Merit abuse+Ann thread bumping group

[Rikafip]

I think i stumbled upon merit abuse and Ann thread bumping group. This if what i figured out so far:

Kanine Awe sent 1 merit each to  these  accounts in matter of few minutes for  some old  posts from years ago, and same day  those accounts woke up:

MKW2012  woke up 2019-08-15, merited August 15, 2019, 05:59:13 PM
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=32279

DMetcalfe92 woke up  2019-08-15, merited August 15, 2019, 05:57:35 PM
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=50786

Dinkytoyz woke up 2019-08-15, merited August 15, 2019, 05:56:48 PM
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=49761

trictors woke up 2019-08-13, merited August 15, 2019, 05:53:58 PM
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=102487


blink sent 1 merit each to these accounts in 2 separate days ( August 13th and August 15th), again for some old posts and again on same day accounts woke up

Bitcoin ShitList woke up 2019-08-15, merited August 15, 2019, 06:05:08 PM
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=52529

DrKenobi woke up 2019-08-15, merited August 15, 2019, 06:04:20 PM
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=10542

big pete woke up 2019-08-13, merited August 13, 2019, 02:10:31 PM
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=94610

iLLmAtiCiAn woke up 2019-07-28, merited August 13, 2019, 02:06:24 PM
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=36942

TankHankerous woke up 2019-07-28  (so far not part of the bumping group), merited August 13, 2019, 02:01:44 PM
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=361623


Then user iLLmAtiCiAn sends 1 merit to
Cjblog (only account not recently woken up)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2563026


To sum it up:
-All accounts except merit sources ( Kanine Awe and blink) and TankHankerous are active almost  exclusively in same Ann thread since they woke up , Emirex, bumping  the thread with their fake conversations.
-All merited accounts woke up in almost the same time and they had password change
-6 accounts started today bumping new thread, SHARKCEX

So what do you think, am i onto something here?

[Deathwing]

Very fishy, the accounts are practically talking to each other and replying to the same announcement thread for Emirex, not to mention receiving merit from the same accounts and acting together. Eh... smells like someones alts just became active.

[khaled0111]

Thankfully, it is no longer possible to bump ann threads just by posting replies and starting fake conversations.

Most of them are old accounts created between 2011 and 2013. Seeing such valuable accounts being used in fraudulent activities makes me feel bad.
Maybe old accounts tha haven't been active for more than 2 or 3 years should be locked until their owners provide enough evidence to be able to reactivate them.

Good catch @OP.

[Rikafip]

Very fishy, the accounts are practically talking to each other and replying to the same announcement thread for Emirex, not to mention receiving merit from the same accounts and acting together. Eh... smells like someones alts just became active.

Yep, too many things happened at the same time to be just an coincidence, it was obviously planned, and with making them Jr Members it appears a bit more legit  than just newbies spamming, but effect is the same.

Thankfully, it is no longer possible to bump ann threads just by posting replies and starting fake conversations.

I am pretty sure that they  forgot to  tell that to their clients, i can just imagine how bad it was in Altcoin section before this rule was implemented.

[rhomelmabini]

Then user iLLmAtiCiAn sends 1 merit to
Cjblog (only account not recently woken up)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2563026

I've been curious and interested to give a try if I can find some alts of this user and look below what I found. The cosmicart account was a spammer on the Faireum project and that Cjblog I guess is a bumper as well on their ANN thread.

cosmicart - Autoban user
cryptograce - Active
Iykejunior - Inactive 7 days ago

5. https://web.facebook.com/fiorelladier/posts/1492432944226292

Facebook Profile Link: https://facebook.com/fiorelladier

eth address: 0xc4F7bbBE90e2Edd10743bA4D1d5f435414a4F5C2

Eth Address: 0xc4f7bbbe90e2edd10743ba4d1d5f435414a4f5c2

Blog/Article Link : https://steemit.com/hostgames/@depedro/host-games-or-revolutionizing-the-online-gaming-system

Steemit profile link :- https://steemit.com/@depedro

I am pretty sure that they  forgot to  tell that to their clients, i can just imagine how bad it was in Altcoin section before this rule was implemented.

Hoping that this implementation will not be used for wrongdoing as well like selling someone's bump score especially those higher ranked accounts as they have the high bump power over it.

[Bttzed03]

I'm not surprised to see bitcointalk marketers do these things since newbie accounts can no longer bump threads in some boards.
It's most likely to test whether or not old accounts with jr. member rank can still bump threads.

~
I am pretty sure that they  forgot to  tell that to their clients, i can just imagine how bad it was in Altcoin section before this rule was implemented.

They will never tell that. If they do, they'll run out of business. They will find ways to make it work instead even if that meant buying merits or buying old accounts with merits.

[Rikafip]

They will never tell that. If they do, they'll run out of business. They will find ways to make it work instead even if that meant buying merits or buying old accounts with merits.

Well if their clients don't notice that their Ann is not on the top on the announcement board and what they are paying for doesn't have much effect, that makes them even more clueless. This is just another reason why anyone with half a brain will never invest in some project that uses these kind of services. I agree that scammers will find a way, but they are slowly running out of options.

Week passed, they keep doing the same thing,  talking among themselves at Emirex Ann and making nice little quote pyramids.

[Bttzed03]

~snip

~
I agree that scammers will find a way, but they are slowly running out of options.

I believe so and I think it's only now that they are noticing the changes in the Ann thread bumping https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5203058.msg53129597#msg53129597
I could be wrong but 

[Chris Barth]

Nice. Well done! But then, if you say that Cjblog didn't wake up all of a sudden, why put a negative trust on the account. Going though the account, I could observe that the account has been actively posting on several threads. I hope you don't mind throwing more lights on that. Well done again.

[Rikafip]

Nice. Well done! But then, if you say that Cjblog didn't wake up all of a sudden, why put a negative trust on the account. Going though the account, I could observe that the account has been actively posting on several threads. I hope you don't mind throwing more lights on that. Well done again.

Just because he was not part of that batch of recently woken accounts, doesn't mean that he is not part of this group. Here are few "coincidences"

-Out of his last 20 posts, 19 were in the same Ann thread (Emirex). Same goes for rest of the group, they spam almost exclusively there
-Same person that gave him his 1st merit and made him Jr member is also bumping there , and is part of that batch.
-As discovered by @rhomelmabini , he used same social media accounts for bounty as one other banned account (@cosmicart)
-Conveniently, @Cjblog, @cosmicart and @cryptograce ( check @rhomelmabini post about connections) were spamming same Ann thread, making nice quote pyramids

Blockchain + iGaming = Business Potential Explosion for Investors

"Now, blockchain is set to revolutionize the iGaming industry worth an annual $49bn"

Read the full article here: https://medium.com/@faireumofficial/blockchain-igaming-business-potential-explosion-for-investors-59c64a2a77f5

Wow, i am impressed by what you guys are doing. keep the fire burning

No kidding buddy, Faireum really has a lot in store for the gamers,  I can't wait for the packages to be unveiled

yes buddy, a lot. Have you checked out the exciting games that are live on https://faireum.com ?

So yeah, since this is a bit too much coincidence for my taste, I think that @Cjblog is part of this group.

[Harlot]

I understand that the ones who received merits might be part of a bumping/shilling service but what does the merit sender's (Kanine Awe and Blink) play onto this? Why did they receive 1 merit each and why did they woke up after that? Or is it just for the purposes of bumping their ranks to Jr. Member so that they could unlock to some benefits as well?

[nelson4lov]

I understand that the ones who received merits might be part of a bumping/shilling service but what does the merit sender's (Kanine Awe and Blink) play onto this? Why did they receive 1 merit each and why did they woke up after that? Or is it just for the purposes of bumping their ranks to Jr. Member so that they could unlock to some benefits as well?

Nah, I believe they were been paid in form of merits to post randomly aka 'bump'  the thread with the sole aim of keeping it in the first page for as long as possible. However, that no longer works,  – bumping of Announcement threads in altcoin section is not possible. so either the project manager doesn't know this or they just want to give it a shot.

It's clear how they got those merits.

[reza7777]

They are still hanging around here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5179932.0 I also feel very annoyed when they just post crap, I just hope they get banned from this forum immediately.

[Lauda]

Blink has an existing flag from another issue, support it here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;flag=557.
I was surprised that both accounts have almost no negative ratings?

They are still hanging around here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5179932.0 I also feel very annoyed when they just post crap, I just hope they get banned from this forum immediately.

I will tag the involved accounts later and we should probably flag too.

[Rikafip]

Blink has an existing flag from another issue, support it here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;flag=557.
I was surprised that both accounts have almost no negative ratings?

Flag supported, and both @blink and @Kanine Awe tagged.

They are still hanging around here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5179932.0 I also feel very annoyed when they just post crap, I just hope they get banned from this forum immediately.

Yeah Emirex doesn't plan to stop, and no tools really to stop them. Maybe keep reporting their posts, but they have so many already deleted, and that didn't stop them so far, so i doubt it will work. Neither did tags. Maybe tagging OP, but from what i saw so far, that's not the standard practice.

[Lauda]

They are still hanging around here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5179932.0 I also feel very annoyed when they just post crap, I just hope they get banned from this forum immediately.

Yeah Emirex doesn't plan to stop, and no tools really to stop them. Maybe keep reporting their posts, but they have so many already deleted, and that didn't stop them so far, so i doubt it will work. Neither did tags. Maybe tagging OP, but from what i saw so far, that's not the standard practice.

We can flag the OP too! Just give it more time for analysis and review.