[click-bait] Should I start escrowing accounts?

[suchmoon]

I am little confused here, you want to stop scammers by escrowing accounts to potential scammers and abusers?  

Yes I want to stop scammers, no I don't want to escrow accounts to potential bad guys.

Then you don't want to escrow accounts, period. The mythical "good" account buyer doesn't really exist or at the very least is a very misguided individual. One can buy a copper account from the forum itself and do pretty much anything a regular forum participant might want to do. Buying an account has only one purpose - deception.

Even if you're fine with that kind of deception, you should still treat this as any other unescrowable activity, like e.g. PayPal trades. You can try to educate users about its perils etc (although I'm sure most of them know exactly what they're doing) but if you try to escrow it you would just create a false sense of legitimacy. Escrowed PayPal can still be reversed, escrowed account can still be reclaimed - e.g. via the hacked account process.

tl;dr: no.

[Timelord2o67]

Buying an account has only one purpose - deception.

Bruno.

[pokeronlinestatus]

But I love seeing future scammers and spammers getting screwed on their first step itself.

I don't. Even if the victim deserves it, the scammer doesn't deserve the profit.

In my understanding those scammers deserve that profits because they help this community .


Edit:

I like your narrative, I just don't believe it

Honestly it took 8 hrs for me to think that way (whether scammers deserve or not). (Debating with you is not an easier one; it really juiced me out ).

[yahoo62278]

What are the positives to doing this? Only to keep newbies from being scammed? I can really see no other pros. Copper member is available, as stated by others, so companies can purchase those or pay a high rank account to post for them.

I would be ok with account sales if all feedbacks were removed and the acct had 0 trust. Maybe just a neutral showing bought/sold like you mentioned, but that wouldn't happen for reasons you stated and for the fact that sellers try to get more money based on the trust the account holds.

[LoyceV]

The little devil that lives on my shoulder agrees with pokeronlinestatus here and giggles with glee when someone is scammed in an account sale.

My little devil loves sarcasm, but doesn't giggle here. It just doesn't feel right that frowning upon account sales created an opportunity for fake sellers to scam people.

I won’t comment on the main issue, but I will say that you should set clear expectations if you do decide to enter this business. This means all involved parties understand the level of confidentiality they are receiving, the risks of the transaction that you cannot control and what actions you will take, such as leaving a neutral rating.

For example, if you promise the details of the transaction will remain confidential, you will harm your credibility if you leak details of the transaction. One might even argue you would be breaking a written agreement. You don’t necessarily need to agree to confidentiality, but you should be transparent with those involved if this is the case.

I love strict rules and disclaimers Hypothetical, that would include the end of confidentiality the moment the account does anything shady.

Cautionary tales of users getting scammed by account sellers are a better way to ward off account sales.

Maybe you're right. We can't know how many people refrained from purchasing an account because of bad odds. We only see the failed cases, not the prevented cases, which could indeed be much more.

In my understanding those scammers deserve that profits because they help this community .

I like your narrative, I just don't believe it

If it wasn't clear already: I'm not going to do this. I guess I'll just keep warning against this when I see an account sales topic.
I'll lock this topic soon.

[Timelord2067]

Cautionary tales of users getting scammed by account sellers are a better way to ward off account sales.

Maybe you're right. We can't know how many people refrained from purchasing an account because of bad odds. We only see the failed cases, not the prevented cases, which could indeed be much more.

I appreciate you taking my concerns on board.  There are already many cautionary tales in the scam accusation & reputation threads which can be used as examples & we can all track scammers where possible.

[actmyname]

It just doesn't feel right that frowning upon account sales created an opportunity for fake sellers to scam people.

Create fake account sale threads. Pretend to be a scammer. Teach someone a lesson without having them lose money in return for it.

Hopefully, you reach the ones that will learn without having been burned. Some people can actually change despite no real repercussions taking place, and you have saturated the account market with knockoffs. Lower chance of having someone encounter a con.

[TheBeardedBaby]

Isn't it better instead of escrow account buys and sells to put a warning as theymos did with the trust warnings that buying accounts is highly dangerous and can lead to scam and traded accounts will get negative feedback.
This should be shown to all newbies and not logged in users.

It's like the "don't jump off the cliff" warning, if you still do it then nobody can help you anyway...

[actmyname]

Isn't it better instead of escrow account buys and sells to put a warning as theymos did with the trust warnings that buying accounts is highly dangerous and can lead to scam and traded accounts will get negative feedback.

How would you implement that, though? Any type of keyword flag would simply be bypassed with a basic circumvention (i.e. substitutes for the word 'account'). If you were to put it in the Auctions section, account sale threads only encompass a minority of the board, and the same can be said for the Invites & Accounts section.

Good idea in theory, but not sure about the execution.

[TheBeardedBaby]

Isn't it better instead of escrow account buys and sells to put a warning as theymos did with the trust warnings that buying accounts is highly dangerous and can lead to scam and traded accounts will get negative feedback.

How would you implement that, though? Any type of keyword flag would simply be bypassed with a basic circumvention (i.e. substitutes for the word 'account'). If you were to put it in the Auctions section, account sale threads only encompass a minority of the board, and the same can be said for the Invites & Accounts section.

Good idea in theory, but not sure about the execution.

Can be on the top of any section for certain amount of time or...
The news feed is not used, i asked before why we don't use such a powerful tool to warn people, it's visible and attract attention, put there all the warnings for the newbies until they have 7 days online time and there you go.

[suchmoon]

Buying an account has only one purpose - deception.

Bruno.

Ah yes, let's bring the dead guy into the argument, real classy. But not a bad example of how no amount of escrow could fix account trading, I'll give you that. Yes Bruno was attempting a deceptive sale of his account. I locked it away while all you outraged incels were busy painting him red. Bring escrow into this and a DT account ends up in the hands of a scammer.

[Timelord2067]

Ah yes, let's bring the dead guy into the argument, real classy. But not a bad example of how no amount of escrow could fix account trading, I'll give you that. Yes Bruno was attempting a deceptive sale of his account. I locked it away while all you outraged incels were busy painting him red. Bring escrow into this and a DT account ends up in the hands of a scammer.

I might be an "incels" but Bruno still managed to scam from beyond the grave.  (which brings me back to what I was saying earlier that the ones who peddle in accounts are ones who have given me DT distrust...)

Real classy that.


Might be time to lock this thread?

[LFC_Bitcoin]

Loyce, use you own judgement. You’re one of the most trustworthy people on the entire forum. If account sales are still happening, still common then it makes genuine sense for somebody trustworthy to mediate them. There are people who don’t have a great job who might want to buy an account because it’s in a well paying sig campaign. I don’t have a problem with somebody bettering their life.

Maybe you could act as an escrow holding the account & leave it a neutral tag before you release it to the new owner. They would be unlikely to scam successfully if a DT member such as yourself puts a neutral tag on it.

It’s important people aren’t being scammed by paying for an account that doesn’t exist.

Trust your own judgement, if you want to protect potential account buyers from being scammed do it. I doubt anybody would have the balls to red tag you for it.

[sujonali1819]

I read most of the comments here and see all are against of escrowing account sale. I am also against of it.
Again some are talking about give them(hand changed account) a neutral feedback. Ok, then there is a rule should be added that hand changed account does not deserve a red tag. otherwise other DT will tag them because 500+ DT members thought/opinion is not the same. If the hand changed account got red trust after buying it with using escrow then what the benefit of using escrow here? If they don't used escrow they would be scammed by the account seller and lost the money, again if got a red trust after making successful trade using escrow that means also the buyer lost his money because the account will not be used for his needs due to red trusted.

[mprep]

Putting my and the community's opinion on whether account sales are OK / good for the forum / ethical aside, I feel like this boils down to 2 questions:

1. Do you want to legitimize (at least to a degree) and / or encourage Bitcointalk account sales?
2. Do you want to associate with Bitcointalk account sellers?

If you've answered "no" to at least one of these questions, avoid getting involved in the space (especially if you've answered "no" to question 1). When you have a reputation (good or bad) and you associate yourself with something (doesn't matter how many disclaimers you stick to it), both your reputation will rub off on that something as well as that something's reputation will rub off on you. If you're still not sure about it, weigh the positives of preventing account sale scams against the negatives of promoting an industry that's detrimental to the forum (if you believe it is) + the potential scams and spam that will inevitably come from these bought accounts.

If you're worried about the buyers, do note that these buyers (AFAIK) are:

1) Either:
    a) ignorant to the fact that account sales are frowned upon (putting in enough effort to understand that the forum can net them some cash yet not bothering to actually do their due diligence in understanding if purchasing an account is worth it)
    b) just don't care about said attitude
2) Either:
    a) gullible / ignorant / stupid / misguided enough to transact with an anonymous entity with no reputation using a non reversible currency on a forum that doesn't police potential commercial misconduct
    b) are aware of the dangers, yet still willing to go through with it

If you want to help these buyers out, educating them on the dangers (and, honestly, basics) of pseudo-anonymous e-commerce on the crypto frontier is probably where you should focus your energy. If with all that knowledge they still want to proceed with the deed, it's their gamble.

Bit OT but I sorta find it ironic that the Bitcointalk community finds account sales (which involves the sale of perceived trust / reputation, which sometimes leads to scams) deplorable yet social media bounty campaigns (which usually involves the crowdsourced purchase of perceived trust / reputation through artificially inflated social media metrics (followers, likes, retweets, etc.), which sometimes leads to scams) are all a-OK.

[Timelord2067]

Bit OT but I sorta find it ironic that the Bitcointalk community finds account sales (which involves the sale of perceived trust / reputation, which sometimes leads to scams) deplorable yet social media bounty campaigns (which usually involve the crowdsourced purchase of perceived trust / reputation through artificially inflated social media metrics, which sometimes leads to scams) are all a-OK.

And how many of those UID's have contributed to this discussion?