Merit abuse and probably account hacking

[jokers10]

My attention was attracted by this post:

The kids love it, looking forward to it. Nintendo does great stuff

It is left in the topic where no single post got any merits, and the topic is in Off-topic section where merits are rarely given. And despite that:

March 13, 2024, 06:03:47 PM: 4 from kobri0815 for Re: Super Mario Bros. 2 in 2026
March 13, 2024, 12:51:16 PM: 3 from Xeelee for Re: Super Mario Bros. 2 in 2026
March 13, 2024, 12:46:30 PM: 2 from Forctis AG for Re: Super Mario Bros. 2 in 2026

Forctis AG gave this post 2 merits and in 5 minutes Xeelee gave it 3 merits more. Several hours after kobri0815 gave it 4 merits. What a coincidence!

Let's go further:

STUTZ
Newbie, Date Registered:   March 13, 2024, 12:37:02 PM, so he got his first merits for the post I quoted in just 10 minutes after registration.

kobri0815

This user's password was reset recently.

This user recently woke up from a long period of inactivity.

3/13/2024 3:02:52 PM   password reset via email
3/13/2024 3:03:07 PM   woke up

Last post was made on June 08, 2021, 02:40:16 PM.

Xeelee

This user recently woke up from a long period of inactivity.

3/13/2024 9:50:05 AM   woke up

Last post was made on May 09, 2017, 07:22:50 PM.

Forctis AG

This user recently woke up from a long period of inactivity.

3/13/2024 9:45:53 AM   woke up

Last post was made on December 29, 2019, 04:03:17 PM.

So, second coincidence: all accounts which gave STUTZ some merits were inactive for different number of years but decided to wake up at the same day just to give STUTZ some merits for a pointless post (the 3 hour difference in the time of waking up and giving merit is a time zone difference, so they woke up and gave their merit in just a minute).

Looks like Forctis AG, Xeelee and kobri0815 accounts were hacked to send merits to a newbie account of STUTZ.

Am I missing anything in this case?

[1714678649]

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[1714678649]

1714678649

[Helena Yu]

All of them are Deutsche except STUTZ.

The other speculation they might sell their merits to STUTZ, isn't it really quick for someone to hack three accounts at the same day?

Since they haven't cheat or cause something harm to the community, so I won't tagged them yet, but I will pay more attention to those accounts.

[jokers10]

All of them are Deutsche except STUTZ.

The other speculation they might sell their merits to STUTZ, isn't it really quick for someone to hack three accounts at the same day?

Possibly. And there's a possibility of that these accounts were bought.

I decided that these accounts were hacked just because they were inactive for years (and each for different number of years). And it is possible that they were hacked or bought in 2020-2021:

kobri0815

8/16/2019 12:30:55 PM   woke up
5/21/2021 8:51:19 AM   woke up
5/22/2021 9:59:36 AM   password changed
3/13/2024 3:02:52 PM   password reset via email
3/13/2024 3:03:07 PM   woke up

Xeelee

12/7/2021 6:54:30 AM   woke up
3/13/2024 9:50:05 AM   woke up

Forctis AG

7/2/2020 7:32:41 PM   woke up
3/13/2024 9:45:53 AM   woke up

Of course, I'm not sure in that. There can be other possibilities. But everything looks very suspicious.

[ineedhelpplease]

I feel like they are probably alts that belong to someone. And now it looks like the owner is selling merit to that new user or was hacked by that user. Extremely suspicious stuff, his post wouldn't even get one merit unless its on a lucky day.

[FatFork]

Of course, I'm not sure in that. There can be other possibilities. But everything looks very suspicious.

Three long inactive accounts suddenly woke up on the same day, giving merits to the same low-quality post? That can hardly be a coincidence. Likely a single user behind them all.

[Elissa~sH]

Who are those who gave merit? Does the forum have any rules for the owners of such large accounts? Where do they come from and give merit to new accounts? They don't follow forum rules. They should be brought under the law.

The post-given merit here needs to be merited. One of these four accounts. He wants to create a new account and withdraw that account with merit. These should be noted.

@jokers10 Thank you for bringing up such an excellent topic. I also posted about them a few days ago for abusing merit like this.

[ineedhelpplease]

Who are those who gave merit? Does the forum have any rules for the owners of such large accounts? Where do they come from and give merit to new accounts? They don't follow forum rules. They should be brought under the law.

The post-given merit here needs to be merited. One of these four accounts. He wants to create a new account and withdraw that account with merit. These should be noted.

@jokers10 Thank you for bringing up such an excellent topic. I also posted about them a few days ago for abusing merit like this.

By "them" do you mean merit abusers in general or these specific accounts? Because this is clearly a different case of accounts merit abusing. Just seems like an attempt to gain attention to your post

[BitcoinGirl.Club]

I wonder even after 6 years of merit introduction, some users are still doing the same! It's like they discover merit and think about a way to send the sMerits to an account they care to rank up LOL

Likely a single user behind them all.

It's single user. We have had such incidents many times in the past.

[Elissa~sH]

By "them" do you mean merit abusers in general or these specific accounts? Because this is clearly a different case of accounts merit abusing. Just seems like an attempt to gain attention to your post

Yes, something else is happening here, but this is also a misuse of merits because you can see how merits are given to low-quality posts. It must be used on merit. Out of the three accounts credited for this one post, it must have been hacked, or the accounts may have been bought. But could not say anything correctly.

Three long inactive accounts suddenly woke up on the same day, giving merits to the same low-quality post? That can hardly be a coincidence. Likely a single user behind them all.

I am surprised when I see these merits in posts like this. They have made mistakes, even if they are familiar users, and the accounts are fairly well-advanced. Experienced people must manage accounts for such positions. How can they suddenly wake up and act like this?

I wonder even after 6 years of merit introduction, some users are still doing the same! It's like they discover merit and think about a way to send the sMerits to an account they care to rank up LOL

It's single user. We have had such incidents many times in the past.

One thing I don't understand is why they waste such merits. These smerit are given to such posts by low qualified posts. If there have been many incidents like this before, then no proper action is being taken.

[LoyceV]

Looks like Forctis AG, Xeelee and kobri0815 accounts were hacked to send merits to a newbie account of STUTZ.

Since they all posted in the same local language (German) in the past, I think it's more likely they belong to the same owner. Farmed accounts selling their airdropped sMerits.

What I don't get though, if someone goes through all the trouble to get some Merit in his Newbie account, why not make a worthy post first so it's less suspicious? Even better: if they'd make a good enough post, they wouldn't even need to buy the Merit.
Spammers aren't the brightest

[Lucius]

~snip~
What I don't get though, if someone goes through all the trouble to get some Merit in his Newbie account, why not make a worthy post first so it's less suspicious? Even better: if they'd make a good enough post, they wouldn't even need to buy the Merit.
Spammers aren't the brightest

It is obviously easier to buy merit than to write a good post, and if you have more alt accounts, then you should write more good posts, which requires much more time. Besides, even good posts don't always get merits.

Spammers may not be the brightest, but these kinds of accounts are mostly used in bounty campaigns, and the criteria for such campaigns have become so low that some managers don't even look at where the merits come from or whether a member has negative feedback.

[BitcoinGirl.Club]

I wonder even after 6 years of merit introduction, some users are still doing the same! It's like they discover merit and think about a way to send the sMerits to an account they care to rank up LOL

It's single user. We have had such incidents many times in the past.

One thing I don't understand is why they waste such marriages [merits]. These smarts are given to such posts by qualified posts [?]. If there have been many incidents like this before, then no proper action is being taken.

It's difficult to understand but I guess I read it like: ... waste such merits. These smerits are given to such bad quality posts?

If my translation is correct then the answer is: When there are strong evidences then forum members can make their own judgements about leaving a feedback or just ignoring it. The guideline from the admin is, as long as the merit source is not abusing smerits, there are no big deal.

[pinggoki]

I wonder even after 6 years of merit introduction, some users are still doing the same! It's like they discover merit and think about a way to send the sMerits to an account they care to rank up LOL

They even have a hard time doing the abuse too and it's not going to work if you sell your merits because people will notice so I don't get the reason why they're still doing it, it's really weird that people still do this and that there are people that pay for this, even if you got the merit, you'd still have a hard time getting into campaigns, getting loans and many other things, people will still judge you on your posts and what's it's quality, not on your rank!

[KingsDen]

What I don't get though, if someone goes through all the trouble to get some Merit in his Newbie account, why not make a worthy post first so it's less suspicious? Even better: if they'd make a good enough post, they wouldn't even need to buy the Merit.
Spammers aren't the brightest

It is easier to send merits to a one line post than to make a quality post. It takes internet connection, brain, knowledge, time, research, good English and more to make a quality post. But takes just a few click to send out merits. It could also be that some of the merit abuses are not intending to join campaigns, are there other privileges that merits qualifie one to get?

[yahoo62278]

I wonder even after 6 years of merit introduction, some users are still doing the same! It's like they discover merit and think about a way to send the sMerits to an account they care to rank up LOL

It's single user. We have had such incidents many times in the past.

One thing I don't understand is why they waste such marriages [merits]. These smarts are given to such posts by qualified posts [?]. If there have been many incidents like this before, then no proper action is being taken.

It's difficult to understand but I guess I read it like: ... waste such merits. These smerits are given to such bad quality posts?

If my translation is correct then the answer is: When there are strong evidences then forum members can make their own judgements about leaving a feedback or just ignoring it. The guideline from the admin is, as long as the merit source is not abusing smerits, there are no big deal.

Maybe not a big deal as far as giving a red tag for merit abuse, but I would consider a neutral because these people are obviously not trustworthy. People might want a warning if engaging in a trade.

Newbies have a hard time earning merits, and like Lucius said "it's easier to buy merit than write a good post". So many are looking for shortcuts and they're probably not going to stop even if red tagged. They just move on and try to rank up the next newbie account.