
I guess they normally get sold at full member level?

[Amph]

Is account farming common here? How much can somebody make by doing it? Surely it's far too much effort to create dozens of accounts with new email address, passwords & usernames. You'd have to remember the log in details & post constructively on dozens of accounts to upgrade their membership limits.
I guess they normally get sold at full member level?

it's not worth it, and because of this now there is the new trend to sell less ranked account but with green trust, so they are more valuable and faster to sell

a member account with good trust can have the same value of a senior, this tells you how much time they can save, by not farming senior....

a part from this, i'm for a neutral rate, unless it is discovered that the owner was a scammer or that the new owner is a scammer

[TheButterZone]

Whenever an account's password is changed, everyone who left positive feedback on it should be automatically notified that they should investigate whether the account was just sold and if so, to delete their feedback that applied only to the previous owner.

[Mickeyb]

Is account farming common here? How much can somebody make by doing it? Surely it's far too much effort to create dozens of accounts with new email address, passwords & usernames. You'd have to remember the log in details & post constructively on dozens of accounts to upgrade their membership limits.
I guess they normally get sold at full member level?

Oh boy, I can't imagine how much work this would be, to farm 10 full member accounts, this is insane. And at the end, you would earn what, not even 1 bitcoin. I would rather do a real job and then just buy this 1 bitcoin.

As for the selling of accoints with positive reputation, this is unacceptable. There should be some mechanism that returns all these accounts to the neutral. I don't know how this would be possible to do though.

[guitarplinker]

Whenever an account's password is changed, everyone who left positive feedback on it should be automatically notified that they should investigate whether the account was just sold and if so, to delete their feedback that applied only to the previous owner.

I think you're onto a good idea, but it would get a little annoying for users who do a ton of trades (Blazedout419 for example) because they'd be getting a lot of notifications whenever a user they sent positive trust to changes their password.

I think a better idea would be notifying everyone who left positive trust for a user, if that user changes their password more than once every 12 or 24 hours. Because it seems often when an account is sold the password is changed at least twice in less than 6 hours: once when the seller sends the account details and then twice when the new buyer secures the account for themselves. Something like that might be a better idea because it wouldn't be as annoying as getting a notification every password change, but would still provide useful information to users who have sent positive feedback.

[dogie]

Whenever an account's password is changed, everyone who left positive feedback on it should be automatically notified that they should investigate whether the account was just sold and if so, to delete their feedback that applied only to the previous owner.

I think you're onto a good idea, but it would get a little annoying for users who do a ton of trades (Blazedout419 for example) because they'd be getting a lot of notifications whenever a user they sent positive trust to changes their password.

I think a better idea would be notifying everyone who left positive trust for a user, if that user changes their password more than once every 12 or 24 hours. Because it seems often when an account is sold the password is changed at least twice in less than 6 hours: once when the seller sends the account details and then twice when the new buyer secures the account for themselves. Something like that might be a better idea because it wouldn't be as annoying as getting a notification every password change, but would still provide useful information to users who have sent positive feedback.

I too like the idea but I don't think we've come up with quite the right formula yet. Maybe rather than an automated system, several members could vote to activate a warning system as described. That way its getting human checked that something looks iffy or the behaviour has changed.

[Quickseller]

Whenever an account's password is changed, everyone who left positive feedback on it should be automatically notified that they should investigate whether the account was just sold and if so, to delete their feedback that applied only to the previous owner.

I think you're onto a good idea, but it would get a little annoying for users who do a ton of trades (Blazedout419 for example) because they'd be getting a lot of notifications whenever a user they sent positive trust to changes their password.

I think a better idea would be notifying everyone who left positive trust for a user, if that user changes their password more than once every 12 or 24 hours. Because it seems often when an account is sold the password is changed at least twice in less than 6 hours: once when the seller sends the account details and then twice when the new buyer secures the account for themselves. Something like that might be a better idea because it wouldn't be as annoying as getting a notification every password change, but would still provide useful information to users who have sent positive feedback.

If this was implemented then people would change passwords less often, or in increasing intervals when accounts are traded, or they will take the risk of not changing the password.

All this will lead to is more confidence that accounts have not been sold which will cause people to do less due diligence when trusting them with some amount of money.

[Scamalert]

Ideally should accounts not be traded at all, the whole idea is absurd.

The only way to handle this is to set an example.  

Next line of accounts with positive trust that is being sold, should be bomb with negative trust .... thus making the acount worthless. It would not take long before it would be public known that trading with account that has postive trust is a risky business. This would be very effecient. Who want to pay a lot of money for an account with trust as red as the devil? nobody, would be better to make your own account or at least buy one with no postive trust.

What I am saying that trading a account with positive trust should not be acceptable by the commnunity and be punihsed very hard.

[notlist3d]

Whenever an account's password is changed, everyone who left positive feedback on it should be automatically notified that they should investigate whether the account was just sold and if so, to delete their feedback that applied only to the previous owner.

I think you're onto a good idea, but it would get a little annoying for users who do a ton of trades (Blazedout419 for example) because they'd be getting a lot of notifications whenever a user they sent positive trust to changes their password.

I think a better idea would be notifying everyone who left positive trust for a user, if that user changes their password more than once every 12 or 24 hours. Because it seems often when an account is sold the password is changed at least twice in less than 6 hours: once when the seller sends the account details and then twice when the new buyer secures the account for themselves. Something like that might be a better idea because it wouldn't be as annoying as getting a notification every password change, but would still provide useful information to users who have sent positive feedback.

I too like the idea but I don't think we've come up with quite the right formula yet. Maybe rather than an automated system, several members could vote to activate a warning system as described. That way its getting human checked that something looks iffy or the behaviour has changed.

I like this idea with some work could be good.  Instead of like scammer tag, have a bought tag if so many  say it was bought.  Only count members above X level so someone cannot register accounts just to hurt someone.   And needs to be reversible by mods if used to just pick on someone.

I do think putting trust for X amount of day's is fine.  I don't do it myself as I like to avoid arguments and I don't feel it's my place currently.   But if you have the time to do this it would prevent sold accounts from doing most sig campaigns (neg feedback), and would prevent some scams.   So I can see why it has positives.

[omahapoker]

I think it is a problem that a acount with default trust (green numbers) is being sold.
Trust should be reset when an acount is being sold, since all previous trust cannot be trusted, I know the system cannot do it.

Therefor should the account be nuked with negative untill it is back to zero.

Short version: no it is not abuse, go ahead and swing that negative whip!

That would not work since if sold account would lose their green trust, or maybe even red trust, then these accounts simply would be sold in private. You would not even have a public auction anymore to prevent any risk of having it exposed.

By the way.. removing red trust would not make sense since scammers then could sell the accounts for much more.

[cryptodevil]

The vast majority of these reasons are not scam related.

ORLY? How do you figure that?

I believe that a very low minority of sold accounts are used to attempt to scam, and of those, a very small percentage of accounts are ever successful at scamming.

Ohhhh, you *believe* there's only a small minority and, even then, you're going to claim that *only* a small percentage of that tiny minority successfully manage to scam anyone.

SMH. Where to even begin with that fallacious reasoning?

You spent so many words explaining why people would sell an account that it might confuse people into mistakenly thinking that your reasonable assertions explaining the seller's side of the process, also holds as reasonable for the buyer's side. It doesn't.

1. The very act of buying an account with good standing and a high member ranking is to defraud the natural process of social selection all users have to go through in establishing their posting history and community standing.

2. Anybody who promotes anything through a high-standing account they have purchased is being dishonest and deceptive, unless they are willing to clearly state in their signature or avatar text that it is a bought account, which would make the purpose of purchasing an account pointless, right?

3. You state that a buyer would have a greater incentive to try to scam if they know they will receive negative trust for it being a bought account, that is laughable. You are essentially saying, "Don't piss these dodgy bastards off, otherwise they'll *really* work harder to defraud people.

4. You then state that owners of accounts who are desperate for money would try and scam if they couldn't offload their account to someone else, which is basically the same thing as saying, "Desperate people should be allowed to sell their ID so that scammers will defraud forum users instead of them having to".

5. As for claiming it would do more harm than good to nuke sold accounts, I disagree, the trade in this dodgy practice would soon become pointless, thereby drastically curbing the number of fake high-ranking account users if was clear that sold accounts were being torched once discovered to not be the original owner.



Give me three valid reasons why somebody would want to buy a high-ranking account which wouldn't count as deception?

I'll save you the effort, don't bother, you can't.

[SebastianJu]

The vast majority of these reasons are not scam related.

ORLY? How do you figure that?

I believe that a very low minority of sold accounts are used to attempt to scam, and of those, a very small percentage of accounts are ever successful at scamming.

Ohhhh, you *believe* there's only a small minority and, even then, you're going to claim that *only* a small percentage of that tiny minority successfully manage to scam anyone.

SMH. Where to even begin with that fallacious reasoning?

You spent so many words explaining why people would sell an account that it might confuse people into mistakenly thinking that your reasonable assertions explaining the seller's side of the process, also holds as reasonable for the buyer's side. It doesn't.

1. The very act of buying an account with good standing and a high member ranking is to defraud the natural process of social selection all users have to go through in establishing their posting history and community standing.

2. Anybody who promotes anything through a high-standing account they have purchased is being dishonest and deceptive, unless they are willing to clearly state in their signature or avatar text that it is a bought account, which would make the purpose of purchasing an account pointless, right?

3. You state that a buyer would have a greater incentive to try to scam if they know they will receive negative trust for it being a bought account, that is laughable. You are essentially saying, "Don't piss these dodgy bastards off, otherwise they'll *really* work harder to defraud people.

4. You then state that owners of accounts who are desperate for money would try and scam if they couldn't offload their account to someone else, which is basically the same thing as saying, "Desperate people should be allowed to sell their ID so that scammers will defraud forum users instead of them having to".

5. As for claiming it would do more harm than good to nuke sold accounts, I disagree, the trade in this dodgy practice would soon become pointless, thereby drastically curbing the number of fake high-ranking account users if was clear that sold accounts were being torched once discovered to not be the original owner.



Give me three valid reasons why somebody would want to buy a high-ranking account which wouldn't count as deception?

I'll save you the effort, don't bother, you can't.

Maybe he refers to him being an escrow and probably having escrowed a lot of accounts already. You then can justify a bit how often accounts end up for being used for scams.

I escrowed a lot accounts already too and i can say that i did not see an account related in a scam. Except a scam accusation that came because of the previous owner. Since i escrowed it could be cleared. Or a hacked account that was sold. But buyers practically every time are trying to make the account worth more to resell them or/and use it only or additionally in signature campaigns. But an account i escrowed i did not find in a scam after.

[cryptodevil]

So you sell them mid range accounts which they build up to sell off as high ranking member accounts. What legitimate reason do people have for buying those high ranking accounts?

[ABitNut]

Recently I have seen a few accounts being sold that have some trust on them. Personally I think it is bad to sell any accounts, but trusted is obviously worse. I think dropping a negative is probably alright as I do not trust people who buy them. Right now I have been leaving neutral warnings to inform others, but that does not lower their trusted status. Let me know what you think or at least flame me for the fun of it.

Voted yes because of the bolded part.

You're on default trust because (hopefully) you've got a good grip on who can and cannot be trusted.

PS. Flaming you seems pointless since you're all blazed out... 

[bitspill]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=363749

Was recently sold and has decent feedback. I really think with it being sold it should not be green.

I was the account making wakka622 green, I have just changed that to a neutral rating and it now shows as "0: -0 / +0"

[SebastianJu]

So you sell them mid range accounts which they build up to sell off as high ranking member accounts. What legitimate reason do people have for buying those high ranking accounts?

As far as i can say it as escrow that escrowed a lot account deals, if the accounts are bought by endusers then practically everytime it is bought by someone who wants to join a signature campaign with it.

Think about it, what you can earn with that is a monthly salary that exceeds the average income of many developing countries.

Then add some more accounts to raise your profit and get rich.

The remaining buyers buy in order to resell the account after they levelled them up.

[cryptodevil]

I refer you to my previous answer:

2. Anybody who promotes anything through a high-standing account they have purchased is being dishonest and deceptive, unless they are willing to clearly state in their signature or avatar text that it is a bought account


So we are still yet to discover the magical reasoning that involves a person buying a high-ranking account for non-dishonest purposes, ergo, negative trust still stands as the correct response to a purchased high-ranking account.

[SebastianJu]

So you sell them mid range accounts which they build up to sell off as high ranking member accounts. What legitimate reason do people have for buying those high ranking accounts?

Signature campaigns pay more for higher ranking forum accounts. Because the signature allows more signs the signature campaign runners can create bigger and more flashy signatures.

As far as i saw there are a lot of users form poorer countries who create an additional income. Or maybe a fulltime income with that.

[SebastianJu]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=363749

Was recently sold and has decent feedback. I really think with it being sold it should not be green.

I was the account making wakka622 green, I have just changed that to a neutral rating and it now shows as "0: -0 / +0"

I would do the same when i know an account is sold where i voted green. Though of course sellers won't chose me as the escrow then.

And yes. Green Trust accounts have a high risk. Unfortunately the new owner can't simply ask everyone to remove the rating because he most probably will get a neutral rating saying that the account was sold. It might hinder in signature campaigns. I'm not sure about that though.

[cryptodevil]

So you sell them mid range accounts which they build up to sell off as high ranking member accounts. What legitimate reason do people have for buying those high ranking accounts?

Signature campaigns pay more for higher ranking forum accounts.

I know. So which part of buying a high-ranking account in order to take part in signature campaigns whereby people believe a 'senior' forum member is supporting the campaign, thereby lending it a degree of undeserved credibility, is not dishonest?

If the intention is to mislead for personal gain, then the act of buying a high-ranking forum account is absolutely evidence of somebody being demonstrably untrustworthy.