This guy is asking for merit which should be earned and not asked.

[skulomania]

here is the lin of his post:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5140532.msg50947664#msg50947664

archieve: http://archive.is/mPOQR

his profile: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2480995

[LoyceV]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5140532.msg50947664#msg50947664

I've seen worse.
It doesn't look like he asked for Merit a lot, so it's no big deal:

Do not beg for merit excessively.

He's not a spammer, and doesn't even have a paid signature, so I've actually merited this post. Merit isn't supposed to stop non-spammers from ranking up, so it's okay to ask once in a while if someone doesn't get what he deserves.

[Bitcoin_Arena]

The meriting profile looks very suspicious thou.
After a 1-year posting gap, user recently woke up and first post was an application for a stake.com signature campaign





Despite no change on the password, the account is very like to have changed hands between July 02, 2017 and August 01, 2017 as the user's posting style completely changed
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=208986.msg20546504#msg20546504

[alanst]

Well spotted! It appears that this account has indeed changed hands as the email address was changed on July 22, 2017, alongside with posting and IP patterns. I've now locked it! In the meantime, DT members can go ahead and paint it red until (and if) we determine the real owner.

Thank you for bringing this up!

[LoyceV]

Well spotted! It appears that this account has indeed changed hands as the email address was changed on July 22, 2017, alongside with posting and IP patterns. I've now locked it!

May I ask why? Account sales are not against the rules:

account sales are discouraged.

Is this a new policy? Or is it based on something I overlooked?

[alanst]

Well spotted! It appears that this account has indeed changed hands as the email address was changed on July 22, 2017, alongside with posting and IP patterns. I've now locked it!

May I ask why? Account sales are not against the rules:

account sales are discouraged.

Is this a new policy?

Do we know for sure that it was sold? I will unlock it if he will be able to prove that it wasn't hacked by going through the recovery process, however, my "hacked" radar is off the charts

[Steamtyme]

Wait I'm confused, I thought the scope of your companies roles was to handle account recoveries. I didn't realize you guys had the authority to also lock accounts prior to account recovery procedures being started, by someone with a claim to the account.

This is a little concerning, and somewhat invasive. I get that you have access to more data than the average person can see. I just don't think the "lock first and prove you own it" approach is best, without a claim being made by an "account owner". Just my opinion, and if forum policy has changed, sorry that I'm unaware.

Edit: Typos

[DireWolfM14]

Do we know for sure that it was sold? I will unlock it if he will be able to prove that it wasn't hacked by going through the recovery process, however, my "hacked" radar is off the charts

All I see in the seclog is the account woke up, but I'm sure you have access to older records.  If it was hacked wouldn't the password have changed also?  Just an email change doesn't really mean much in my opinion.  

[LoyceV]

I get that you have access to more data than the average person can see. I just don't think the "lock first and prove you own it" approach is best

That was the point I tried to make, but you wrote it down much better
As far as I know, even Global Mods don't have access to IP-information. Only Admins (and mysterious newbies) can see that.

This would probably be a good discussion to have in Meta instead of Reputation.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Despite no change on the password, the account is very like to have changed hands between July 02, 2017 and August 01, 2017 as the user's posting style completely changed

Good catch, and you're probably correct.  Seems like a lot of shenanigans went down in mid- to late-2017, just as bitcoin was shooting to the moon.  No doubt a lot of people were looking to start earning bitcoin on the forum and were also looking for higher-ranked accounts with which to do it.

As far as the merit request OP linked to, I don't see a problem with it.  The member had posted a meme that was kind of amusing, and he wasn't simply begging for people to give him a merit for nothing.  There's a big difference between someone asking you to look at their posts to see if any of them are merit-worthy and just blatantly begging for merits. 

I don't think it was good etiquette on his part to include this:

come on some 1 give me merit for this one. lol thanks.

On the other hand, it doesn't rise to the level of merit-begging.  It certainly doesn't deserve a neg.

[suchmoon]

Wait I'm confused, I thought the scope of your companies roles was to handle account recoveries. I didn't realize you guys had the authority to also lock accounts prior to account recovery procedures being started, by someone with a claim to the account.

This is a little concerning, and somewhat invasive. I get that you have access to more data than the average person can see. I just don't think the "lock first and prove you own it" approach is best, without a claim being made by an "account owner". Just my opinion, and if forum policy has changed, sorry that I'm unaware.

Edit: Typos

This is some next level mercenary shit. I thought they were like analysts, not wielding actual lethal weapons. WTF.

[Bitcoin_Arena]

Do we know for sure that it was sold? I will unlock it if he will be able to prove that it wasn't hacked by going through the recovery process, however, my "hacked" radar is off the charts

All I see in the seclog is the account woke up, but I'm sure you have access to older records.  If it was hacked wouldn't the password have changed also?  Just an email change doesn't really mean much in my opinion.  

He did say the email was changed alongside IP and posting patterns. I wasn't able to see that information from BPIP except the recently woke up warning

Well spotted! It appears that this account has indeed changed hands as the email address was changed on July 22, 2017, alongside with posting and IP patterns. I've now locked it!

To me, I think his judgement is right. Not sure about the forum policies thou.

[alanst]

Indeed, we have access to more information than regular members and we treat this responsability with great care. It helps us recover hacked accounts but it sometimes puts us in the position to take action in the case of a high risk of account compromise. While it hasn't happened before, to my knowledge, there's always the risk of a false positive - by temporarily locking an account that wasn't hacked. We try to weigh these decisions as carefully as possible, on a case by case basis.


In this case, there was some highly suspicious activity that led us to believe the account was hacked a long time ago (2017), so I only locked it as Cyrus and I were digging through years of recovery claims to see if anyone had claimed it back then and we didn't see it. Since we couldn't find any recovery claim related to this account, and given the amount of time that passed since then, we'll soon unlock it. If you spot any further shady behavior associated with this account (or any other for that matter), please let us know.


Thank you guys for the way you care about our community and we're counting on your continuous help!

[TMAN]

Indeed, we have access to more information than regular members and we treat this responsability with great care. It helps us recover hacked accounts but it sometimes puts us in the position to take action in the case of a high risk of account compromise. While it hasn't happened before, to my knowledge, there's always the risk of a false positive - by temporarily locking an account that wasn't hacked. We try to weigh these decisions as carefully as possible, on a case by case basis.


In this case, there was some highly suspicious activity that led us to believe the account was hacked a long time ago (2017), so we only locked it as we were digging through years of recovery claims to see if anyone had claimed it back then and we didn't see it. Since we couldn't find any recovery claim related to this account, and given the amount of time that passed since then, we'll soon unlock it. If you spot any further shady behavior associated with this account (or any other for that matter), please let us know.


Thank you guys for the way you care about our community and we're counting on your continuous help!

Fucking amazing.. thanks for the efforts fella, take these account hacking fucks down dude

[Steamtyme]

~snip~

Thanks for the reply. I did cross-post this in the Cryptios thread (before I saw your reply) to move the discussion into Meta. Just for the purposes of clarifying these things for everyone, with the new dynamic of the forum and your company working together.

Appreciate the work you guys do, have a good one.

Sorry for the Off-topic.


For a little on topic - Unless someone is legit begging for Merit " Please Murit me" "Murit is to hard, give me some" or "Can I have merit so I can rank up" Either through PM or as the only content of a post, it's not to bad.

On that note I would only tag someone begging for merit with a neutral, that's just me. They aren't going to get anywhere anyways until they stop the woe is me crap and just put in some legit effort.

Deleted from above. Quoted for reference only.

~snio~

You're right. I'm going to post it in the cryptios thread, just got busy at work. Didn't want to come off aggressive and was waiting to see if they replied back here as well. Glad you liked my goodness with words.

[Theb]

Am I the only one one who think of his statement/post as a joke rather than someone really begging from merits? Because I didn't even imagine that he was after for merits when he posted that. I've seen a lot of members who begs desperately for meits and aside from that they post shit in the forum and the way I see it is TimeBits doesn't have those two qualities that would merit him as a merit beggar.

[Quickseller]

Well spotted! It appears that this account has indeed changed hands as the email address was changed on July 22, 2017, alongside with posting and IP patterns. I've now locked it!

May I ask why? Account sales are not against the rules:

account sales are discouraged.

Is this a new policy?

Do we know for sure that it was sold? I will unlock it if he will be able to prove that it wasn't hacked by going through the recovery process, however, my "hacked" radar is off the charts

In the past, theymos has had a fairly high threshold to lock an account out from the person using it.

I am not 100% sure what the standard is however I suspect someone would need to show a basic evidence they are the owner and at least a statement from the person their account was hacked (so they would be lying if they sold it).

IP patterns also change for various reasons (such as traveling), but devices remain more consistent so I hope IPs aren’t the only thing you guys look at.

[The Cryptovator]

I don't think it should consider merit abuse. Perhaps receiver asked just for fun. I wouldn't bother to tag this kind of case. Also its not necessary to create thread for that. I don't think he/she had need one merit for something like rank up. But seems someone sent one merit ans that account woke up after long time. And its really not worth of tag or any other action IMO. We should not destroy account based on suspicion or based on our opinion. If account related with any corruption then this is different case. Otherwise its not appropriate to take any action just for woke up and change email/pass.   

[ene1980]

The meriting profile looks very suspicious thou.
After a 1-year posting gap, user recently woke up and first post was an application for a stake.com signature campaign

There is nothing to be suspicious smart ass, i had a conversation in telegram before joining the campaign and hence i applied and plan to be active in the forum.

Since you want to touch the suspicion card, it looks like you registered your account on November 01, 2017, 04:39:31 AM and your first post seems to be on  June 27, 2018, 05:18:20 AM, and you changed your password on 11/1/2018 2:17:16 AM what happened, you deleted your post history to cover up your shenanigans  .

Lets analyze your first post

Its really so heart breaking and disappointing but just know that in life, not everything will go as you planned. You have to be prepared for the negative bit too. Also out there, there are good paying projects and bounties. You just have to do thorough research of the project before participating in its bounty.

This is your first post here and it clearly shows that you are not new here and you very well knew about bounties and very well aware of the forum, so what happened your old account got banned and you continued with this account . Then you took four months break to post another one.

PS: I am not accusing you anything but since you touched on that topic we can have a level playing field.

@admin I did not have an idea that you will lock accounts just because you got suspicious, privacy should be top priority no matter what unless you are involved in trade and dealing with huge amounts and thank you for clearing everything in a short period.

Good Job Cryptios team for helping users recover their accounts, but locking first should not be top priority unless there is money or trading involved.

[Steamtyme]

Glad to see you were able to restore your account in a timely fashion. If you don't mind sharing what steps did you have to go through to have the account unlocked? It's probably better to post here where the discussion moved in Meta.

Cryptios thread They are the company that handles account recovery and these types of instances.