UPDATE: @zeartul confirmed he no longer owns @bellyrub.
UPDATE 2: Now there is a flash sale to bleed every drip from the @freedom 1M+ Steem power delegation before it is pulled as it hasn't been paid for around 5 days.
UPDATE 3: https://steemit.com/bellyrubmassacre/@zeartul/i-do-not-own-bellyrub-any-more
UPDATE 4: I've spent a good part of today investigating this, and I am 99.99% sure this is all @zeartul and @bellyrub was not in fact sold. I have some information I am going through, but there will be more information tomorrow. Regardless, do not send any money to @bellyrub.
I have long had a problem with @bellyrub (aka @zeartul) selling votes privately, self-voting both @zeartul & @bellyrub accounts. I was happy to see his recent change on his stance related to this, up until recently where it has started back up. That's not where it ends though.
Not only is @bellyrub self-voting while selling the same steem power to uninformed users, they are also selling their vote on the Minnowbooster marketplace at the same time. There has been no disclosure on this or the private selling. When a vote is made with a bidding bot outside of the 2 hour 40 minute windows, it causes the windows to be longer (by hours) and during that time more people bid for what they expect to be a portion of the 100% vote, but the window gains far more bids as it goes on for longer than the set 2 hours 40 minutes and voting power was bought and paid for privately outside of the window. This is a way to double dip, now @bellyrub is selling votes via bidding windows, self-voting, and selling them on Minnowbooster for a triple dip combo.
There is also a recent surge in complaints about @bellyrub not upvoting people who paid. I understand a no refund policy as I have done the same at @buildawhale, but this is for user error. These are all issues related to @bellyrub not voting as per the bids.
This is where we really jump off the deep end.
Yesterday @zeartul ask for donations of 40,000 Steem to get 8 Million delegation from "outside investor" so he could have an $800 upvote for @bellyrub.
Within an hour or so, the idea was all of a sudden scrapped for some unknown reason.
Recently @bellyrubbank has been having issues paying users what they have been promised and then asking users to trust them with 40,000 Steem so they can fund their business.
@bellyrub gets a lot its power from @freedom, which he paid 480 Steem on a daily basis to lease. I don't know their arrangement. If it is like most @freedom arrangements, you ask for delegation at a set rate, and he either gives it or he doesn't. In this case, he sent @bellyrub over 1M SP for a daily rate of 480 STEEM. @zeartul stopped paying for this Steem power 5 days ago. I can only guess it is due to the hardship bot owners are facing with the high price of Steem Based Dollars. The bidding windows have been very empty resulting in great loss to bot owners.
@zeartul recently stepped out of witness related to channels around the time a lot of this questionable stuff started to peak. We have talked a lot lately, @zeartul and I, while I don't agree with all his actions, we have had good conversations about 3d printing, minecraft, and just the general state of things.
I know @zeartul was looking for a buyer for @bellyrub and approached me about it.
I have spoke with @zeartul a lot lately, it is only in the last few weeks we have even talked as I don't agree on how he ran @bellyrub in the past. After he got the large delegation from @freedom, he seemed to change the way he ran it for the better.
I would very much like to be wrong about this, I do not see @bellyrub as a competitor, but a colleague as there is far more demand than there is supply.
I have never been a fan of @bellyrub though, as I sacrifice a lot to be transparent and honest about how I run @buildawhale. I could make far more money running it differently. I exact some degree of transparency and honesty from others as well. Not all bots are making ridiculous profits, I am struggling just to pay the rent on our Steem Power, yet I still refuse to abuse the power I have behind @buildawhale.
My recent popular posts
- How curation rewards work and how to be a kick ass curator
- Markdown 101 - How to make kick ass posts on Steemit
- Work ON your business, not in your business! - How to succeed as a small business
- You are not entitled to an audience, you need to earn it!
- UFC Fight Pass and Steem Witness caught secretly mining cryptocurrency on their paid service
- Building a Portable Game Console
)
lets see how he acts
with all the heat,he's already gone.
too late, his data is out and people got it
Now he claims he got hacked. I just have to accept my 25 sbd are gone...
Seems like everything is a fucking business around here, money machines yaiiii! People still don't get Steemit's true potential, they just see money like a killer sees Red! Sorry for saying bad words on your post.
Not everyone operates this way. More info coming soon....
I haven't lost faith darling. We're gonna change the world!
Bring it :)
Steemit IS AN ECONOMY though. It is designed to be one. Steemit on the otherhand is a social media website. Technically, I could offer you my services as a structural engineer and we can settle our payment in SBD or STEEM, which ever we elect to at the time of our agreement. That is why the marketplace is setup, why there is a funds transfer set up and also why we have rep points. but if we look at it as a social media environment, then you have to first have zero expectation of being paid. You should be drawn ONLY to the content. if the content suck why use it, if not for its economic utility?
It's not designed to have untrustworthy scumbags operating shitposting businesses.
A free market system will always be exploited for good or bad. Bots can go either way. So if you can't code it for good or bad either, so you are left with the free market to decide. We should like @themarkymark does, spread the word so their profits are diminished, but I honestly don't think we need to at the current price of SBD.
We're deciding right here and now that we don't want these type of 'services'. The SBD price only affects the buyer but not the seller. So we definitely need to do more than just sit and wait for the price to manage it.
Good to stumble upon one of your comments again btw :-)
whats up @surfermarly!!! boy I feel like I have some steemian friends now!
The way I see it right now is that people bought SBD at $1.00 (or were awarded). Now if you had to choose to cash out your SBD at $2.00 (like i did) or spend your SBD on upvotes... i think cashing out makes more sense. THEN, if you are a bot operator, you're thinking about how much you agreed to pay your delegator in SBD, and hurting thinking about it because you can sell your banked SBD at over 50% markup back into the market. So the delegators are pulling their delegated SP. This is how i see the rise in SBD hurting bots. If SBD maintains a high long enough, the bots who use delegated service will out of business quickly unless they switch their payments to STEEM, which is still relatively cheap!
jonsnow, TONS of people feel this way and are in droves starting groups on discord, A Nihilist "who gives a rats ass as long as I get mine" attitude prevalent on this platform (not talking about this post or the people in it by the way, talking about the vibe)........it is driving some good people to make good changes on or off of this platform......lol, Discord seems to be making more content lately O.o
I feel the same way...
But this is a business indeed
Lol they are milking the cow while hungry bloggers dying of starvation and fatigue!
Please support my comment on @bellyrub's latest article because he's trying to hide comments from people who have read this article. In fact, he has flagged a comment in an attempt to hide what's going on.
@stellabelle vote done
done on all his posts
But is any of this really surprising? When you advertise this place as a money-making/get-rich-quick scheme, then reward shit bloggers, spammers, and scammers, then change protocols to allow widespread, lucrative schemes/scams to occur much more easily, it shouldn’t be surprising to see those things proliferate.
And when you have people who know nothing about Steem or the community becoming witnesses and buying/begging for approval - and getting it - it only makes things worse.
The question is: What does anyone want to actually DO about it?
Thank you! It seems you're able to read my mind.
Sit and wait until anyone else does anything. Like always.
Well, you can support me as a witness - @ats-witness - and hope that I can rise high enough to make a difference. To many witnesses have been either absent or indifferent for too long. The blockchain protocols have been screwed and we’re continuing to see the undesirable effects of them.
Yet nobody acts...or even acknowledges the problems.
maybe cause some are the problem, back to my lair to let everyone live out their "Lord of the Flies" fantasy
A lot of this inspired me to write, "Five Easy Steps to Get Your Greed to Level 10"...full of life lessons on how to become exactly like the banksters everyone seemed to be fighting against then a bunch turned into what they were preaching against.
my two pesos
Voted you @ats-david as a a witness @ats-witness and set you as a proxy too. I don't know you brother. Infact I just followed you although I see you've been a long time here. I have just been here over a week. I don't know how all this fugazi works. But somehow you won my trust. I believe in you for unknown reason. More power to you brother! I have a gut feeling you're gonna do great! :)
You have my vote now.
you seem like someone who actually gives a shit, so you'll get my vote :)
I was giving a shit before giving a shit was cool.
Thanks!
I hope you will not end up like those witnesses who lost their faith on steemit.
Oh but "to the moooon" right? ;)
this is why I'm glad you are rising in the witness ranks as you are not an amoral narcissist and you tell it like it is......I just float around about 30 discords more than look at a lot of steemit lately and find good content and people, that is pretty sad that a gaming site has become the "go to" for issues mainly imho
maybe- in the long term - it will make all the upvoting bots redundant..... known as ponzi shceme, at some point..
i.e. only idiots would trust scammers and to give them money in the hope of a return maybe, one day , possibly.......hopefully!
Is there anyway 'we' could make any bot activity only allowable, by reputaion? - ie make it impossible if the profile rep. is over, say 45 - Impossible to upvote, comment, or post?
(or something?)
just throwing ideas out there, in the hope people more intelligent than myself, will be sparked!
Will vote for you as a witness - thanks for supporting me on some of my posts in the past.
Nice to see how it all runs behind the curtain.
I had a feeling this one was gonna go sour, please do not send any funds to @bellyrub. Nice work on this one, investigator.
Yeah. Thanks @themarkymark great investigation into bellyrub. I certainly won't be using their services.
Wow how'd you end up with a -19 reputation????
10x barnie ..
Holding this discussion is the right thing and it should be rewarded. Let's get this post some visibility :)
We need bot owners that own up to the responsibility of running a transparent service and I am glad to have competition in @buildawhale :)
!
Yea, bro @zeartul, its not too late to set things aright, you can still win everybody's heart if you aim at it honestly.
We're looking forward to it.
#peace
stay strong!
Steemit is a place for loving collaboration and that is one reason a lot of us put in everything we have to make it better. But when incidences like these become the order of the day.., you suddenly want to rethink your stand.
Weldone Mark for being as transparent as possible.
F$%K them... I hosted the #bellyrubchallenge a while ago...
MOST OF THE TIME I HAD TO COVER EVERYTHING MYSELF + VOTES WERE NOT EVEN DELIVERD! Lolz I always had a feeling its all shit... So I ended the damn thing...
BUT FEEL FREE TO JOIN ANY OTHER OF MY CHALLENGES! :)
That is why I never sent a single cent to bellyrub...always knew the people over there only care about the money and don't give a damn about us minnows.
Thanks for the info! Now it's certain I won't ever pay any of these upvote whales.
You should run buildawhale profitably.
It is pretty understood that such a servise must bring its creators some margin.
Steem power is too expensive. I make curation rewards and I’m ok with that as I am long term. It’s when I have to bring money in to pay for rent that it gets stressful. It’s very close and highly subjective to outside influences like for example the current sbd pump.
I'm tellinig you this exactly . You earn no profit and bear huge risks.
This is not the first bad review I've seen about bellyrub, but none has ever highlighted everything I need to know like this one.
Thank you for bringing this to our attention
I have removed bellyrub from all listings on https://steemthat.com. Thank you @themarkymark for sharing this. Many know that I run the extremely small upvote bot @steemthat and have been concerned for some time about many bots doing some shady crap. I feel sorry for all of those that got burned. @buildawhale is at the top of my list of responsible promotion upvote bots. https://steemthat.com/all-bots-stats-live/
I don't understand why he would take the money and run if he had a profitable and pretty successful business.
This week has been brutal for bid bots with all the bid bot hate and the rising price of SBD have dramatically reduced the bids for bots. When things are at their worst, people tend to show their true colors more.
Hey friend I think bellyrub gone wild and selfish, by the way thanks for the update
Great investigation, Feck all these people with only one interest - themselves. I just powered up as much as I could this month from my own money so that I can curate stuff manually and reward people who deserve it and I aim to continue doing this for the near future.
Wow that's insane. Prviate bots aren't the way to go. We should have an official Steemit Vote bot and that's it.
@bellyrubbank's 45% APR deposit was too good to believe. Also, SBD, price fluctuation is never considered in the first hand.
thanks for revealing this info. I am not a fan of vote selling in any capacity, and these things just keep getting messier..
People will continue to take advantage of others and scam. All we can do is fight them one at a time. Maybe some HF changes too.
we all would like steemit to be less focused on money, more friendly, social and so on.. but its based on money.. its about business.. and the more money you have here, the more you want to use them to have more with less work.. it is so easy to use them, so why not..
this bots are good for helping people who need their post to be upvoted.. but they pay for it high prizes.. sometimes they dont even get the money they give..
and I dont even remember when I got some upvote from a whale.. its much easier to have a bot where people pay for upvotes.. and you just get money.. doesnt mean your post is a piece of shit.. you paind, thats enough.. and if you have great post but no money? pity.. you can just hope..
money win..
I remember when I joined steemit the from page "money talks..." The idea of earning money will always attract people. I think steemit is always trying to lure people in and making them think it is easy to earn a ton.
The feeling of getting a whale's vote for not putting in your own money I think is priceless. I have not gotten one yet but have gotten +$1/votes before. It makes me feel very happy to earn that even though I likely could have earned more doing something else with the effort I put in. Yet that is part of life where things that are worth something do not come easy. I hope bellyrub teaches people this and make the steemit community as a whole better.
Great bit of research, thanks for the analysis and for sharing.
Human nature and inherent variations won out with the bellyrub it seems, some people are ultimate slime when it comes to screwing others over for a few extra dollars.
Some time ago I wrote about the rise of voting bots. Is it time for the war of voting bots?:D Anyway good post, thanks for bringing this out. We need as much transparency as possible as there's no "police" to sort this things out. Cheers!
PS. Can you tell your opinion about @booster? Reading this post something tells me that @buildwhale is the most honest one ;)
@bellyrub has had a long history of self-voting and selling votes privately. Now it has gone to a new level. Asking Steemians for 40,000 Steem to get 8M delegation when they haven't even been making good on their existing small bellyrub bank offer was a new low. Why should they be trusted with 40,000 Steem, even more importantly why should Steemians have the front the cash for their business. Luckily the "deal" was shut down within an hour or so before too many people lost money.
I can't speak for @booster, and I run @buildawhale so my opinion is biased.
OMG you're an actual person behind the user! :gasp:
Hate to be THAT kind of steemian, but I would really like your opinion on my latest post. I think it is relevant to your interests as you're already halfway there to implementing it.
Let me check it ;)
Just posted a new one, so it's the one about the voting bot that can grow steemit.
A lot of people feel entitled and a lot try to take advantage of others. They hide behind the their account moniker. The only solution to this is, as a community, protect each other. As there is no policing force. Similar to how bernie has taken it upon himself. The steem community will never be perfect, there will always be greedy people. But we can fight the scum and keep building an amazing community here. @themarkymark keep it up. I love working with you and @buidlawhale. I love what possitive it brings to the community where other "services" bring such negative.
Why do you all hate the free market so much?
Free market? He was advertising a product then selling that product 4 times diluting the product without disclosure. Not to mention stealing money.
No different than a bank leveraging deposits 9:1.
Did he use force to make people use the service?
He sold a product without disclosing it wasn't what was being sold.
It's like selling a Mustang, but instead of putting in a V8, putting in a V4 without disclosing it and all sales are final.
I work so hard to post but it doesn't work so well but making a good post earn reputation.... This post helps to those who wants to try to get something back from the hardwork.. 😊
Thanks for being so transparent @themarkymark . This is how things should be. Thanks!
Running a bidding bot isn't the most popular activity here, but running it fairly and transparently is the only way see it being sustainable.
I have a really bad feeling about this as this might our first bid bot ( exit scam -aka fire sale ) happening before our eyes. I hope I'm wrong. I've been holding off saying anything ,but I hope people don't get taken!
Update: This just ReSteemed from BellyRub's main account ?
https://steemit.com/bellyrub/@ilyastarar/scam-alert-bellyrub-gone-rogue-please-don-t-send-sbd-i-repeat-don-t-send-sbd-806797fe4438f
UPDATE
https://steemit.com/bellyrubmassacre/@zeartul/i-do-not-own-bellyrub-any-more
(self voting only for visibilty)
At this point, I believe this is false.
probably.
He's leaving to many traces, like poloniex transf and many others. I hope most of this exchange block to receive funds from this scammer.
I've just checked his
poloniex memo 2e406d3a0c966c45
account related: bellyrub, zeartul,zear
He's still the owner of bellyrub
Sounds shady
i send somany request to freedom but dont get any loan bcoz of my score ..
That's got to be really rough.
im leaving steemit bcoz of my score i tryed so much but nothing happning..
very good post
Interesting.
Have followed everybody here, dont forget to follow back.
Thanks.
No trust for the bot since now.
These kind of activities are spoiling the soul of steemit..its a cancer which needs urgent treatment. Very nice @themarkymark for pointing out...
Very Interessting Post, that why i hit the resteem button...
What is going on at steemit???.
I hope greediness in people won't bring down the quality and value of steemit :(
Thanks for letting us know. But what actions can be taken against such activities for stopping it from spreading any further.
Congratulations @themarkymark, this post is the eighth most rewarded post (based on pending payouts) in the last 12 hours written by a Superuser account holder (accounts that hold between 1 and 10 Mega Vests). The total number of posts by Superuser account holders during this period was 991 and the total pending payments to posts in this category was $5198.06. To see the full list of highest paid posts across all accounts categories, click here.
If you do not wish to receive these messages in future, please reply stop to this comment.
I suspect we'll continue to see lots of controversy around these voting bots.
bound to be corruption when massive amounts of money are at stake dang id vote the heck out of myself if my vote was worth $100 talk about easy money
I have seen a few steemit verterans who don't even have a single post or comment and has over +100k in SP. They seem to do very well just curating as people donate SBD to them for giving the upvotes unknowingly. So I hope to believe not everyone would abuse the system. That would ruin steemit.
This is what happens when bots take over the platform :(
I'm so shocked
who would ever have expected that to happen?
oh dear.
Thanks for this post @themarkymark ... yes I saw the post from @bellyrub earlier and felt it was over the top.. this thing will implode if people go crazy..and that is what the offer appeared to be to me, crazy.
Here is the link from about 1 hour ago, and yes I did notice the comments from all the steemians asking where their money is (somehow it seems more critical when we don't use the minnow name) https://steemit.com/bellyrubsale/@bellyrub/send-any-amount-over-10-to-get-2x-worth-profit
Thank you for the information. I hope to see the rest of the story from the man himself.
it is so sad that Steemit - such an incredible tool meant for good, creativity, and sharing talent - can be so easily corrupted by intentionally disruptive and community damaging acts of greed and selfishness.