Topic: Stopping gift card money laundering - page 6. (Read 6025 times)

In the very unlikely case you're right then he'll just have to explain it to a trusted user as stated.

Yes, unfortunately nobody is 100% trusted. But whom do you trust more: anonymous22 or the best-rated users on this forum?
It's definitely healthier for the forum that he trusts one of the most trusted users here than we all trust anonymous22, don't you think?

For you "trust abuse" means "trying to stop the selling of illegal items", right?
I really don't think the fact they agree selling illegal goods is wrong is interesting or strange.

---

TBH I didn't know about that, thanks. I agree that's an extra reason to believe it's extremely probable their cards are not legal.

Yes I honestly think he earns these giftcards and sells them at a loss, if he has no use for these cards then he must get the cards exchanged for something that is actually of use to him (ex. bitcoin)

The point is, some people ( some from third world countries) use legal methods to get these giftcards and then sell them at less than face value as 80% in bitcoin is better than 100% giftcard that you cant use,

---

Also, if i were using a method to get these cards, i wouldnt tell anyone, if you have been on the forum for the last year or so, you would see that no-one here is trusted

---

Also I find the coordinated trust abuse from you and your friends interesting 

anonymous22 has a shady past. He was reselling bad cards and made a fuss over refunding. Negative feedback was removed as he paid back. I'm 99% sure his cards are fraudulently obtained and he will troll you with the I didn't nothing wrong as I'm just reselling excuse.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/you-have-3-daysi-bought-200-of-gift-cards-from-anonymous22-now-both-are-at-0-729896

I generally agree with you Quickseller. Of course this is not exact science, but the "benefit of the doubt" has exonerated too many untrustworthy users here.

None of these examples covers having a seemingly unlimited supply of several kind of cards. As I said on OP that's a big red flag. anonymous22 is selling 14 kinds of cards and offers to get a lot of others too. It's very hard to believe they are obtained by legal means.

I've applied my best judgement here and of course I could be wrong. Fortunately removing a feedback is even easier than adding it. I've asked him to prove the origin of their cards to any very trusted user asking him not to disclose the method itself. I added the negative trust only after he refused. However the offer is still opened and I'll remove the feedback as soon as a very trusted member confirms the method is legal.

We disagree on this point but I recognize I can't be 100% sure. But he, you and everyone else must recognize how easy it would be for him to prove he's not doing anything wrong, right?

A couple things that you should keep in mind when deciding if someone is actually laundering money (or being an accomplice thereof) via gift cards:

*Gift cards are not as fungible as cash is. With an Amazon gift card, I can only buy something that is sold by Amazon, and I have to pay shipping if my order is not large enough and/or if I don't have prime. With cash on the other hand, I can buy anything from anywhere provided that I have enough money
*Because of the above fact anyone considering to buy a gift card is going to want to pay less then the face value for gift cards. The value that buyers are willing to pay is going to depend on the reputation of the seller as well as the store the gift card is for. A $100 gift card to Amazon is probably going to sell for more then a $100 gift card to Home Depot because there is a much wider variety of products that can be purchased with the Amazon gift card then the Home Depot GC.
*I believe there to be a number of websites that facilitate the trade of various gift cards that "guarantee" each trade and have certain safeguards in place to prevent sellers from selling stolen gift cards and/or gift cards purchased with stolen  credit cards and/or other forms of fraud
*There are a number of examples of when I may have a gift card that I am willing to sell a gift card for less then face value that does not involve any kind of fraud/money laundering:

• I received a $50 Amazon Gift card from my Aunt/Uncle/ect. for Christmas/my Birthday/ect.
• I just purchased $x thousand dollars worth of appliances/supplies from Home Depot for a new patio and was given a $500 Home Depot gift card to entice me to come back for my next project
• As an incentive for me renewing my contract with AT&T, I was given a $100 gift card to Target
• I participated in a promotion at Walmart in which I receive a $25 Gift card after spending $x dollars in one trip
• ect.

In addition to the above, I may have purchased a gift card at a discount from a site that offers buyer protections/guarantees against gift cards that are purchased with stolen Credit Cards (and other fraud) and I am attempting to flip them for a profit.

When leaving negative trust for someone who is potentially laundering money via stolen Gift Cards, good judgment should be used. If I just had a birthday then I might have $200-$300 worth of gift cards for sale in varying amounts. I also might be purchasing gift cards on an above mentioned site attempting to flip/resell gift cards that I have good reason to believe are not purchased with stolen funds (note: this is very different then outright not knowing where the gift cards came from and/or saying "I don't know" if stolen credit cards(/ect) were used to purchase the gift cards).

It is also possible that, even though I know that a gift card was purchased with legit funds that I want to limit the amount of time that I am liable in the off-chance that something does go wrong with the gift card. From what I have seen, many sellers call this the "warranty period". A gift card with a 3 day warranty is obviously purchased with stolen funds, the same is true for a one week warranty or a 10 day warranty. A warranty closer to a month would have a better indication that the GC are not stolen/laundered, and a warranty that can be measured in multiple months (and is being sold by someone with a strong trading reputation) would make me more certain that stolen funds are not being used to purchase the gift cards. The actual threshold of when a GC is laundered or not is going to be a judgment call.

Regardless of the above, more or less anyone selling Starbucks Gift Cards is laundering money, period.

I am not able to vouch for any Gift Card sellers, however I don't think that anonymous22 is laundering money via Gift Cards.

kashish948 on the other hand has long been on my radar, and TC even left him a negative several months ago, although it was mostly based on speculation and was removed after a week or so.

He would have just said so when asked. That's clearly not the case. Do you honestly think he buys/gets cards and sells them at a loss instead of avoid getting them in the first place? Granted everything at all is possible but extremely unlikely!

In any case as I said before it's not like I'm assuming guilty until proven otherwise nor am I asking others to do so. I'm targeting only those who seem extremely suspicious. And it'd be easy for them to explain how they're getting the codes. They can explain it to an escrow or other very trusted member and be clean.

But of course most users won't be able to explain it clearly.

---

I left feedback on your profile not because you tried to deal with paypal. You being in Brazil has nothing to do with anything. I did it because you tried to buy trust ("Want to buy Bitcoin with PayPal and earn positive trust")  and it was just neutral!
Several times people get negative trust for trust farming.

The only argument is always: other do it or have it done before. Whyyyy not them???

Well its a start. Feel free to call out those user who are doing shady stuff in your opinion.

Excellent point (pun intended)

I was in Brazil where there were no Canadian banks. Only way to convert Paypal to Bitcoin was through this forum, and EucaMobi left negative feedback. Guilty before proven innocent, is how OP sees things.

I've seen your trust rating left on this user, to me, your actions are ridiculous, I've seen people give 20% discounts on things before without you or anyone else taking any action, but, if it is giftcards, you suspect it is fraud?
You literally have no evidence against these people
I'm sorry that people from third world countries work hard to gain these giftcards then sell them at a discount to turn their money quickly
I also see other people following you, giving negs without any evidence whatsoever

But hey, if you think what you think should alter everyone's perception, then go ahead, make ratings without having ground to stand on

That one guy is having a hard time here...

Agreed with you, all of this kind of thing must be stopped. But the thing is, how to stop people from doing that? It's impossible if we just telling them not do it, they certainly will do it again. If we just give them a red trust, they can still make another account or buy another one.

'MonetaLeague' would have been more fitting in this case.

You don't.

I understand that, but I don't make the rules. Some people like to give legit sellers a chance.

Even though I'd support such a ban, it is not up to me nor do I see this happening in the foreseeable future.

OP tagged me a scammer when I wanted to do a PayPal transaction. No worries, I only deal with LocalBitcoin now. To point, yes I know that GC reselling is a problem and they are scammers out there, but there really isn't anything that can be done. This forum is pretty far down the hill.

I applaud you if you and others can get the carded GC's out of here somehow.  My meaning was it is a moot point as there are sadly obviously buyers out there for it.  Willing to take a cheap GC knowing it's carded.   

But if you are able to get even some of them off the market I do think it is a good cause.   It's not something we want people to associate forum with.

Yes, I too agree such sales should be stopped and users selling such gift cards should be warned and negated so that they stop such sales. Also, buyers should be given some kind of warning so that they too refrain from supporting these sales.

I already posted what i think here https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/hacked-cracked-carded-bitcointalk-home-of-scumbags-1338474 and i still stand for it. The forums policy "benefit of the doubt" is just stupid. Looking at meta when the administration thinks we have an issue with activity points makes me scream.

I stopped reporting single threads and switched to bulk report threads with clear evidence. Maybe you guys remember the two big wipeouts. Currently i am collecting urls.

I switched to "find some proof mode" but in the last days i headed over to: if i have a doubt ill -ve them. This thread just makes me think: i should do it to everything that seems shady.

Sadly i did not have a lot of time the last days, i think i will review the sections in a few hours. There are plenty of places who ppl are welcomed to sell their stolen, cracked, carded and hacked stuff, but not here!

Thx EcuaMobi!

It seems both of you are somewhat off-topic:

@Zeke2345, let's focus on stopping giftcard money laundering for the moment. We can leave the rest for other threads. Feel free to create them if you think they're required.

@erikalui, while I do think we should ban selling gift cards and you clearly do not this is not the subject of this thread. I do agree it's arguable and I don't want to even get into that.
As stated on OP the subject here is stopping the sellers who clearly sell illegally obtained cards. It seems to me you agree on that.

It's mainly with Amazon and Starbucks (most of the gift cards are from starbucks) and these websites should be able to detect these gift cards when they are redeemed and take immediate action. Amazon is quicker in cancelling these illegal cards but some are just too fast in getting their product. Selling at 75% off and mentioning that cards will expire does help in detecting such scammers as Amazon and Starbucks cards never expire.


It's not about non-GC-sellers or those who sell gift cards agreeing or disagreeing. The point here is why punish those who are selling their legit gift cards due to scammers/illegal card dealers. When Amazon/Starbucks have not removed the option to pay with a CC even though many use stolen cards, it doesn't seem logical for the forum to stop all the sales. When people suggested that newbies should not be allowed to post in Digital Goods/Currency Exchange sections, I too opposed that as not all newbies are scammers. Stopping all sales/exchanges doesn't make illegal sales/exchanges stop.

Think you where already mentioned in OPs open address.

If this is about bitcoins reputation around the web,there are a lot of other areas I would target as well.
Racism,sexism and homophobia are great places to work on if you want to change bitcoin into more of a mainstream tool.

Lending is also a predatory business that mostly goes after the people that are going through a rough patch or are stuck there.
So if we want to eliminate giftcard scammers,we should also be looking to wipe that aspect clean.
If thats the case maybe the transacting in accounts as well,because that to leads to scamming and misleading posts.
Maybe limit one account per person and be done with it.
Create a peon system where only the anointed few at the top can select one lucky account to move from Junior to member where he must suck hole for 2 years to become full member.
If shady business is the real issue wipe the whole aspect out,not just something that detracts from other business ventures.

When you create this it will turn off more people then you think. Already a bit of a issue with a closed shop mentality on some sides of the forum.
Add a lynch mob with powers and its a quick ride to the bottom. But I know I am in the few on this thinking and will let others speak.


Also suffer from paranoia

Great move! I am in!