[SCAM PREVENTION]Remove self-moderation for topics within the marketplace!

[MiLkz]

The scam threads on the digital goods section is horrible, they have like 15 threads bumped to the first page every day

[1714849523]

1714849523

[bolinao]

The scam threads on the digital goods section is horrible, they have like 15 threads bumped to the first page every day

I know right.

I can not find any self moderated or locked threads or both from reputable members in the digital goods section, they are all scammer threads, makes me wonder why this site allows these scamming tools, no other site does. 

[nomadcrypto]

I can not find any self moderated or locked threads or both from reputable members in the digital goods section, they are all scammer threads

That is usually the case. In a way I don't feel bad for the scam vicitims. Generally it is greed that overrides common sense and that will almost always lead to them losing their money.

a fool and his money are soon parted

I also find it slightly suspicious that several of us higher trust traders have voiced our concerns about this and it is still a thing. If we know that a high percentage of scammers use the same method to scam and we do nothing about it we are guilty by an act of omission(assuming the person has the privs to solve the problem). I don't have the permissions to remove self moderated threads from digital goods or I would.

[nomadcrypto]

I'm not a fan of negging people without proof but I think I may start leaving negative feedback for self moderated threads in digital goods. I've been thinking of something like the following:

"This user posted a self moderated thread in digital goods which has an extremely high chance of being a scam. If they remove the post and repost without self moderation I will remove this negative feedback"

[bolinao]

I'm not a fan of negging people without proof but I think I may start leaving negative feedback for self moderated threads in digital goods. I've been thinking of something like the following:

"This user posted a self moderated thread in digital goods which has an extremely high chance of being a scam. If they remove the post and repost without self moderation I will remove this negative feedback"

Unless you are a dt member no one will see the very well hidden feedback, especially newbies. Even then the best way to stop the scammers is to remove the scamming tools this site happily provides to them, that is self moderating threads and locked threads.

[BTCforJoe]

Another Brand New member (AnarchySelling) with a couple of self-moderated threads that includes autobuy links:

• [GiftCards]VISA | Steam | PSN At Affordable Prices [60%]
• 100% Undetectable PUBG RADAR (Packet-Based) $25
• MSDN(Microsoft Developer Network) Invites $30

Can a DT member please red tag this user? Thanks!

[sandy-is-fine]

A scammer who makes probably thousands of dollars from scamming wouldn't hesitate to spend $40 to get some of the  "copper privileges."   Just like they sometimes buy and give away or sell a REAL gift card to setup what looks like a real "vouch."  

[BTCforJoe]

Oh look. Another newbie who got screwed out of some cash whose posts get deleted because the seller has a self-moderated topic...

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3295830

I saw no negative posts/warnings by other users under his ads, and his rocketr rating was 100% so i thought he was legit.
I didn't know that he was simply deleting other users negative posts. And that rocketr would not let me post negative feedback until 24 hours after transaction.

He keeps deleting all my negative posts. And his ads are still up today, he still has 100% rating on rocketr and is still scamming new users.  

If moderators don't want to remove his listings, can they atleast release his IP address?

Seriously, why is self-moderation still a thing in the marketplace boards? Has anyone brought up any valid points as to why anyone would need self-moderation in these boards?

[Zapo]

I disagree.

There are many legitimate sellers who've been harassed before in that section. I can see a lot of DT/trusted users getting spammed with negative comments/spam due to them tagging a scammer. This would make it nearly impossible for them to operate.

However, I do see an issue where new users would see no negative comments and go ahead and trust and then purchase a scammer's goods. Making this into a Member/Full member/Senior member-only feature would not help also as these accounts are being sold for affordable prices and would still making scamming profitable.

Here's what I will propose though.

Instead of the hard to notice

This is a self-moderated topic. If you do not want to be moderated by the person who started this topic, create a new topic."

Change it to a bigger alert so no one would be able to miss it. And change the message to something like

This is a self-moderated topic. The author of the topic is able to freely delete comments about his product with his free will. If the user isn't trusted, take caution

Oh look. Another newbie who got screwed out of some cash whose posts get deleted because the seller has a self-moderated topic...

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3295830

I saw no negative posts/warnings by other users under his ads, and his rocketr rating was 100% so i thought he was legit.
I didn't know that he was simply deleting other users negative posts. And that rocketr would not let me post negative feedback until 24 hours after transaction.

He keeps deleting all my negative posts. And his ads are still up today, he still has 100% rating on rocketr and is still scamming new users. 

If moderators don't want to remove his listings, can they atleast release his IP address?

Seriously, why is self-moderation still a thing in the marketplace boards? Has anyone brought up any valid points as to why anyone would need self-moderation in these boards?

That user was tagged as a scammer and had the
Warning: Trade with extreme caution!
so, I guess it isn't all the self mod's fault.

[bill gator]

Seriously, why is self-moderation still a thing in the marketplace boards?
Has anyone brought up any valid points as to why anyone would need self-moderation in these boards?

Without a little bit of clarification I am unsure if I'm understanding the question right. Are you speaking in general, or are you speaking about newbies/lower-ranking members? Earlier in this thread and in the thread that preceded this discussion I had brought up a bunch of what I believe to be valid reasons for self-moderation on those boards.

[bolinao]

Making this into a Member/Full member/Senior member-only feature would not help also as these accounts are being sold for affordable prices and would still making scamming profitable.

You do realise that nearly all, if not all of these sellers who say they are selling Member/Full member/Senior member accounts don't actually have these accounts for sale ? they are scammers who take the buyers money and then disappear without providing an account, if they did have these accounts then the marketplace would be full of Full member/Senior scammers scamming people, it's nearly always members,junior members and newbie sellers that are scamming.

What MiLkz  proposes in the first post is the best solution to this problem.

[mikeywith]

I strongly support your proposal .

I am new to this who Forum things. I have been always on social media stuff. and just decided to join the forum. as a Newbie it was kind of hard for me to learn about this ( self-moderated ) or ( Locked ) topics. so i went in and i was like . ohh no scam alert posts on this guy, he must be legit or else tons of people would have called him a scammer! . and then by chance I saw the 'LOCK" symbol so i did my research and then understood the idea behind self-moderated and locked topics.

so i posted on one of the topics if the seller was going to accept escrow and suddenly my post got deleted. i visit another topic and check his "selly" link and found lotsa bad reviews on him so i asked "whats' up" ? and again my post got deleted.

so i came to realize the almost ALL self - moderated  / locked on the market place are nothing but a bunch of scammers.

i do realize the importance of these functions for some legit members but the harm it causes to the community is much higher than the benefits.

i strongly side the ban of these functions at least on the market place.

Thanks

[bill gator]

What MiLkz  proposes in the first post is the best solution to this problem.

Well, I'll have to disagree with you on that one. MiLkz proposal is a solid solution to this problem, but more realistically the best solution would be simple education/information that leads to prevention. "Prevention is better than a cure." Since informing these unfortunate souls seems to be nearly impossible, at least to any sufficient degree that would lead to prevention, we can assume that it is the most practical solution to this problem.

If the scammers were unable to profit from these methods then they would disappear, except for the adventurous newbie-scammer that would pop their head up and get a bright idea once in awhile. Although, it would soon fizzle out when they realize that their scam attempt is not sophisticated enough. For the same reason "hot local single, in your area." is such a joke now, is because people used to fall for it and now everyone knows the deal (you get a virus or stolen information/money).

[mikeywith]

So nothing has been done yet? guys look at the market place. there are more locked - topics which most are scam than real topics. this thing is getting frustrating!

[bill gator]

So nothing has been done yet?

There is more and more being done each and every day. The admins are working very hard to combat the issues that are most prevalent around the forum. We've gotten the merit system, which did a heavy number on spammers having incentive to continue their obnoxious habits. That was probably priority number one, because it was making this forum a wasteland to navigate. I imagine that scamming isn't something they enjoy seeing around here, and there has been increasing limitations on lower-ranking accounts due to the abuse we've seen coming from them. Their ability to have clickable links in their signature, for example, was removed with the implementation of the merit system. So I am wondering if maybe we will see the removal of their ability to self-moderate with another simultaneous implementation of some kind.

[mikeywith]

So nothing has been done yet?

There is more and more being done each and every day. The admins are working very hard to combat the issues that are most prevalent around the forum. We've gotten the merit system, which did a heavy number on spammers having incentive to continue their obnoxious habits. That was probably priority number one, because it was making this forum a wasteland to navigate. I imagine that scamming isn't something they enjoy seeing around here, and there has been increasing limitations on lower-ranking accounts due to the abuse we've seen coming from them. Their ability to have clickable links in their signature, for example, was removed with the implementation of the merit system. So I am wondering if maybe we will see the removal of their ability to self-moderate with another simultaneous implementation of some kind.

with all due respect, you do realize that newbies do not understand all this merit / trust/ ranking stuff? i am not just assuming i am talking from a newbie point of view.

kindly read my personal experience as a newbie here > https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3369863.new#new

I know it must be hard for you to understand my point of you, I am a programmer and when i see code it looks as familiar as my native language i can spot a syntax error from miles away, when other people look at my code they do not see a thing different ! everything seems the same.

this is how an average newbie would see the Market place's topic. nothing but a bunch of people selling stuff. ranking , merit, trust are things that the average user may not even be aware of their existence !!

I honestly do not see an point of keeping locked/self moderated on the market - place. name me 1 pro and i will get you 10 cons on the other hand !

I am aware of the effort put to educate people on identifying scammers but this is like letting a bird fly just to catch it again when it's already in your hand!! really just have a lock at the top 20 topics as for now, and you as an experienced member will be able to tell that 90% of them are scams !.

the least thing that the admins can do for us "NOOBS" is to give us a sort of filtering function where we can hide all locked/self moderated topics.

cheers !



 

[bolinao]

What MiLkz  proposes in the first post is the best solution to this problem.

but more realistically the best solution would be simple education/information that leads to prevention. "Prevention is better than a cure." Since informing these unfortunate souls seems to be nearly impossible, at least to any sufficient degree that would lead to prevention, we can assume that it is the most practical solution to this problem.

Ok, so if someone opens up a new account to solely purchase a gift card from jaac how would you "educate" them before the purchase ?

Yes prevention is better than a cure, that's why if you remove the sites scamming tools from scammers then they would be prevented from scamming people.

[hilariousetc]

Oh look. Another newbie who got screwed out of some cash whose posts get deleted because the seller has a self-moderated topic...

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3295830

I saw no negative posts/warnings by other users under his ads, and his rocketr rating was 100% so i thought he was legit.
I didn't know that he was simply deleting other users negative posts. And that rocketr would not let me post negative feedback until 24 hours after transaction.

He keeps deleting all my negative posts. And his ads are still up today, he still has 100% rating on rocketr and is still scamming new users.  

If moderators don't want to remove his listings, can they atleast release his IP address?

Seriously, why is self-moderation still a thing in the marketplace boards? Has anyone brought up any valid points as to why anyone would need self-moderation in these boards?

Why would this user have 100% feedback on that website if he's scamming people with it constantly? Even if we removed this feature people who use autobuy links are still going to get scammed. I wouldn't be against removing the feature but there are a lot of trolls that just atatck other peoples sales threads that would benefit. I think a better compromise would be to disallow it from lower ranks because the chances of them using it for abuse are much higher.

Making this into a Member/Full member/Senior member-only feature would not help also as these accounts are being sold for affordable prices and would still making scamming profitable.

I would disagree with this. People use new accounts because they have nothing to lose if the scam gets busted. Accounts may be "affordable" but not to throwaway every day after another busted scam. Most people wouldn't bother with these two bit scams if they had to actually invest money up front either. They do it because it costs nothing to make another throwaway account. Bump the thread every day and hope you catch some fish. If you don't then you've lost nothing but eventually someone might probably take the bait so it's worth doing. Use a bot to bump the thread and it needs no effort from them at all.

[mikeywith]

bump

i think it is obvious that the devs want the most traffic to their website, and since we know that almost 50% of the topics are scam related !. you know their income will be reduced by HALF. they won't do that. i wouldn't if i was them to be honest.

but soon enough this place will be full of only scammers trying to scam one another.

[bolinao]

Even if we removed this feature people who use autobuy links are still going to get scammed.

Yes, but not as many.

I wouldn't be against removing the feature but there are a lot of trolls that just atatck other peoples sales threads that would benefit.

Really ? any evidence of this ? I don't see this as a major problem on other sites that have a marketplace, why is this forum different ?