Selling/Purchasing account

[DannyHamilton]

What is the forum's policy on the sale/purchase of an existing account?

If I am approached to escrow a transaction where I believe the account has not been hacked, and the seller of the account is he original user of the account, will the account be banned because of the sale, or will the purchaser be allowed to use the account as long as they don't scam, troll, flame, or spam with it?

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[Welsh]

They would not get banned for purchasing the account. Trading accounts is allowed and is not punishable. As long as the account has not been hacked there will be no issue. However, it is highly frowned upon by the community of course.

Read up on previous discussions: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=308028.0, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=630621.0

[Pony789]

What is the forum's policy on the sale/purchase of an existing account?

This is the post often being quoted.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=303414.msg3269475#msg3269475

As it has been answered, yes Forum accounts are allowed to be bought or sold, and you may have more than one. The reason being, it would be impossible for the staff to weed out all account sales and multiple accounts. We just couldn't do it, so by allowing it, everyone is aware that it happens and knows to watch out for it if they need to. If we said no buying/selling accounts and no alt accounts allowed, the many people who could slip through the cracks would be able to do far more damage, as the community wouldn't be on guard the same way it is now.

That being said, buying/selling accounts isn't always bad, people can use the accounts for paid signature advertising, giveaways, and whatnaught, rather than using them to scam. There are scammers, and those that use alts responsibly. Some people have alt/purchased accounts so that they may speak their mind without fear of people associating certain ideals or policies to them. For example, and established business may not like to post their personal opinions which may be unpopular on the account that also is used to faciliate trade.

I hope this clears it up a bit better.

[DannyHamilton]

Ok, so it sounds like holding escrow for the sale of an account is ok as long as the seller is the rightful owner of the account and it hasn't been hacked or stolen.

That leaves me with the next problem:

To determine when to release escrow after the transfer of account credentials, is there a good way to verify that the seller of the account has rightful ownership? Escrow isn't going to be very helpful if the transaction is reversible days, weeks, months, or years later.  Is there any way to provide protection for the buyer, or is this pretty much a situation of "buyer beware"?

[hilariousandco]

That's the problem, it is reversible at any time by PMing theymos and signing a message associated with that account. There's no real foolproof way to assure a 100% safe transaction so a little trust is involved.

[DannyHamilton]

That's the problem, it is reversible at any time by PMing theymos and signing a message associated with that account. There's no real foolproof way to assure a 100% safe transaction so a little trust is involved.

That's what I was afraid of.

I think I'll recommend a waiting period of a few days before release of escrow, so the original owner has a bit of time to notice if the account was stolen.  I'll also add a warning to the escrow agreement reminding the buyer that it's their responsibility to be sure they're only buying from the rightful owner and that if the account was stolen then they could lose it at any time in the future.

[hilariousandco]

It'll probably be pointless for the seller getting the account back anyway as obviously it'll be negbombed once the buyer starts crying about it  , but that still leaves him out of pocket and without the account. It's a risky business all around really. I think the best you could do is to state in the escrow contract/to the seller that if anytime the account is taken back you will then leave negative feedback on it.

[Baitty]

Really it's pointless having a escrow for trading accounts as there is no way to verify that the person claiming to own the account it indeed the person who registered the account.

[hilariousandco]

It's not pointless at all. It at least assures you you're going to actually get the account. If you didn't use one you'd be very likely to get nothing at all, though using an escrow doesn't protect against the seller taking the account back as I detailed above.

[theymos]

Is there any way to provide protection for the buyer, or is this pretty much a situation of "buyer beware"?

Buyer beware. The original owner can probably always regain the account by providing proof that he was the original owner. I won't do this if I know that the account was sold, of course, but I'm not going to waste any time researching this.