BTP is full of ghosts

[pavyracer]

And banning P2P transfers all together would be consistent with this.

Then how are paid posters going to get paid if P2P transfers are banned. They get paid in points.

[Jonah]

We actually followed up with DSI and received confirmation that each username in the original post that is enrolled in the BTP contest has a valid DSI account, none are fraudulent.

Obviously they have not depo'd at DSI or else they would not be winning points.

[Boner_18]

Then how are paid posters going to get paid if P2P transfers are banned. They get paid in points.

I just assumed that certain mods would retain the ability to award points. You mean touts? I'm not sure about that...

[pavyracer]

I just assumed that certain mods would retain the ability to award points. You mean touts? I'm not sure about that...

I guess you can call them touts. The ones who start threads about locks of the century, I have 5 dimes on this game, this is the biggest bet of my life, etc that always lose.

[big joe 1212]

It seems SBR is using due diligence here. It has to be hard to catch all these ghosts. I'm sure these ghosts are using friends/relatives names at DSI for the BTP contests. But what can SBR do at this point without hard evidence?

I don't think banning point transfers is the answer to the problem here. There is a nice little economy out there right now and it makes SBR kind of fun!

Data did a great job here on his detective work and we all should be on the look out and report and weird things like this. It will help weed out some of these ghosts. These ghosts are killing our contest rewards!

Hopefully SBR can make improvements in the future to help, but we can't expect everything from them. They are already doing a great job with this site and making improvements all the time. We get a ton of benefits from being members here!

[gryfyn1]

If they all have valid DSI accounts then it's DSI's problem and not sbr's if they are actually exploiding them first.

but they are dummy account, all it takes is a few minutes to get pick a name/address out of the phone book, make a random yahoo mail account and you can get a DSI account number.

Im sure none of these account have ever had, or ever will have any money deposited into them.

[SHADYLANKY]

This is why the people who play and fund their accounts want the point pool separate from the cash pool. These posters are diluting the cash payouts each week. I still appreciate the contest but wish it was a little harder for the ghosts. I can't seem to go better than 2-2 for $13-$19 but still. If I go 4-0 and the Prick goes 3-1 it would be nice to get a $400-$600 payout. Still a great contest. Thanks DSI and SBR

[pavyracer]

This is why the people who play and fund their accounts want the point pool not to part of the cash pool. These posters are diluting the cash payouts each week. I still appreciate the contest but wish it was a little harder for the ghosts. I can't seem to go better than 2-2 for $13-$19 but still. If I go 4-0 and the Prick goes 3-1 it would be nice to get a $400-$600 payout. Still a great contest. Thanks DSI and SBR

Trust me we lobbied hard before the contest started to exclude point earners from diluting the pot for the real cash players to no avail. Maybe this becomes a lesson for SBR for next year.

[Data]

Here is another ghost-only thread: http://forum.sbrforum.com/politics-e...e-america.html. But wait, this time I discovered something new and this is just ridiculously moronic. Those ghost copied their messages from a thread on another board: http://www.politicsforum.org/forum/v...=26&p=13512865. Yes, Lou, I know, they all have unique IDs.

[obamaismyuncle]

Here is another ghost-only thread: http://forum.sbrforum.com/politics-e...e-america.html. But wait, this time I discovered something new and this is just ridiculously moronic. Those ghost copied their messages from a thread on another board: http://www.politicsforum.org/forum/v...=26&p=13512865. Yes, Lou, I know, they all have unique IDs.

SBR is probably creating all them ghost accounts to drive traffic in certain areas of the forum, obviously all the ghosts are doing nothing with their points..

[jgray]

Here is another ghost-only thread: http://forum.sbrforum.com/politics-e...e-america.html. But wait, this time I discovered something new and this is just ridiculously moronic. Those ghost copied their messages from a thread on another board: http://www.politicsforum.org/forum/v...=26&p=13512865. Yes, Lou, I know, they all have unique IDs.

Ok, that should be enough. That's unbelievable and an incredible find on your part.

[pavyracer]

SBR is probably creating all them ghost accounts to drive traffic in certain areas of the forum, obviously all the ghosts are doing nothing with their points..

This looks to me like a deliberate attempt to water down the prizes for the BTP cash only participants. Combine this with the deliberate losing picks of The Prick and you have the perfect recipe for low payouts. This is very sad.

[jgray]

This looks to me like a deliberate attempt to water down the prizes for the BTP cash only participants. Combine this with the deliberate losing picks of The Prick and you have the perfect recipe for low payouts. This is very sad.

If the goal was to water down the BTP winnings, then there's no need for the ghosts to post. They could just make picks.

[sharpcat]

Those guys are very good at the BTP contest

Nearly half of the guys posting in that thread have taking in prizes from BTP.

[pavyracer]

If the goal was to water down the BTP winnings, then there's no need for the ghosts to post. They could just make picks.

So they went to all the trouble to create ghosts with verifiable DSI accounts which they never funded so they can earn daily points and weekly prizes? It appears they are good cappers since they pick winners at BTP. Why not fund each account with $50 to win cash instead?

[obamaismyuncle]

This looks to me like a deliberate attempt to water down the prizes for the BTP cash only participants. Combine this with the deliberate losing picks of The Prick and you have the perfect recipe for low payouts. This is very sad.

very very sad..

[jgray]

So they went to all the trouble to create ghosts with verifiable DSI accounts which they never funded so they can earn daily points and weekly prizes? It appears they are good cappers since they pick winners at BTP. Why not fund each account with $50 to win cash instead?

It's not a terrible point, but personally, I think these guys are just amateurs. The posting of entire conversation is too easy to check. They probably have gotten lucky are are kicking themselves for not posting up at DSI. Instead, they are waiting to combine all points under a single account and buy a freeplay. It's just a matter of time.

[yisman]

Here is another ghost-only thread: http://forum.sbrforum.com/politics-e...e-america.html. But wait, this time I discovered something new and this is just ridiculously moronic. Those ghost copied their messages from a thread on another board: http://www.politicsforum.org/forum/v...=26&p=13512865.

Good find. What a hilarious thread. Some guy must be having fun signing into all those accounts and copying and pasting text.

[shari91]

Here is another ghost-only thread: http://forum.sbrforum.com/politics-e...e-america.html. But wait, this time I discovered something new and this is just ridiculously moronic. Those ghost copied their messages from a thread on another board: http://www.politicsforum.org/forum/v...=26&p=13512865. Yes, Lou, I know, they all have unique IDs.

Whomever that idiot is deserves a big F for effort. If someone's going to scam the forum you'd hope they would at least be a bit creative with their posts instead of copying and pasting. Seriously, I could set up 50 accounts at DSI right now between IP masks and floating IPs. Never have to deposit a cent in them but I'd have 50 account numbers and all 50 of my SBR ghosts would then have unique DSI IDs. Obviously this person never deposited a cent into any of the accounts or the ghosts would've been paid their prizes in cash, not points. Great work Data.

[sideloaded]

So all this to get free pizza? Maybe the guy is hungry and out of a job.

[shari91]

Today's edition:

http://forum.sbrforum.com/politics-economics/720015-uk-like-third-world-country-marked-new-aggressive-atheism.html

http://www.debatepolitics.com/europe/81644-uk-like-third-world-country-marked-new-and-aggressive-atheism.html

Come on Lou. They're not only posting direct quotes from other forums in order to get their points but they're logging in within 2 minutes of each other. I'm not even in BTP and even I'm getting annoyed that legit posters are having their prize pools diluted because of this nonsense.

[SBR Lou]

They're not only posting direct quotes from other forums in order to get their points but they're logging in within 2 minutes of each other.

All are being banned and removed from the BTP Contest.

Thanks to Data for connecting the dots. Unfortunately while this ring of scammers managed to evade detection for a while, their greed wouldn't allow them to continue without tripping the alarm of alert SBR Politics & Economics posters.

This was like the Lufthansa heist of SBR Points. Kudos for exploring other forums to unravel the ridiculous scam.

[Slainte]

http://forum.sbrforum.com/soccer-handicapping/714169-soccer-10-07-a.html

What about this one, seems very fishy to me

[shari91]

All are being banned and removed from the BTP Contest.

Thanks to Data for connecting the dots. Unfortunately while this ring of scammers managed to evade detection for a while, their greed wouldn't allow them to continue without tripping the alarm of alert SBR Politics & Economics posters.

This was like the Lufthansa heist of SBR Points. Kudos for exploring other forums to unravel the ridiculous scam.

Woohoo Data!!

[hhsilver]

Thanks to Data for the excellent detective work.

Out of curiosity, I just looked at the week4 BTP results ( Lou's thread on this is easier to read/search than the contest site) to see if I could spot any of the names mentioned above. I think if I had 15 ghosts, I would pick all cases for 4 games and guarantee 1 4-0 and 4 3-1's. I wondered if that's what he/they did. And I was curious about how much the legit winners lost because of this.

What I found was that 9 names were removed from the set of money winners and the money column for them was now blank. The money that used to be in that column for them totaled about $310.

In my case( 3-1, 2.9) , i got 43.09 and the amount is now listed at 44.34.

Not a big difference , but multiply it by the several hundred winners and think about how many other sets of ghost haven't been caught and we have a scandal that, thanks to Data, is being investigated.

I assume those blank name and amounts are related to this thread. Is that true?

[Boner_18]

Good work Data. And entertaining find. Here is 5 on me.

[keyboarding]

So they went to all the trouble to create ghosts with verifiable DSI accounts which they never funded so they can earn daily points and weekly prizes?

Seriously, I could set up 50 accounts at DSI right now between IP masks and floating IPs. Never have to deposit a cent in them but I'd have 50 account numbers and all 50 of my SBR ghosts would then have unique DSI IDs.

There is your answer, pavyracer. It's really quite easy to do.

All are being banned and removed from the BTP Contest. Thanks to Data for connecting the dots. Unfortunately while this ring of scammers managed to evade detection for a while, their greed wouldn't allow them to continue without tripping the alarm of alert SBR Politics & Economics posters. This was like the Lufthansa heist of SBR Points. Kudos for exploring other forums to unravel the ridiculous scam.

I for one think all points recovered from this ring of scammers should be given to Data.

[jgray]

There is your answer, pavyracer. It's really quite easy to do. I for one think all points recovered from this ring of scammers should be given to Data.

Good idea. He really provided a service to SBR and other posters. All might be a bit steep, but certainly something.

Well done Data.

[pavyracer]

I wonder how many more others have done this. We are just scratching the surface. All BTP contestants should be investigated for fraud.

[yisman]

http://forum.sbrforum.com/soccer-han...r-10-07-a.html

What about this one, seems very fishy to me

yeah, that's another good example.

Clear ghosts posting within minutes of each other.

http://forum.sbrforum.com/soccer-handicapping/714169-soccer-10-07-a.html#post6754581

Notice the ghosts giving points to each other, which is what got this thread going in the first place.

thanks Data and Lou

[aca]

yes full of stiffs and his ghosts!

[playersonly69]

Lou, I certainly think that each "poster" has a unique DSI account. But that doesnt mean that they didnt sign up from different computers using different email addresses. I would have to guess that those accounts were probably not funded either.

If they were, then I guess that someone could have funded with ** using different names.


But it does sound suspicious

[DaProfessor23]

good thread hope this gets handled . "In SBR We Trust"

[HotStreak]

Eastern European Contest Mafia busted. Nice job Data! Watch your e-back.

Chinese Contest Whore Farms likely still operating out of Fuzhou. Very sophisticated and hard to catch.

[mmike032]

Eastern European Contest Mafia busted. Nice job Data! Watch your e-back.

Chinese Contest Whore Farms likely still operating out of Fuzhou. Very sophisticated and hard to catch.

nice work Data
probally still another 100 or so ghost accts for BTP