Topic: Flagging user broke an agreement and leaking confidential information - page 2. (Read 1994 times)

This is not what happened here.


This is what happened here.


http://www.a4id.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/A4ID-english-contract-law-at-a-glance.pdf

Bob123 promised to buy the accounts if the seller releases the details, but after the seller released the details, he just got under defective performance and the contract was breached as he promised one thing and did other. Hence the flag started by the seller is perfectly valid, it's your own judgement if you would like to support it or not but I think a genuine thinking towards the issue would show a serious breach of contract here.

http://www.a4id.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/A4ID-english-contract-law-at-a-glance.pdf

I think you are just misinterpreting TECSHARE's point here.

If Bob123 didn't wanted to go into the contract with the seller or if the seller didn't wanted to engage in the contract with Bob123, this telegram discussion you are implying would just not exist.

Bob123 had a pri-decided intention to engage in the contract with the account seller and than again broke it intentionally after exposing his digital goods.


Yes, there was a risk of no sale before the seller revealed his accounts to Bob123, but when Bob123 agreed to buy the account once the ownership is proved the contract should be automatically formed there after IMO.

I find your way of relating this incident to court judgements interesting, but I don't think we could imply complex court laws here anyways there are too many differences.

What you are trying to do is very transparent. You are just repeating technical terminology and hoping either that some of it will stick or that people will be too dumb or passive to even bother to check. I believe you to be actively disingenuous at this point, because you are smart enough to know what happened here. It is in fact very straight forward, you just don't like the conclusion.

There need not be any agreement for privacy, because consideration was provided under fraud, then the contract was violated by bob123 by not completing payment. This information was obtained via fraud and then directly used to cause financial damages. Once again, I might remind you the lowest standard for this flag is "... bob123 violated a casual or implied agreement, resulting in damages...". For you to argue that this not only does not constitute a technical agreement but doesn't even constitute an IMPLIED agreement is just totally disingenuous. You have fun wearing your little lawyer suit though.

Invitation to treat, ability to examine goods, performance of terms, counter offer, variations, clarity all are part of forming a contract.

It is not cherry picking. It is viewing the entire discussion as a whole.

If there was a contract for $280 as you claim then why are they discussing different accounts and amounts instead ? It shows that a deal had not been made yet.

I do think that Bob narrowly escaped being in breach of contract.

With any commercial disputes - some require court action to resolve. Two parties enter court and usually only one party is found to be correct when it comes to determining if there was a contract or not. Both sides usually have smart lawyers.

In commercial conflicts the consumer has rights. Terms have to be clear. To say there a contract wherethere was a condition of privacy would require some discussion around that. That is absent from the chat log.

There is also a consistent trend of the seller believing the buyer will not follow through with a sale. It shows that the seller knows that there is a risk of a "no sale".

I doubt that we will agree on whether there was a contract or not. However we should agree  that this is one of the most controversial flags.  It is not a straight forward one. 

I am not overlooking anything. You agreed to terms. You then agreed to pay a specific amount after he provided consideration by PMing you from the last account. It is at this time a contract was formed. Just because you refused to fulfill your agreement does not make the agreement invalid. It came into effect the moment he sent you the PM, also known technically as consideration, which you then used to cause damages. Sorry I don't care how many people oppose this flag, it is valid. You entered into a contract under fraud which directly resulted in damages via the loss of account value. If you had not explicitly made the agreement it might have been different, but you did in fact create a contract  with intent to defraud and then violated it AFTER receiving considerations.




Except he explicitly made an agreement, received considerations, which is when the contract becomes binding. Just because he changed the terms after reviving considerations does not mean he can unilaterally change the agreement. That is not how contracts work. If I order a pizza and the delivery guy gets here and I decide I don't want it any more, I am still legally obligated to pay for it because I ordered it and resources were expended getting it delivered. I can't offer to pay him 25% to make the contract go away for example.

You are simply cherry picking statements and ignoring the explicit agreement which I quoted above, including mutually agreed upon terms, as well as consideration, all the parts necessary to form a legal contract. The argument about an agreement over confidentiality is clearly implied, but also totally moot. The seller clearly made considerations. bob123 clearly agreed upon terms, and agreed to pay once the PM was sent. The moment the PM was sent the requirement for consideration was met, then furthermore later losses were accrued as a direct result of this fraudulently obtained consideration. I don't care how many other people oppose the flag. They are wrong. I don't make decisions based on what is popular. The ends do not justify the means. bob123's actions were fraud by any definition.

When a counter-offer is made it kills the initial offer. Even is the person making the counter offer agrees later to the initial terms. This has happened to me in a real estate deal. I made an offer. Then the seller made a counter offer. The counter counter offer was rejected. The seller then offered the same terms as the initial offer I had made which I rejected because I had already decided to buy elsewhere.




Shows the buyer rejected the account based on quality. An account that has plagiarized content is a misrepresentation by the seller.

-- although I do not see any plagiarized content myself. The posting history does make me wonder if it is an account stolen after the last bitcointalk hack where passwords were exposed.


The seller also misrepresented the trust on the account.







Which IF there was a contract would put the seller in breach of contract because he is not showing an account "as described".

It would mean that the message that was sent from that account did not match the description of the account that would have been part of that contract.

The absence of a message from an account that matches the sellers description means that the conditions that the buyer insisted on throughout the conversation (if there was a contract) were not met.


I found an interesting quote:


http://archive.fo/SGJRp


Forfeiting a sale - IF - there is a contract is a technical breach of contract. Even if the seller is still in possession of the goods the "damages" is the extra effort they have to go through to either enforce the sale or resell the item to another buyer.

There was no implied contract of confidentiality as the seller clearly was aware of the risk and stated it was his risk.



I am not convinced that there was a binding contract. I am not satisfied that the conditions that form part of the terms discussed were met by the seller.

It is not really a victory on your part. The flag is permanently there and while it only has the support of one DT but also 4 other members - there are clearly other members that support the flag which I can understand - even though I do not agree with their analysis or conclusion.

Well.. i can just repeat myself.. you seemed to have overlooked that (or maybe just didn't reply on purpose):




'Breaking' the 'agreement' did not do any damage. Therefore the flag is not valid.

I don't understand why you are trying everything you can to convince others to support this flag.
It simply doesn't make sense to me.

It seems that the majority of voters also thinks that this flag is not appropriate.
Supporting: 1
Opposing: 7

You don't get to rescind an agreement AFTER considerations (the PM) have been provided. Just because you don't like being held accountable to the same standards you hold others too doesn't make me a troll.




What comes before is irrelevant because they both later agreed on $280. bob123 accepted consideration after the contract was formed. They both also agreed to use escrow. The seller made the consideration to bob123 in good faith (and under contractual agreement) that a certain price would be paid once this consideration (PM from account) was made.

You will also see later in that same conversation about 2/3 of the way down:

bob123 (18:52): "OK send me a message from this account and we have a deal"

He explicitly accepts the terms discussed, and accepts further consideration from the seller in the form of a PM which is then delivered just after as you can see in the conversation. Also once again prices are discussed and agreed upon.

bob123 himself admitted they had a deal, signaling his willingness to contract, and that contract was activated upon consideration (the PM). Just because bob123 backed out of his agreement, and the seller realized he would not complete it at that time does not invalidate the contract bob123 formed. bob123 adding on additional terms after the agreement was formed, and consideration was already made does not invalidate the contract either. To argue this doesn't meet the terms of even an implied agreement is asinine and disingenuous on your part.

What comes before is part of the conditions which is relevant.



He makes it clear he needs proof and escrow.





Also what came after shows the seller making a counter-offer with a variation of the terms - no escrow. If there is an offer and then a counter-offer the counter-offer automatically cancels the initial offer. A counter-offer is considered a rejection of the initial offer.

"But I need a direct deal" is a rejection of the condition of escrow.


Source: https://www.lawteacher.net/free-law-essays/contract-law/offers-and-rejection-law-essay.php

The whole conversation shows they are still haggling over the terms and which accounts to buy. In order for a contract to exist there has to be agreement on the terms (escrow and proof of ownership) , which products and what price.



Shows that the seller is aware that no deal has been struck. He said "I don't know that you will buy at all". He didn't say "I'm not sure whether you will pay me for the agreed contract".  This is because they had not agreed on the terms or which accounts would be bought.

If THIS is the 'contract' or 'agreement' in your eyes, then you just proved that the flag is inappropriate yourself. Good job on that.

The fact that i rescinded from it (which is 'breaking the agreement' in your eyes), did not result in any damage.
This did no damage to anyone at all.


So thanks for admitting that the flag is inappropriate.


P.s. Rescinding from a trade isn't even considered breaking it. But whatever, you have already proved that the flag is inappropriate. Thanks for that, the discussion should be over then i guess.




I can't even try to take you seriously anymore 
Too much trolling for me.

What comes before and after the highlighted agreement is irrelevant. What you say before and after a contract does not invalidate a contract made some time between those two periods because further discussion or terms were had. A contract was technically formed, by your own clearly stated metrics, and by the information bob123 himself provided as I covered above. The instant the seller PMed bob123 a contract was formed because that act was the first act of stipulated consideration after terms were discussed and mutually agreed to.

The conversation as posted by the OP https://i.imgur.com/HGZCFtT.jpg

The quoted part is before the rest of the conversation which clearly shows that there was no acceptance yet of mutually agreed terms.



Shows the seller accepts taking the risk.



Asking for proof. No acceptance has been made.



Shows the seller is not convinced there has been acceptance.



No  proof of ownership - terms not met - no acceptance yet.



Quality not accepted - no acceptance yet.



End of conversation that was posted - where seller asks to "wait". No acceptance yet of mutually accepted terms.



I agree ends do not justify the means.

The reason I oppose the flag is because I do not believe there to be a valid contract. I disagree with the methods used.

A more proper analogy would be that some one who sells the precursor chemicals to manufacture cocaine getting their lab burned down by a vigilante after he gains access by pretending to be a customer. Selling accounts is not criminal, and even if it was burning down his property using a fraudulent agreement is still not acceptable.

There are plenty of words that have alternative common use meanings which do not hold to the technical and originally intended definition of the word. Fraud is a legal term and as such it has very structured metrics by which an act of fraud is determined. Let us look at the legal definition of fraud.

"Fraud

A false representation of a matter of fact—whether by words or by conduct, by false or misleading allegations, or by concealment of what should have been disclosed—that deceives and is intended to deceive another so that the individual will act upon it to her or his legal injury."

Clearly what bob123 did falls under this definition. Just because account sales fall under the more loose, casual, and colloquial use of the word is meaningless. One falls under the technical legal definition, one doesn't.

Regarding your argument that a contract was not formed, first of all the language in the flag says:

"SeW900 alleges: bob123 violated a casual or implied agreement, resulting in damages, in the specific act referenced here. bob123 did not make the victims of this act roughly whole, AND it is not the case that all of the victims forgave the act. It is not grossly inaccurate to say that the act occurred around June 2019. No previously-created flag covers this same act, unless the flag was created with inaccurate data preventing its acceptance."

So, even if your argument was correct that it was not technically a contract, an agreement was most certainly implied by any metric. However an actual technical contract was formed and documented here by bob123 himself.

Seller: "280$ ok,? !!"
Bob123: "Yes, 280 is good"
Seller: "ok" "do you pay me after PM" "?!"
Bob123: "Yes with escrow"

As you can see the three terms of a technical contract were in fact met.

Offer - The seller made an offer at a specific price point.

Acceptance of identical terms of the offer - Bob123 agreed to the price point on the stipulation his consideration of revealing the name/ownership of the account and they both agreed to identical terms.

Consideration - The seller provided consideration under this contract by providing the confirmation stipulated, bringing it into effect.

I appreciate your genuine and civil discussion of the issues, but you are incorrect by your own metrics.


EDIT: I am sure most of you who oppose this flag do so mostly because you disagree with account sales. I do not agree the ends justify the means, but consider this. Theymos has the ability to outright ban account sales if he wishes, but he doesn't. Why? Because he knows all it will do is push the sellers further underground and make it harder to keep track of them. All you are doing is not only making accounts more valuable by making selling them difficult and more rare, you are also teaching the sellers how to go further underground out of the eyes of those monitoring their activity. What you are doing is not just destroying the fidelity of the trust system by allowing its abuse by exception, but you are literally having a counterproductive effect than the one you intended just so you can feel like you did some thing.

I agree with Techshare that value was destroyed.

It is a bit like someone selling cocaine and it getting seized because they get busted. Or someone blackmailing someone and publishing the details so they have nothing to blackmail with anymore.

Not something that I particularly sympathize with.



I also agree with Techshare on this.

Account sales (unless the account is stolen) are "deception" but not necessarily a fraud using the definition provided by TECHSHARE

However - if you use the alternative definition in the dictionary:


This is where I disagree with TECSHARE

Deception was used but it was not fraud (Using TECHSHARES definition of fraud) . I do not believe a contract was made. The evidence that I have seen is where there was an attempt by an account seller to sell an account that he didn't own / no longer owned (potential fraud).

However if you use the alternative definitions there was fraudulent representation.

There was an invitation to treat / inquiry by the buyer. There was an offer on occasions but there was no acceptance of terms agreed by both parties - so no contract.
I covered that in more detail here: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.51571002



In order for there to be a contract to keep it confidential there has to be consideration and mutually accepted terms. There was no consideration or mutually accepted terms so it cannot be considered to be a contract. By the seller providing clearly false information in some of the cases it can also be argued that the seller was in breach of any contract if there was one.


I do agree that private sting operations are not a good idea. Police sting operations often have stringent rules and can be inadmissible under certain circumstances.

What does this have to do with anything? Are you implying that it is okay to defraud account sellers in order to discredit them?

It is not necessary to believe anything the OP says in order to believe the flag is valid. All of the necessary information to conclude bob scammed the OP is available by reviewing what bob has posted and evidence bob has presented. 

You did in fact destroy the value of the other user's property. Normally if you just found this information out via investigation that wouldn't be an issue. The problem is you explicitly used deception and violated an agreement with the user in order to obtain the information to do so. Just calling it "non-confidential information" is meaningless. Rights end where the rights of another begin. Just because you don't like people selling accounts doesn't give you carte blanche to commit fraud to do so.

Account selling is not necessarily fraud. Please familiarize yourself with the definition of fraud.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fraud

"fraud noun
Definition of fraud

1a : deceit, trickery specifically : intentional perversion of truth in order to induce another to part with something of value or to surrender a legal right "

Deceit + damage = fraud
Deceit /= fraud

You used deceit to obtain this information, you made an agreement, then you destroyed his property which he has a legal right to. That is fraud.

You were given clearly confidential information based on the agreement you would make a purchase if you were made privy to that information. Your "rescinding" talk is just you wishing you could modify the terms after the fact, that is not how contracts work. The accounts now are valueless to the seller, which was the entire intent of you exposing them. You intentionally caused him loss of property value. This is by your own admission, now you are trying to use semantics to cover up this fact.

The problem here is you made an agreement to gain this information. Just because you claim you had good intents is meaningless. You aren't some how special and allowed to have your own set of rules because you think your intent was well meaning. You want to get rid of this flag? Pay the man for the accounts you destroyed, ask for forgiveness from the seller, and I will advocate for you as you have remedied the damage you have caused.

All your double talk right now is just making you look more like you are full of shit. You fucked up, next time don't make agreements you don't intend to uphold. The fidelity of the trust system is more important than your compulsion to abuse it to punish people trading in goods you do not approve of.

No. I didn't destroy or damage anything.

Just because other people don't want to buy this account anymore because i shared non-confidential information, this doesn't mean that i did any damage.

It is the right of everybody to know which account has a trustworthy owner who has put a lot of effort and time into his account, and which accounts are simply bought and basically completely untrustworthy.




So.. because THEY 'need' to keep it secret, I am no longer allowed to share that (non-confidential) information? Uhm.. no.. Definitely not.
I can share any non-private information as i wish. If someone is doing an extremely shady business which needs to have this information not shared at all.. that is completely their problem. I won't support a shady business.




Tell me three..




Account selling is fraud.

They are helping other people (the buyer) to deceive the whole forum to believe the person is 'trustworthy' and 'reputable'.




Unethically? Maybe.
Fraud? No.

Rescinding from a trade and sharing non-confidential information is not a fraud.
Even if that is the reason that other people won't buy those accounts anymore, this doesn't make it fraud or scam.



And everyone still seems to forget.
The flag is inappropriate.. simply because no violation of the contract lead to damage.
There wasn't even a violation at all. I did not get an account, so i don't have to pay for it. Simple as that.

Rescinding is not a violation. I never agreed to any terms which stated that rescinding is not applicable.

The accounts are not banned. Nothing happened to them. They are neither damaged nor stolen. I just shared non-confidential information.
Just because the majority of account-buyer don't want to buy them anymore.. this doesn't make me scammer.

I warned the whole forum about untrustworthy accounts. The fact that people don't want to buy them anymore just confirms that they mostly try to do shady stuff with them.
Except from that.. those accounts are still as before. No damage or anything.

This is kind of rough, innit?

A third-party user Bob must give tier-1 flags to shady user Craig lest they risk entering a contract with Craig to which any violation results in a tier-2 or tier-3 flag against Bob. It doesn't matter if Craig is a scumbag: Bob violated the contract.

On the other hand, this prevents abusive flags and negative ratings if we establish concrete regulations to fall under.

---

Two birds, one bush.

I do hate account sales, but TECSHARE has a point here.

Ask any moderator or Theymos here if they tolerate openly illegal activity. Its the rule that people with common sense know, because knowingly allowing illegal activity here is a liability for Theymos and the forum. They say scams are not moderated not because they would tolerate it if it were proven, but because they couldn't possibly prevent all of it, they don't care to be the arbiters of what is right and wrong in ambiguous scenarios, and as a result want the user base to know this and be on the defensive and do due diligence.

I literally never said hacked accounts are ok. Ever. "farmed" accounts is a totally ambiguous and arbitrary term defined by nothing, and even if you could define it, you still have no way of proving an account was "farmed" from the outside.




Once again, you are talking about criminal activity, making your comparison useless. Everyone knows spouting off cliche sayings is the highest form of truth possible. Can you imagine the hell that the USA would be in if that is the logic all of the police followed? Police are human beings. Wanna be internet police are human beings. Human beings are flawed and make mistakes and have biases, that is why systems of due process exist.

Oh now you care about heavy hands when you agree with some one's goals? The ends do not justify the means. That is the whole point. This is a precedent that will lead to even more abuse and should be checked. There is no danger of universal approval of account sales, and you know this. OH NOES! Some one might get paid for a signature they didn't "earn"! The sky is falling! I guess we should just round up anyone we suspect and just destroy all their property to make sure that never happens, if people who aren't doing that are wrapped up in that, oh well fuck them, I don't personally like account sales! Again, the ends do not justify the means. You people are just falling all over each other to ameliorate protections for individual rights just to get even with people you don't like or agree with. This is not a scenario where any one wins.