Was the removal of Astro's OMM rank the right decision?

Please read the whole thread before answering the questions at the end of the thread. To create some incentive to read and give input I will be giving away a few miniranks randomly to some people who have given input on this situation later on.

So to begin yesterday @video who is in charge of Official Middlemen removed @Astro 's Official Middleman rank based on this report.

Keep in mind this is the first report on @Astro in regards to someone getting scammed by an impostor and the private message Astro sent wasn't even that bad and was completely ignored otherwise the guy wouldn't of gotten scammed.

Astro included his bitcoin address in the private message and the guy who ended up getting scammed sent the bitcoin to a completely different address, it could be argued that sending the bitcoin address that you want to receive the money on is much safer than putting discord ids in a Sythe PM, why? Lots of people don't even know how to check Discord IDs, Astro himself agreed to put discord ids and discrims of both people for any future pms but it should be acknowledged that this is potentially even safer than doing that and despite that Video has decided to remove his Official Middleman rank.

Astro asked the guy on discord to PM him his discord ID which he did



Woeee here sent the impostors Discord ID in the PM. He did not even check if woeful#2620 was his ID. If Astro added UID to his PM back it wouldn't have changed a thing.
To which the reply was:



Another good point is Astro planned on doing the rest of the trade through sythe pm as he pmed his bitcoin address to the guy, Video ignores this point and says this looks really bad on him





Shortly after @video removed @Astro 's Official Middleman rank some Sythe Discord members said this to show support for Astro, clearly not agreeing with Video's decision to remove the rank.





Also As of right now it's basically a dictatorship where whatever Video says goes with no one being able to make any input before a decision is made regarding Official Middlemen as demonstrated in this situation, my proposal is he should have to talk out big decisions like this with other Official Middlemen.

There also aren't any rules to OMM where it states any PM without UID will get you your OMM rank removed regardless of how many verification options are sent in the PM. Sending just a btc address is arguably safer for the buyer than just sending a UID.

This is a simple case where someone got scammed due to their negligence, not due to a bad PM and nothing would have changed the outcome.

The questions are was Video justified in removing @Astro 's Official Middleman rank (do you believe his OMM rank should have been removed based on everything stated above) and should Video be required to consult other Official Middlemen before making such a decision?

 

How do you not include a UID in 2020. Including capitilization doesn't mean much when there are so many imposter characters.

Justified in having it removed.

 

It's not on astro tbh. Conducting the trade through sythe is safer than discord. Not astro's fault for the guy looking over the btc and sending it to a completely different one.

 

To keep it short - I don't think his rank should have been removed, however, it's really not that difficult to write up a decent PM once and then just copy/paste it and edit the necessary fields, just have something along the lines of this saved in a notepad that you can copy from whenever you need:

Spoiler: Example

My UID: 234735083246977026
My ID: Fidycent#6219
Your UID:
Your ID:
My BTC Address: 31rLh7f1BotdzFeyHKWDh1yimpTjNFDwYQ

Spoiler: Logs

blehblehbleh

 

I personally think omms need to be kept to the highest of standards because it’s such a difficult rank to get to start off with. That said I think they should have an opportunity to right the disputable wrong in this case, a warning that if he does this again he’d be removed and if he’d like to keep the rank to refund the scammed user. In this particular case it’s disputable as to whether Astro did anything wrong as the user who was scammed isn’t competent enough to give someone his own discord ID. Would he have read a proper sythe pm?
I understand that video is the head omm but I do think a collective discussion between all omms should take place in cases like these, where removal of the rank is an optional.
Much love your dearest DesX

 

In my opinion, these scams are almost always due to lack of awareness and authentication. Is it proper to say the kid would still have been scammed if Astro did things slightly different? Possibly.

To prevent problems like this in future, it should be written in blood and very very clear that regardless of how a MM feels, the exact PM format must be used. No cutting corners like we all do. It's fair to see how this could have been avoided since Sythe PM was used by Astro.

Bottom line to answer Moo's questions - I do think Video should be required to consult with others (like a BoD) before making any decision. There should be more heads involved, just simple checks and balances. I also do think Video has justification for taking Astro's OMM away. Does that mean he should lose it forever? No. Did he cut corners that *MAY* be the direct cause of the kid being scammed? Possibly.

 

To be clear, I supported removal of the rank but this was not solely my decision. The decision was made after a majority approval from upper staff

 

Hmm,, I don't personally think his should have been removed as from what I was able to gather this was an on-site trade and had nothing to do with Discord. That being said, it should be clarified better in the future that there are stricter protocols for OMM, as nothing was said anywhere that this scenario or similar scenarios would result in removal.

I think this issue is all due to a lack of clarity and the responsibility shouldn't solely be on his shoulders.

 

this ^^^

 

You didn't mention this at all but even so that's very vague, how was the situation explained, who voted? You say the vast majority of upper staff approved but you came to the conclusion to remove his rank very shortly after I messaged you about this situation so who was on at the time and voted it in your favor and how was it presented?

Also I have something that's very ironic, someone reported Bogdan for sending a pm that doesn't include the other users discord or discord id yet you replied with



You'd have to ignore @Astro 's Bitcoin address in the pm he sent that got him demoted or in my case you'd have to ignore my discord and unique discord id so why is Bogdan not demoted as well by your logic?

Also from my experience as an ex staff member, for the most part the upper staff will just agree with each other just to avoid arguing if you want I can post examples here like I did via Discord PM to you but here's an upper staff member pretty much questioning his own decision regarding this stating "he hopes his decision is wrong" which implies he's not confident in having Astro's Official Middleman rank removed because of this situation.



He also states that he's aware that it wouldn't change the outcome meaning your mind was already made up and you weren't taking input from anyone else.

 

An official middleman NEEDS TO KNOW about UID's and must send proper PM's all the time. Even regular members must send proper PM's and there are so many pinned threads in different sections about proper PM format. I have nothing against Astro but the decision is correct.

 

Wait, so it's okay to not strictly follow the template even though he's an OMM just because he was "mostly" right, judging by this screenshot? But Astro was pegged for not strictly following it even though he had a personal identifier for an on-site trade? (Again correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't UID completely irrelevant if it's an on-site trade???)

Either strictly enforce the template or don't enforce it at all, I don't think there should be any lenience for this kind of stuff? Seems a little hypocritical to me.

 

Although the "Proper PM" in this case would not have saved Woeee, the standard for conformation pms that OMM have over other traders whether the trade be for himself or for a MiddleMan the standard of conformation pm should still be there.

Even tho in this case where a proper pm wouldn't have helped it shows the members who voted on the removal enough demerits that could have cause someone else to get scammed from this conformation PM that was WAY below the standards of an OMM in my opinion.

Even if there are no "rules" for OMM there are standards in these days in regards to discord verification pms which can be found here: [Important] Confirm who you are speaking with on Discord! and here: Discord PM Template which i believe as OMM a sythe recognized middleman should at least follow REGARDLESS of if it would have helped or not.

As far as astro's argument for taking the trade to sythe after he had sent the PM, whether or not that was his intent it was obviously not his customers intent where he continued to do the trade outside of sythe pm.

Thus justifying the removal of his OMM.

 

Idk i feel like only showing the discord name & not the unique id is just a recipie for getting imposter scammed...
just because astros wanted to do the trade via sythe pms doesnt mean an imposter would have.

idk I feel like the role of an omm should be making sure that those 100% dont happen

 

Even though the guy pmed Astro on site and Astro responded on site with his bitcoin address?

The guy literally pmed Astro on site and he replied on site as well with his bitcoin address.

 

Personally, I would have removed the rank from both Bogdan and Astro. There are strict guidelines that accompany how to PM users when conducting a trade, and especially more so, as an OMM - which can be argued as one of the most desirable and hardest to achieve rank, which bares the highest symbol of 'trust' (relative to the market), alongside representing an enhanced layer of security for the user(s) opting to use said OMM's.

The larger takeaway from all this should be that, if the required and compulsory PM template is not used, irrespective of a whether a user gets scammed or not, or whether the required PM template would make a difference to a user getting scammed or not, the OMM rank should be stripped. Plain and simple (whether or not the BTC address was all that was needed is irrelevant to my point here).

In saying that, and regarding this particular situation - Bogdan's misgivings appeared to have occurred some time ago? Please confirm @Mootrucks. Since Bogdans misgivings, many different impostor scams relative to OMM's and MM's could have transpired, and as such, @video and the upper staff voted on removal of Astro's OMM rank, to somewhat set precedence. Is it unfortunate that he is the one that this happened to? Yes.

Playing devils-advocate, I would also argue that being an ex-Admin, a veteran and seasoned user of the market, and a tenured OMM, that he (Astro) should undoubtedly know the correct way to PM users. On the other hand, potentially Astro's accolades and commitment to this forum could result in him receiving him some leniency? If that were to occur, then members would complain of favouritism.

Ultimately, whatever @video does, people will complain. There's no winning here for anyone.

 

He sent him a pm on sythe to confirm that he was talking to him on discord. The btc address was also posted at the bottom of the pm under a very large screenshot and could have been easily not noticable.

Personally i believe this right here is enough to warrant a removal of the OMM rank
Discord ID's carry no weight as there are special characters that look identical to the real ones and this way of verifying could have lead to a scam to an even more aware person.

This is just way below the standard that traders should have in 2020 on sythe. With OMM being the top standard I personally agree with the removal.

 

Bogdan's misgivings have occured some time ago but using Video's own logic against him like I did above that wasn't a factor in him not removing Bogdan's rank. Also as far as the upper staff voting refer to my post where I quote him showing that one of the upper staff members only agreed with Video because he pretty much had to as Video made up his mind already.

Also the fact that he (Video) removed Astro's rank within 1 hour 30 minute of me pming him, which upper staff voted on this besides BlackBlasses (who obviously doesn't even support his own decision based on above).

 

The larger takeaway from all this should be that, if the required and compulsory PM template is not used, irrespective of a whether a user gets scammed or not, or whether the required PM template would make a difference to a user getting scammed or not, the OMM rank should be stripped. Plain and simple.

The perceived notion that a lack of consistency, throwing caution to the wind, and free-for-alling-it relative to PM's, results in an amateur, and unprofessional at best perception. There needs to be consistency, and the rank MUST represent safety and knowledge pertaining to trades.

Understandably so, if I were a new user, and a non-PM template by an OMM resulted in me getting scammed, I would be blaming the forum and its evidently unsafe trading platform. If proper PM templates are followed to the T, then we are able to fall back on that, which allows us to navigate the complexity of these scam reports far more easily and transparently. We can literally say, 'refer to the PM template, all the information was there, this was no fault of our OMM, or our system'.