I'm sorry if it really turns out for you this way. Well, I think 4 big escrows gave up, three totally, one is away and probably will stop escrowing, because of the latest developments with master-P and escrow.ms. I think at some point it will push all their escrow users to the remaining escrows.

Unfortunately it doesn't feel actually great to know that there were scammers that worked in the same service section. :/ I think that is one big reason they gave up.

I don't know how you deny escrows but I created some default text for denying trades. I only add some additional info if it sounds like I should. So denying is a fast thing then.

---

Actually all accounts I escrow seem to end up in a signature campaign even when the buyer is an account flipper first. His buyer will buy for signature campaign. It's he one big thing on the forum that seems to spread around as the best way to earn bitcoins for free.

And it would not really help to mark them. Like Quickseller mentions, if a scammer knows that this will happen then he will trade outside the forum again. So he receives a clean account while all normal users will have a mark that surely will mean a problem for them in one way or another.

I think it won't help against scammers.

---

I'm not sure if they would care. I think more important are posts that are written in a nearly unreadable english. So that it really sounds like the barely english speaking indian mother of a bitcoin user tries to earn an additional salary.

On the other hand, if it turns out bad accepting those users then an account manager might autoreject those users from then to prevent work.

Though the mark won't help against a clever scammer for sure. And most scammers are clever. Not like master-P with his stories everyone could find out. Even trolls on here are clever and know how to trick the tracking of the forum. I doubt any serious scam could be stopped by marked accounts or forbidden account trades.

The only thing that comes to mind, that is unavoidable for a scammer to do, is the password change. A scammer surely won't trust the seller enough to not change the password. So if there is a list of the last 12 months password changes of that account in the trust page then users might have a slight hint that the account might have changed hands. Surely that is no sure thing but it is the only thing that a scammer can't avoid when buying an account. He will change pass to protect his scamming scheme.

This is my conclusion also, staff and moderators have the possibility to check the trades that went on on the forum. I think that was the conclusion the staff came to after the test of account trades being banned. They happened anyway, only without any way to find out what happened. Trades done over private messages are different at least.

Besides. An account trade involves alot of work for an escrow, which means alot of time goes into. For example only checking the safety of the account with this checklist: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1362297.msg13863985#msg13863985

Then those trades are mostly only $50 to $100, which means practically no tip for the escrow at the end. Mostly the traders are newbie accounts anyway and vanish without tipping or promise to tip but never anything happens.

Means escrowing account trades is more an idealistic thing for providing safety and making the life of scammers harder.

---

Though OgNasty, I wonder what you mean with the many requests. From November till february the 15th I escrowed 9 account trades and 1 of it ended refunded. So in 3,5 months only 8 bitcointalk account trades. Maybe you mean accounts priced lower than $50? I think I have around 1 each 1 to 3 days that I deny because it is a lot of work and the risk is not comparable to the work amount. That you receive so many requests for bitcointalk forum account escrows is probably not because of my ban.

I think you overestimate the amount of escrow trades I handle too. What you wrote me some weeks ago let it look like you escrow way more than I do and often enough escrow requests to me end with you because you are online more often.

The only difference in the kind of trades that I accept is that I often leave the buyer the choice to accept a trade at all. I explain the risks and that I only can provide protection up to the point where I released the coins to the seller. If the buyer denies then he is safe because of knowledge gained, if he still agrees then it is his choice then. At least the protection given is higher than without an escrow. It's similar to escrowing an ICO. One could claim that it is useless. Once the issuer receives the bitcoins from escrow address he can vanish after dropping his coins. But in reality handling escrows led to, I think 2 ICO's being stopped because I hold the coins three days longer after the altcoins were spread and wallets given out. It turned out that issuers might be found scammy in the meanwhile, not properly burned coins or connected to a scamcoin. So most investors prefer an escrowed ICO, except with trustworthy members as issuers. And it gives some more protection in normal cases too.

Well, I guess you know that already.

Thanks for the infos, I think both cases could not violate the rules then.

When adding a notice on top of the post about the update then it likely will be recognized as a post with new infos.

However, with a thread where only yourself is posting in it would not work to delete the post, since it would kill the thread in whole. And not all info can be put into one post then. For example posting info about a scammer investigation. Can be huge. Of course adding might alert some users, though many, I believe, only checks out the forums and will not see the thread anymore maybe then. If it is still on the page then it might have a "NEW" sign to it.

---

I'm not sure if the consecutive posting rule is mentioned on the forum officially somewhere so it might be good to know when a previously time banned account gets out of the risk zone of getting permabanned with the next ban. How long does it take?

I mean in case there are several unwritten rules and some users don't even would get a warning then it could happen fast that a permaban happens.

I was told there is a thread for unofficial rules here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=703657.0 but the consecutive posting is not mentioned I think. And that is not an official list. So even with that there might be rules a poster can unknowingly run into and get permabanned fast since it seems not everyone gets warned.

I think it might be good to make rules, that are so dangerous to an account, official then. At least the thread was opened by a staff member so it is somewhat official because of that though it seems still risky.

You know, at the moment I somewhat fear to go against another rule and being permabanned. And I hope I don't have to live my whole forum life now with the risk of another ban being my last. That the timeban gets forgotten and after that the next ban would be a timeban again first before it would become a permaban.

Just saying, I guess clear rules might be able to make the life of staff and moderators alot more easy. Other users could warn others by linking to the official rules, users being banned could check themselfes or being told by others about the specific rule they broke and mods and staff would have less work at all.

I think so too, I only asked for the name in order to ask the moderator what the ban was about. It was cleared already and a name is not needed at all.


Hm, I searched for messages from you but all I found were two messages back from august. Did you write with an alt-account, was the message deleted or did the search function not work?

I wanted to check what you wrote because I did not realize that it as rule. Anyway, just generally, it would be good when anybody who warns mention that it is a rule at all. Maybe even the risk of being banned. I guess mexxer might warn more often. I only mean that generally it's not meant as critic.

---

Yeah, I do of course. Even though I find these posts pretty ugly, they are not really a good read. I think I might mention usernames in bold. Maybe that would help other users to realize there is a post for them hidden.

On the other hand I already know getting criticized for too big posts. *sigh*

---

It's a great way to advertise and name branding. Advertising here is probably the most effective way targetting the target audience. Bitcoin users are seldom more concentrated than here.

For getting a project kickstarted and branded it is a good thing for business owners.

The seond most important point is that there are not many places where you can get so good backlinks. Which will push the target domain up in the serps (search engine result pages).

---

It's ridiculous reading you write this. You hid the fact that the account you wanted to sell was banned from a couple of signature campaigns previously. For what? For gaining a couple more bucks. And the buyer, when you would have managed to not check these thing out, would have felt scammed. Surely you are no one to speak out on that matter.

Besides, you are nearly 50% off with your guess. Quality posters can get special contracts. Well, it's funny that you tried to sell an account you used for signature campaigns too.

And surely especially you would not be the one who would let lay around free bucks on the floor...

---

But I would like have to clarify now how the rules are. What occassions is it allowed to post more than one post? I think there might be legitimate reasons but at the moment it looks too risky to try it out without clear rules being known. So what about:

• The previous post is older, let's say a day, a week or maybe a hour only. You would want to write something in the thread to inform everyone about a status change of something. You can't post adding at the last post because you could be sure that no one will realize the last post changed. No update of the thread would be propagated and the info would be missed by a lot of people. It might even be needed to help others out, like I do in cannabit thread. It would be not possible to wait until another poster asks for updates.
• You open a project thread, you reserve second and third post for status updates and you need to post maybe more often than other users. Still you need them to notice your text. It even might be a closed thread so that only you are the only person posting there.

I think it is extremely troubling to not have the rules fully exactly defined since it might not be possible to solve the above problems. No one would want to risk his account being banned or even permabanned.

So I ask mods and staff to clarify if there is a solution for these cases at all. Or if members would have to stop using the forum for things like that. I mean asking for if it is allowed before would surely not help either because it is often enough not easy to get an answer.

Now I remember that it was you who warned me. Well, i guess i did not realize that you are staff at that time. I thought it was a personal opinion rather than a rule to follow. My bad.

---

Already done. My personal opinion about the huge posts that i would have to create now not being read at all didn't change though surely i will follow the rule, now that i know that it is an actual rule. Too bad i had to realize it this way. 

---

Yes, sorry about that. You know how one feels when something bad happens... explainations are searched. And since mexxer all the time was around like "told you so", he even warned me some time back before staff warned me, it looked a lot like he might have reported me. I didn't see a reason for that since I never angered him, at least with that username, so i was asking myself why does this happen now. What came to mind was only brace the mace who tried to shortchange someone and besides that only that I slightly criticed you. Leading to the rumour that mexxer might be an alt of you since he acts the same way you did back then.

Sorry again, I would not have written such things when I would have been calm.


I only referred to those claiming that you neg repped them because they spoke out against you and were negrepped when not on default trust. Forget it ok? No hard feelings please. This forum is, at times, already exhausting enough.


I think another valid reason might be that the previous post was older. You need to add something and it needs to be read but it won't be read because there is no update to the thread.

Though i guess admins won't have time to check this and it will be a consecutive post anyway.

I wonder what someone should do when he needs to create an otherwise writeblocked thread to provide infos that should not be disrupted by other peoples post who should use another thread for comments to keep the infos easily readable.

At the moment i don't have a clue if such a thing would be possible at all. I mean can i really risk being banned again for lifetime this time? Well, it would make my life easier for sure since the forum is pretty timeconsuming. Easily seeable by, I believe, 4 big escrows practically leaving in the last weeks. Though I'm here trying to help avoiding scams and hopefully see how bitcoin prosper. I would not want to leave the forum to scammers. Even though i sometimes feel like giving up when the next timeconsuming hurdle shows up.

---

Ah ok. Well, the thing is i probably can't technically send a pm with my banned account and I guess Iam not allowed to send a pm with this alt-Account. So I would have to depend on someone other sending one. Or can I?

---

You really want me to protect you? Well, have fun on my cost... i won't turn scammy or try to shortchange others only because it could be highly rewarding. I prefer being able to look into the mirror. And i escrow because there are too many that think differently.

Besides, spamming is a hard word for my post quality. Well, it's defined that way on the forum now regardless of the content. Hopefully more are aware of this now.

I'm not fully aware of the fineprint of the english language so did you mean that you sent them a pm? If not could you do so?

Thanks in advance!

I don't even know now if I can do another post now or if I have to edit the old post, adding this there. Risking that the old was was read already and my change will not be noticed. *sigh* Strange things I have to think about...

Anyway, i think the previous post might be too old so here a signature message.

If someone can post it in my service thread, see my mainaccounts profile, then this would be great.


I hope a solution can be found for the pm system since when i think about moving the trades to email then it sounds like a potential security risk to traders again. They would need to verify somehow that they actually are the same persons that have the deal on the forum.

---

I thought you refer of advertising another company being somewhat shady. Theymos allows sig campaigns so there is no point arguing about it. If you didn't mean that an escrow should not advertise then I don't know what you refered to.


I did not check out your signature fully. I know you are one of the very rare businessmans on bitcointalk that I trust. Your businesses are running fine and shareholders are happy. You are not inept or scammy like you can read in the trust rating I gave you long ago, as well as adding you to my trust list. If there is no incentive for you in all this then man, you impress me way more now.

Well, I guess with the amounts you escrow all the time it is a fulltime job, including such earnings. I joined signature campaigns since I thought i post anyway, why not getting paid for it. And I check out the websites I advertise.

If you think that is wrong then you would have to criticize theymos too, what you surely won't do, but the forum is auctioning adspace so the connection to the advertising company is not much different.

You realize that you wear a signature that pays you too? The only difference is that you can fully back that company. I only can do a slight check, though that is the same with theymos.

---

Mitchell wrote something like "and you even wore a signature". Which doesn't sound like it would not happen when you don't wear a sig campaign.

Well, guess the only solution if you don't want to post multiple posts in a row would be to be a forum addict, staying online all the time. I don't have that time unfortunately. Guess fulltimespammers will be happy with that solution. Or would it be fine when I post a single post and wait until at least another post was done by another user? Rules become way more difficult all the time now.

---

Though nearly all signatures are paid signatures in some form. Only because someone doesn't have an own company to advertise for he would get paid from another person. But advertising an own company is still a paid signature. Only some have signatures that don't serve a monetary purpose.

Thanks for considering it. I guess iam not allowed to send private messages with that account, so maybe someone other can send a pm to grue?

I actually wonder if you read this, hidden in all the other posts.

---

Thanks for the offer mexxer, I will wait if grue, badbear, theymos or hilariousandco can see the possibility of a solution through forum pm before I try to use other forms of contacting the escrow parties.

---

Yes, it's strange to see how some threads get newbies posting the same short answer over and over again, sometimes answering the same questions with the same answer with newbie accounts that look like they are owned by the same person anyway.

Well, guess they only need to leave some posts in between and they are fine.

I remember someone telling me that and till then I already made way less posts in a row. Though that wasn't you or another staff member, right? I explained that user that every answer to other persons that are hidden in one post, that looks like it is directed to another user, will most probably been read over. Especially when you break the answer to the first person into quotes to answer single points of hit post. Surely I would have taken it more seriously realising that the warning was coming from staff. Did I not see the staff mark only? Anyway, I'm sorry about not following when staff told me about it.

One could ask what's better in posting one huge post than 3 posts in a row, taking the same space nearly but are in a clear order and easy to read. You use paragraphs too to format a text and surely no one writes a letter to three people and puts all the text into one letter, hoping that the other two read it too somehow. Everyone would read the start and thinks it is directed to another use.

Anyway, if those are the rules I was not aware that it are actual rules.

So can we maybe speak about a solution for the escrow problem? If you think posting was the problem then maybe make me stop posting for a time, even though I got the point anyway already, but private messages were not part of the problem but probably will become a problem in the near future. Can you maybe allow me to send private messages at least to handle the escrow part? I really don't want to be put wrongly in the same pot as recent negative escrow cases.

If this was meant to me then too then I think the only post that was dead already was me requesting badbear about why he thinks bans should not be seen. I mean even now I think, what should users do Iam in an escrow trade with? They would not see that Iam banned and could assume I try to scam.

Besides that today I went through my profiles notifications since I sometimes lose threads answers where I did not get an email notification or made another error. It doesn't mean that these threads are not worth anymore to answer to. I wonder why you think old threads need to die.

Regarding prevision... ah no, you wrote you are accused of being an alt of Quickseller, you are online all the time too, being a scambuster and all and today I wrote about why I did not trust all of his negative ratings. Forbid me the thought that your prevision was led by knowledge maybe. I only thought of the possibility, no accusation.

Though it might be important to know if this might be an automated ban of some kind. Can this be? Are there banbots on the forum?

I don't have time to go through all the threads new answers every day so it happens that I take the time to go through after 2 days only. Of course I want to answer to those posts that are new to me. I don't see why it should not be allowed. I mean you practically say that you have to have online daily to answer posts. Who on this forum is here all day except sig spammers, scam busters and so on? The vast majority is posting way more seldom. Are away for days. So why should there be a rule to not answer to posts that are new to you?

Besides, I do max 4 posts in a row when I want to answer many posts in a tread. Do you say there is a rule that would demand that I have to have to wait one post from another user after I make another answer? Sounds like a mess actually. And putting all answers in one post surely is not helpfull too since when I hide answers to other persons in a thread that has an answer to another person on top then mostly these answers will be not seen. Besides... i had complaints for writing too long posts too already. Guess there is not way to do it right then.

Anyway this sounds like unwritten rules and if rules are hidden it is impossible to not go against them. I did not read about such rule coming into existence.

Thanks for your offer to post what I want to say though that could not help in the escrow trades since traders might want to be A) anonymous to other forum members and B) might need to send me a bitcoin address to release the coins to. Both are confidential data often enough and the "don't send pm's" can't be solved with that.

Ok, I was really surprised reading that Iam banned from bitcointalk for 14 days for:


Account: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=18640

Iam not aware of a restriction I broke. I surely don't spam, in fact Iam taken as a prime example of quality posts in every sig campaign i was taking part till now. And now I read that I was banned for 14 days.

That obviously is a big problem for me as escrow since Iam only allowed to post on meta with an alt now. I have running escrow trades and not being allowed to send private messages for 14 days will turn this into quite a mess.

Why did this happen shortly after I protected the buyer in an account deal where the seller tried to hide the fact that this account was banned in a number of signature campaigns. Is there a connection?

I really don't know how I should solve this. I don't want to let the escrow users hang and surely I don't want scam accusation threads without me being able to respond. I still would want to serve as escrow and hopefully this will not take out the next trusted escrow, alot gave up in the last weeks already.

Really that was a surprise. Not being allowed to post relevant posts only because I take part in a signature campaign is new to me and I was not aware of a rule that says moderators will block someone for posting too many on topic and constructive posts. If I would have spammed, ok, but really, that definitely is not the case.

I would like to know who banned me, why exactly and on what rule and how he came to the conclusion that I deserve a ban.

But most important, is there a solution without turning the escrow trades I currently run into a mess?

Man... that really hit me by surprise.