"Newbies" is the most dangerous subforum on this entire site!

[Kluge]

bump

[1714719000]

1714719000

[Akka]

I agree. Newbies should IMO be a Beginners & Help Board.

No advertising of any kind in there.

No Trades, no "invests" & no altcoin give-aways, etc...

[User705]

Some of these threads are scaring me a bit.. But then someone has to be trusted at one point. Are group buys safer?

I'd simply suggest to use escrow from a very high-trust person like John K, who I think will even do m-of-n escrow transactions to almost eliminate third-party-risk.

Another great security is to ensure you do business with people relatively local in case you need to collect through the legal system or appeal to relatives of the person -- at the very least, people within the same jurisdiction as you (and confirming ID is great -- a rather ghetto way of doing this, without relying on scanned gov't IDs, as example, would be to send a postcard with a code on it to the person's alleged address and have them relay the code to you when they receive it).

There are plenty of places to gather an idea of someone's trustworthiness, from WoT to the forum's rep system. Bitcoin (as an "ecosystem") has tons of functionality for determining trustworthiness and doing low-trust or no-trust transactions, but you need to be diligent. Even the largest-by-volume exchange, MtGox, has a terrible habit of fiat withdrawal blackouts of weeks, or in the current case, over a month - so certainly any company or individual can fail to meet advertisements, and that's why it's a great idea to get paranoid.

I've used John K but I've not understood this forums huge drive towards escrowing everything with him.  It seems like the easy way out of doing any sort of due diligence.  Seems to be the exact opposite of what bitcoin is all about.  It's like John K became PayPal of this bitcoin forum.

[SyphorSoftware]

I agree. Newbies should IMO be a Beginners & Help Board.

No advertising of any kind in there.

No Trades, no "invests" & no altcoin give-aways, etc...

I agree, as long as the newbies themselves aren't censored on the newbie board.

[CrashX]

I personally been flagging afew post that are from scammer. you could look at my history.

Doing by best...

[kuriboh]

This should be a sticky post.

Nice advice by the way.

[Yash]

I think this goes without saying, only deal with escrow and never run any suspicious application from newcomers ^^

[Kluge]

Some of these threads are scaring me a bit.. But then someone has to be trusted at one point. Are group buys safer?

I'd simply suggest to use escrow from a very high-trust person like John K, who I think will even do m-of-n escrow transactions to almost eliminate third-party-risk.

Another great security is to ensure you do business with people relatively local in case you need to collect through the legal system or appeal to relatives of the person -- at the very least, people within the same jurisdiction as you (and confirming ID is great -- a rather ghetto way of doing this, without relying on scanned gov't IDs, as example, would be to send a postcard with a code on it to the person's alleged address and have them relay the code to you when they receive it).

There are plenty of places to gather an idea of someone's trustworthiness, from WoT to the forum's rep system. Bitcoin (as an "ecosystem") has tons of functionality for determining trustworthiness and doing low-trust or no-trust transactions, but you need to be diligent. Even the largest-by-volume exchange, MtGox, has a terrible habit of fiat withdrawal blackouts of weeks, or in the current case, over a month - so certainly any company or individual can fail to meet advertisements, and that's why it's a great idea to get paranoid.

I've used John K but I've not understood this forums huge drive towards escrowing everything with him.  It seems like the easy way out of doing any sort of due diligence.  Seems to be the exact opposite of what bitcoin is all about.  It's like John K became PayPal of this bitcoin forum.

Unlike Paypal, John doesn't have a history of abuse, doesn't blanket ban transaction types, and you deal with the same level-headed guy every time. Until there's reason to doubt him, I'd never suggest someone not use someone who's had the opportunity to steal millions of $ in BTC and never takes it. There are plenty of alternatives, but when introducing third-party risk, you want them to have a long and spotless history -- nobody fills that as well as John (speaking as someone who offers free escrow).

With all that - John IS an easy choice, so there aren't going to be many alternatives. Competition's always good, but nobody can out-compete him AFAIK, largely because he has such an established history, and asking less in fees than him is practically impossible. So while it's not decentralized - if you're serious about securing contracts, you can't do better than having the PM page for John bookmarked.

It's for the same reason I wouldn't recommend someone use a new wallet from a team nobody's ever heard of over the established and reviewed wallet software which's been out for years. Trust and reputation's worth a fortune when conventional legal systems are too cumbersome.

[Ipsum]

Unlike Paypal, John doesn't have a history of abuse, doesn't blanket ban transaction types, and you deal with the same level-headed guy every time. Until there's reason to doubt him, I'd never suggest someone not use someone who's had the opportunity to steal millions of $ in BTC and never takes it. There are plenty of alternatives, but when introducing third-party risk, you want them to have a long and spotless history -- nobody fills that as well as John (speaking as someone who offers free escrow).

With all that - John IS an easy choice, so there aren't going to be many alternatives. Competition's always good, but nobody can out-compete him AFAIK, largely because he has such an established history, and asking less in fees than him is practically impossible. So while it's not decentralized - if you're serious about securing contracts, you can't do better than having the PM page for John bookmarked.

It's for the same reason I wouldn't recommend someone use a new wallet from a team nobody's ever heard of over the established and reviewed wallet software which's been out for years. Trust and reputation's worth a fortune when conventional legal systems are too cumbersome.

Good to know, thanks!

The risk with John K is probably that he doesn't have an institution around him that can survive his passing. If he were to have a heart attack today and die (not wishing it on him!), is there a substantial chance that all the funds in his btc escrow account would remain there, possibly forever locked away? Does he have a contingency plan?

[GOB]

Unlike Paypal, John doesn't have a history of abuse, doesn't blanket ban transaction types, and you deal with the same level-headed guy every time. Until there's reason to doubt him, I'd never suggest someone not use someone who's had the opportunity to steal millions of $ in BTC and never takes it. There are plenty of alternatives, but when introducing third-party risk, you want them to have a long and spotless history -- nobody fills that as well as John (speaking as someone who offers free escrow).

With all that - John IS an easy choice, so there aren't going to be many alternatives. Competition's always good, but nobody can out-compete him AFAIK, largely because he has such an established history, and asking less in fees than him is practically impossible. So while it's not decentralized - if you're serious about securing contracts, you can't do better than having the PM page for John bookmarked.

It's for the same reason I wouldn't recommend someone use a new wallet from a team nobody's ever heard of over the established and reviewed wallet software which's been out for years. Trust and reputation's worth a fortune when conventional legal systems are too cumbersome.

Good to know, thanks!

The risk with John K is probably that he doesn't have an institution around him that can survive his passing. If he were to have a heart attack today and die (not wishing it on him!), is there a substantial chance that all the funds in his btc escrow account would remain there, possibly forever locked away? Does he have a contingency plan?

This is a great question. I'd be curious to know as well how one can plan for the possibility of the escrow being incapacitated.

Also, is there a thread where people discuss their experiences with John K? I'd like to read up a bit on the history of why he commands so much trust (the holding millions of $$ in BTC and such) and I'm curious as to how such an escrow works in practice. Thanks!

EDIT: changed term to "incapacitated."

EDIT2: Here's the forum post for John K's service: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=141672.0

[GOB]

The Newbies subforum is probably the most dangerous subforum on this entire site. Mods and admin do not remove likely scams, so they only remove proven malware and scams (probably well after a good many infections and successful scamming). When you run into a good, service, or website posted in the Newbies subforum, you need to have answered satisfactorily:

Why does someone want to advertise their goods or services specifically to newbies instead of the general forum?

Thank you for your post. It does make me wonder why they allow anybody to offer any kind of service in the newbie forum, like you mentioned in another post. I can understand the idea of having a newbie waiting room (which I'm currently stuck in, even though I've been reading this forum for about 6 months), but it seems like it'd be much safer and more useful if it was simply limited to questions and answers for bitcoin amateurs. Then again, who would want to be stuck moderating this forum erasing posts 24/7?

[toddtervy]

As a Newbies subforum most expect it to get spammy and scammy, so that helps curb the potential safety level.

[Anduck]

Should absolutely delete all kinds of threads that are not noob-safe in this Newbies section.

For example, (this actually happened and the user is in the Default Trust List of these forums), "giving 1 btc in ripple" & make super easy instructions.. and if you fell for it, all your bitcoins (in ripple network) will just disappear! Call it a social experiment and it's fine. IT'S NOT FINE. People trust that guy because of his status on these forums.

[faiza1990]

even if the person you are buying from is legitimate, their supplier could not be, in which case your seller has no money to return. You therefore have to trust that the person hosting the group buy is legitimate

[John (John K.)]

Unlike Paypal, John doesn't have a history of abuse, doesn't blanket ban transaction types, and you deal with the same level-headed guy every time. Until there's reason to doubt him, I'd never suggest someone not use someone who's had the opportunity to steal millions of $ in BTC and never takes it. There are plenty of alternatives, but when introducing third-party risk, you want them to have a long and spotless history -- nobody fills that as well as John (speaking as someone who offers free escrow).

With all that - John IS an easy choice, so there aren't going to be many alternatives. Competition's always good, but nobody can out-compete him AFAIK, largely because he has such an established history, and asking less in fees than him is practically impossible. So while it's not decentralized - if you're serious about securing contracts, you can't do better than having the PM page for John bookmarked.

It's for the same reason I wouldn't recommend someone use a new wallet from a team nobody's ever heard of over the established and reviewed wallet software which's been out for years. Trust and reputation's worth a fortune when conventional legal systems are too cumbersome.

Good to know, thanks!

The risk with John K is probably that he doesn't have an institution around him that can survive his passing. If he were to have a heart attack today and die (not wishing it on him!), is there a substantial chance that all the funds in his btc escrow account would remain there, possibly forever locked away? Does he have a contingency plan?

Hey,

I do have a dead-man's switch in place as all the addresses I use are cold wallets printed and stored physically in my safe. I regularly back my escrow list of transactions up to two off-site locations, and in the case of me and my family's incapacitation my family lawyer is authorized to release the funds accordingly with the list.

However, I still make it a point to not keep too much of escrow funds at once - I try to move through escrows as fast as possible to not have too much risk that I cannot cover using my own BTC funds at once. That's why escrows that might take longer (say, 2-3 weeks +) is charged a higher fee here.  I don't hold more than 5k BTC in escrow at the moment, barring long term storage like the forum's funds (that I started to hold part of since I was a moderator).

I've used John K but I've not understood this forums huge drive towards escrowing everything with him.  It seems like the easy way out of doing any sort of due diligence.  Seems to be the exact opposite of what bitcoin is all about.  It's like John K became PayPal of this bitcoin forum.

Well, the main function escrow is all about is to gain the minimal trust required to start trading - most users I've escrowed for (at 624th escrow now ) eventually 'grow out' from using escrows to trade and start doing transactions of their own. As a long time Bitcoin user, I absolutely welcome this as this is the initial idea I had when I started offering escrow services. I was tired of users complaining to me that Bitcoin's system makes scams easy with the pseudo-anonymity allowed, and there wasn't a reliable infrastructure in place for people to trade safely and build up trust to ease transactions. PayPal is an altogether different beast in itself as there is still loopholes and bumps where scammers can still thrive. In Bitcoin, you can eliminate 3rd party risk altogether if you choose to use a 3-of-2 FA escrow implementation, where no single party can access the coin by himself. You'll just need to trust that the 3rd party isn't collaborating with the other party to scam you here.

(thanks again to Kluge for pointing me here! )

[Ipsum]

Good to know, thanks!

The risk with John K is probably that he doesn't have an institution around him that can survive his passing. If he were to have a heart attack today and die (not wishing it on him!), is there a substantial chance that all the funds in his btc escrow account would remain there, possibly forever locked away? Does he have a contingency plan?

Hey,

I do have a dead-man's switch in place as all the addresses I use are cold wallets printed and stored physically in my safe. I regularly back my escrow list of transactions up to two off-site locations, and in the case of me and my family's incapacitation my family lawyer is authorized to release the funds accordingly with the list.

However, I still make it a point to not keep too much of escrow funds at once - I try to move through escrows as fast as possible to not have too much risk that I cannot cover using my own BTC funds at once. That's why escrows that might take longer (say, 2-3 weeks +) is charged a higher fee here.  I don't hold more than 5k BTC in escrow at the moment, barring long term storage like the forum's funds (that I started to hold part of since I was a moderator).

Cool, thanks for the info!

[tysat]

Hopefully the newbie section will be a little safer now.  I'm working to get threads moved out of here that don't belong, so please report anything suspicious/sketchy/altcoin/gambling/etc.