How many people do you think wander into large forums with the expectation, "I need to be on my guard or else I will be scammed, because the forum allows scammers to stay here."
It's one of the things that makes Bitcointalk so unique. If I have a problem with my computer, I go to Stackexchange, copy/paste some code, and it works again. The same for car related problems on specialized forums: I follow the instructions, and it solves my problem. But if you
do the same on Bitcointalk, you lose your money:
ScenarioSomeone has a problem with a wallet, comes to Bitcointalk, creates an account, asks a question, and gets a solution. Great! A happy new user for the forum, and another happy Bitcoin user, which adds to Bitcoin's popularity.
Reality (2 days ago)
Someone has a problem with a wallet, comes to Bitcointalk, creates an account, asks a question, gets "help" by PM from someone who asks him to enter some code into Electrum, enter his password (and I
quote: "(NEVER share this password with anybody)"), and gets scammed out of $30,000.
Another clueless naive new user bites the dust, the forum loses a new user, and Bitcoin loses a potential user forever.
Maybe big red warning on every trading board post started by a newbie; something simple like "Scammers flourish in a free marketplace, WATCH YOUR ASS!" That might get the job done, but then again it could get ignored just like all the other giant red warning signs.
This is theymos' view:
Honestly, I think that someone that naïve can't be protected. Even if every inch of the page had been full of warnings, he still might've fallen for it, since he wasn't even thinking about the possibility of being given evil instructions. The scammer was a Jr Member, not some Legendary.
People like him (ie. the majority of the world population) are why we'll someday want an optional sidechain or something on top of Bitcoin which has reversible transactions (via some sort of automatic 2-of-3 escrow which expires after a while, maybe).
Consider a scammer that exclusively uses Newbie accounts: do we flag them so that guests will see a warning? If so, then what if the Newbie is genuine? If not, then what action do we take to caution users if not a message on visit?
The
Currency Exchange board is filled with scammers. Can you imagine a billionaire who wants to buy 500,000 Bitcoin and uses an "agent" who barely speaks English to buy it on a forum? And if he manages to scam $100 he can buy food for a month again. People who fall for that can't be helped.