Topic: Trust system abuse / DT2 member Vod is provably dishonestly rating people - page 23. (Read 5840 times)

Vod told me he doesn't think I did anything untrustworthy regarding that auction. Please read the sources linked in first post.

Vod threatened me to negatively rate me unless I changed my rating. He provably lies about our conversation. He is being intellectually dishonest by claiming to "understand" my words in the illogical way. How does that sound? Actions done by a trustworthy person?

I've heard of various other cases where DT members have threatened to wreck accounts if things didn't go the way they want. It's not really a secret here.

That sounds quite unfair. Not disclosing the reserve price or even the existence thereof makes people waste their time and perhaps miss other opportunities. I can see how that makes Vod think you're not trustworthy.

Having said that, this is not even your actual problem. Your problem is retaliating with a butthurt neg against a factual neutral rating AND now whining how the trust system is abused. Do you really not see the blatant hypocrisy of that?

Proxibid seems to exist. If you're interested, you can go look at their website: https://www.proxibid.com/
This is just something I found from Wikipedia. I don't know more about this company or whatever they do. Also, that is not related to this thread very much.


Correct. We were discussing shill bidding. Which is also pretty much offtopic.


What is feeble evidence? And of what? Since when did "general consensus" (according to you) specify what is untrustworthy, dishonest or shady? I ate the bait?

If you click on the source for that Wikipedia quote, it links to an auction site that no longer exists.


Ebay does not make a statement regarding bidding with your own account, as that is physically impossible on the Ebay platform. Not explicitly forbidding it does not equal tacit permission.


I'm sorry, but this is feeble evidence. Regardless, we are dealing with Bitcointalk forum, and not Ebay or any other auction site, and the general consensus on this thread and others is that self bidding is shady behaviour.

Well, shill bidding would require usage of alt accounts or asking others to bid on an item to fake interest. It's semantics and I don't call auctioneer clearly bidding on the auction as shill bidding. Neither does Ebay. For examples of auctions where auctioneer bidding on auction is common, check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shill. Also check out https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/selling-policies/selling-practices-policy/shill-bidding-policy?id=4353#section2. The Wikipedia article states: "One Proxibid auctioneers' website states, "At the request of the auction company, this auction permits bids to be placed by the seller or on the seller's behalf, even if such bids are placed solely for the purpose of increasing the bid."". Ebay link states that bidding on the auction with another account is prohibited, as that's shill bidding. Auctioneer bidding on the auction on the other hand is not shill bidding as no shills are used and it's very transparent to everybody who's bidding. As I said, it's a form of a a hidden reserve price and is not considered untrustworthy behavior in general. I see your point too, and I very well acknowledge the benefits of e.g. stating clearly that a reserve price exists, if it exists. Etc.

So it's not dishonest, as you claim. It's not unfair in any way either -- auction rules are same for all. You could state that it's unfair, because auctioneer is the only one aware of hidden reserve price existing, if it's not disclosed. But what is unfair in that, really? At worst, it wastes peoples time when they bid and don't know about hidden reserve price. Auctioneer only knows that he will bid unless the hidden reserve price is met, if auctioneer wants such to exist. I think you need to re-think your logic regarding this. Vod did, too.


Self-escrowing is untrustworthy and dishonest behavior, as that kills the whole idea of escrow. This thread is not about scams people do.

I understand it is hard for people to distinct between "subjectively unpleasant" and "dishonest/untrustworthy". Most of the time, people are too proud to change stance after thinking further and realizing how things really are. Vods feedback towards me is not deserved, is reasoned with complete bullshit lies, and is abuse of the trust system.

Are you kidding?  It's shill bidding; it's dishonest; and the biggest auction site in the world--eBay--doesn't allow it, and that's for a reason.  It's inherently unfair, and I don't care if Theymos agrees with you or not.  He's not an auctioneer.  He's a forum administrator who tolerates scams by inaction and allowed the forum to become a spam pit because it brings more traffic.  

People on this forum have some shady notions of how auctions and escrow are supposed to work.  That's why Quickseller has so many supporters for his "self-escrow" scamming.  It's crazy that people don't see how dishonest these practices are--but not surprising on this forum, where every other member is a scammer.

The feedback you got is well-deserved.  End of story.

It's very clearly a personal spat, as you call it. It has nothing to do with me bidding on the auction. This is clear if you read the sources I've linked. I know the event timeline is a bit messy, but that's how these things always are. Anyway, it's clear that Vod misunderstands me in an illogical way (explained here (ref 5)) -- maybe on purpose, maybe not, and rates me negative, because of that, according to him. Looks like on purpose, because he still hasn't done anything to correct this failure. Simply, the reasons he has given to negatively rate me are based on illogical misunderstanding (on purpose or not) and provable lies (explained in the sources). Shortly, his rating reason itself is complete bullshit.

It's not against rules for auctioneer to transparently bid on the auction. In my opinion, there's nothing scammy about it either. I asked theymos too, and he agrees with me. I understand the initial reaction may be "ooo, that's scammy" if it's an uncommon auction practice for you. I know it's uncommon in these forums. However, it's a common practice around the world. It's kind of a hidden reserve price.

In any case, this auction in question happened two years ago and even Vod himself told me he thinks I did nothing untrustworthy. Because that's how it is. So maybe we could drop this "it's a valid reason for negative rating" as it's not. Vod rated me negatively, because I pissed him off by not doing what he wants. He simply fulfilled his threat, so why on Earth are you trying to find some other reasons? He states it clearly.

Yes, the tag is there for all to see--but Vod gave a good reason for it, and I don't believe this is just a personal spat between Vod and Anduck.  If that were the case then yes, the feedback would be unjustified.

Don't twist my words to set up straw man arguments.  I did not say that the good outweighs the bad.  My end conclusion was that it's politics that keeps people from speaking up against a wrongly-left feedback if that feedback was from a highly-trusted member.  I did not say that this was right, but again I don't think this describes the situation here with Vod.  I don't think his feedback was left erroneously if Anduck bid on his own auction.

Yep, and the one-sided conversation will go on as long as you allow it.  I usually hang up on telemarketers, too.

The one in the Reputation board is about Vod. This thread in Meta is about trust system abuse in general, and specific example of it happening. Maybe we could try to think of ways to improve things.

This is a way to contact with DT1 members in addition to the whole community.

What's wrong with the other thread, why do you need a new one on the same topic?

You lost your standing in this dispute when you negged Vod. BTW neg for neutral isn't even the correct retaliatory exchange rate. You should have posted 15 ALL CAPS ratings.


Did you ever contact the DT1 members?

Nobody is bid shilling here. Read about auctions to understand that there's nothing weird in auctioneer bidding in the auction. Even though it may be or sound weird for you. Think about it for a while. Threatening, lying and harassing on the other hand.. You seem to have extremely light stance on that stuff.

If you had read the sources, you would know by now that Vod red-rated me after threatening to do that if I didn't change my rating. His "reason" to do it had nothing to do with the auction. He told me, as you can see in the sources, what his reason to red-rate me was. So there's the reason Vod told me, and the real reason which is the earlier threat to do it.


As I've said various times, I acknowledge that Vod has been (and continues to be) a strong positive for the forum. However, that doesn't change anything about what's going on in this case. Vod is abusing his position in this case. You're right: people refuse to act, because their account will be wrecked easily, unquestioned by others. Let's try to fight abuse even though it might lead to no resolution?


There's nothing shady or untrustworthy in auctioneer clearly bidding on his own auction. It's that simple. And it's uncommon here. If you genuinely think that it's justified to negatively rate over uncommon practice: the said auction happened over two years ago, and apparently it's "alright" for Vod to bring up fresh negative trust for that.

All in all, it certainly seems like Vod did not rate me because of the events of the auction. Most obvious reason is that Vod rated me because he outburst at me, and had to justify it somehow. It would be clear if you read the sources.


It's not my fault you're not reading.

You're twisting, deceiving and outright lying as everyone can see, if they read the linked sources. Wish people who comment here actually did read, but it seems like it's not happening very much.

Anyway, once more,
Linked source (https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.38658847), reference #2.
I'll link another sum-up: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.37714469
To avoid more dodging, here's your private (later published) message to me:

To make it extremely clear for everyone, this means: "If you don't change your rating, I will rate you red" or "You have to change your rating to neutral or I have to change mine to negative" subtly put.

You're taking people as fools. It's working while it should not, which is sad.

You should provide a quote for this.  

This is why I don't endlessly converse on and on about why I leave valid ratings.  People tend to twist, deceive and outright lie.

I'll just assume the rest of your threads/post are going to contain content of similar "quality". 

However it doesn't matter if the OP doesn't trust Vod or tag him red, what matters is that Vod could distrust the OP and tag him red for everybody to see. if this continues then people would stop trusting DT2 tags. we need to tag people if they are really trying to scam. bidding in own auction is a form of scamming IMO.


So is it OK to inflict damage on other people's reputation just because a DT2 member is a good guy and has helped the forum? you could say that is OK if somebody had several accounts but what if somebody is only using one account? I'd say that Vod should tag the OP for bidding on his own auction and not for anything else.


What do you see to be wrong about that? I see Vod with an unfair advantage over the OP, let Vod to be the only one with power, I'm sure there will be no abuse when you empower a few over everybody else.

It would have been nice if you gave him a chance to reconcile. You mentioned he contacted you before giving the red trust and I am sure it took a lot of guts from his side to ask you to remove it. I did not read the whole enchilada but if he was friendly maybe you could have taken a step back and start trusting him again. I am fairly new to the forum and few times took abuse from few bullies around here. It is funny how bossy people can get! I understanf that many have been around long time and the last thing anyone here should do is to try to hurt each others business. My advice would be to contact him with kindness and hope for the best. I amsure you two can dolve this in a great way that ypu will both benefit 😉🤞🏼🙏🕯

Oh, I'm a pure misanthrope and Asians are just a subset of all homo sapiens.  *lol*

I don't hate Asians, not even Filipinos.  Their presence on bitcointalk is another story, but it's not all of them.

Now about the Vod/Anduck dispute.  I read what was said between the two in the other thread, and the bottom line is that they don't trust one another--and if Anduck bid on his own auction, that seems like it's a solid reason on Vod's part regardless of what he'd previously said.  Bid shilling is pretty much the worst thing you could do in an auction.  It's basically stealing money from the real bidders. 

Whatever the case may be, this is between Anduck and Vod and I'm not sure what Anduck is trying to do here.  Even if Vod is totally in the wrong by leaving him a neg, it would be one bad feedback in a sea of good ones and I doubt there's anyone here willing to jump on Vod to pressure him to change it.  It's just politics; it's not going to happen, whether you agree with it or not.

I'd also add that Anduck's account has a lot of positive feedback and it's not ruined by any means.  I wonder if Vod's feedback has actually prejudiced any noob from doing deals with him or if Anduck is just projecting that outcome in the future.  But if he did indeed bid on his own auction....people need to watch out for that.

I was blocked by Vod after he red-rated me. Instantly. No way for me to reason with him in private. He isn't willing to do anything here unless it starts affecting him too. That means, when I get on DT or someone in DT red-rates him, etc.

I read the first topic until this post. When I saw you said, "I've already learned that is the norm in these forums." then I did not bother to read further. The 2nd one was only limited to your post (this one).

What I am seeing is cultural difference if it is true that you can bid on your own auction. Like I said you would also find me angry if I was there and my common sense would say that you are doing illegal activities in your own auction. 

We would not see anything (that happened later) if you would not place a self bid in your auction.

I personally do not like the practice to leave red trust to someone as because s/he left you a red trust at the first place. The first person left you the red trust because in his/her judgment you DID something wrong but without acknowledging the wrong or a valid explanation, when you are responding with a red trust from you then obviously things will start getting harder and nasty. You are, "Eating the fruit of your lips". I am sorry mate.

It was a rhetorical question,with intended sarcasm. Nevertheless,what might have pissed off Vod more,is that misunderstandings lead to further misunderstandings and now after you lit the fire(unintentionally maybe),you realize everything has gone. And sometimes people don't let go of their pride,so I guess you have to stay with the rating.

Yes it is for real. It's all in the sources linked. I asked Vod whether we could just drop this shit, as he told me he doesn't see my actions as untrustworthy and I also do not need to have rating showing my distrust against Vod. I don't trust him, but it's up to me if I announce it to the world. My guess is that pissed him off (when I said I don't trust him regardless). You may be right that better term is misuse. It's semantics, though.

I read the sources,I think Vod was sort of right on leaving you a negative feedback on the first place because you bid on your auction. He gave you the benefit of the doubt and changed the tag,but when he changed it back again,is something I don't expect that someone like Vod would do. No one should be forced to add or remove their ratings just because the other party changed it,be it for a DT member or a non-DT member. But the trust system is not for saying comments like " I don't trust you",it is for "This person is a scammer or I highly believe that this person is a scammer". Abuse is not the right word here,misuse is. Abuse only works if someone gains something from the other,in form of blackmail. So both the parties here are misusing the system.
If the newer people don't understand the situation,you can always use escrow. Bidding in an auction != Scamming. If people don't know that,better stay away.
DT members shouldn't threaten non-DT members. No one should threaten anyone for a rating. Is this for real?

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I can't believe people do so much shit about a damn trust rating. For the love of god,move on. If you don't trust someone,don't. Nobody cares enough to give a fuck,unless you're rich .