Moderator bribed to delete scam accusations against Winna

[babo]

These are things that can happen, I'm certainly not surprised that something like this could happen

The solution is certainly to have two moderators per post, so that bribery is more difficult and expensive.
the idea comes from safety, breaking the chain of action
For example, when a treasury clerk accepts invoices and pays them, it's easy for him to be tempted to act like an asshole.

as in anything else, in fact for the PCI such a thing is not good

so good job by Theymos for discovering this, and I tagged our dear friend just to put him off being an asshole in the future

[ABCbits]

His punishment only removed as moderator and a negative tag from you? IMO it's rather lenient.

What do you propose, a ban? I am not sure Theymos can hand out any further punishment in this situation, except he believes the offense is worthy of a ban. I believe this situation of a mod accepting a bribe is a first of its kind, so whichever way it is handled would set a precedent on similar cases in the future.

His punishment only removed as moderator and a negative tag from you? IMO it's rather lenient.

The other options are:

a- ban him
b- flag him

He already got 6 or more neg trust ratings from DT and that's almost as good as a scam flag. That account is done for.

And banning him would force him to create another acc probably and that's not as good as it sounds because I'd rather have him post with that ruined acc instead giving him a reason to start fresh.

There's another option, sigban for certain duration. It would prevent the account from being sold and used for SEO purpose. See this speculation for context, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5573695.msg66963458#msg66963458).

[Rikafip]

But are they really that stupid?  Did they honestly think this would not catch up to them and bite them in the ass sooner or later?  

People do stupid shit all the time, without thinking ahead much. Just open your local newspapers (or more precisely local news portal) and you can find loads of stupid shit people do for money.  

Also, how would they even know who to contact?

Just a guess, but maybe friend of a friend of a friend type of situation.

[Coyster]

There's another option, sigban for certain duration. It would prevent the account from being sold and used for SEO purpose. See this speculation for context, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5573695.msg66963458#msg66963458).

If the account is going to be sold for SEO purpose, i doubt it would happen now that the heat is on. It would prolly be some years down the line, so issuing a sigban right now wouldn't help with anything. Say you ban the account right now from displaying signatures for 24 months, i doubt anybody would have been willing to buy the account within this period.

Plus when you look at the severity of the offense, the attention on the account, and the negative feedbacks given already, (with obviously more to come) i doubt anybody would buy the account, because it would be detected ASAP.

[cryptofrka]

Hey everyone,

We were surprised to learn about this situation. Winna did not instruct or authorize anyone to pay for the removal of forum posts or scam accusations.

In each of the referenced cases, we have publicly responded with our side of the situation and explained why we disagree with the version of events presented in the respective accusation. We therefore had no reason to seek the removal of these discussions.

We are now reviewing our relationships with external agencies and contractors to determine whether any third party may have acted independently and without our approval. We take this matter seriously and will cooperate with the forum administration where necessary.

Yup, it was the mailman.

__________________________________

To be honest, I always felt that (some of) the staff is below standard for a forum of Bitcointalk's stature. Silent, distant, fully hands off, mostly uninterested.
Shame that this happened but it's not like there was any trust to lose in the first place.

[ABCbits]

There's another option, sigban for certain duration. It would prevent the account from being sold and used for SEO purpose. See this speculation for context, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5573695.msg66963458#msg66963458).

If the account is going to be sold for SEO purpose, i doubt it would happen now that the heat is on. It would prolly be some years down the line, so issuing a sigban right now wouldn't help with anything. Say you ban the account right now from displaying signatures for 24 months, i doubt anybody would have been willing to buy the account within this period.

I mostly agree. But since there's no indication of punishment by permaban by OP, at least it would bring some inconvenience.

Plus when you look at the severity of the offense, the attention on the account, and the negative feedbacks given already, (with obviously more to come) i doubt anybody would buy the account, because it would be detected ASAP.

I disagree.

BTC_Bear	(8 red tag and 0 merits in the last 120 days)
komisariatku	(6 red tag and 0 merits in the last 120 days)
PytagoraZ	(6 red tag and 0 merits in the last 120 days)

These 3 account already have 6 negative tag before it was suspected as part of massive spam/SEO activity.

[hd49728]

BTC_Bear

(8 red tag and 0 merits in the last 120 days)

These 3 account already have 6 negative tag before it was suspected as part of massive spam/SEO activity.

At least BTC_Bear did not scam people and did not lose the VIP badge. There were VIP members and donators lost their badges because of serious scams.

In this investigation: "VIP member hacked?", that account had a changed username, JusticeForYou[/url] and it was like that in years, before he or a new account owner returned with 1xbit and Rainbet signatures. This time, username was back to initial one BTC_Bear but I am not sure it was changed by theymos or by the new owner.

[eaLiTy]

~
There's another option, sigban for certain duration. It would prevent the account from being sold and used for SEO purpose. See this speculation for context, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5573695.msg66963458#msg66963458).

If that happens, @nutildah has the ability to ban the display of signatures. Until then, tagging is the most appropriate approach.

Never thought I'd see the day a moderator takes a bribe to delete a post here.

[Coyster]

These 3 account already have 6 negative tag before it was suspected as part of massive spam/SEO activity.

Yes i can see that now, so i guess whoever buys these accounts for SEO/spam purposes doesn't really care about the past sins of the previous owner, nor negative feedbacks on the accounts. You are right on that.

That said, i think a sigban would become appropriate if the account ever returns to spam the forum in the future. In truth, right now there is no legitimate reason to issue a sigban, because the user isn't considered a spammer.

[robelneo]

How do you mean? Can staff/mod read user's PMs?

I definitely cannot. No clue who can, other than Theymos of course. Maybe administrators, but only for reported private messages?

On all the forums I once managed as an administrator, I had no access to members' personal messages based on the SMF forum documentation; there is none in its default setting. I tried to find a modification package for this, but no success. And yes, only reported private messages

 

Typically, personal messages are private correspondence and they are viewable only by the sender and intended recipients - administrators cannot view these personal messages except through the database.

SMF2.1:Personal messages

They still don't have it on smf version 2.1.7

[fillippone]

Shame.
Shame, shame, shame.

We are all here only for a reason.
Bitcointalk.org is not only a technical forum but also a place to discuss our beloved coin.
It’s a community.
Its base layer is the tissue of connections among its users, built over the years.
This layer of connection is based on trust and a commitment to the community's benefit.
A moderator should be someone pushing in this direction, helping the community thrive with the long-term goal of sustained adherence to the community's basic rules.
Leveraging your limited power toward your personal benefit and at the same time, and with much more importance, at the detriment of the benefit of the community is disgraceful at the least.
It's not only a betrayal of the trust theymos placed in you, but, more importantly, a betrayal of the trust every user has placed in you.

Bitcointalk’s most valuable asset is not its software, domain name, traffic, or advertising revenue. It is the confidence that members can expose wrongdoing, preserve evidence, discuss accusations openly, and trust that moderation decisions are not for sale.

This forum has remained relevant for so many years precisely because its reputation and knowledge have been built collectively. No casino, advertiser, influential member, or other interested party should ever be able to purchase silence or make legitimate accusations disappear.

Bribery is only one part of the question: LoyceV mentions he withdrew negative feedback on Winna nine months ago after seeing legal threats, and decided the risk wasn’t worth it.  A pattern emerges: legal pressure to make people self-censor at the top of the trust list, cash to make a moderator delete what still gets through at the bottom. Both are attacks on the same asset, from opposite ends. The bribe is the illegal part; the quieter one may have removed more information from this forum than sapta ever did.

It took three months to discover this, not because the logging failed, but because nobody was watching. theymos found it within hours of someone finally posting about a missing topic — the tooling worked, the attention didn’t. That’s a structural gap: deletion-by-Trashcan-move wasn’t in the public modlog, and even if it were, pushing it into TryNinja’s bot so anyone who posted in a topic gets alerted when it disappears turns “someone might notice” into “the people with skin in the game will notice.” That’s the actual fix: distribute the monitoring to the users who care most. We have several tools and dashboards spread across the forum by various providers. These are not statistical tools for users interested in graphs and reports, but effective tools for keeping track of what is happening on the forum.


Theymos did the right thing: publishing this rather than quietly handling it is what keeps the asset repairable. Trust here has never rested on staff being incorruptible — it rests on abuse being reversible and disclosed.
Making modlog even more effective,  possibly enhancing it, will allow us to detect similar behaviour more promptly, limiting damage.

[bangjoe]

It's a shame what happened here, I almost didn't think it was about our moderator, but it's the fact, and it makes our local community feel betrayed by this abuse of authority, and I hope he can explain and apologize to the whole community for what he did even though I don't think it's likely that he did it.
I also just found out that local moderators can do that to other boards in the forum.

@notocactus your thread should be up to date by now; https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5206428.msg53245387#msg53245387

[babo]

Theymos did the right thing: publishing this rather than quietly handling it is what keeps the asset repairable. Trust here has never rested on staff being incorruptible — it rests on abuse being reversible and disclosed.
Making modlog even more effective,  possibly enhancing it, will allow us to detect similar behaviour more promptly, limiting damage.

that's true, we are a community but some people forget this and act like idiots for their own personal gain.
causing a lot of problems for others who trust their work
This is why I tagged the moderator, not because he abused his power.
but because he betray my and your trust

[PX-Z]

The user deserves to be remembered in the forum's wall of shame. it's one of the most disgraceful acts someone in that position can commit.

It would certainly go down as one of the darkest moments in the forum's history, since moderators are expected to uphold fairness and integrity, not abuse their position for personal gain.

[holydarkness]

Hey everyone,

We were surprised to learn about this situation. Winna did not instruct or authorize anyone to pay for the removal of forum posts or scam accusations.

In each of the referenced cases, we have publicly responded with our side of the situation and explained why we disagree with the version of events presented in the respective accusation. We therefore had no reason to seek the removal of these discussions.

We are now reviewing our relationships with external agencies and contractors to determine whether any third party may have acted independently and without our approval. We take this matter seriously and will cooperate with the forum administration where necessary.

Umm... I think this is where I want to insert myself.

I only read the 5 pages thread just now of course, but amongst the comments, this is where I want to jump in and say that Winna is not exactly responded well lately, on active scam accusations. I can provide our latest converence [now immortalized for archival purpose, only the latest, not ones with sensitive information] to show how Winna treated recent invitation, despite my attempt. Unfortunately, those conversations are privileged.


And, for those who say this sets a bad image for mods, or "this breaks trust" like joker_josue said, I'll attest to the best of my knowledge that it is beyond mods [and global mods, and the forum owner themselves] power to predict and detect this early on. They are not omniscient. I mean, and I can speak this from my very own experience, I myself is currently indexing SA pages for my v.2 list, and every time I got my chance to update them [at crawling pace], I take one page behind to be sure I don't miss a thing [early on I sweep from page 10 to 1, the from 11 to 1, then 12, to 1, and next one would've be from 15 to 1] and this still went beyond my radar, that threads about winna were disappearing.

Granted, I haven't reach "W" yet, so I am yet to pay attention to Winna and other casinos starting with W, but I sweep those pages [in increment] meticulously, going from 14 to 1 for one casino, then back to 14 to 1 to the next casino. Weekly, when I can. And I don't even realize threads about Winna were selectively moved.

So, yeah, they're not omniscient.

[Alone055]

Such a shame!

This reminds me of that story where a guy had a hen that laid gold eggs, but only one a day. One day, he thought that instead of getting 1 egg every day, he could simply kill the hen, open it up, and get all the eggs at once and become instantly wealthy, so he did that, only to find disappointment because it's obvious that the hen didn't have a bunch of eggs, but she was able to produce one every day. He didn't get anything and also got deprived of that 1 gold egg he was getting every day.

A moderator who is getting paid already for the position, and as mentioned by @LoyceV, the payment was probably way higher than what an average person would earn from that country, but instead of being loyal to the position and to the forum that gave him that privilege, he ruined everything only to get some more money from those who hired him to clean their reputation.

[joker_josue]

You know... I've been thinking about it.

The moderator had low permissions, so they weren't very influential. How did Winna, or someone connected to them, get to the moderator?
Did the moderator volunteer to do this kind of "work"?

If you didn't volunteer, who contacted you? Was there someone who acted as a go-between?

With these questions, I don't want to accuse anyone; I'm simply reflecting on how we got here.

Perhaps theymos knows more details and already has the answers to these questions (which, logically, they don't need to share). If don't have the answers, that could be a point of analysis.

[mindrust]

You know... I've been thinking about it.

The moderator had low permissions, so they weren't very influential. How did Winna, or someone connected to them, get to the moderator?
Did the moderator volunteer to do this kind of "work"?

If you didn't volunteer, who contacted you? Was there someone who acted as a go-between?

With these questions, I don't want to accuse anyone; I'm simply reflecting on how we got here.

Perhaps theymos knows more details and already has the answers to these questions (which, logically, they don't need to share). If don't have the answers, that could be a point of analysis.

Good questions. I can't imagine a business sending a direct message to a random staff member for their shady dealings. That's a huge risk.

Imagine, you are operating a casino, you got so many complaints, you want to make them go away. Suddenly, you come up with a bright idea. Bribe a forum mod and he makes em go away.

Nice.

Now which mod?

What if you talk to the wrong mod? Boom you just stepped on a land mine.

That makes me think, the corruption might be deeper than what we see.

[cronosone]

Winna.com is operated by a Costa Rican company with a licence issued by Tobique, but it appears that the operation is actually run through a Berlin-based company called Over99:

https://over99.com/

You can see that several notable figures associated with Winna work there. For example, “Paul” appears to actually be Noah Fischer:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/noahfi/

Or “Drunk”, also known as Christian Diurhuus Røpke:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-diurhuus-r%C3%B8pke-894656345/

I have gathered further information identifying the people and companies allegedly involved, addresses, phone numbers from them and their families, etc... and I will provide it to the relevant authorities.

I am also fairly sure that Bennet works there, and I am looking into that now.

Since they appear to be operating from Berlin rather than Costa Rica, I believe that everyone who has allegedly been scammed by them, including me, should be aware of this and stop wasting time dealing exclusively with the Costa Rican company or the Tobique Gaming Commission.

Criminal complaints will be filed soon. If you believe you have also been scammed by them and you are based in Europe, please contact me here or on Telegram: @cronosone.

The people involved should understand that victims are now identifying the real structure behind this operation, gathering evidence and preparing to take coordinated legal action.

Thanks in advance.

[Shishir99]

Now, can you guys imagine how much Trustpilot and similar websites are making just by removing the bad comments from business pages? Of course, those businesses have corrupt employees who might be taking bribes to remove bad reviews. We have heard people saying that their reviews were removed by Trustpilot. We often see that Trustpilot itself admits that they have removed some feedback because they think it is fake. LOL.