Quote from: Benjig on November 12, 2015, 05:21:14 AM

Hello!

I'm here since 2013 and I always saw this flaw over here, i don't care about my trust now but just to avoid questions,
my neg trust was left by a scammer user called "equamoby" who claimed i not "recommended" a "reputable escrow".

But that's not important, the flaw i'm going to talk about is this:

The old ones already know how this works but the new people entering this forum:

Imagine an ebay site with feedback and reputation system just as what it has now, but
imagine the visible reputation is not from everyone, just from a circle of 10 users/sellers and the
people trusted by this 10 people circle.

Ebay's reputation system is horrible as anyone can leave you a feedback without any proof. One person cancelled my deal and left me a negative rating without any proof. It should have been the opposite LOL. You also cannot report the negative feedback you receive on Ebay. I have been a part of a forum where trust ratings are moderated and hence nobody can leave fake ratings without any proof. That system works the best.

So if you register on there and after one year, you have made let's say 10 trades, you could've
sent reputation and feedback to every user you made trade with, but that feedback will not be shown
on his profile!! only by clicking a very hidden function who says "untrusted feedback" unless that group of 10 people
or the ones trusted by them leaves you good feedback!, if not, no matter if your account has 50 trades and it's
1 year old, the feedback you send is "invisible" to everyone just like a 10 post account feedback!, same happens with the negative feedback.

Untrusted feedback is present for the reason that here newbies just leave ratings and spam DT or reputed members trust profile and hence their feedback shouldn't count. Trust isn't moderated here and even I have untrusted feedback which I don't give importance too as for me the ratings don't matter much. If I want to trade with someone, I do check his untrusted ratings too but use an escrow even if he is trusted if he isn't willing to go first. That's how it works for me.

What can get this? well this overpowers the group of 10 people wich their feedback can become visible,

*They can have a misunderstanding with any user outside that circle and do fraudulent activity without worrying about his
reputation to be damaged, as the trust of everyone outside them is "invisible".

Not necessary the 10 people selected are highly trustworthy. They are humans and they can anytime turn into scammers if they are in need of money. DT members also sell their accounts. It depends from person to person and it's their wish of whom they feel have a reputation and whom they feel are not trustworthy. The DT position doesn't make them SPECIAL MEMBERS here.

*They can conspire between them to make a deal of not sending negative trust between them to became virtually "inmune"
no matter if the user outside the circle is reporting something real and fraudulent about one of them.

*As they really act like a team, they fight competition and can send invalid ng trust when their particular business profit is threaten.

So then we have this group of overpowered users who don't even sites like ebay has , it could be ok with some particular forum system
acting as regulators, some mechanism where they should monitor every trade, but they don't even provide any insurance on any trade, they are not even part or staff of the forum!, if you are scammed, they will not help you in any way as ebay staff can do!, they are anonymous as any user on the forum.

True. There is no insurance or any kind of guarantee provided when we use an escrow but on this forum where almost 80% people are desperate to scam, the escrow helps the buyers and sellers by giving atleast 50% assurance of having a safe deal. If we deal with non reversible payments, there is no chance of getting scammed. If in case we do get scammed, the escrow cannot be held responsible as well because he completed the deal. If he has scammed any party, then it's his responsibility. Everyone is anonymous in the online world so it's not only an escrow who is one.

The next problem is worst:

Besides making the trust system a monopoly and leaving new users not only as unsafe as first but now they are threaten as scammers easily.

But the main danger is as this trust circle is nothing related to a forum IDs validaded people or any similar insurance, they can become the worst
scammers taking advantage of the monopolized trust they have, and it has already happened and not one, tens of times!.

Just see the list of the banned users or scammers and you will see tens of accounts who had high green trust, even there are many "donators",
"vip" etc, as the already famous one "tradefortress" who was "VIP" and scammed over 2,000 bitcoins.

If we needed to clasify the form of government this forum has would't obviously be a Democracy but an Oligarchy, as this group of people
are overpowered and no one but only themselves can take away that power.

And the worst thing is the forum Staff spent 1,000 bitcoins on a forum software upgrade!! but they can't even change this flawed trust system.

BR!.

The forum doesn't hold responsibility for any wrong thing that happens here. It's the individual's responsibility to secure himself and I agree that many a times, the trust system doesn't help. The admins don't want the trust system to be moderated and with the result, many people have lost their money and some who are not scammers have been termed as scammers. Selling stolen stuff, buying and selling forum accounts, scamming via alt accounts and so on take place almost everyday here. I've learned to adjust with this rather than keep complaining about it. Nothing changed earlier, nothing is going to change and nothing will change.