Topic: How can we protect Newbies from getting scammed? (Read 1602 times)

I've never really agreed with or understood this line of reasoning. The mods delete links containing malware, yet that doesn't give me a sense of security that all links posted on the forum are malware-free.

When accounts have been caught engaging in scams on forum (loss of money through something flag-worthy), and definitive proof is available, that account should be banned.

And if in the off chance the account was innocent and a mistake was made, guess what? It can be un-banned.


In short, other than banning actual scammers I don't see many improvements that can be made to dissuade them or people from being scammed. A reversion back to the deep red -1 for trust from the low testosterone orange it currently is would be nice.

My point was mods get an obvious "pin request" that shoulda been pinned as its extremely pertinent to current operations, Yet its ignored. Acknowledging the request would be a start, or telling us why it wouldn't be pinned is a good start. All 3 mods have seen the pile of shit but instead of cleaning it up they just walked around it so it gets stuck on the next guys shoe. They dont have to delete post or anything they think is a scam but ignore that kind of pin request is blatant negligence a "dilligaf" situation.

Yeah! A mean, how could mods be so certain of what project is a scam and which is not! There is only so much as the forum could do. The forum has done well to input a trust system and even the red flags on suspicious projects for obvious reasons of a scam possibility. What else do users need...?

When I saw this thread, I was eager to see the impossible reasons as to how scamming can be halt and I wasn't disappointed to have seen non because, it isn't possible.
Just as LoyceV stated  having mods decide would create a sense of fake security as people will be more open than ever and scammers would be sure to make use of this unalertness.

Its very unfortunate but, scamming is part of the system.

I doubt that would happen. The forum's mission is to be "as free as possible", and scamming is allowed. Part of it is because Mods don't want to decide what is or what isn't a scam (apart from the obvious cases there are many gray areas), and part of it is because having Mods delete scams will create a fake sense of security (Mods can't stop all scams).
So, unfortunately, we'll be stuck with scams.

A good proactive approach would be better moderation.(seems these guys hearts aren't with it anymore) It has nothing to do with censorship either, (if you post a project relevant to a mods project it will magically vanish) They delete real sweat equity, while leaving lazy scammer plot shit up.

 We rarely ever hear from the mods or admin, right now there's a pin request going around for marketplace (hardware/collectible/digitalgoods) the request is being ignored and unpinned even though its pretty pertinent information that could save a lot of users a headache.
my 2 sats fwiw.

This thread is very useful for anyone, especially for newbie. But I firmly believe that there are quite a number of newbie who are not good reader at first. Often find they have failed to do so and are too rushed to post something that confuses them. At least I can still find them saying "I'm new here, what should I do".

At the moment, any dozen post of warning about safety and forum rule constantly flood into contributors' post, but it get out of control when newbie don't want to read them and they get scam in the end. It's an experience that can teach and compel them to read a lot of thread of guide, information, and security.

Writing a welcome message

It takes newbies quite a while before they make posts in Bitcoin Technical Support or other technical boards, their first board of contact is usually the Beginners and help section, thus that warning in the more technical boards may actually not be productive as you hope it will; I know the technical boards is more suitable for posts/inquiries on wallets, recovery, seeds etc and if there should be any warning of any sort it should be there, but newbies make such inquiries in other/any boards and they'll definitely miss the warning.

Having said that, it's going to be a hassle implementing this, especially if it's going to be in all sections of the forum to be certain it'll not be missed, but there are things that people should not be told, when transacting with traditional currencies they are already aware that there are informations about your bank/debit card that should not be revealed, thus why not the same with Bitcoin, I'm not saying people should not be forewarned, but it's absolutely impossible to protect everyone and hassle-filled to protect a fairly large number of people, as they join the network they should firstly learn the inherent security protocols themselves, and ask general/open questions on informations and situations that are somewhat nebulous to them, not sending a single user a PM on the issue.

I don’t believe this has been brought up in Meta at all yet, and is vital for all especially noobs to be aware of - https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/urgent-beware-sophisticated-telegram-scammers-5322537
(Edit - sorry Loyce if I’m a bit off topic here..felt it kinda fit in to the theme)

@hilarious - maybe this is a 📌 candidate?

Here's a recent scam post.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.56538232
But just take a look at the writing style of this post. The person is talking about the very high traffic that goes to this site. After checking, I did not find anything similar. What can this talk about? I’m probably very suspicious, but it seems to me that someone will believe in the words about high attendance. Such sites should be closed immediately.
This all adds up to the fact that we cannot protect all newcomers. Until people themselves strongly trust everything that is written on the Internet and do not do their own analyses, deceptions will exist.

Bumping this one because it's still an issue. I try to send PMs with warnings to those who I see post questions about recovery, but that's not an efficient way.
I suggest to every newbie who post a new thread in the Bitcoin Technical Support or the Wallet Software and Child Boards to get a warning to not disclose their pr.keys seeds, wallet files and avoid contacts in PMs just the way we get the warning for replying on old topic below.

I think something needs to be done, even if it is in some ways too radical for new users. This is not some usual forum where people discuss about climate change or growing fruits and vegetables, but about cryptocurrency which has become almost a perfect way for fraud.

New users are the most vulnerable group, and I think they should be protected from themselves in a way that prevents them from sending and receiving private messages until they understand how things work. Some of them will probably post some other info for contact in post, but not all of them will do that, and other members can warn them to remove that info.

If nothing changes, things like this will continue to happen - one of the more recent examples : Flag - dj6230

Whenever I see a shady thread, I put a warning comment and report the thread. Almost always, thread gets deleted in few hours. That's prevention I guess?

When you go to log in the box that says 60 is the minutes to stay logged in setting. You just need to adjust it to a number greater than you plan to be online, so I tend to use something above 600 so that I don't need to log in as often. So if you log out now, you will be able to change it.

Yes I know about the bypass code but I haven't used it yet though.

I was not aware that this could be adjusted. Just took a look at settings and couldn't find where to change this log-out option.
How exactly did you change it?

You know you can just adjust it to whatever. I often set mine to 720 minutes to cover my full shift. This way you can still log out whenever you feel like you just don't hit that annoying part when you go to post and have to log in because it's been 60 minutes.
I use different devices often, sometimes I feel like an addict looking for a quick read in topics I've posted in. To the point where while I have a tab of the forum open I've grabbed my phone, logged in and checked new replies lol. Usually that's pretty late into a night shift, but it has happened .

You're going to love this: Captcha bypass code

Probably a bunch of different IPs and countries in the log. I doubt that it shows any info if you are using a TOR/VPN connection.

I don't use the option to stayed logged in. I always log out when I am done posting on Bitcointalk. There is also an automatic log-out every 60 minutes. Although it is sometimes a pain in the ass logging back in due to the different captcha puzzles I still fell a bit safer knowing that I am not logged in after I am done with my session.   

All accounts that have ticked the 'stay logged in' button will be logged-in until one of the sessions decides to click the "log out" button, to which all active sessions are logged out.

I'm using one account on few devices simultaneously (from time to time). I've been posting from 2 devices one after another and I never get logged out. Never expected log out except when I changed my password. I'm using VPN, tor, etc so my ips are quote random.
Hope this is useful info.