Topic: Is it allowed to buy an account? (Read 275 times)

Unfortunately, it is not explicitly prohibited (nor would that rule be easy to enforce), but it certainly seems to have a whole bunch of potential drawbacks:

- If found out, both the account seller and buyer may be red-tagged by DT. This will lead these accounts to be generally barred from participating in campaigns (but they may still post on the forum).

- You could be purchasing an account from a scammer, and eventually not receive the bought account.

- When you purchase an account, it comes with all it’s posting history. A change in the style/sections/language will give you away, and that will potentially lead to DTs red-tagging the account.

- The accounts posting history may be tarred. That is, it may have broken the rules at some point (i.e. plagiarism) and this could lead the account to be banned at any time in the future if and when rightfully reported. This can even happen years ahead.

- Bought accounts likely have very few earned merits on their own (if any, aside from airdropped merits). The best campaigns tend to look at your earned merits and set some sort of requirements on them in order to participate. The more extended the practice, the more you will need to be able to post your way in, not buy your way in.

- You will have not worked your way up, but rather purchased a seat at an event you know little about. That is pretty ugly when compared to the people who strive to rank-up, and sets the moral compass spinning like mad. Even if you are not eventually red-tagged by some DT, you may be closely watched from there on.

- Account buyers have in the past tried to perform scams, trying to gain a certain level of trust based on their (acquired) rank. By association, many people will consider account buyers potential scammers.

I would measure it in different approach. You can buy account here, no matter but for me, an account is the identity of the forum. I'm RapTarX for this forum and I don't want to change my identity or sell my identity. It should be done by everyone else too. Why do you need to buy account?
Moreover, it's not ethical practice. If you buy account, you are likely to be buying account from hackers. And hacked account buying/selling isn't allowed here.

@Oyaberu must have mistaken having negative trust as punishment for breaking the forum rules. I can't blame him/her though, I also had the same impression back in the day.

Bad idea, you should work your own account and rank it up.

Buying account now is discourage and you don't know the history of the account, what if it has a history of scams, that would affect your reputation.
One thing, there is a massive ban of accounts now due to plagiarism, you might be surprise your account is ban one day because you don't review its post history.

Let me guess, just so you can immediately join bounty campaigns?

Buying accounts to have easy high ranks is just next level laziness. If you're personally not capable of ranking up your account yourself in a legitimate manner, I suggest you go elsewhere to earn money.

It does not only relate to risks of getting scammed by scammers, and bad guys whom sell accounts ask buyers to go first. Most of time, they will steal buyers' money and disappear. Even account sellers actually give buyers accounts after receiving money, buyers have to face with risks of account locked due to security issues by forum (bots, maybe?). Even if they are luckily enough to survive through bot-checkings (not sure about the odds of bots failed with their checking procedures), they have to face with next issues, negative trust from DT members.

---

To sum up, newbies should not take risks and buy accounts.

Buying an account is not the panacea newbies envision it to be.  For the most part account sellers are themselves scammers, and you are more likely to get scammed by them than actually get the account you are promised.

Then there's the account itself.  If you actually find an account seller who delivers, you aren't likely to get an account that has much value.  Since the introduction of the merit system even an old legendary account isn't likely to have the respect that a self made Sr. Member is likely to gain.  Many of the farmed accounts were developed before the introduction of the merit system and a high ranking account without any earned merit doesn't add much to the usability of the account.

This also brings up the question of why one would want to buy an account, and why many DT members are distrustful of purchased accounts.  Presumably one buys an account to participate in signature campaigns for which he otherwise would not qualify.  This is basically cheating, it's like buying a college degree.  Many campaign managers operating the better signature campaigns are now requiring earned merit to participate.  Even a legendary account without any earned merit will be denied a spot on these coveted campaigns.

Other reasons one would want to buy an account are even more nefarious:  With the right account one could pretend to be a trusted member and perpetrate scams on unsuspecting members.  That's why many DT members will red-tag any account they suspect has been purchased.

It's best to build your account on your own.  Develop it to reflect your personality, and take pride in it as you rank up.  The community will notice, and you'll be rewarded with self gratification.  If you are able to monetize your account at some point, that's an added bonus, but don't let that be your motivation.

if you actually have read the rules, account sales are not against forum rules
red tag by DT member is some sort of community punishment,
to prevent them from joining (spamming) sig camp, scamming people and doing other malicious things

Not exactly for all cases. I read that some of DT members even support approach to tag bought accounts with neutral feedback, but as you said, most of DT members prefer to use Negative Feedback. It mainly because in the past, most of bought accounts used to start scam projects, or simply use personally to scam others. It is just a theory raised recently during the latest permanent ban and ban appeals, that at least one of mods is a bought account long time ago. Not sure, I just read it somewhere in Meta days ago. 
Sure, it is better.

Just like merit & trust farming, account farming is strongly discourage although not against the written rules of the forum but it's an offends in the unwritten rules of the trust system so if your intention for buying an account was to bypass the earning of merits and regular ranking up process, the forum has taken it upon itself to provide members with an alternative which involves buying a copper membership which gives you almost all privilege of a member ranked users. So instead of buying an account, go with the buying of copper membership then develop your account from their onwards.

Account sales is something which is old fashioned and something of the past but is currently frowned up on by the community. Any attempt to try selling or buying an account will get you labelled as someone untrustworthy when you get caught.

Also there are high chances of you getting scammed. Someone will sell you an account and then claim that it was hacked and will go ahead to get it blocked through account recoveries and you will loose everything including the money.
So just develop your account the normal way

It is totally against the forum rules, as the penalty is RED tag from DT members on the forum. Please, you just have to level up because with your first post; you can hurt your account.

Those who have really make a difference on the forum has nothing different from what you have, work hard to achieve the same result they have achieved. I was like you when i joined the forum, but never take it serious until last months and am doing greatly well as you can see, so, channel your energy into positivity.

Will advise you to read the forum rules and regulations before you fall victim. Good-luck mate.

Against the rules? No.

But buying/selling an account is considered untrustworthy by the community. If you get caught with a bought account, you will 100% get neg tagged for this.

Better to just rank up your own account.

I'm long time lurker and there seems to be differing opinions, is it ok to purchase a forum account and use it? If it's against the rules I will level up my own