Bitcoin Forum

As of a few days ago, HashKing wrote that he would be closing down his services, not offering the interest on his 8-week lock-in deposits which were locked into a set rate and deposit schedule, and that he would be paying back people's coins over the next three years or more. The issue here is that his accounts:

A. Are insured, and he is providing no insurance
B. The 1% accounts were supposed to have no funds with Pirate, yet he lost the majority of investors funds there, as well as using investor's funds to buy mining equipment so they were illiquid.
C. He stated that "Deposits could be returned at anytime." - Could being the past tense of can, which they clearly cannot.

See his lending thread more info: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=66802.0

Feel free to add more information as you see fit, anyone else.

He repeatedly claimed no Pirate exposure, largely because the fund was backed by his personal funds. But we now know that much of his personal funds were in fact "invested" with Pirate. This is what we know for sure because this is what he has said. He has made vague claims about mining equipment that will be used to pay off investors (either by mining or by selling the equipment), but has not quantified this yet.

I do not believe it is known what his total obligations are or what his total equity is that will be used to pay them back.

But the crux of the argument behind those calling him a "scammer" is that he claimed no Pirate exposure but clearly had significant funds held with Pirate such that losing those funds impacted his investors. There's no way he couldn't have known that Pirate being unable to pay back would impact his investors, yet he continued to collect deposits with the promise of zero Pirate exposure. Those investors are now left with an uncertain payback schedule that may well never materialize.

I'm pissed off. Seriously, I was getting 1,25% while my funds were exposed to pirate? Are you fucking kidding me? I could have gotten 7% weekly on those same funds if I wanted, with exactly the same risks. And here I thought I was diversifying my investments...

Totally agree.
Scam tag needs to be given to hashking.

What did u believe a Pirate Pass Throu was for?

His Pirate Pass Through was a separate program, but the money which was invested in his "low-risk" program is gone as well due to Pirate's default.
Here's the quote showing the options he offered:

It wasn't supposed to be a PPT though.

"The funds for the deposits will be used for lending out to other borrowers, investing in more mining equipment, bitcoin projects and other investments offered on the forum. ... All my depositers funds are 100% guaranteed and will not lose any funds due to any defaults unless stated otherwise."

The funds that provided this "100% guarantee" were actually "invested" with Pirate. Thus the claim that they will not lose any funds due to default was fraudulent. Pirate defaulted. The depositors lost funds.

Lending to pirate was a legal option?!, but the hard part is that he he guaranteed the investment (but didn't do it....).

Who/what backed the "insurance"? Did he ever say?

Mining equipment.

Initial PM sent.

I want to add that I do not understand the compulsive nature of people to address a binary scammer/non-scammer indicator on everyone.

He didn't hold his end of the bargain but there are several ways he can handle it now all with different relative fairness ratings. For me, giving him a scammer rating serves no purpose whatsoever.

Since I have seen evidence that the mining farm that was used to back the insurance exists, it doesn't appear to me that any scam took place. Next time, invest in programs where the insurance pays out faster.

Now we wait; I doubt he'll stick around. Same stalling tactics as pirate.

The insurance will pay back over 3 (30?) years. Caveat Emptor, indeed.

Y'all might want to read this.


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=66802.msg1180141#msg1180141

WTF?

So this thread was a complete lie?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=75480

Would that surprise you?

Nope. But Kluge was recommending him, there goes any trust around here.

Kluge is an unemployed do-nothing with debts up the wazoo. Not the best reference.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=108711.0

Here goes an another "trustworthy" member. I will stick to my original moto - I don't trust anyone.

Did hashking ever specifically say the lower interest rate accounts weren't exposed to Pirate? He said they were used for other borrowers, which could include Pirate. I did see it was asked a couple times in his thread but he never answered, not publicly anyway, that I can see.

I haven't dig thru his entire thread, but what about the part where he said INSURED and withdraw within 24 hrs?
HK clearly didn't live up to that.

free market at its best

I agree, but more evidence of deceit never hurt. Would certainly expedite things. The insurance is iffy, because the terms of insurance were never clearly stated, if it was backed by mining then it's natural it will take a while, if people weren't happy with that they should have pushed for more clear terms/timeline of repayment of insured funds.

1.00% Weekly -- Guaranteed Fully Insured no lock in
 
1.25% Weekly -- Guaranteed Fully Insured 8 week lock in

3.30% Weekly -- Direct BTCST Pass Through 50% Insurance 1 week lock in (CLOSED)
Thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=97041.msg1068849#msg1068849

If you click the last link, you will se he promised insurance was in a wallet, definately not at pirate, since he was insuring against pirate default.

Ah yes, the wonderful world of BTC insurances.

Like CPA insuring against pirate default by financing themselves through Pirate PPTs.

Didn't see that, thanks. So a summary.

For the PPT deposits,  the insurance was promised to be held in a separate fund on an ongoing basis, with everyone to receive 50% of their funds in the event of a pirate default. He now claims to not be able to do so.

His other deposits were guaranteed and fully insured, with withdrawal requests fulfilled within 24 hours, which he now cannot do. It could reasonably be assumed they weren't put with Pirate since he was running a separate PPT. I don't see any reason for him to not have a scammer tag until he fulfills all principal payments in the lower tier brackets, and 50% of the PPT deposits.  

Should be noted that Kluge so far has been far more open to the community than many of these other people.

The 50% insured was for my 3.3% weekly program.  I had very few signup for that.  The 6.91% program was direct Pirate exposure.  Anything less then the 3.3% was insured and that is what I'm working on paying off. 

Pay up man, the GUARANTEED deposit should be in your wallet so send them out!!!

Were the lower tier deposits with Pirate as well?

Hashking is a scammer +1

Even if he is, at least he plays poker with his own money, not with chips fraudulently borrowed from others.
Why dont you spend your time more productive by returning your lenders money or working to gather it?

Why don't you answer my question instead of trolling? It certainly isn't helping your case.

Hashking,
You've been a very naughty boy. Now go back down to the basement and stay out of trouble.

Everyone,
Bitcoin Investing is going to be an alternate definition on Dictionary.com for Fraud someday :(


fraud/frôd/
Noun:   
1. Wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain.
2. A person or thing intended to deceive others, typically by unjustifiably claiming or being credited with accomplishments or qualities.
3. ALL BitCoin investments.

I think that says it all, he responds within 30 seconds to troll Micon but can't even answer my simple question.

Did the investors of the 3.3% option get their 50% back yet? That should have been paid out, since the insurance amount was supposed to be sitting in an address waiting for a Pirate default.

There's no problem with the direct passthrough.

For the sub-3.3% accounts, I'm feeling the same way as BadBear...

Maybe 3 years is too unreasonable for a "guaranteed" deposit account, though? I'm not sure. Is there any legal precedent for this kind of thing?

I really didn't state a time frame the insurance or guaranteed part would be returned by.  I can take 10 years if I wanted.  Everyone who invested were ok with the terms as they were. 

You might wish to look up the definition of "insurance". The crux of full insurance is that a person is made no worse off by a covered loss. Not having access to your money for ten years is worse than having immediate access to it.

No. It said insured according to the conditions stated in the thread. So a 24 hour withdrawal period. That is the condition I agreed to.

You cannot keep the 24-hour time frame but you have the moral obligation to be as close to it as possible.

This conditions were in effect as long as the business was viable.  This business has closed its doors and is trying to make good as best it can.  If you guys keep acting like this I will just walk away. 

Right, so you are *not* going to honor the insurance. That was my point. I'm glad we agree.

That's childish and dishonest.

I told everyone I was working on trying to get everyone paid out.  Your fucking attitude is childish.  You keep attacking me over and over again with the same thing.
 

HK: If you try you will find I can be extremely understanding and cooperative. You will need to communicate though. Most of the problems in the world between people are caused by insufficient communication.

So please, I implore you, ignore the trolls and answer all the sensible questions that are asked. Work with us, not against us.

I'm not "attacking" you. Read back over what I wrote and you'll see that I just summarized the other thread and then every time you said something false or misleading, I complained. Just stop saying false or misleading things and I'll stop replying. You don't have any of my money. I don't have any personal interest in this. I just detest when people who were trusted with money lie and weasel about their obligations.

Had you not claimed that you could take 10 years to pay back lost funds and still be providing full insurance, I wouldn't have said anything.

Maybe? For "Guaranteed Fully Insured", with explicit lock-ins of none and 8 weeks?

If any of CecilNiosaki's points A or B are true, this is obviously fraud, because it advertised with wrong information. Q.E.D., what do you need a "legal precedent" for? Besides, legal precedent where? On any classical market, investors bring police along when such bullshit comes to light.

Is it really just me who thinks that lying about relevant parts of a contract crosses a line? I'd put scammer tags on all insurances that can't pay, because they fail at the only thing insurances are good for. Totally counter-intuitive contract interpretations are also not okay. If someone says "insured", nobody expects a three-year delay in there. To make it clear: if you let this pass, every contract that doesn't involve a payment time could say "I'll pay in three years" and not get a scammer tag until then. Reasonable? Bad luck, even that doesn't suffice! Because remember, there is a time-frame given in the OP of the Lending thread: an 8-week maximum lock-in, guaranteed fully insured!

This is not a matter of opinion!




How about... A MILLION YEARS!


...

Why am I arguing on this forum. ??? Sanity Points -= 2

So how much information do you guys have about him to get your "contract" enforced?

It's pretty amazing that so many people have been caught in shit like this.

It's obviously fraud if he doesn't pay the insurance within some reasonable time. But I'm thinking it's possible 3 years is reasonable if he was using the profits set aside for insurance to buy mining hardware.

It's like an insurance company having all of its money tied up in certificates of deposit so it can't pay for a few years. If the insurance contract doesn't explicitly say that insurance will be paid within some time period, is this OK? Does "insurance" necessarily imply that insurance is paid within a short period of time? I'm interested in how cases like this have been handled legally.

Once more with feeling. It wasn't insurance (that was just the pirate accounts). It were guaranteed accounts. This whole discussion is moot.

See:

The issue is not the delay (which will last until eternity), its that he lied in his contract, promised an insurance against pirate default while secretly investing that insurance money in pirate. Its a scam, there are no two ways about it.

It's absolutely pathetic how many people are caught up in shit like this.
It's kind of like a reverse Oprah show...

YOU get robbed, and YOU get robbed, and YOU GET ROBBED!

I have sympathy for people who lose their wallets to trojans.
Less so for those that are a victim of their own greed.

Of course, since the insurance was based off of mining, regular payments towards the debt would be expected. That way, he can't just ignore the issue for 3 years.

As for the timelines for paying out, it's fairly obvious that the original terms applied only as long as the insurance wasn't needed. As for how long insurance can take to pay out if they don't state a timeline for insurance payouts, it'd be interesting to see the case law on that. I'm absolutely shocked that nobody requested a clarification on that while the business was still running.

Also, we need to evaluate this statement:
Again, this brings up the issue of time. However, he was never specific about what he meant by "me". You could argue that he guaranteed the program with his personal assets. Should hashking be required to liquidate all assets that can be forcefully liquidated by law?

Or I was guaranteed by Pirate to return my funds back to me.

EDIT: Another batch of payments went out.

I believe pirate falls under "bad investments," as quoted above ::)

Honestly it is going to take some lawsuits (probably a lot of failed ones before a successful one) before debtors feel they have anything to lose.  Still given HashKing has shown no evidence of a legal entity (LLC, Corporation) "me" could only be interpreted to mean him, his person, his assets.  Without an LLC or corporation he has no personal liabilities.  Every cent he owns from his car to his house to the clothes in his closet and the balance of every bank account could be used to satisfy a judgement.  Still it remains to be seen if a judge would consider bitcoin debts to be enforceable.

In all honesty this would be a horrible trial case.  Poorly worded contract, interest rates above the usary limit of any state, no hard evidence of real world identity, no promisary note, no signed deposits. 

Sadly it seems these investors Bitcoin ATMs really not want to learn a lesson.  Scam after scam after scam they just keep doing the same dumb crap.   Hell there are 3 or 4 active ponzi on the forum right now.  Clueless idiots haven't attempted to pull their funds out.  When they crash and burn in a couple weeks you can just take this entire thread do a copy & paste replace HashKing with the name of the next scammer and save everyone a lot of time.

Hopefully I'm being helpful with this post.

Here, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=75480.0 , Hashking states he has rental income and has an established LLC. Perhaps that claim can be checked as part of this Scammer Investigation.


I'd, also, just like to say I'm almost as frustrated by people choosing the riskiest offerings as the people running them dishonestly. I'm running my own GLBSE listing as honestly as possible and it's incredibly hard to compete when the majority of investors aren't evaluating offerings and claims well (ASIC press release information taken almost as gospel, comes to mind).

He also says that he's 15. Unless that was a lie.

Under the wikipedia topic of Insurance in general, theres a few interesting things that may apply to this case. I haven't really followed this, as I haven't invested in anyone, but I know the jist. Feel free to read through the link, but heres a few things that caught my attention.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurance

"Utmost good faith – the insured and the insurer are bound by a good faith bond of honesty and fairness. Material facts must be disclosed."
if the fact that he was investing in Pirate was not disclosed, that goes against that aspect.

"Insurance scholars have typically used morale hazard to refer to the increased loss due to unintentional carelessness and moral hazard to refer to increased risk due to intentional carelessness or indifference. Insurers attempt to address carelessness through inspections, policy provisions requiring certain types of maintenance, and possible discounts for loss mitigation efforts."

"The policyholder may hire their own public adjuster to negotiate the settlement with the insurance company on their behalf."

Very Interesting here - "Business interruption insurance covers the loss of income, and the expenses incurred, after a covered peril interrupts normal business operations."

What I did learn here though is, just by saying that the asset is insured, that by default gives it EVERY type of possible insurance (including those odd ones such as kidnap insurance, nuclear insurance, etc) as long as they are related to the business model HK had. So if you owe someone money, that you have tied up in your HK account, and you are kidnapped because of this, HK is liable for this as well, and by law are required to pay for any damages that may result. But either way, look into it yourselves, very interesting concepts.

Then again, how you would get this enforced is above me, but I'm just providing a bit of insight that you can interpret any way you like.

I would like to add in the above post by Hashking. As he states that it was a business, it should be filed for taxes. And as with sole proprietorships, I expect that he will be filling for a business loss on taxes and using that money for part of the "insurance".

I do believe that his threatening to walk away speaks greatly about what he has done, though.

The problem with judgements is they are hard to collect. Unless you have a private company handle it for you, it's a HUGE involvement to identify and seize assets. It's not something most people can handle on their own without dedicating their life to the task. And in this case, you're part of a class... Typically the lawyers suck up the bulk of the judgement in a class action.

I currently have 2 judgements against people in my area who have caused damage to my boat. There are a lot of yah hoos out there on the weekends. Unskilled operator crashes are a daily occurrence in the marina on weekends. People buy boats without knowing how to use them.

I'm finding it near impossible to collect these judgements. It's my responsibility to identify their assets and I just don't have the time and skill to do this on my own. For $5000, My time is turning out to be more important than collecting the judgement. I have a lien on a car in one case and a lien on a home in another case. The guy's car is shit and not worth the lien. He can never sell it but who would buy it. The home is deep underwater and it's about to become bank owned. That is probably the only judgement I will collect and it's been 8 years in the works.

There is zero use trying to convict him cause you cannot prove he received Bitcoins from you. You can prove a transaction exists and that you have the private key for the origin. You cannot prove he controls the destination address.

So may be stop this discussion? All I'm asking (besides the return of my funds) is communication, which I am clearly not getting. I just see he is sending money out and no Bitcoins hitting my wallet.

How can I not prove that he received Bitcoins from me? If you log on into his website, he has the status of a deposit change when he actually receives the coins.

Agreed.  I don't think this will go to court, I don't think this will get a judgement, I don't think anyone would be able to collect much on a judgement even if they got one.

Just pointing out since he never created a legal entity (LLC, Corp) for his business activity the only possible definition of "me" is himself, his assets, his person.  Without a separate legal construct any liabilities incurred by his "business" are no different than non-business liabilities incurred.  

Am beginning to think that Hashking still paying out is now a hero members honor - action...

as all other PPT´s are shutting up and are performing horror - action.....none of them shows any personal responsibility :-\

Throw the bums out

Cheers Zyk

Hey hashking, can you show any document (signed by both parties) where people accept that their 'insured' deposits will be returned within 3 years?  Or is the 3 year remuneration term something you made up after pirate cleaned you out?

With any kind of insurance, "best efforts" is usually written into the contract, and usually presumed if it's absent.  So if I were to get into a car accident, my insurer would make its 'best effort' to have the matter sorted out quickly.  This is both a legal issue, as well as good customer service.

I'd never sign an insurance contract whose terms were "Yeah dude, we'll pay for your accident at some point in the next 3 years, so just chill out brah. Also I'm 15."

It's an interesting form of insurance, considering the fact that mining equipment guarantees nothing 3 years in the future. Could be losing money in a matter of months. With difficulty shooting up we'll see how that goes.

I also wondered if Pirate had promised payments over the next 3 years, if he wouldnt have been labeled a scammer? After all, both hashking and pirate seem to have paid out a very small number of small accounts, and promised to pay the rest later.

Did he mention this mining insurance thing before the BS&T default? Has he paid anyone yet?

Of course not. And seriously, how is mining going to pay for this over 3 years? In just 3 months his mining operation will be almost worthless and it will take 3000 years to pay back his obligations.


Yes, a few tiny accounts. Very much like Pirate did.

You will get it much earlier when running in the arms of the FBI ;)

Take care

The community still loves you

Thanks Zyk

I've decided that he is a scammer. Especially due to this (now-deleted) post:

Theymos, could you lock this topic for 1-2 months?

At the moment this thread just leads to meaningless escalation.

If his deposits are backed by a mining operation, either he is:
1) Over leveraged and the value of his operation doesn't cover the value of his deposits
2) Completely incompetent at setting up a mining operation
3) Lying about the speed with which he can repay

A 3 year ROI for mining equipment is a joke.

Mining equipment as long term insurance is a joke, if you even believe it. It would be easy to produce evidence if that was the case.

He doesn't seem to have any intention to repay. He'd rather have his depositors indefinitely waiting and slowly realising they won't get paid, instead of going for him.

I guess everyone that has every deleted a message should get a scammer tag. 

Way to miss the point.

If the post you deleted was:


do you think you would  be getting a scammer tag?  No?  Can you think of any reason why you might be getting one?

Its facetious to say "do your due diligence" with bitcoin because there is no way to do so nd you cant enforce property rights.

Telling people you wont pay unless they do what you want is extortion.

Maybe everyone just misunderstood what sort of hash he was talking about.

I like how you are still trying to wiggle out of your own words. Nowhere did you state your guarantee was based upon pirate. You fucked up. Eat it as you were so easily able to take money from others who were scammed as well all while telling them their investment was insured.

 :D

Is this chungehung?  Did you make a sock puppet because you were afraid to ask for the information yourself.

Must be because I don't have an account with this person.  This account was created on 9/6/12.