Quote from: The Pharmacist on Today at 06:17:55 PM

Leaving negs for account sellers/buyers is legitimate, even if neither of those things are against the rules--I specifically asked Theymos about that a while back.

This has been something that I've been thinking for a while now - I've been reporting some threads were clearly it goes against the rules such as selling of Revolut accounts and such but whenever I encounter a thread that's clearly selling bitcointalk accounts the first thing that comes to my mind is why is this even allowed / why are the rules so "open to interpretation" that such "business" can be started. I even found this answer[1] by DireWolfM14 that states that people that buy accounts eventually feel the need to scam other people due to their inability to promote actual content (this is my open interpretation, I welcome others to read and to share their thoughts about it):

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Trading accounts will often to lead people to scam, while merit abuse doesn't seem to pose the same risk (from what I've seen.) It might be a long and convoluted road, but it starts with the reasoning behind an individual wanting to buy an account in the first place. Some want to buy an account because they are planning a scam, and want a trusted account. I think these are probably the exception, not the rule.

Why do most people want buy an account when it's free to build your own? Most of the time it's because they see the potential to earn money here on the forum, and want to cash in on that potential. If we scrutinize many of those who are tempted to buy an account we will probably see that they are incapable of developing a profitable account on their own. Doing so requires writing skills, patience, and a significant amount of concern for the forum (or the ability to feign concern.) Those who come here to cash in are not likely to care about the forum, and most lack patience.

Once they find themselves having purchased an account, and possibly paying a high price for the "right" account, now what? They must still demonstrate the writing skills and involvement to qualify for a well paying signature job. Many will find that the account that cost them a lot of money is only part of the equation, a small part. Writing skills, patience, and concern for the community are still required to keep the account profitable.

Once they've come to that conclusion, their frustration with the inability to earn will likely lead them to attempt a scam. I have had people with high ranking accounts ask me for a loans, and upon scrutiny I came to the suspicion that the accounts were likely purchased, the owner was unable to profit with the account, and now is looking for a "loan" (exit scam) to compensate him for the loss of purchasing the account in the first place.

These people would be better served learning how to develop an account on their own. If they finally come to the conclusion that they are unable to do so, they have not suffered any monetary loss, and will not likely fall into the temptation to scam anyone. Even if they do, they will not be in a position that would garner trust.

Thing is, if most "bought" accounts end up with this kind of activity, why don't we just ban them of happening here? I know we can't ban them from being sold in other places of the internet, I just dont' think that it's good for the forum to have this economy being promoted right here in our own "home". Perhaps we do let it happen here so that we have a closed control and perhaps we could trace what accounts where bought and terminate them? A kind of "squad" that personifies potential buyers just to grab the account name and give them to mods so that they can ban / cancel it (This is actually giving me some ideas Cool

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Also, @The Pharmacist, is it OK if I also start leaving negative reps to the small sample of threads/users that I find selling accounts? I was never 100 % sure that this was OK since the rules didn't forbid it but also didn't allowed it.

[1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5219518.msg53666191#msg53666191