Fraudulent Accounts / Fake Feedback

Numista needs a good clear out of the scammers, coin flippers and frauds. I was just checking new members, as I periodically do, to see if the were any new US based collectors. What immediately caught my attention was a newly created profile which already has two trades -

https://en.numista.com/echanges/profil.php?id=82763

Joined on 28th Feb. and completed two swaps on the same day. How is this even possible? Oh, but wait, it gets even worse...... Interesting, that they were both with the same person and his swap list has a grand total of two coins. Clearly a sock puppet created purely to give fake feedback for non existent "swaps" right? So here's the "main" profile -

https://en.numista.com/echanges/evaluations.php?id=60493

Now in addition to the already mentioned magical swaps, scroll down a bit and what do you see? Another newly created account with five, yes FIVE swaps being concluded on the same day as the account was created with another two a couple of days later just for good measure.

https://en.numista.com/echanges/profil.php?id=82631

So.... two new accounts conducted a total of NINE swaps, all with the same person and all within two days of joining. Making more swaps than they even have coins available to swap?

Scroll down a bit further and there's some really interesting feedback which refers to an aborted swap which the participants agreed to provide each other with 5 star feedback despite the swap never happening - "Then, since we could not do the exchange, he proposed first to give each-other positive opinion." So clearly generating fake feedback is nothing new to our scheming friend.

Just a cursory glance over the feedback history shows multiple instances of anything up to five separate glowing 5 star feedbacks on the same day, with the same person. Now some of these are genuine accounts with whom I've dealt with myself so there are genuine trades taking place. However the feedback system, which is there to protect YOU, is undeniably being undermined by a member who is systematically gaming it. How much of this feedback is actually connected to legitimate swaps having taken place on Numista.

So now what? If we are all able to have unlimited numbers of feedback scores for each single trade then I'm going to have a few thousand by the end of the week. Here's my prediction of what will be done about the situation -

......................... the fraudulent feedback will (may) be removed but the beneficiary will be allowed to remain.

So a few questions for the Admin Team....

1. Where's the deterrent and what's to stop him (and others) from continuing to game the system if they can retain their accounts?
2. Why is nobody monitoring new accounts and the feedback system. If I can see it without really looking, why can't you guys?
3. Which Numista team member is specifically tasked with dealing with fraud and if there is such a person why don't we know who it is?

I believe if you were to ask Numista members what the greatest problem facing the site might be, a majority would say scammers misusing the swap engine. Well, why wouldn't they when the door to the chicken coop is left wide open.

Xavier has just made me a few admin tools that let me see who is using multiple accounts on the same IP, and another that allows me to add warnings to user swap pages.

I'm still awaiting another tool to completely ban users from the site, and am assuming that's in the pipeline somewhere down the line.

I'm not going to start trawling through new users though to see who's suspicious or not myself though. A little too orwellian for my liking. I've added warnings to the ones you brought up though.

Best I can say is throw me a whisper if you spot suspicious stuff and I'll check it out.

I don't think anybody is specifically tasked to do swaps and stuff though.

I got a note from a member who was suspicious that there were quite a few new members who were voting in the MPCC for the same coins, and had no other activity on their account. He suggested the possibility that they may be trying to rig the competition. Is it possible to use your new tool to check out the voters in the MPCC as well?

Yep, I can see for example that the accounts oggy and oggycollection belong to the same person, and if I made 20 more accounts they would be in the list too. So if you see anything suspicious just pm me the account names and I'll check it out.

I'm not sure how IP checks work. Does it scan through every single account automatically and give you a shortlist of all multiples? That would be an really useful tool, even more so if it could be extended to scan new accounts and send you a discreet note if an existing IP address is reused.

With regard to the MPCC it does look really suspicious at first glance with all those folks who seem to have joined Numista just so they can vote in our great little contest. If that's the case, how marvelous. Otherwise, how remarkably sad it makes me to know that there are people who would cheat in a free contest and steal the kindly donated coins from the rightful winners. As things currently stand, there's nothing in the Numista rules against such a thing (?) so perhaps a small revision is in order? Hey, if you can't ban the creep at least we can name and shame him right? If y'all are squeamish then send me the name and I'll take care of it. Or even better let Neil do it, maybe in the format of a sticky post at the top of the MPCC page - "Banned Arsebags". That's how I'd do it, yeah that's totally how I'd do it.

If the system is more of a manual type of searching then it's possible that we may never know quo bono? I'd hate to think that a volunteer has to give up hours of free time because he hasn't been given the right tools and access. I remember that as being the main reason for Ben giving up. Don't give up any information that may benefit the scumbags just to satisfy my own vulgar curiosity. I'd just like to know that those who choose to fight the good fight are not going into battle unarmed.

So Oggy my dear fellow, I guess you have volunteered for arguably the most onerous task in the Numista team. As I'm sure you know it's a poisoned chalice** and you will end up with more enemies than friends but I do want you to know that you can always count on me to be the latter. I'd like to think that if our dear Ben is still around and reading this that he would be able to confirm the support I gave him throughout his tenure. On a personal note, well done. If I was in the business of choosing the roles you would have been the first person I'd have asked. You have good instincts young feller.

Stay safe. For the night is long and full of terrors.



**One day I'll have to tell y'all how several of us outing a pretty nasty individual had our names posted to a couple of Jihadist websites asking the lovelies therein to "hunt them down and break their bones" for blasphemy. Yeah there really are people that crazy out there.

I believe that there was a rule (maybe it was last year) that you had to have 30 forum posts to vote.

I didn't really like the rule as any genuine new members would either not be able to take part or would need to mindlessly spam the forums trying to get enough posts to take part. If we can check that there's no multiple accounts then I'm fine with new members voting.

Agree Neil but the MPCC competition should not be biased and some rules to protect the integrity of the competition should be applied. Maybe the users should not be limited by the number of posts on the forum but for sure a check of the accounts it's necessary.

Well we've received the word that any suspicious accounts can be sent to Oggy for checking, so if anyone suspects some of the votes are from puppet accounts either email the usernames direct to oggy or to me and I'll compile them and sent the list through to him.

Another one, main account -

https://en.numista.com/echanges/profil.php?id=82662

Sock puppet -

https://en.numista.com/echanges/profil.php?id=83054