Topic: Abuse or not? (Read 3635 times)

It's not against the rules. And if you would go against account sale like that then we already know what would happen. Accounts would be sold in silence. Nobody would know about it.

I prefer accounts being traded through escrows. This provides a semi publicity. Staff and escrow can know which accounts were traded and might be able to draw connections.

I think that is way better than trying to forbid it unsuccessfully.

I think there are reasons. For example your privacy when you sell or buy something where others maybe should not know it. For example being with one of these sexsites. Some users might have a problem with that

Next thing might be shame for being scammed in a stupid way by someone.

And something i often see is selling accounts with a newbie account because otherwise everyone would know which account gets sold because it was a collateral for a loan.

I think if someone wants to find a bit of dishonesty then he can, right?

It doesn't really matter to the campaign how credible a user is. What matters is what he writes. And that depends on the person.

That and the kind of signature that is possible has the highest impact on the campaign. Since higher ranking accounts can wear bigger, more flashy signatures.

You cannot always arbitrate bad dealings when a purely internet company is sold privately (or when a domain is sold). For example, it has been reported that satoshi-dice has been sold a number of times, and AFAIK the current owner is not publicly known (and likely would be unable to be determined), however many people seem to be trusting them with at least 3,000BTC of bankroll investments without issue.

Well maybe a better question would be, would you remove and/or exclude someone who made a habit of giving negative trust to someone whose account was purchased?

Although it may not be "abuse", if you were to ignore the ratings of someone who leaves negative trust to someone who leaves negative trust for someone whose account was purchased, then someone who wishes to have his trust ratings be taken seriously and wishes to be reputable regarding his trust ratings should not leave such negative trust.

And you can actually (normally) find the real person (ID) behind the ownership. Any bad dealings can be arbitrated any number of ways, not so much with internet anonymity.
Your analogy is much closer to reality.

I remember having an argument discussion with a good friend 6 or so months ago about the buying and selling of accounts on here. He seeing no issues with it, and me dead against it. He is a succussful businessman and likened it to goodwill of a business when that business is sold. Although that goodwill was built by the previous owner it still survives in the business under the new owner and is valued with a considerable premium and so on... I likened it to a personal credit rating - it is a rating for that person alone, it cannot be traded and should not be traded and so on.

Anyways, this topic is about whether leaving neg trust to a bought account is trust abuse etc. As no one should dictate to anyone else what or who they should find trustwothy or otherwise, leaving neg trust in such a situation  is imo definitely not trust abuse. Members of this forum should freely leave feedback they see fit. Other members can deal with it by adjusting their trust lists accordingly. That's how it is meant to work.

Trust system is not moderated but I wouldn't trust anyone who use negative trust to a person he didn't have any interaction before.


No. Account sales are discouraged but not against the rules.

Id say nuke em for all they're worth. Who cares if they get negative trust? That only balances the factor of the trust and the rank. Isn't selling accounts against the btct rules?

Even just having multiple non declared accounts is an issue. I've still not heard a good reason for not making it known that you have more than 1 account.

I know. So which part of buying a high-ranking account in order to take part in signature campaigns whereby people believe a 'senior' forum member is supporting the campaign, thereby lending it a degree of undeserved credibility, is not dishonest?

If the intention is to mislead for personal gain, then the act of buying a high-ranking forum account is absolutely evidence of somebody being demonstrably untrustworthy.

I would do the same when i know an account is sold where i voted green. Though of course sellers won't chose me as the escrow then.

And yes. Green Trust accounts have a high risk. Unfortunately the new owner can't simply ask everyone to remove the rating because he most probably will get a neutral rating saying that the account was sold. It might hinder in signature campaigns. I'm not sure about that though.

Signature campaigns pay more for higher ranking forum accounts. Because the signature allows more signs the signature campaign runners can create bigger and more flashy signatures.

As far as i saw there are a lot of users form poorer countries who create an additional income. Or maybe a fulltime income with that.

I refer you to my previous answer:

2. Anybody who promotes anything through a high-standing account they have purchased is being dishonest and deceptive, unless they are willing to clearly state in their signature or avatar text that it is a bought account


So we are still yet to discover the magical reasoning that involves a person buying a high-ranking account for non-dishonest purposes, ergo, negative trust still stands as the correct response to a purchased high-ranking account.

As far as i can say it as escrow that escrowed a lot account deals, if the accounts are bought by endusers then practically everytime it is bought by someone who wants to join a signature campaign with it.

Think about it, what you can earn with that is a monthly salary that exceeds the average income of many developing countries.

Then add some more accounts to raise your profit and get rich.

The remaining buyers buy in order to resell the account after they levelled them up.

I was the account making wakka622 green, I have just changed that to a neutral rating and it now shows as "0: -0 / +0"

Voted yes because of the bolded part.

You're on default trust because (hopefully) you've got a good grip on who can and cannot be trusted.

PS. Flaming you seems pointless since you're all blazed out... 

So you sell them mid range accounts which they build up to sell off as high ranking member accounts. What legitimate reason do people have for buying those high ranking accounts?

Maybe he refers to him being an escrow and probably having escrowed a lot of accounts already. You then can justify a bit how often accounts end up for being used for scams.

I escrowed a lot accounts already too and i can say that i did not see an account related in a scam. Except a scam accusation that came because of the previous owner. Since i escrowed it could be cleared. Or a hacked account that was sold. But buyers practically every time are trying to make the account worth more to resell them or/and use it only or additionally in signature campaigns. But an account i escrowed i did not find in a scam after.

ORLY? How do you figure that?


Ohhhh, you *believe* there's only a small minority and, even then, you're going to claim that *only* a small percentage of that tiny minority successfully manage to scam anyone.

SMH. Where to even begin with that fallacious reasoning?

You spent so many words explaining why people would sell an account that it might confuse people into mistakenly thinking that your reasonable assertions explaining the seller's side of the process, also holds as reasonable for the buyer's side. It doesn't.

1. The very act of buying an account with good standing and a high member ranking is to defraud the natural process of social selection all users have to go through in establishing their posting history and community standing.

2. Anybody who promotes anything through a high-standing account they have purchased is being dishonest and deceptive, unless they are willing to clearly state in their signature or avatar text that it is a bought account, which would make the purpose of purchasing an account pointless, right?

3. You state that a buyer would have a greater incentive to try to scam if they know they will receive negative trust for it being a bought account, that is laughable. You are essentially saying, "Don't piss these dodgy bastards off, otherwise they'll *really* work harder to defraud people.

4. You then state that owners of accounts who are desperate for money would try and scam if they couldn't offload their account to someone else, which is basically the same thing as saying, "Desperate people should be allowed to sell their ID so that scammers will defraud forum users instead of them having to".

5. As for claiming it would do more harm than good to nuke sold accounts, I disagree, the trade in this dodgy practice would soon become pointless, thereby drastically curbing the number of fake high-ranking account users if was clear that sold accounts were being torched once discovered to not be the original owner.



Give me three valid reasons why somebody would want to buy a high-ranking account which wouldn't count as deception?

I'll save you the effort, don't bother, you can't.

That would not work since if sold account would lose their green trust, or maybe even red trust, then these accounts simply would be sold in private. You would not even have a public auction anymore to prevent any risk of having it exposed.

By the way.. removing red trust would not make sense since scammers then could sell the accounts for much more.