Interview With German-Plaza Admin

Posted by: DeepDotWeb

November 4, 2015

German-Plaza,  Is a market focused at digital items, we recently conducted an interview with one of the admins. Here it is:

Admin proof –

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Sending my Interview about German-Plaza in 10/31/2015.

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Who are you and what is your background concerning the darknet?

I’ve been part of the regular clearnet crime scene for about eight years and I entered the darknet about four years ago. Since then, I have had a lot of positive and also negative experiences with several markets and vendors. I originally began in the German scene where my team and I made a name for ourselves. If we saw anything suboptimal on the darknet, we couldn’t just watch helplessly. We acted immediately and were able to rectify justice and gather invaluable experiences.

Obviously I won’t any nicknames or specific projects which could be retraced back to us. I’m sure you understand that. =)

What is your role in German-Plaza?

As far as I’m concerned, I am responsible for both the vendor support and the marketing. We advertise internationally on a lot of sites and on clearnet and darknet forums, advertisements on Tor, on .onion wikis, and of course on listings such as Reddit, DNStats and DeepDotWeb. Basically, it’s my goal to increase our customer base.

Furthermore, we have a great coder and another admin who are concerned  with internal matters such as customer contact, site improvement, and conflicts and support. However, we don’t draw clear lines between our work areas and often help each other out. In doing so, we are able to supplement each other’s work and offer our customers the best experience possible.

How long have you been around?

German-Plaza opened its doors in April 2015. It initially started as a German-local only project. We, however, quickly realised that German-Plaza could also be turned into an internationally endeavor for users and vendors, especially regarding digital goods. Hence, we decided to enter the international market –  this turned out to be a prudent decision. Since the opening of our website, we have just under 6000 users and over 100 vendors with the trend going upwards. This shows us that our concept appeals to both users and vendors.

Can you tell us how german plaza started?

Digital goods such as CCs, ELVs and OBs are traded in frequently on a lot of forums and communities. Usually, the trading isn’t relatively safe for either the vendor or the buyer, and since there isn’t a single community or forum with a high market share, we decided to change this. Our goal was to create an international marketplace specializing in the secure trading of digital goods. This plan was feasible, so we acted swiftly, and thus German Plaza was born.

In addition to the goals mentioned, there were also a few others: we wanted to offer a platform where trades are done quickly and simply. We could also offer an responsive customer service ensuring security for our customers when trading. Trades should no longer be needed to be handled with communication sites like Jabber, which cannot offer the security and simplicity that we offer.

What distinguishes German-Plaza from other markets?

The main difference is that we are currently specialized in digital goods. For example, CC BINs are shown explicitly and you can search for certain BINs as well as other product specifications thanks to our highly-functional search engine. Once the user decides to buy a product he or she will receive it instantly.

We offer vendors a perfect platform for selling accounts, CCs and digital goods of any kind. Furthermore, we focused on keeping trades simple and the replacement system just/fair. Every single vendor defines the replacement rules on his or her own. In addition to that, there is a feedback system. If the buyer regards the replacement rules, he cannot be scammed at all. Our customers appreciate this safety a lot.

Given the feedback system, the buyers can buy from highly-rated vendor, which brings up another point: vendors will want to gain positive feedback in order to attract more buyers and will do so by selling good products for good prices – a win-win situation. Buyers rely on the good feedback and so do vendors. Vendors are given an incentive to achieve customer satisfaction.

Does your market specialize only in carding digital goods or other types as well?

It’s not only about carding. Our vendors also offer many types of accounts, banking logins, gamekeys, root-servers and smtps. We plan to add more products in the future.

Can you share some interesting insights as a market admin?

There are a lot of challenges that come with being a market admin. On the one hand, it’s a balancing act to satisfy vendors on one hand, and buyers on the other. Additionally, there are a lot of expectations for our support. Moreover, we have to enforce maximum security and transparency and protect the site from attacks.  Besides that, we are always looking to enhance our market/website and implement new features and improvements. As market admins we are busy all the time. =)

Any tips to the users for keeping them safer?

Being on the Internet, every user has to prioritize his or her safety. This applies to both the Clearweb and the Darknet. An encrypted hard-drive, Socks-proxies, and a VPN should be part of every user’s standard equipment if he or she wants to stay active on the Darknet. Better safe than sorry! =)

Furthermore, we suggest that our users to use our PGP and 2-FA and never use the same password twice. PGP and 2-FA are very safe solutions in order to prevent attacks from third parties.

By taking these precautions, you can safely be a contributing member on the Darknet.

What do you think about the other markets which are currently operating. Are there any market admins you think that are doing a good or bad job?

I think a lot of markets are doing a good job. However, we do not compare ourselves wth other markets since we take another a different approach by specializing on digital goods. Our focus is on improving our market frequently and putting our customers’ wishes and ideas into action. In the end, every user should decide for him or herself which market he or she wants to trust.

Anything else you want to add to the readers?

If anyone has feedback, questions, or any kind of problem, please write a support ticket to us and we will take care of it. We place a lot of importance on our users’ opinions. So if anyone thinks that we could do anything better, please feel free to contact us. Alongside our users, we have the ability to make our market even greater!

Updated: 2015-11-04