Topic: ATTENTION! BOUNTY CAMPAIGN MODUS OPERANDI SPOTTED! (Read 927 times)

@OP the bitpenta signature in the end went very good, I've got the payment this night also i've reported all abusers here, the manager read my post fixed the spreasheet and banned them all, none got anything

A lot of people are already doing this and I would like to add here that everyone might not be suitable for this job. Some people are good at spotting suspicious postings or duplicate entries and they will be able to report more cases correctly  in less time. You can help forum in other ways also like by reporting copied content or other abuses.

Hmm, you've just made a very eloquent and persuasive argument to ban bounty campaigns completely. You convinced me, anyway.

This is Bitcointalk, so I don't expect theymos to ever make a separate field for it.

I like running campaigns with zero tolerance and very strict rules. But that just means no business for me, the market demands something else.
1. Now imagine I run a self-moderated bounty thread and delete all posts with Facebook/Twitter links, ICO bumpers, and questions that can be answered by reading the thread. That means the thread quickly disappears to page 25 or further on the Bounty board.
2. Now imagine I want to limit cheaters, so I won't allow anyone under Jr. Member rank. That means the business I'm promoting misses out on many spammers who use many accounts, and gets less publicity. All "bounty hunters" seem to have the same group of people as "friends" and followers, it looks like a big circle. But apparently this works, and they sell their tokens.
3. Now imagine I limit even more spammers by only allowing Bitcointalk accounts that have earned at least x merits, and checking if their merited posts were really worth it, or bust them for merit trading. This would lead to even less people joining the campaign.
4. Now imagine I download the Eth-address from the Location tag on the Bitcointalk profile, and require a signed message from a Bitcoin address in the profile to proof ownership. Nobody can cheat with the wrong profile, and if someone commits plagiarism, I can leave them red trust.

At the end of the campaign, I'll have received hundreds of PMs from people complaining, tagged hundreds of accounts with red trust, spend an awful amount of time doing this, and the few people who play by the rules won't be enough to make the campaign a success.
This can only work if all campaigns actively fight spam, otherwise the spam free campaigns will be expensive to manage and inefficient for token sales. The sad truth is: spam works!

I've seen "Proof of Authentication" posts, and in my opinion it's just spam! This is crypto, you can proof ownership with a signature. I can easily proof this account belongs to me, by signing a message from the address in my profile saying "this is LoyceV and send tokens to address X". There's no need to post that anywhere. "Proof of Authentication" is just used to bump the thread. And with 500 threads competing for the same first page, it's no wonder half the posts on the forum are in bounty threads by now!

That would only change if bounty managers get banned if they allow spam.

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Update: I just realized this is much worse than I thought. In just one campaign I found 1044 Bitcointalk accounts that entered anywhere from 2 to 5 times.

I already put every information that can be authentic evidence (inc. Location to put my ERC20 Address)
Seriously, we need a manager who do everything precisely. I mean, it's okay you can put extra security with Proof of Authentication. But, as Lauda said it will useless when A Massive Spam (usually, Useless Link Report) mess up the Thread.
So, i think both Participant and BM synchronize each other. Participant put their information accurately and BM check it thoroughly so no more CHEATER steal our credentials again.
Sadly, few BM care about it.

If that solution works please share it with us most especially to managers for us to be able to fight these cheaters.

I've also reported at @tokensuite the cheaters on "my bounty signature" but so far they got stakes. I hope they will read my report https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.34143902
Spreadsheet here-> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1a-cO_-ys_dNvUU-NqlGtrPPEXSM8Uv9gdOvakiQ5PWE/edit#gid=2033104931.

Don't even look at telegram bounty, infinite numbers of scammers.


(I maybe have the perfect solution to avoid fake users but I need more information before posting a nonsense thing, let me study more)

I like the idea of being able to place other addresses, like my ETH address in my Bitcointalk profile as well.

I have been having issues with scammers/cheaters in my current signature campaign. I had sent a PM to the bounty manager on both BCT and Telegram before they had even accepted the fake one and still no response.

As you can see on the google doc spreadsheet that I'm number #36 and the fake one is #95. I got no doubt if you went through the spreadsheet there would be more.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wpnyQ7icB_q53bQc4iregEfp4MgXDkqd0IcIkjccxXY/edit#gid=352254603

I'm more concerned that it could have negativity on my account. I might do bounty campaigns but I use this forum for researching, investing information and keeping up to date about crypto.

The more I think about this, the more I think this is a good and easy solution. I'd be okay to scrape addresses from "Location" in the profile.
That would also mean that anyone who fails to submit a proper Bitcointalk URL will be rejected. Some people enter it in the wrong field, enter just their Bitcointalk name, or enter "https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile" as profile link. The same goes for anyone who enters without address in their profile.

Thanks for sharing this information Sir. Looks like we're now dealing with this another problem of the Forum.
Just a clarification, how actually can they get paid using your profile? For example, they join a signature campaign using your profile and username but the address is the idiot's (impostor's) address, but you are wearing a different Signature. Is the Campaign Manager will still pay them? It is not isn't? Because in order to get paid you must wear the Signature of the campaign where this idiot (impostor) joined. Am I right? I've heard about the same kind of Modus but all they used is other members's gmail when filling up an airdrop application.

I'm pretty sure that this is not the only case if we will try to check all of the bounties's spreadsheets. Looks like they are now using a new Modus. Haaayst when will these idiots will learn to stop making frauds.

You can use the "Find and replace" function of the spreadsheet for Android phone to search a particular Name, address, etc.

It is much better than reading all the cells of the spreadsheet one by one

How about placing the address on our profile. Just like BTC, there's a place for btc address. Placing other addresses in some parts of the profile like in location might do the trick. Linking our btct accounts to a 3rd party platform is quite risky if got compromised.

That requires unnecessary spam (the same way that bounties where applications go through the thread and not external forms or services do). However, I might have to do something like that as a temporary workaround as well. The best solution are platforms that require registering and which have a method of validating the BTCT account in question.

Hi, Sylon's "Proof of authentication post" is one way to eliminate those cheaters. As it is required to paste the link POA to the registration form. This will prevent someone else' or inactive account's profile from being used.

What are you talking about and since when is your signature "~LM" (lawmaker?)? I am not interested in his little (scam) job.

That's not how any of this works.

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[1] There is nothing for me in tagging anyone..

I think we need to hunt these cheaters together during our free time and report to whom it may concern since we are in the same forum and don't have a solution to totally eliminate this kind of cheating issue as of this time.

Not by you or any other DT2 member who is also a campaign manager. you have tagged a member who is a manager, recently he was fired from a managing job because of red trust. you could have taken his job if he wasn't tagged by you.

There is nothing for you in tagging other managers, if there was something in it for you, it would be abusing of your power, tagging them and then taking their jobs. let somebody else tag him so you can have his job. have you asked his employer to see if they are fine paying those cheaters or not? if they are fine paying them, no need to tag anybody.

~LM.

This type of things is usually seen in the blog campaign, People try to use someone else btctalk profile link thinking they can join the campaign multiple times, or those people who do not have a btctalk account. I have got many reports and I reject all those entries.

For other campaigns like social media, I'm using my bountyportal, where there is no need for the btctalk profile link.

And for the signature campaign, I have not seen a single this type of complaint, and why they would do this?

For last translation campaign, I have my own list created once which has a permanent and backup translator, So no chance of scammer/ spammer there too to join with someone else account.

This is obviously a from of fraud perpetrated by those who are not responsible. They are only concerned with money without working. Not worth imitating and is strictly prohibited.

This is another plague that unscrupulous individuals are allowing to penetrate the forum. I remember that one of the reasons why google docs is being used in the bounty section is because of how the massive slowing down of the forum it caused. But I still blame the manager for not checking out whether their participants are even complying with the rules before accepting them because if someone uses another username to apply for a campaign, while he can copy his username and profile link, he sure cannot apply the signature if he does not have full control of the account. A random check would have solved all of this without the need to wait till the end of the campaign before distributing stakes.

Huh... I wonder if this is why I have twice received a PM from a sig campaign manager welcoming me to their campaign and reminding me to wear the signature. I thought this was a new form of spam, but looking into one of the campaigns further I see my username on their google spreadsheet with an ETH address that most certainly isn't mine.

But again, what is the point if I don't wear the signature? Whoever used my username with their ETH address isn't going to comply with the sig campaign rules and therefore won't get paid, right?

You can easily check for any two cells having same values in an excel sheet to eradicate duplicates, the formula is relatively simple .

I did that in the campaign that I managed to eradicate duplicates.


1. https://www.accountingweb.com/technology/excel/identifying-duplicate-values-in-an-excel-list
2. https://www.extendoffice.com/documents/excel/2537-excel-compare-if-multiple-cells-are-equal.html

Whichever suits you.

ATB! 

This stuff only happens in the airdrops from what I've seen where they have to basically join a telegram channel and that's it. You can make a billion telegram names a day if you want, so that is hard to check to see if someone is cheating.

For facebook or twitter it's easier to check as we have the link to either of those accounts

I know faster way: CTRL + F  

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@OP there are 800 different bounty campaigns bumped today and it is impossible for any of us to go trough all spreadsheets to check them every day, I believe campaign managers are checking participants and signatures and if they notice that someone is not wearing signature they will remove name from the list, especially when they count stakes after ICO ends.

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How do you count their stakes if they are not participating in campaign?
Don't you check participants before sending payment?

Bounty campaigns are a huge pain in the ass period. I get multiple messages from users and remove the guys who are trying to cheat and use a users profile to claim but for the most part it is very easy to miss some cheaters.

We as managers do not know who's cheating and who's not(unless involved with the scam) without messaging every single users who applies for the said bounty and that's just not gonna happen when you're talking multiple thousands of users joining the campaigns.

The companies that run the bounty campaigns are usually cheap as hell and hire someone for a very poor rate, so it's likely that most managers messing with the bounty just turn their heads and look past the cheaters.

If someone devises a method to combat this, please pm me so I can implement it into the few bounties I manage. I have nailed a few cheaters who used reputable members names and profiles here only because I messaged those users and asked if they joined. Otherwise I have had to rely on users checking the spreadsheets and messaging me that xxxxx user used their name and removed the cheater

I don't know if and how Google limits it, but the forum limits page load frequency. I forgot the mention it allows a short higher burst rate though.
If you exceed that, you'll see this:

It's not a 1 per second limit thing AFAIK, I could pull 10 or more a second. I assume it's because Google has multiple servers they use. The limitation is in Google Sheets. I assume Google intentionally limits it to prevent too much server load or abuse. The less ImportXML functions I had, the faster they would fill the field.

Isn't there a specific way or something in the settings of the spreadsheet that would somehow give an alert or a notice if a duplicate is present? If I am not mistaken, there is a feature like that in MS Excel.


I'll do as advised.

Thanks!

As a campaign manager, it's a terrible dilemma: by using an external site, the spam on the forum is limited, but indeed, I can't verify if the application really came from the Bitcointalk account owner.


I'd love to have bounty content participants confirm their entry on Bitcointalk, so I can tag the 95% of cheaters, but most of them use "disposable" Newbie accounts anyway.

Bounties are more than just siganture campaigns.

I'm confused I don't really get whats the reason for doing that thing, because if they don't wear the right signature they cant get the point or the stakes. Is there any occasions that they get the stakes of the bounty without wearing the right signature?

You're welcome, although I've been more than unusually slow recently as people try to distract me with nonsense in order to delay their shadiness getting busted.

You should create a separate thread in the reputation section (or scam accusations) about that guy.

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I'll give the manager in question a few more days to respond. IMO if he refuses to even acknowledge this at all, he should be tagged(?).

That's troublesome and an eyesore. Just hit Ctrl+F type your username, enter.
@0t3p0t Try to look for "Find in Page" or similar option in the browser's menu.

I think mods has something to do against these cheaters. Maybe this issue was already been here in this forum but nobody make an action regarding this matter. As Lauda had said that using google docs form to fill up applications from applicants is one of the reason why cheaters can play this modus. I think admin will only allow managers like yahoo62278, Lauda, Lutpin and any other that can handle campaigns without hassle or even pay attention on what is going on with the campaign. It would be much better if admin will put something like "certified manager" on the managers profile where participants and project owners can clearly see that the manager they are working with can do the right job for them and of course for us participants.

I was a part of Nousplatform signature bounty campaign, managed by Mirkic7 https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/mirkic7-245426

The same modus operandi is running in the signature campaign. This is the link https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kqiiN2ZwG9XpSLhKZInVPljlrOBbV-S3VAOGdArWgcs/edit#gid=1040397988

I posted the same concern in their bounty thread, PMed the campaign manager, and even brought the concern in their official bounty telegram channel in the hope that this fraudulent activity will catch the attention of the manager. I did this more than once. Unfortunately, there was neither a response nor an action against it.

In the end, the duplicate accounts were paid.

Yeah, I can also say that the manager is "involved" in this cheating issue since he is not paying attention to the applicants where cheaters clearly modify usernames to make it differrent. This is actually my first time having a cheating issue with a campaign and what's the most disgusting part is that the manager is a trusted and legendary member on this forum. How come he become a trusted manager if he has that kind of management service. Anyways, thank you so much for a quick response I highly appreciate it. I didn't expect you replied that quick.

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In cat's I trust.

I've had a similar case where someone tried to enroll as someone else who had already been enrolled, but they had entered their own ETH address this time. This is one of the cons to using Google Forms; it's not possible to know who exactly attempted to cheat. I've promptly fixed it and contacted the user in question to confirm.
It is weird that this manager isn't responding to this, and handling it at all. It seems likely that he is somehow 'involved' in it.

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Commented here as a substitute for a reply to a PM. I've sent the manager a PM asking them to fix this and respond here. Let's see whether anything changes.

As far as I am concerned it has been answered a long time ago also particularly this kind of issue is utterly not a problem of bitcointalk community dishonest bounty campaign was the birth of shitposters/scammers.

One way to quickly(ish) check if some one is using your account for a bounty campaign (at least on the same bounty as you anyway, it's a lot tougher if they are using your details in a bounty you are not even enrolled in!) is to go to the bounty spreadsheet and click on the column heading with your bitcointalk name in (I have just used a random bounty to use to illustrate).



As you can see, I have highlighted column B with the username, but can highlight whichever column has your details e.g. Facebook name, Telegram name etc.

Then click on data at the top of the spreadsheet and select 'sort by column B'.



This will then arrange that column in alphabetical order, keeping the rest of the columns linked to the correct participant's name. Makes it easy for you to spot if someone is using your details (especially in campaigns with a large number of participants), as their details will now be either directly above (or below) yours. All you need to do now is scroll down to where your name is on the spreadsheet and check for any doppelgangers.



I would like to think that most bounty campaign managers do this to check for any imposters, but always good to check yourself and you can then inform them if necessary. I had it happen to me last week and messaged the campaign manager directly. They sorted it straight away for me. Frustrating, but that's the world we're living in right

Thanks to 0t3p0t for informing me about someone who is trying to pose as my account in order to cheat the BitPenta campaign for rewards, the scammer input the username Barcode & Barc0de_ into the spreadsheet and used the Etheruem address below:

0x450447c8665F0F1698a8f7a4017388a6Cb14210A
0x7b5552156b981b3C96822C0Fdd12b9722833c350

You're welcome. I hope that this kind of cheating is not tolerated on this forum. Managers would face consequences for not paying attention of their job as this is unfair for legit participants.

I would like to state that I am not part of any bounty programme, and I do not promote any alts or ICOs.
Talk Merit tells me that he isn't either.

Thank you for drawing this scam to our attention.

To whom it may concern,

Someone is using your account for money! Upon checking my bounty's spreadsheet I found something annoying and it makes me think why this people still exist in this forum. I can see a lot of people using other member's Bitcointalk account in some bounty campaigns and my account is one of them used multiple times I already reported this to the manager and this post will serve as a warning or awareness to anybody on this forum. I encountered this kind of modus not only once but a lot of times with my friends in our local telegram group since their accounts were also used by unknown applicants with different payment adress and told them to report to the manager but now I am so disappointed because it is getting worst. I wonder who's fault is this, is it the manager? The applicant? Or these bastards who keep on copying our accounts details with different payment addresses. I  am concerned with this modus operandi because legit accounts  and applicants might be tagged with red trust as they might think it is our Alt accounts. For me to counter this I highly recommend to post your original usernames and addressess you will be using on bounties on this thread or on your own Bitcointalk profile and I also suggest bounty managers to double check thousands of aplications on their spreadsheets because some people will take advantage of this opportunity to make something illegal by copying anyone's credentials just to earn money from bounty campaigns. It would be much better if managers will accept applications based on applicants Bitcointalk profile where informations like usernames and addresses can be found. For me as a legit bounty hunter this would be a serious issue and  I do hope that this can be resolved immediately.

From now onwards, I hereby confirm that all the information posted on my Bitcointalk profile is true, correct and the only details I will be using anywhere on this forum.

These are the bastards addresses who used my account for bounty:

0x78e6e36b820f9a070fd167f2d3913d60144a653a
0x49290Bc753e354A1860cEc39B32e577187BBC4cF

You can check it here in "Signature" tab for referrence and kindly pay attention to other applications too and you will see magic : https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1a-cO_-ys_dNvUU-NqlGtrPPEXSM8Uv9gdOvakiQ5PWE/htmlview#

Bitpenta Bounty Campaign link: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/bounty-bitpenta-2-week-program-324k-tokens-escrowed-tokens-3221684

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("If you don't want people to know you're a scumbag then don't be a scumbag." -- margaritahuyan)