Scam campaigns should not be allowed to stay

[Pokapoka124]

The forum is guided by rules, without this rules it would be total chaos and anarchy as any lawless community would be.

Most giveaway threads are no longer allowed in the Alternate cryptocurrencies sections. From now on, posting or replying to such threads could result in being banned. Existing threads will be locked.

Specifically, you are not allowed to give people any incentive to post insubstantial posts in your threads. You can't offer to pay people who post their addresses, usernames, etc. You can do giveaways off-site and link to the giveaway page in a thread, but you can't give people any bonus for replying to your thread.

Similar threads are already restricted to Games and Rounds in the non-altcoin sections, but the giveaway-related post volume is so high in the altcoin sections that I've decided to just ban them entirely here.

I have a question for the house if giveaways are banned why can't scam signature campaigns be banned or totally removed from the services board? Lately there have been some sig campaign that have been associated with scam allegations. If left unchecked, it may get out of hand and more alts will be created for the singular purpose of participating in such shady campaigns with high pay. Negative trusts aren't doing much to stop participants from promoting such campaigns as greed overtook them. I reckon its time to employ a more aggressive approach say the same ferocity we use for giveaway threads. If companies want to advertise their product/services, at least they should respect and obey the community rules. What do you guys think?

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[Upgrade00]

I have a question for the house if giveaways are banned why can't scam signature campaigns be banned or totally removed from the services board?

That would be because scams are not moderated and as such no action can be taken by the mods against them. Scams are almost impossible to fully regulate and any attempt to do this could create a false feeling if safety while there would still be tons of scams around.

The forum has a trust system which helps to notify other users of possible scam and high risk situations, but each user is solely responsible for their actions and in-actions;

This is a pseudonymous forum which emphasizes personal freedom and therefore also personal responsibility, so scammers are common. When trading, it's best to assume that everyone is trying to scam you, and act accordingly. Use an escrow, and take note of each user's trust ratings next to their posts and on their profiles. When you are more familiar with people around the forum, you should define your own trust list rather than using the default.

[Pokapoka124]

That would be because scams are not moderated and as such no action can be taken by the mods against them. Scams are almost impossible to fully regulate and any attempt to do this could create a false feeling if safety while there would still be tons of scams around.

The forum has a trust system which helps to notify other users of possible scam and high risk situations, but each user is solely responsible for their actions and in-actions;

This is a pseudonymous forum which emphasizes personal freedom and therefore also personal responsibility, so scammers are common. When trading, it's best to assume that everyone is trying to scam you, and act accordingly. Use an escrow, and take note of each user's trust ratings next to their posts and on their profiles. When you are more familiar with people around the forum, you should define your own trust list rather than using the default.

Good point! The trust ratings is a warning to others to disregard any information put out by a flagged account. But still I don't think the negative flag is enough punishment to deter the participants. Plagiarism is a bannable offence, I think participating in an OPEN scam campaign for the sake of making money deserves the same punishment

[isaac_clarke22]

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Good point! The trust ratings is a warning to others to disregard any information put out by a flagged account. But still I don't think the negative flag is enough punishment to deter the participants. Plagiarism is a bannable offence, I think participating in an OPEN scam campaign for the sake of making money deserves the same punishment

Their accounts would be worthless anyway after the tag, since many SCs have the rules of no -ive trust before and during the campaign. Banning them would be a headache, since pretty much they'll make another alt account leading to no resolution. They'll just ban evade for sure afterwards, which is another forum rule.

[Upgrade00]

Plagiarism is a bannable offence, I think participating in an OPEN scam campaign for the sake of making money deserves the same punishment

This takes us back to how possible it is to determine a scam and if it is feasible for the mods to police every signature campaign posted on the forum, that would be a ton of work and would not be very successful.

To add on that lots of platforms gets accused of scam and these issues linger for a long time and probably ends in no definite result or the user could be wrong and the issue fixed. If it was just a red flag, it could be removed easily, but reinstating a banned user who may have abandoned the forum is a different case.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

That would be because scams are not moderated and as such no action can be taken by the mods against them.

That's the party line and the answer a question like OP's is always going to get.  The real question is why scams aren't moderated.

Scams are almost impossible to fully regulate and any attempt to do this could create a false feeling if safety while there would still be tons of scams around.

No offense, Upgrade00, but that's an excuse.  I've been hearing the same excuse for years masquerading as a valid explanation, which it is not.  Other forums will ban even suspected scammers without question or appeal--so why not bitcointalk?  That's the question you should be asking.

And where's Lauda when you need him/her/it/we/you/them?  If my memory serves me, 'ol Lauda used to have some strong opinions on the matter, though I have no idea now which threads they were in. 

[actmyname]

No offense, Upgrade00, but that's an excuse.  I've been hearing the same excuse for years masquerading as a valid explanation, which it is not.  Other forums will ban even suspected scammers without question or appeal--so why not bitcointalk?  That's the question you should be asking.

Because the rights of the falsely-accused scammers are so important to Bitcointalk that these innocent people will be happy to be granted immunity from consequence. Additionally, much like other places in the world, Bitcointalk operates as a wonderful two-state solution so they can share the space with the real scammers. After all, it's not like people just use the trust system without any thought and create feedback at their own discretion! The falsely accused have nothing to worry about!

Scams should not be moderated: rather, it is better to have your board filled with 19 possible scams and 1 real trade than to remove all of them. But make sure your scams are different: if we catch you repeating the same scam, you are permanently banned! No tolerance for that bullshit.

[Upgrade00]

No offense, Upgrade00, but that's an excuse.  I've been hearing the same excuse for years masquerading as a valid explanation, which it is not.  Other forums will ban even suspected scammers without question or appeal--so why not bitcointalk?  That's the question you should be asking.

I can take the quote from theymos which I linked above, "This is a pseudonymous forum which emphasizes personal freedom and therefore also personal responsibility", this suggests that the forum is mirroring Bitcoin in the sense that as you are your own bank and it's your responsibility to protect your funds, you also should learn to adopt the best security practice to avoid scams. Full autonomy means you are fully responsible, so rather than trying to create a safe community Wich is not possible, it is better to allow users understand that there are scams everywhere and they need to take pro active measures to protect themselves.

Bitcointalk is not like other forums where they can ban users on the whim that they are shady. This forum was not designed to function with a central authority which takes action on users based on suspicion or their perspective.

[mk4]

Most cryptocurrency projects are simply just so shady that it would be so difficult to judge which ones are scams and which ones are not. The only way to prevent scams with high effectiveness is for Theymos to ask the campaigns to do extensive KYC, which I'm pretty sure he doesn't want to do simply because it goes against the cryptocurrency ethos.

[PrimeNumber7]

But still I don't think the negative flag is enough punishment to deter the participants. Plagiarism is a bannable offence, I think participating in an OPEN scam campaign for the sake of making money deserves the same punishment

There have been plenty of companies over the years that initially appeared legitimate but turned out to be a scam. There are plenty of companies that acted legitimately at first, and later scammed once they had more customer money. There are plenty of companies that were technically initially acting legitimately, but were giving off red flags, and eventually scammed their customers. There are companies out there that almost certainly scammed their customers, but proving the scam in a verifiable way is nearly impossible. There are legitimate companies that are subject to scam accusations by customers who are upset with the company. There are instances in which everyone may not agree if something is a "scam", even if everyone agrees with the underlying, and relevant facts. There are instances in which customers lose money due to a company getting hacked (the term "hacked" applies both with and without quotation marks).

There are simply too many situations in which it is not reasonable to expect the forum administration to judge if a company is a scam or not.

Prohibiting the advertising of scams also gives all allowed advertising an implied stamp of approval that said company is not a scam, which would obviously be impossible for the forum to do.

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

I have a question for the house if giveaways are banned why can't scam signature campaigns be banned or totally removed from the services board?

Are giveaways actually banned? Just the altcoins related ones are so maybe you should rephrase your question. In regards to scams campaign, I guess theymos left that in the hands of the community to handle and only intervene if the matter goes out of hand like in the case of yobit signature campaign that their ads on the forum were banned for their spam though and not for their scams.

Now are the community handling the scams effectively, yes we're. All the scam campaigns has recieved aggressive attacks for the community and that should stay that way. If a project is considered harmful to the community then they shouldn't be given free pass to advertise, the tagging is the only way to fight them.

In the pass this tagged has been some campaign reconsider their decision and listen to the advice of the community but others haven't though that doesn't mean the community efforts in combating this scams aren't having any effect. If we can save one soul from falling victims, that's win although normally everyone should be responsible for their security and not rely on the forum.

[actmyname]

The only way to prevent scams with high effectiveness is for Theymos to ask the campaigns to do extensive KYC, which I'm pretty sure he doesn't want to do simply because it goes against the cryptocurrency ethos.

Some yarn:

If scams and legitimate services occupy the same space, which one do you think will saturate the market?
Assuming the same amount of effort, which has a lower barrier of entry? New scam threads, or new service threads?
Considering that users can be "downgraded" to red trust but are always able to participate in the scam economy, what will users do with the larger market?
Considering that new users are (effectively) no different (+/-) from users with red trust in terms of reputation, what is the largest possible market?
When competing against other signature campaigns, would it be possible to cut costs by scamming the participants as well?
Given the amount of time it takes to generate a significant reputation on the forum, and given the risk compared to using the equivalent number of red-trusted accounts...

Would it be better to constantly prop up scam signature campaigns for scam sites, so that you can get something closer to 95% return (based on total deposit/input) as opposed to regular means? Direct theft is more profitable than starting a real website, and it's far easier to set up: no need to worry about long-term considerations since you're going to close shop very quickly.

Under these circumstances, Bitcointalk still is occupying a relatively peaceful time: scammers have yet to maximize forum exploitation.

[Mpamaegbu]

I think participating in an OPEN scam campaign for the sake of making money deserves the same punishment

While I take cognizance of the forum's stance on scam not being moderated, I share in OP's observation that OPEN scam campaigns (like we've been having them lately) should be taken down. I mean what evidence again do we need before this is done to create that ambiance of safety for the BTT community. Talking about given negative tags to those who promote or enrol in scam campaigns won't deter posters as we have seen those who already had their accounts tagged enrol them there and help spread the scam. The best thing would be to take the scam campaigns down.

BTW OP, I think there's something wrong with your avatar. You may want to check and adjust it. It's looking funny and badly chopped.

[UmerIdrees]

The forum is guided by rules, without this rules it would be total chaos and anarchy as any lawless community would be.

Most giveaway threads are no longer allowed in the Alternate cryptocurrencies sections. From now on, posting or replying to such threads could result in being banned. Existing threads will be locked.

Specifically, you are not allowed to give people any incentive to post insubstantial posts in your threads. You can't offer to pay people who post their addresses, usernames, etc. You can do giveaways off-site and link to the giveaway page in a thread, but you can't give people any bonus for replying to your thread.

Similar threads are already restricted to Games and Rounds in the non-altcoin sections, but the giveaway-related post volume is so high in the altcoin sections that I've decided to just ban them entirely here.

I have a question for the house if giveaways are banned why can't scam signature campaigns be banned or totally removed from the services board? Lately there have been some sig campaign that have been associated with scam allegations. If left unchecked, it may get out of hand and more alts will be created for the singular purpose of participating in such shady campaigns with high pay. Negative trusts aren't doing much to stop participants from promoting such campaigns as greed overtook them. I reckon its time to employ a more aggressive approach say the same ferocity we use for giveaway threads. If companies want to advertise their product/services, at least they should respect and obey the community rules. What do you guys think?

The forum admins would never ban a campaign using the forum powers if its a scam one because no campaign is bigger than a forum. Those scam campaign which are currently running, have only -ive trusted members in them and those who join that campaigns, you will get the red trust for supporting the scam.

In case, any scam whale attack on bitcointalk like Yobit or cryptotalk, then admins uses their super powers and not let the forum getting spoiled because of those.

On the other hand these small scam campaigns claim that they are doing better things now and have restarted and show proof by paying the signature campaign participants. They tend to get some more money from the advertisements as there are newbies who will just click on the site and start playing.

There are so many scam altcoins being promoted too. Its time that we know who is a scamming and who is providing legit services and its easy to note if we have sense of observation.

[LTU_btc]

OP, you have good point, but as we all know, scams aren't moderated here and this is why scam campaigns aren't touched.
Offcourse, it wouldn't be most difficult task to eliminate such campaigns. But then we would have double dtandards. People would start asking why scam campaigns are banneds and marketplace scams aren't.
BTW, OP, you're reffering to scam campaigns which aren't paying to participants, or campaigns which promote scams?
And I don't agree that negative trust ratings don't help. Most users don't risk their reputation for few dollars. Yes, maybe they will get money while promoting scam, but they won't be able to join other campaigns later.

Scams are almost impossible to fully regulate and any attempt to do this could create a false feeling if safety while there would still be tons of scams around.

I don't agree that's not possible to moderate scam. But here such thing would be difficult. If mods would start to moderate every potential scam and make investigations about, they wouldn't have time left for their main job - moderating forum.

[OgNasty]

Most cryptocurrency projects are simply just so shady that it would be so difficult to judge which ones are scams and which ones are not. The only way to prevent scams with high effectiveness is for Theymos to ask the campaigns to do extensive KYC, which I'm pretty sure he doesn't want to do simply because it goes against the cryptocurrency ethos.

Indeed.  This is why most campaigns put funds into escrow or select campaign managers that are held accountable for the promised payouts.  In the end, nothing will protect the end user like some education on why they should not trust, but verify claims made by managers before getting involved in projects.  Since this forum doesn't moderate scams, the best way to know if something is legitimate is by seeing how long it has operated without any major issues or non-transparent activity. 

[finaleshot2016]

Most cryptocurrency projects are simply just so shady that it would be so difficult to judge which ones are scams and which ones are not. The only way to prevent scams with high effectiveness is for Theymos to ask the campaigns to do extensive KYC, which I'm pretty sure he doesn't want to do simply because it goes against the cryptocurrency ethos.

Indeed.  This is why most campaigns put funds into escrow or select campaign managers that are held accountable for the promised payouts.  In the end, nothing will protect the end user like some education on why they should not trust, but verify claims made by managers before getting involved in projects.  Since this forum doesn't moderate scams, the best way to know if something is legitimate is by seeing how long it has operated without any major issues or non-transparent activity.  

Yes, users should join signature campaigns run by well-known campaign managers like Hhampuz and yahoo62278, as the rewards are almost certainly guaranteed. But that's not to suggest there aren't risks; there are always risks with newly developed projects, and that's when we should DYOR, or do your own research. Always have time to research about the project and, as you've mentioned, how long it's been in operation and how legitimate the roadmap is, you'll need to go back and review those to evaluate if it's a good project.

The real issue with campaigns is that many people join them without doing any research on the project and end up getting scammed. We can't really avoid scam projects on the road; it's like scam projects on social media; we can't identify if it's a scam or not on the spot since, of course, they're making a good job scamming people, when we discover that it is a scam, it will be too late.

[Pmalek]

If left unchecked, it may get out of hand and more alts will be created for the singular purpose of participating in such shady campaigns with high pay.

Not really. Newly created accounts can't use their signature space to advertise anything. Spammers and scammers are often shitposters as well, so they won't have the required post quality to rank up an account to a decent level.

I think participating in an OPEN scam campaign for the sake of making money deserves the same punishment

Only if you can prove beyond any doubt that it is a scam, I will support that. I would also like to see proven scammers banned if there is adequate proof that money was taken but promises were not fulfilled. But that is not happening.

Are giveaways actually banned? Just the altcoins related ones are so maybe you should rephrase your question.

Plus, they are only banned from taking place on the forum. You are perfectly fine linking to an altcoin giveaway that is held elsewhere or post a form where members can sign up to participate.   

[GeorgeJohn]

The real issue with campaigns is that many people join them without doing any research on the project and end up getting scammed. We can't really avoid scam projects on the road; it's like scam projects on social media; we can't identify if it's a scam or not on the spot since, of course, they're making a good job scamming people, when we discover that it is a scam, it will be too late.

Actually some person's join campaign without researching for the platform, yeah, i might say they are partially right joining a signature campaign without carry on research about the platform, because in normal sense community is not supposed to allow those platforms that's full of scam to advertise their products here knowing that they scam, don't blame any participants that find his in signature campaign without carry on a proper research.

[UserU]

Not really. Newly created accounts can't use their signature space to advertise anything. Spammers and scammers are often shitposters as well, so they won't have the required post quality to rank up an account to a decent level.

For those loaded, they can afford to purchase accounts at a premium. Like the 1xBit sig campaign which pays handsomely for participants to bring in more victims.

I don't agree that's not possible to moderate scam. But here such thing would be difficult. If mods would start to moderate every potential scam and make investigations about, they wouldn't have time left for their main job - moderating forum.

Perhaps to let the public educate the public? Rather than hiding the scams, the feedback and negative reactions might dissuade any newbie/ potential victim to decide against joining/ parting with the cash/ credentials.

Obvious red flags are better deterrents that suppressing something. Nevertheless if the user decides to join, then it's too bad.