An update about increased fraud/cheating
Posted: 2018-07-16 09:00 UTC
(Please note: the post below applies to CoinPot and to the 7 faucets that make up our network)
We have been running faucets succesfully for over 4 years now and one of the biggest time-consuming challenges is fighting back against fraud/cheating. We classify fraud/cheating as many things, including any of the following...
Bots, and any other kind of automated claiming
Our main source of funding is advertising, without this funding we cannot maintain our high payout rates to users. Automated claiming bypasses our adverts and if we allowed it would mean we have much lower funds available.
Multiple accounts
Cheaters will often try to create multiple accounts, using different email addresses, IP addresses etc. This is against our rules - we allow one account per person. Fortunately this is actually very easy for us to detect - but it still goes on and means we have to spend time and money fighting against it.
Abusing the system
In other words trying to work around our rules, or find loopholes in how it works to attempt to claim more. Obviously any time we discover any such loop hole we will close it, but again this is time consuming and often we can only spot this after it has happened.
The current situation
Unfortunately over the last few weeks and months we have seen a significant increase in all these types of fraud/cheating. Its not hard to find evidence (on forums etc) that other big faucets and faucet networks are facing the same problems. In fact one of the biggest faucets around, freebitco.in, has significantly changed their model recently because of these problems - away from advertising revenue and now depend on gambling and users holding account balances, to prove they are genuine users. Freebitco.in has been around on the faucet scene as long as we have, so for them to take these steps is proof that this problem is serious. Also another big faucet network, faucethub has also created an internal system to detect and fight against fraud.
We have been working hard behind the scenes to ensure that CoinPot (and our faucets) can keep running. If we allow fraud and cheaters to be successful then we would very quickly go out of business. We have faced a choice to either continue fighting cheaters, or close up shop so that no-one can use our systems any more. Hopefully you will be happy to hear that our decision is to continue, but we need your help and support with this.
This is the current process...
Users register and claim via our faucets and use CoinPot to manage their "pots"
When users request withdrawal they are told that this can take up to 48 hours (the average turnaround is actually around 10 hours and often less)
During this time we run our automated CPFA system (see below) to detect any fraudulent patterns of use.
Any accounts that are detected by CPFA, are then MANUALLY double-checked to make sure we havent made a mistake. If we confirm and agree that the use is fraudulent/cheating then the accounts are suspended - which means withdrawal is cancelled.
For everyone else (i.e. our honest users), we make the payouts as requested.
More about CPFA (CoinPot Fraud Analysis)
Our bespoke, background CPFA system has been gradually developed over the last few years and currently consists of over 140 scripts and pattern detection utilities. It is continually growing and being refined, as we discover new ways for people to try to cheat! We have a huge amount of confidence that this system is accurate at separating the good guys from the bad guys. Obviously we cant go into a lot of detail about what these 140 odd scripts actually do, as this would give a big advantage to scammers who could try to bypass this system - but in most cases it should be fairly obvious.
How can you help?
So in summary, we are simply asking you to stick by the rules and then we can ensure CoinPot continues its success, and that you can benefit from that. We would also be very happy if you could post about your positive CoinPot experiences (including successful withdrawals) in reddit/forums etc - simply to counterbalance the negative stuff posted by the fraudsters and cheaters who we have caught out!
Our promises to you
In return we will make the following promises...
If you are a genuine, honest user who sticks by the rules...
We will keep CoinPot running smoothly - making improvements and increasing claim rates as often as possible
We will pay out any withdrawals within 48 hours when requested
We will promptly respond to any support questions you might have via email (
support@coinpot.co)
If you are a scammer/cheater/bot...
We will detect your abuse and suspend your account.
We will not payout any withdrawal requests to you - meaning loss of funds and that you have wasted a lot of time claiming and using the system.
We will not enter into any correspondence (email etc) with you as this is just a waste of our resources. If you are a cheater and you try to contact us, please dont be surprised that we dont reply, and please take this a sign that we have detected your abuse and we don't want you to further use our systems.
We hope that this clarifies the situation as much as possible, and gives you confidence to continue using CoinPot. If you play nice then we want you here!
Regards
CoinPot
