Ponzi schemes listed in Scam Accusations are they needed?

[DaveF]

With a big thank you to @witcher_sense and @Coolcryptovator and others for the work they do, I have to ask do we really need to list Ponzis in scams?
They are fucking Ponzi schemes, of course they are scams. Anyone falling for them are probably not reading the scam accusations / reputation boards here anyway.

And, if they don't have an active ANN thread here people probably are even less likely to see the report.

Not saying pointing them out is a bad thing, just that it's probably not doing much.

I just report them to Google / Symantec / McAfee / etc. as bad sites. I something report to the hosting provider. I think we should probably discuss doing this as a default.

-Dave

[Findingnemo]

Reporting should be done by the crypto community to save people from falling for such shits but what can be the instant reaction to such blatant ponzi schemes,what if they are more tricky with their investment schemes so we need to report every kind of scam into the scam accusation section for sure or better else have a child board for it.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

The ones that don't have ANN threads on bitcointalk I wouldn't mind not seeing, but I do think it's important to warn people about these scams--even if they're completely obvious ones.  You and I wouldn't fall for a Ponzi, but there are a lot of others who would, and they do.  Hell, this forum even condones Ponzis since it's got the Investor Based Games section, which is nothing but Ponzi schemes disguised as gambling.  That drives me nuts, but it's something I've just come to accept.

Not saying pointing them out is a bad thing, just that it's probably not doing much.

I have a feeling you're right about that.  If only we had some data on the effectiveness of warning people, but we don't. 

[Pffrt]

While scam accusation board is mainly used for reporting scammers, I too think that such ponzi scam post has made the board a bit weird. Such post shouls be posted on Help and Beginners as newbies are the main victim of such ponzis.

[stompix]

Not saying pointing them out is a bad thing, just that it's probably not doing much.

If one guy does a search and finds the bitcointalk topics in the results, it's one less victim of a scam. Not much but more than nothing.
On the other hand, I don't see any reason why people should stop making topics about it, none. What's the problem with them?

[suchmoon]

And, if they don't have an active ANN thread here people probably are even less likely to see the report.

If one guy does a search and finds the bitcointalk topics in the results, it's one less victim of a scam. Not much but more than nothing.
On the other hand, I don't see any reason why people should stop making topics about it, none. What's the problem with them?

Too much low-impact stuff burying more important scam accusations perhaps. I think such ponzis could be grouped into fewer threads. Perhaps each scam-hunter could have their own thread for non-Bitcointalk scams, update and bump it daily - should be good enough.

[DaveF]

And, if they don't have an active ANN thread here people probably are even less likely to see the report.

If one guy does a search and finds the bitcointalk topics in the results, it's one less victim of a scam. Not much but more than nothing.
On the other hand, I don't see any reason why people should stop making topics about it, none. What's the problem with them?

Too much low-impact stuff burying more important scam accusations perhaps. I think such ponzis could be grouped into fewer threads. Perhaps each scam-hunter could have their own thread for non-Bitcointalk scams, update and bump it daily - should be good enough.

Yet again suchmoon has translated what I was thinking and failed to type into a coherent thought. Too many things that although they are BTC / crypto related it's becoming a bit of overload.

Although a search *might* find it, it might not. And as The Pharmacist pointed out. This board more or less supports Ponzi schemes in the Investor Based Games board.


I just report the stuff to the following (depending on free time and my mood) and move on. Feel free to add to it:

Google: https://safebrowsing.google.com/safebrowsing/report_phish/?hl=en (not quife phishing but could not find a better place)
Malwarebytes: https://support.malwarebytes.com/hc/en-us/articles/360038522814-Submit-a-malicious-file-or-website-to-Malwarebytes
Symantec safeweb: https://symsubmit.symantec.com/
Mozilla / stopbadware: https://www.stopbadware.org/report-badware
ESET https://phishing.eset.com/report  (thanks pooya87)


-Dave

[-CryptoViking-]

I think that it is useful even if it saves only one person. If you only focus on trying to make an impact on bigger scale you will miss a lot of opportunities to help people. Same thing is in life, if you start to think too much whether a person truly needs help or not, you will lend your hand to far less people.

I personally believe it is better to help 100 people and experience few situation where you offered your help and it was abused, then to help 3 persons and miss a chance to help 90 more, because you thought they didn't really need or deserved you help.

Telegram scams are good example. If you report a Telegram scam here and put instructions on how to report account on Telegram to their staff, there is a much bigger chance that someone who sees your report will help and report it to Telegram staff too, thus increasing chance to ban that account or at least make it harder for them to scam other people.

[Casdinyard]

I just report the stuff to the following (depending on free time and my mood) and move on. Feel free to add to it:

But then let's also consider that some ponzi schemes are mostly advertised nor created on social media platforms, therefore most of them wouldn't mind making an ANN thread here nor had any guts to do so. And with that being said, posting in Scam Accusation is merely just a warning, a little notice to the public to be exact. But yeah, suchmoon was right, all scam hunters must have their own thread that includes either all of their findings, or just one thread per category (example category is social media scams, trading scams, etc).

While scam accusation board is mainly used for reporting scammers, I too think that such ponzi scam post has made the board a bit weird. Such post shouls be posted on Help and Beginners as newbies are the main victim of such ponzis.

It depends on the initiative of the user whether they browse on Scam Accusation board or not. It wasn't the responsibility of the forum if they aren't aware with the scams that are already posted in the S.A board, but the better idea is to pin a thread in Beginners and Help board that tells them to consider reading the scam accusation board, but does all newbies really reads pinned threads??

[noormcs5]

With a big thank you to @witcher_sense and @Coolcryptovator and others for the work they do, I have to ask do we really need to list Ponzis in scams?
They are fucking Ponzi schemes, of course they are scams. Anyone falling for them are probably not reading the scam accusations / reputation boards here anyway.

And, if they don't have an active ANN thread here people probably are even less likely to see the report.

Not saying pointing them out is a bad thing, just that it's probably not doing much.

I just report them to Google / Symantec / McAfee / etc. as bad sites. I something report to the hosting provider. I think we should probably discuss doing this as a default.

-Dave

If such schemes have an active ANN thread on this forum, then it make much sense to post about the scam and those threads can be flagged too.
There is a large community who follows bitcointalk and it is always beneficial to post about any scam site. Even if one person is saved from the scam, after reading the post here, the purpose is fulfilled.

[SFR10]

And, if they don't have an active ANN thread here people probably are even less likely to see the report.

In addition to stompix's post, some of these scammers tend to create their announcement threads later on in here...
^{- I see it as a necessary step ahead of these scammers.}

I just report them to Google / Symantec / McAfee / etc. as bad sites. I something report to the hosting provider. I think we should probably discuss doing this as a default.

I just report the stuff to the following (depending on free time and my mood) and move on. Feel free to add to it:

~Snipped~

More than half of my reported websites either remain to exist for a very long time or completely get ignored...
^{- Unfortunately, such reports aren't enough.}

Too much low-impact stuff burying more important scam accusations perhaps. I think such ponzis could be grouped into fewer threads. Perhaps each scam-hunter could have their own thread for non-Bitcointalk scams, update and bump it daily - should be good enough.

You have valid points but this could quickly turn into a big mess if discussions for each one of them are mixed into a single thread ^{[especially for those with a lot of reported cases, even if it's only for non-bitcointalk scams]}.

Although a search *might* find it, it might not.

Based on my observation: If it's a new website, It'll end up showing on first/second page results ^{[threads in here]} within the first few days of its creation.

[pilosopotasyo]

While scam accusation board is mainly used for reporting scammers, I too think that such ponzi scam post has made the board a bit weird. Such post shouls be posted on Help and Beginners as newbies are the main victim of such ponzis.

I still consider these Ponzi schemes classified as scams so it should be posted in the scam sections whenever we find one, we can post how a Ponzi scheme works on Help and Beginners but specifically pointing one program as a scam then the scam section is the best sections, there are still old investors of these Ponzi schemes newbies are not the only one falling to this.

[NavI_027]

While scam accusation board is mainly used for reporting scammers, I too think that such ponzi scam post has made the board a bit weird. Such post shouls be posted on Help and Beginners as newbies are the main victim of such ponzis.

Hmm but the shift will take a lot of time before everyone get used of it (like what stompix said, what's wrong with it?). If we pursue it, most probably happen is that a certain thread will have a clone on the other board. Now imagine the disorganization and redundancies it may bring to our forum. So for me, warnings of ponzi schemes and the alike are more appropriately placed on Scam Accusations because they would be more relevant there. And let the Beginners & Help for tutorials, tips and welcoming the newbies .

[libert19]

I'm ok with that, if those posts saves even 1 person from falling, it helps.

[examplens]

Too much low-impact stuff burying more important scam accusations perhaps. I think such ponzis could be grouped into fewer threads. Perhaps each scam-hunter could have their own thread for non-Bitcointalk scams, update and bump it daily - should be good enough.

I agree with you.
It is not necessary to open a separate topic for each Ponzi scam. especially if they are not active on the forum or there is no User directly related to this scam.
everything I find out of the forum adds to List 220+ scam websites, updating from time to time, but it would be insane if I opened new 220 topics to report them all.
it is certainly desirable to have a reference and a scam warning somewhere, Bitcointalk is a great and authoritative place for that.

[LTU_btc]

I don't think that reporting such ponzi schemes is something harmful. You say that these scams is so obvious. Yeah, for us it's obvious, but for some newcomers it's not. And they are main targets of these scams. You're right that the people probably don't visit scam accusation board. But if they are looking for information about website on Google, it's possible that they will see accusation in their search results. So, even if it protected one person from falking into scam, this accusation was needed.
Offcourse, it can be reported in one megathread, but I think it would give less visibility for accusation.

[shield132]

Did they create such thread? I haven't noticed, the only one that I knew was created by minifrij and there was other but can't remember right now.

First of all bitcointalk has high rank in google and other search engines. When someone types website in google, for example scam one, more likely google will show bitcointalk's url as a first result or at least on first page(s) since scam websites usually don't have good SEO too because they are brand new and etc.

Personally, it doesn't worth for me to report websites to google, then antivirus companies and so on. Mostly, interested people in bitcoin are here and I can't imagine if there is a person who knows bitcoin but hasn't heard about bitcointalk. Prefer to report such things here. It's their duty to check whether the website that they visit is scam or not, not mine. It's like when someone asks what's 48+37 and you are so lazy to calculate answer that still are looking for answer from questioner.

[Finestream]

It makes sense though, I agree with you Dave.

It's an obvious scam, maybe what we need more is for members to make a lot of warnings about the risk of investing into HYIP or ponzi schemes because it will be a waste of time reporting it when the forum still allows them to create a thread. Education is more important for people to know and to mature that there's no easy money in crypto, if there is, considered it as a scam.

People participating in ponzi scheme sometimes knows it's a scam, yet they play the risk like they are gambling.

[dimonstration]

I think that it is useful even if it saves only one person. If you only focus on trying to make an impact on bigger scale you will miss a lot of opportunities to help people. Same thing is in life, if you start to thin too much whether a person truly needs help or not, you will lend your hand to far less people.

I personally believe it is better to help 100 people and experience few situation where you offered your help and it was abused, then to help 3 persons and miss a chance to help 90 more, because you thought they didn't really need or deserved you help.

Telegram scams are good example. If you report a Telegram scam here and put instructions on how to report account on Telegram to their stuff, there is a much bigger chance that someone who sees your report will help and report it to Telegram staff too, thus increasing chance to ban that account or at least make it harder for them to scam other people.

It's 2020 and people are aware about ponzi. Those who are still a victim of this scheme know what's the risk of entering this kind of scheme. They just pretending blind on the risk because they are greedy for the short term profit. This is just like leverage trading, why people still using x100 leverage if they know it's high risk? Answer is because of short term profit.

I have no problem on creating tons of new thread of ponzi here. What I want to correct is the chance of saving people from ponzi scheme is not that high because they know what they are risking and telling them that it's scam. I have many friends that still into it even though they saw many warning thread about it. Ponzi is an obvious scam just like DeFi coin that offering 1000%APR.

[-CryptoViking-]

It's 2020 and people are aware about ponzi. Those who are still a victim of this scheme know what's the risk of entering this kind of scheme. They just pretending blind on the risk because they are greedy for the short term profit. This is just like leverage trading, why people still using x100 leverage if they know it's high risk? Answer is because of short term profit.

I have no problem on creating tons of new thread of ponzi here. What I want to correct is the chance of saving people from ponzi scheme is not that high because they know what they are risking and telling them that it's scam. I have many friends that still into it even though they saw many warning thread about it. Ponzi is an obvious scam just like DeFi coin that offering 1000%APR.

There are some people that are exactly like you describe them and just risk because of the greed even though they understand that they can lose money, but there are still people that don't know how scam looks like or what is ponzi, no matter how unbeliveable that sounds to most of us.

Same as lots of people freely give their personal info for KYC as they know nothing about privacy or think that they simply don't have anything to lose by giving their info like that. Education, spreading awareness and showing examples by exposing scams is the only way to change it.

Whether creating a lot of topics in scam accusations creates more chaos or not, whether by users creating their own compilation topics like @examplens would be more beneficial, I'm not quite sure. My opinion is that it is easier to finds it by using google if there is a topic with the name of the scam in the title then if it is inside a compilation topic.

Also not really sure how it would look like if each member that finds a scam and wants to report it creates his own compilation topic?