Topic: Lenders fighting SCAM together (Read 4212 times)

Indeed, i didn't even think about (2). This is a real issue here  

The reason i'm bringing up this topic, is because it happened to me before. Somebody took a loan and gave his account as collateral. Upon inspection, it looked clean. I locked the account and gave him a small loan.
After a couple of weeks, i found out the borrower actually took out 2 non-collateral loans over PM using the account he gave to me as collateral. I had to contact both other lenders and ask them to please not -ve the account since it would render my collateral useless... Luckily, those were good guys that understood my problem, but if they had posted the account as a loan defaulter, it might have been -ve'd.
Even worse: somebody in DT could potentially have -ve'd the account AFTER i sold the collateral (if i didn't find out he had used it to take out other loans)... My good reputation would have been shattered if i sold an account that was later -ve'd...

ah I see. but leaving a neutral saying that the account is being used as collateral will not prevent anyone from leaving negative feedback. also leaving feedback to the account collateral will cause problems because (1) the neutral need to have a referenced link in order to prevent people from leaving a fake feedback on their own alt. this will lead to (2) privacy issues, the referenced link will contain a post of the borrower's other account.

Well then I think that both accounts should be tagged with neutral trust in this instance and whoever has claimed ownership over the account publicly would assume responsibility for the actions. It wouldn't seem right, should a lender maliciously use a borrower's account that the borrower be punished, does it? So if the ownership is publicly accountable and verifiable this may aid to combat this scenario.

I give out micro-loans most of the time, and working without escrow happens all the time. I always suggest the lendee picks an escrow to hold his account (or the account he's offering as collateral), but usually they don't want to go trough the hassle, the fees, the tipping,... And they end up sending me the account details.
I'd rather change this to, but for small loans (0.01-0.05) it's actually hard to use an escrow and still make a profit.

The collateral is not so valuable either way... For a micro loan, i usually get member or full member accounts with low potential activity... They're worth less than some of the fee's a professional escrow is charging 

My assumption is that the account is held in a trusted, preferably staff escrow. If the borrower hands the accounts over directly to the lender then I agree it should be tagged as well. I would never suggest this, but if that's how people want to handle business then that is their own business.

No, defenately not... I mean he could use the account to do "bad" things just before it's in the escrow's possession... That way, it might still look clean when the escrow locks the account, but it might be -ve'd while it's locked... Unless the escrow leaves a neutral comment that this account is taken as collateral, and asks the DT member giving out -ve to contact the escrow before giving -ve to the collateral...

I think there will be no harm if both forum account will be tagged, one will be tagged for asking for loan and the other account will be tagged as used as collateral for a loan reference link will be same.

I don't understand this. are you saying that the borrower might use the account collateral while it's still on the escrow's possession? that shouldn't be possible because the escrow will change the password.

Isn't this dangerous? If you only tag the account that applies for the loan, and not the account in escrow, you are running the risk that the lendee used the account currently in escrow to do some nasty stuff a couple of days before handing it over (take non-collateral loans which haven't been payed back, scamming, trolling,...). In this case, the account might seem clean when you take it as collateral, but somebody on DT -ve's it after it has been locked down for a couple of days...


It has been mentioned before, and is one of the choices in the poll Don't hesistate to cast your vote if this option is your favorite

You would tag whichever account applied for the loan and leave a neutral reputation on the applying account stating the account you are holding for collateral, as the collateral account wouldn't be necessary to tag because it's under an escrow's possession. (The applicant can optionally choose to neutral their own account stating that it's under escrow)

What about those asking for a loan using a different account to post and request like a Newbie or Jr Member then collateral that will be used is a Full Member or a Senior Member, which one do you tag? Both forum accounts?

Has anyone considered or researched the idea of a Reddit style loan bot?

No, the system is just a demo... it uses demo data... Meaning that lenders cannot use it to lookup information as long as it's filled with demo data

If the community votes to use my system, i'll implement all features, erase all demo data, and everybody can start filling the database with their actual loans.

what do you mean demo loans ..?I can  loan some amount ...
however ,message me how much you want ....if I can.

so wee would need multiple ppl with write permission, to much hassle in case somoe wipes it all out

Well, it's just a demo... A lot of features need to be added to make it more user-friendly.... I just wanted to show the community the basic solution i had in my head.
Anyways, thanks for the heads-up

I was hoping to see a google spreadsheet like the ones used by the signature campaign managers of instead of the site altcoinhosting site, but site looks good and might help those who plans to lend coins in the future

The poll is open!!! https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/poll-lenders-fighting-scammers-together-1203414

You're right... It's hard work
BUT, i really hate people that scam, and since i think of this as a one-time job (finding a community concensus, and maybe build a ledger), i'm willing to do it

BTW: i added the possibility to add loans to the ledger!!!
The database will be truncated (swiped) after the demo-phase, so you can add some demo-loans if you wish!

its a lot hardwork from you..i mean just for micro loans though, it can be stopped if taken care at that moment itself.
however keep up the good work.

Indeed, it's in development I'm looking for a lot of community support before i invest a lot more time (it would be a waste if i spend hours developing, but the community choses a different path)

I can add a couple demo-loans for you directly in the database if you'd like to see something in your dashboard, or i could add the basic submit-form..
I'm still not completely convinced i'll provide delete and edit-functionality... Maybe just an add-form, and a button to indicate the loan has been repayed/defaulted... Just to make it a static ledger...

Not sure if this is already reported:

- search does not work
- fetching my data works
- lenders dashboard is blank after login, but i think that current status of development.

tdlr: i want to play with it

If the thread becomes too much of a hassle, or if my availability suddenly shrinks then hopefully one of the alternative solutions have progressed to a significant degree! I don't mind doing the work for now, it's always nice to have something to do when you're bored and I'll start to make an "Update schedule" so that it'll be updated maybe once at 11AM and again at 11PM or something similar to that.

The only thing that worries me about your thread is the sheer amount of work you'll have to put into it to keep it active... As long as you're willing to do that, it might be one of the best sollutions...
I'm just worried one day you won't have time anymore to update the thread
Well... I think i'll open a poll at the end of today's workday, and i'll just follow the majority of the voters... wether it's my system, or any other system that was proposed, i'll go for it. In the end, the scamming has to stop, that's the most important thing 

Thanks for the acknowledgement of my idear and I hope that we can get a working system implemented that'll make this a whole lot easier ASAP because currently it's a lot of investigative work prior to throwing anybody a loan from the lender's point of view. My thread isn't much right now, but I'm sure as more and more lenders throw in their active loans and keep it up to date it'll be a valuable resource to check at the very least prior to lending.

Hi Guys, i tried to respond to most of the questions raised during my offline time 


I can look into getting google 2fa to, it's not a real technical issue 


I can add a mandatory field: loan thread when assigning a password to your uid... That way, it would be easy to moderate. In case of abuse: check if the loanthread is indeed opened by the person who's uid is intered...


I like your idear, i'll add it to the op, and to the poll i'll open today or tomorrow. Thanks!


True... That's indeed a big downside. I could give access to a databasedump to a couple trusted members, in case i'm corrupted, they can restore the database and take me out of the picture. Would that help?

i agree, but more likely lead to admin abuse.

I'll maintain a thread until this occurs, and hopefully it'll be helpful to some degree in the meantime. Any interested lenders can contact me via pm, or post on the thread and I'll add all their active loans.

Agree. But but it will be much more diligent for be on a DB with search instead of searching a thread with zillion messages. And it will take equal time for the lender to put in on DB instead of thread. Then will be quicker to mark it as paid on DB instead of thread. My thoughts are about simplicity and time consumption.

I would do it for the sake of saving everyone headaches.
Honestly I don't see it as much of a hassle if everyone posts the loan on the thread and OP adds it to his log, when the loan is concluded the lender contacts OP to have the loan updated.
Wouldn't be hard, and honestly shouldn't need incentive if it's saving BTC from the wrong hands.


Let's not waste any time : https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/lenders-log-check-here-prior-to-loaning-1203224

It's a nice idea, but what incentive would OP have to do it?
What compensation will have for his time? For example most of the loans are in 0.001-0.01 range. And if you need to pay "attention fee", the fee will eat of of your profit.

I think it could be as simple as one person starting a thread of "Current Loans" and whatever lender wants to participate can place their public loans in this thread.
Would be as simple as clicking that thread and Ctrl + F the user's Name/UID.

OP would handled keeping things updated, and any new loans would just be posted into the thread so OP can organize.
OP acting as a book-keeper for loans, probably would even get stickied.

Look nice!

Now the big question is - How/who will determinate whom should have access to post/modify in it?

My suggestion is users with lenders threads.

i dont know if you can go with google auth but thats very common, at least for me. email would also be okay, imho. i am fine with all the data around

2fa will go on my todo list (css is already on there)

What kind of 2fa were you thinking about?
I could send a mail, but in that case the lender should enter his email (making the system less anonymous). Maybe user/pass, and afterwards sign a new login message with the bitcoinaddress in the profile each login?

maybe i should remove the delete-button, so no data will ever be deleted?

looks good so far. yeah css would be nice. also data of defaulted loans should not be deleted. 2fa would be cool.

I'm developing a small, functioning but limited demo as we speak...

http://www.altcoinhosting.com/ledger/

It looks terrible, and not all functions are already implemented, but it should give a basic idear about my proposal...

Don't worry if you get errors or timeouts, i'm developing it as we speak (i guess i'll finish the demo tomorrow afternoon when i have some more time)

At the moment, no loans can be inserted, edited or deleted... This means you CAN generate a password for yourself, but you cannot add anything, so you'll basically see an empty table when you login with your own uid. I manually added some of my open loans directly into the database, you're free to look at the lenders demo dashboard using my uid (513122) and the password 'test' (no quotes).
I filled in most of the fields when adding my own loans, but only lender and lendee are actually required

Last point of order: it's demo software... The security isn't good yet, please do not enter your personal passwords (they are hashed, but during the session they are stored unencrypted).
Also, i don't do a lot of input verification yet...  

My Todo list to transform this demo into functioning software (most of this will only happen if we vote on this subject, and the majority of the lenders choses to use this tool)

• Add some .css to make this look nice
• Beef up the security (input validation, only cache encrypted passwords
• Sort-functionality on the public page
• when adding a password to your uid, giving the possibility to add standard values for your uid to the database(like loanthread)
• in the dashboard, add the functionality to remove, add and delete loans
• in the dashboard, add sorting and searching functionality
• in the dashboard, add a nice overview (invested amount, open loans, defaulted loans,...)
• pagination
• a basic public and private API

For me simple things are best.

Inactivity is a problem with all of the ideas - e.g. trust should be removed, record from DB should be removed - in all cases lender should confirm he got his money back.

But simple public interface where to check by username (user id) is best.

Because extension is harder for development and require all of lenders to use same browser?! I may like chrome, firefox or even new IE.

yupp ofc, but still you have to check all the places. thats what most ppl do but some users manage to slip thru

Good point, i'm adding this to my overview... I still like your  idear, and think it's a good candidate for a community sollution

hrrmmm... I might have found something that will make my own idea have bad consequences in the long run.

basically, my idea requires the lender to remove their feedback once the loan has been repaid. but I forgot to take inactivity into account (a lender might suddenly go silent and never remove their feedback)

for some reason I didn't think of this until now. 

---

but this can be neutralized to some degree by providing a reference link on all of your feedback so that lenders can check the latest "loan" feedback reference to see if the loan has been repaid or not. in this case, lenders may leave those feedbacks as they are rather than removing it after the loan has been repaid.

Actually, guys, I like most of the idears that were outed in this thread:

• my own idear, of making a central ledger
• UserVVIP's idear of making a browser extension (altough, that might be combinable with some of the other idears)
• MrPeoples' idear of a loan bot
• monbux' idear to enforce all bigger lenders to maintain their thread
• --Encrypted--'s idear to leave a neutral comment for everybody taking a loan
• Sir_lagsalot's idear for a lending subforum
• TheGr33k's idear of a loanthread: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/lenders-log-check-here-prior-to-loaning-1203224

How about this idear: We discuss these possiblity's (other one's might be added to), and afterwards open a poll? Offcourse we can only do this if all lenders stick together, and more or less follow the outcome of said poll

Here are my idears about the suggested sollutions, i'll add all extra comments from replys i agree with:

my own idear, of making a central ledger
pro's:

• system with all loans in one place
• I can make an API so the tool can be incorporated into other projects
• Can be expanded in the future, for example: lenders could have a little dashboard displaying their open loans, with a payment calendar or something (just thinking out loud)
• I have both the hosting and the knowledge to write this for free

cons:

• It's a tool that's not hosted on bitcointalk.org
• it's centralised
• it's extra administration
• it doesn't scrape the forum, so it has to be manually maintained (Vod's comment)

UserVVIP's idear of making a browser extension
pros:

• you can add loans and lookup loans from your browser!
• it can be combined with a couple other idears

cons:

• i more or less think it HAS to be combined with another idear (the extension would need a database afterall)

MrPeoples' idear of a loan bot
This is one where i need some help: i don't know reddit's loanbot... The only obvious con, is that it'll cost some community bucks. So we would need a fundraiser..

monbux' idear to enforce all bigger lenders to maintain their thread
pros:

• it would take no extra effort, everybody already has a loanthread
• it's the easyest sollution, it keeps everything on bitcointalk.org

cons:

• you would still need to search before finding out if somebody already has an open loan or not

--Encrypted--'s idear to leave a neutral comment for everybody taking a loan
pros:

• Simple and elegant solution, i think this will actually work
• it keeps everything on bitcointalk.org

cons:

• using the unmoderated trust feedback. In case a lender falls off the grid, the feedback sticks to the lendee's profile (comment by --Encrypted--)

Sir_lagsalot's idear for a lending subforum
I think we already have one . Opening a new subforum might work for a while, but i think in a matter of weeks/months it would be exactly the same situation it is today?

TheGr33k's idear of a loanthread
pros:

• Simple
• it keeps everything on bitcointalk.org

cons:

• you still have to browse the whole thread
• it takes an equal amount of time to enter the info in the thread as it takes to enter the info in a custom tool

You could make some sort of lending forum, and a special extension that actually works, unlike some extensions

might as well leave this here. combine this with monbux's proposal (for reference) and boom.

A much easier way to fight this:

Get all lenders (the main ones at least) to REQUIRE the borrower to post his/her loan request publicly on their loaning thread, as well as try and update their current loans section.

I am a new lender on this forum, and though my loans are small I am in support of this! I would participate to the fullest.

Got a demo ready? XD

We need a loan bot like on /Borrow on Reddit.

It works perfectly.

I could develop something similar if anyone wishes to fund it.

Most of the fields are optional, you can check the column 'NULL', if it has a value 'NO' null values are not allowed, if it has a value 'YES', it's optional

So, basically, only the lender and lendee are mandatory, the rest is optional... It is however still a usefull to know tx's, values, signatures, just in case a lendee claims he didn't take a loan (or at least, that's my idear behind it). If there is a concensus to add/remove fields, i'm certainly open to discussion.

I think even this is much more than required.
Or at least make more of the fields optional.

For example I may want to not disclose tx info or exactly what is the collateral.

And public info is good also be simple - lender, lendee, amount, till date.

I would keep the database really simple, something like this:

http://www.altcoinhosting.com/ledger/schema.html

Any comments are welcomed!

Thanks, you more or less describe what i was planning to do 


Thanks for the support!

If i get some of the big lenders on board, i'll start making a demo, and post it here for feedback...

I'm not a lender, but I'm planning to become

Here is how it could be realized:

1. All users with lending thread get writing access
2. Could write just basic stuff - bitcointalk username and amount // marking as paid of defaulted on action
3. Front user interface (even public one) where you could just enter any nick and check is there an outstanding loans or not.

It would be helpful not only to lenders, but all account traders and anyone who want to make a deal with the user.

i like the basic idea and i would supprt it!

You are completely right... A browser extension would make the job even easyer... To be honest, i wouldn't know how to make such an extension tough...

I could generate an online ledger with API, and let the community generate smartphone-apps, plugins and extensions as they please...

This seems like something that can be useful.

I would rather recommend a chrome extension instead.

I have an active loan thread, and recently somebody succeeded in actually scamming me (i'm not going to go into details, since i've actually made arrangements with another member in order to minimize the financial loss i had, and i haven't discussed with this member wether or not i can link his name to this thread).

Apparently, some lendee's abuse the fact that they're free to take several loans at the same time using PM's (so there's no trace), offering insufficient or no collateral, and run with the loaned coins. The lenders stay behind, and can only -ve the account (in case it wasn't used as collateral)... In the end, there's not a lot you can do...

Now, if a user was restricted to taking 1 loan at a time, the problem would be a lot less severe (in my opinion)... once you've granted a loan, you can either sell the collateral, or -ve the main account in case of default, without having to consider other open loans that might influence the net worth of the collateral, or the reputation of the lendee, since you are in fact his only creditor...

I'm proposing the following, and would like to find out if there's some intrest in this project:
I can write a public, anonymous, open ledger of open loans. If enough lenders put all their open loans in the ledger, it would become harder for a scammer to ask for 2 loans at the same time (even in PM). As a lender, you would just check the BCT-username (or uid) of the person asking for a loan in the ledger... If he has an open loan, you can still grant him a new loan at your own discretion, but then at least you know that the lendee is already paying off a previous debt.
I would make the ledger anonymous, and moderated. This means that a lender could enter his loanthread, signed messages and tx id's IF he wanted to. If he didn't enter this information, a lendee could ask for the information to be removed due to lack of proof. The only required input would be: the lenders name, the lendee's name. Optional input would be the thread, messages, tx id's, default date,... . I wouldn't add the intrestrate, payback plans,... since i don't want the ledger to be an easy place where a lendee can compare intrestrates, and shop around for his/her loan.
I would keep the ledger free, without forced donation or something, maybe even open source,... There wouldn't be any private data in the ledger anyways, so security shouldn't be an issue. Since i pay for a dedicated box and domainnames anyways, i could just host the ledger script on my server...

Once again, i'm just finding out if there is public intrest in such a project... So please leave me your remarks!
If you're not interested in this project, but you have another idear to fight scammers together, don't hesistate to elaborate!

PS: Please, do not reply to this thread if you're not a lender on this forum. I would like to keep this topic clean