I would argue Vod leaving negative ratings for MSDN key sellers will have the opposite effect. Potential MSDN key sellers know that all MSDN key sellers will have negative trust so they do not bother checking their trust profile and ignore their trust score. This has allowed multiple people to continue to scam even after having negative trust by selling MSDN keys that do not exist. There have been a number of scam accusations opened against people who received payment for MSDN keys and sent nothing in return and who previously had multiple trust reports saying they had scammed previously at the time payment was received. Normally, when someone starts a business they will initially have difficulty conducting business because they have no reputation, however as they have been in business longer, they will build up a reputation of trading honestly and if they want to maintain that reputation then they will need to not (try to) scam the people they do business with, however when everyone has negative trust ratings this is not possible.
So the solution is to just accept the fact that illegal goods are traded here and be done with it? I know I argued that MS keys are legal to sell in some circumstances/juristictions and that the seller should not be flagged without a closer look. In the end though, even the "legit" (following your definition of "not scamming a user here") ones are breaking the law (at least in some countries). Same goes for gift cards[1]:
Your Amazon.com Balance cannot be used to purchase other gift cards. Gift Cards cannot be reloaded, resold...
[1]
https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html%3FnodeId=3122091There are no laws (afaik) against (re)selling MSDN keys, nor gift cards. It is my understanding this is the case in the US and most of the "1st world" countries. The sale of gift cards and/or MSDN keys is against the TOS of various companies (eg of MSFT and of the issuers of the gift cards), and the forum does not view TOS as something that is enforceable as per the liberation views of theymos.
The violation of TOS is a civil issue and would likely be litigated as a "breach of contract". There are some situations in which the courts will not enforce a TOS (or a contract) for a variety of reasons, including, but not limited to, it is impossible to comply with the terms of the TOS, the TOS are too vague, the TOS conflicts with (most often) state law (could be federal and/or local law as well), the TOS attempts to compel a party to do something illegal, enforcing the TOS would be against public policy. (note: this also applies to contracts as well).
I believe that some state legislatures have passed legislation regarding gift cards, which may or may not include giving consumers the right to resell gift cards, and if this is the case then the section of the TOS that prohibits the resale of the gift card would be null and void (or the entire TOS if it does not have a clause that keeps the rest of the TOS in force if certain section(s) are found to be unenforceable).
There is also the point that MSFT (in the case of MSDN keys) and the issuers of the gift cards (in the case of gift cards) are the only ones who have standing to bring any kind of suit against people violating the TOS they entered into. It is very well possible that these entities would decide to ignore a TOS violation due to the cost of litigation is greater then what they can expect to recover, because brining this kind of litigation would create a negative public image or another reason. This point does not apply to sellers of stolen/carded gift cards because this practice hurts the community (and society) as a while.
The question is how liberal this forum wants to be and there are different views.
In many countries, terms of service are not legally binding. Traders can figure out their own legal risks. The forum will not enforce terms of service.
See the above quote from theymos, the forum will not enforce terms of service
What I find troubling is the "abuse!" crys and the attacks against those newly added to DT.
I think this is off topic here, however some could argue that they are leaving negative trust for things that do not actually include things that would truly make someone a scammer, and some may think that if you were to get on their bad side then these new people in the DT network will look at your business dealings and will say that some part of your dealings does not
fully comply with the law, is somehow wrong even though there was no claim of money being stolen, or some other made up reason to leave negative trust. One of the most ridiculous reasons I have seen them leave negative trust is because someone "tried to cheat a twitter campaign".
I would say a possible way to prevent money laundering via Gift Cards on this forum would be to apply (and enforce)
this rule to sellers of gift cards.
If prior reputation is required before someone can start selling Gift Cards then gift card sellers will have an incentive to not sell laundered/stolen gift cards because doing so would damage their reputation.
This may be a good solution and it might be the first compromise I have read in this regard. With account trades it would at the very least give gift card sellers the incentive to work honestly until they have paid off the account needed to conduct the sales in the first place. Its one rule that is rarely enforced by staff though and just because of that its probably not a solution at all. It would require staff to interfere with trades.
It would not solve the problem, but it would put a large dent into the problem, maybe a large enough of a dent that the rest of the problem can work itself out. The rule should not be that people cannot sell gift cards without reputation, it should be that people cannot create threads advertising the sale of gift cards without reputation. I would say this rule would be less about interfering with trades, and more with enforcing what kinds of threads are allowed. The staff (under this rule) would trashcan a thread by a user with no reputation that is attempting to sell gift cards the same way they would trashcan a thread that is trying to sell cocaine.
Your critique seems to be the lack of evidence. Why is it a problem here, but not when ponzis are tagged? There is lack of evidence as well. Why are the two a problem, but I am not?
A ponzi is essentially a promise which is mathematically impossible to be kept. A ponzi is essentially a promise that if you give me $1 today, then I will give you $2 tomorrow with no limits as to how much total money I will accept. If I claim to somehow use this $1 and "invest" it for a day that somehow gives me >$1 in returns in that one day, then it is your responsibility to ask questions to debunk my claims if you wish to leave me a negative rating. Take these two threads for example (
one,
two), they were claiming to "invest" in altcoins/ect. so they were initially given the benefit of the doubt, however after questions were asked and research was done, it was determined they were in fact lying about not being a ponzi and were left negative trust.
Another good example is
this in which the OP of this thread was offering ponzi-like returns, however was claiming that he was "investing" money sent to him by "investors" and when he was questioned about how he makes the money that he uses to pay the returns, he provided
evidence (not proof) of legitimacy, and without significant evidence that would prove otherwise a negative rating is inappropriate in this case.
I didnt know about "Delta Investment", they have a negative rating though.
The negative rating that Delta has been given has been criticized by a number of at least semi-reputable people. Also the person who left then a negative rating is not a reasonable person, nor does he know how to use logic. I believe my point remains.
