We will now start reporting all scammers to their respected local cybercrime divisions

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Even though scams are at an all-time low at the moment, one of our users gave us a great idea. Why not file scam reports to cybercrime divisions? At first, I thought it would be a waste of time. However, it turns out that even vague reports quite often get investigated and create havoc for the person reported.

Scammers do whatever they want as they believe they can’t be touched.

After reading up on this issue, it turns out it’s quite easy to file a legitimate complaint against an individual who scammed you, especially if you have his information such as IP/phone number/personal ID. Heck, you can even file reports in Pakistan (the country we have the most problems with) via these links:

http://www.nr3c.gov.pk/
http://complaint.fia.gov.pk/

It turns out, these complaints quite often get investigated even in countries like Pakistan. And even if nothing gets pinned on the scammer, you get the all mighty eye of law looking over them, and in some cases, it may get their personal computer confiscated for weeks while the authorities investigate. Also, more complaints = more problems. So, from now on, I suggest all pranksters stay clear of SWAPD. We will go after you.

P.S. We will compile a dedicated cybercrime division list of emails/forms for each country, so it’s easy to file a report if you have been cheated. We will work with you so you can pile up a huge amount of complaints, if you prove beyond reasonable doubt that one of our users cheated you.

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Just awesome. Youre doing gods work.

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Do you have a link for hackers from Albania?

these guys tried to hack my account, luckily Facebook restored all my admin access:

amaraldcenaj02@gmail.com
shpresimlugja01998@gmail.com
Marketking Al rasrascenajcenaj@gmail.com
MarketKing ALL$ rasicena745@gmail.com

This sign in attempt was made on:
Date and Time: September 15, 2018 8:09:31 AM PDT
Estimated Location: Albania
Device: chrome, windows nt
(IP Address: 37.26.81.126)

Like to get my hands on those A**holes

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Not yet but I will get a list ready :slight_smile:

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Do you really get majority of hack+scam attempts from Pakistan. I have been user of playerup and epicnpc for long time and never encountered scammer my country Pakistan and Most I had dealt with were from Venezuela, Eastren Europe and India.

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Unfortunatey, yes.

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This sounds amazing. Finally a way to threaten them with serious consequences for what they do.

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I generally think this is a great idea but in reality i think this is a bad one. Selling social media properties is not exactly legal either, definetly against the TOS of some platforms. To file reports to such divisions may draw attention to swapd in a way that it could harm the community. Don’t get me wrong, i hate scammers but i do love swapd and i prefer having a few scammers here than a closed down swapd.

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Oh boy… here we go again.
Show me one, just one penal code (anywhere in the world) that would say that.
Show me one, just one public case where a situation (selling social properties in the general topics, not personal accounts simply create to steal ones identity) went to trial.
Breaking TOS is merely breaking a contract (can’t even call it a contract). Is it illegal? No. Can you be taken to court? Yes. But, anyone can take anyone to civil court, so there is no shocker there. Did you know PayPal had a clause in their TOS that said: “If you use PayPal, you can’t sue PayPal Inc. and our affiliates or participate in class action lawsuits.” In your opinion, is that also a legal thing? I can save you time and tell you right now, it’s not legal. A judge laughed at that clause and allowed a lawsuit to continue. I hate it when people treat TOS like a bible. It’s a agreement between you and the service you are using. You’re not obligated to follow it by the code of law, you are obligated to follow it if you want to use the service. If the platform catches you breaking the TOS, they can give you the boot. But guess what though, platforms can still boot you, even if you DON’T break a single TOS clause. Will they get in legal trouble too if they do that? No.

The electronic frontier foundation wrote a great piece on this issue:

Judges across the world confirm in multiple cases that violating TOS IS NOT A CRIME!!! Hacking/phishing/stealing data/etc… those are crimes. Violating TOS (unless you’re breaking obvious REAL laws), is not.

Another popular case was the Schnabel vs. TTrilegian Crop lawsuit, where it was also ruled that TOS aren’t legally bounding: Schnabel et al. v. Trilegiant Corp. et al., No. 11-1311 (2d Cir. 2012) :: Justia

If you have time, read up on it.

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Read up on @Chase Twitter handle. The owner registered it in 2008 right after Twitter launched. Fast forward a year later, the bank, J.P. Morgan Chase approached the owner and offered him 20,000 USD for it. The owner refused. J.P. Morgan went crying to Twitter, then what does Twitter do? It suspends the @handle (on the grounds of trademark violations) and gives (speculations say it was sold) it to J.P. Morgan Chase.

Just a FYI, there was no trademark violation. The account was named @Chase, after the owners name, Chase Giunta. The account was called @Chase, not @JPMorganChase. Not anywhere in the account did the owner claim he was the bank, nor used its images.

Why am I telling you this? Because I just want to show the hypocrisy of it all. If needed, platforms will break their own rules for the sake of pleasing the big dogs (or for money). Throughout the years I’ve seen constant abuse of TOS from within, especially on Facebook. Basically “if you have the money, we will bend our own rules for you.”

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Thanks for the explanation. You know what you are doing and i am sure you did thorough research. Its quite an interesting topic with a lot of grey zones. If you don’t feel engaging with those cyber divisions could in any way harm swapd, I also see no reason not to do it.

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I 100% agree with you that it’s a gray zone, but it’s not illegal. Even if you got sued and lost, it wouldn’t make it illegal. A company would have to prove damages/etc in order to win. Albeit, these companies can afford lawyers like no other so there would be no point in fighting them, but we are talking about the very question whether breaking TOS is illegal, and not whether a company can sue you or not.

Case in point, many (most) court cases around the world decided violating TOS is not a crime.

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Yes, that’s what i understood from the info and links you shared. I trust your judgement. If you feel swapd is generally operating in a safe space and that there is no risk that facebook, cyber divisions etc. try to shut it down for whatever reason, then it might be a great way to deal with scammers. If you feel there is risk attached that this backfires, i would stay low profile.

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And regarding that, I don’t think it would harm SWAPD in any way. We treat these properties as intellectual property. These days, you can sell rights to anything. The video you’ve shot on your phone, the clip you’ve made in your Sony Vegas, the beat you recorded in your studio, the doodles you’ve created in your art book, etc. etc.

If someone steals my intellectual property, I have every right to go after them, no matter where and how the medium is hosted/shared and whether it was bought/sold anywhere. It’s a new age, what’s mine is mine, and that includes data. If you steal it, I will report you, period.

Yes, that’s what i understood from the info and links you shared. I trust your judgement. If you feel swapd is generally operating in a safe space and that there is no risk that facebook, cyber divisions etc. try to shut it down for whatever reason, then it might be a great way to deal with scammers. If you feel there is risk attached that this backfires, i would stay low profile.

We can get shut down in any minute, but never by cyber divisions unless we’re breaking obvious laws. Facebook has the manpower and money to squash anyone they want, and if they want us gone, believe me, we will be gone, whether we report scammers to law enforcement or not. We’ve already had legal trouble with SnapChat, Inc (on our other site, they strong armed us into quitting SnapChat sales. They had nothing on us, but I really didn’t feel like fighting them especially since we’ve had like 1-2 SnapChat transactions per year). So this isn’t our first tango. In the past, EA (Electronic Arts) nearly took me to court too as they tried to muscle out a domain from me. Even though I was in the wrong there (I was running shitty CPA campaigns using their game as bait, but hey, I was young, please forgive), I stood up to them and they left me alone. I am giving you these examples to confirm that if a big company goes after us, we may have to shut doors, whether what we’re doing is legal or not.

If anything, I hope our clear and honest approach to the way we handle these things will help us in the future if disputes with these companies arise. Our team and I really go out of our way many times to help people, especially people who have been scammed/hacked. We don’t facilitate hackers/scammers/phishers, we make sure our community is (mostly) clean, and generally, we try to please both sides of the spectrum.

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A seller from UK recalled a YouTube channel that I bought on another forum, when I contacted google help forum and clearly told them I bought this channel and someone scammed me by recalling channel. They answered that “It’s illegal to buy sell YouTube Channel, it happens when you buy social media accounts so deal with it”

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Please see my responses above, as I would just be repeating myself.
Besides, I highly doubt that quote (the wording). I just don’t see a YouTube rep telling anyone to “deal with it.” Care to share that email you’ve gotten? As I believe you’ve seriously spiced up that quote to make your point across.

Besides, if you truly believe it’s illegal, then you have no morals what-so-ever by being an active member of our website. If anything, you’re facilitating crime. How do you feel about that? My point is, to all the people who claim it’s illegal. You’re basically admitting self guilt and keep indulging in the criminal activity anyway.

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They clearly told me they can’t help me because they don’t allow buying selling of accounts and it’s against their policy. Everyone here knows no social media platform allow it.

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Exactly. They don’t allow it, but not because it’s “illegal” like you’ve said before. If it was illegal they would instantly report you to the authorities. Did they do that? No. They basically said, “you’ve broken our rules, we don’t care what happened to you.” That’s it. It’s a reasonable response, but there was nothing illegal about it. I think many people here don’t actually understand the meaning of the word ‘illegal’, hence all the discussion.

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Great Idea, PIN this topic so everyone can see it. New and Old users…
Maybe you have to add an automated message for every new users, so when they first register they get a welcome message and a link to this topic too.
@SWAPD

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Great idea. It will discourage scamming from the start