Bitcoin Forum

frankly, this is a shorter-term macro-education for the larger scams that are able to be perpetrated in the world of money and finance.

seeing this free market with all the little guys playing out the old standards should pretty much harden fools quickly.

edit/caveat: i also don't know what the fuck i am talking about

+1

but my EVE experience tell me that greedy people won't learn. They will keep falling for scams.

Oh well their fault. If someone believe the "hurr durr 7% per week" they deserve to lose everything  :D

This can be applied for the people who fall for fake SMS Advertisements too. They deserve what they get.

Yes, there is definitely some educational value to it. In most cases, victims should look at their loss as tuition. Besides the educational aspect, scams also prove tha Bitcoin protocol works.
 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=96859.msg1067323#msg1067323

I'm not glad that there are so many scams and frauds. But it makes sense. Free market means freedom to use and abuse at the same time. As long as there are gullible people who will fall for it, there will be scammers. It's just a question of supply and demand.

+1
Eve hardened me to online scams long ago.

Idiots and inbred imbeciles should not use Bitcoin and computers in general. They will be scammed and stolen. All other free thinking people are welcome and benefit!

That would mean going back to the Internet pre-WWW. Pandora's Box is open. Eternal September is here to stay.

Keep anything important off the computers if you dont know how to manage it!

Keep anything important off the computers if you dont know how to manage it!


Good advice. I am not glad for the scams, but they do prove the durablity of bitcoin.

Well they really prove durability of Bitcoins as a medium of value and they also will teach the teachable part of human population to THINK! So OP point of view is valid.

I'm not "glad" that there are scams. However, there is a positive effect, which is inoculation of the system.

As scams happen, and businesses fail, and trust is tried and tested and broken, it builds the resolve and resiliency of the system.  Just as a society never exposed to any virus may be wiped out at the first appearance of one, so too an economy never exposed to fraud/failure is more susceptible to a massive disruption when one arises.

You can also think of this in terms of natural selection. Weak businesses and people will lose their money, the strong will earn, keep, and build with it. Capital tends to move toward its best caretaker in a free market (though it's not a straight line to get there - many bumps and regressions along the way).

Scam and fraud can give a lesson to people how to avoid them in the future. From some aspect, they are not bad and can increase the security level of existing system. Indeed some  companies did fail from the scam or fraud. They are so unfortunate and shoud be blamed themself, not others.

Well, it's just another form of scams, actually. I mean, people are willing to pay tons of $$$ because they chase the freaking dream of getting rich quick with mining. No due diligence, and they fall for BFL for example!!!

Hmm... two type of people fall victim to scams.

1. The non-tech savvy
2. The greedy

For the first type, we can't do anything. And I don't care about the second type. An example is the Mt Gox scandal. Everyone were warned that keeping Bitcoins in the exchanges is not a good idea. But the greedy ones never listened. They wanted to make quick money, by short selling their coins.

Though lessons u get taught in the bitcoin world  ;)

Having too much vodka did you  ;D ;D

It has it's pros and cons. People who constantly want to trash Bitcoin will use the fact that it's not reversible as their excuse to dismiss Bitcoin, as if scams like that don't happen with fiat money.

Hopefully people learn to use escrow or at least deal with people that can be held accountable through legal avenues. 

Even trusted member would scam you with thier trust like Project and the other .

They just get more trust and go for the bigger scam .

The scams also help keep BTc price down longer to levels allowing mainstream adopters to buy in relatively low

Of course, anyone hiding behind a computer can decide to scam you after building trust but if I recall correctly there is legal action being taken against Projects in order to recover the lost funds.

What can be done he took the coin and run off , its annomynous

Why is that? The scammers also try to sell their scammed coins at some point, so they have FIAT profit. By selling the coins on an exchange (or in person) they do their part in satisfying the demand of BTC, thus lowering the price!

It is true that there is always a value of education. But i don't agree about the scam.

He left a lot of traces to his real identity - apart from the obvious scare factor I see no reason why trusted members would say there have been advances in legal proceedings against him. Bitcoin isn't anonymous, it's pseudonymous.

You can prove an entity owns x address, but you can't prove an individual owns x address unless there is a real identity linked to it, for example sending funds to an exchange where you are verified with ID proves you own that address since you can send funds from it (although not always because anyone command someone else to send coins on their behalf). Your leaving a verifiable trace.

I gotta add, just remember to remain emphatic and keep in mind that we're always talking about people, living human beings here. Even if they haven't done their due diligence and fell for a crappy scam, keep in mind to feel sorry for them! It's always a sad things for someone and they feel bad about losing their money!

So greedy victims deserve more punishment than the scammer?

I don't think he ever implied that, he just said that the two people who fall for scams are either people who don't understand what they're getting into and the people who want to be greedy and believe everything they see.

"A fool and his money are soon parted"

I personally think if you are greedy enough to think that a website can offer you 30% interest every day and all you have to do is send them your money, then maybe you need to have a long hard think about what you do with your money.

no, these scams are not a good thing. it's a net negative in that it deters people from being open to bitcoin.

The scams have value in that late comers to bit coin like myself can read about them on these forums and be smarter as a result. In a free market people are unfortunately more susceptible to such things but freedom can be messy.

one thing about bitcoin is that you can steal a whole lot of money from someone on the other end of the world, and it would be really hard to track the culprit down. another not-so-great byproduct is that kidnap for ransom can be done much easier now - you don't need to meet with anyone to get the money. once you receive your btc, you can release your abductee.

It basically hasn't got much to do with bitcoin. Scamming people happens everywhere where money is involved. Bitcoin is making it easier to scam anyone around the world and have irreversible transactions, granted. But it's nothing someone coming late to the Bitcoin party has to learn. It's plain and simple a bad thing and nevertheless will happen over and over again everywhere in the world because that's how people work unfortunately :(

It is a bit of an adjustment though from the seemingly safer world of being able to charge back credit card transactions or have banks reverse fraudulent transactions. The current fiat system makes it easy to be dumb because there is usually a recourse if you get scammed.

good thing i believe.

Separates idiots form their money.

I disagree with that. I mean, yes, you're right about keeping coins on an exchange - there is an associated risk with doing that, but what went down with Gox wasn't a case of people leaving their coins/money on the exchange on a regular daily basis, it was a case of leaving their coins/money on the exchange when there were warning signs that things could turn sour.

Somebody who had a routine of shifting their coins at the end of the day, every day could have still fallen foul to the lockdown they put on withdrawing coins.

IMO scams suck any way you look at it.   Just because someone is not as intelligent as the next, doesn't mean that he/she deserves to be stolen from.   Many people say that it is their own fault for not doing their due diligence...still doesn't make it right...

BTC isn't the only currency with scams and frauds.

You can scam and fraud with USD, but of course there are bigger consequences for it.

If you get caught that is.

But yeah, every currency will have scams and frauds that occur. Bitcoin just helps to build trust, as it is irreversible when transactions are made, and requires the trust of the community as opposed to other things.

You could possibly get your fiat back, but BTC is next to impossible to return.

U cant realy look at it like that; those scams are scaring more adopters than they are bringing in due to lower price.
I agree that on a small scale scams tend to make people more cautios, and making a more secure environment, but good-bad scenarios are more likely to show bad results.
In any case, yet again, another thing that makes the price volatile [+2;daytraders and exchange owners like this]

Are people learning their lesson?
It seems many of us forget too quickly and get careless again, and/or the newbies fall for the newer scams and loan offers.

yes agree a lot of people to get anything with fast way include . hacking . scamm . phising . cracking or anything to get investment . data money or data games . thats why need security before come to unfamiliar site

So you say that for example all mtgox victims are imbeciles and idiots?
Sometimes you might be inteligent and got scammed too.

I was scammed once (0.1btc) and I don't feel like an imbecile :-)

Well if you have to see a positive in a negative, you can say, it creates employment for law enforcement and security companies.  ;D

They would have been out of a job, if it was not for crime.

The banking service, and other financial services, add trillions of dollars to the governments tax collection, when they have to develop systems to counter fraud activities.

And when they get caught, they have to be locked up and fed. {This too create jobs and expense for the countries}

So yea, in a way, you can say, they create work.  :(

You are correct about crime creating "employment"
Ironically, if drugs were legal, then there would be much less violent crime and a lot more room in jail for actual criminals.


Police and thieves in the streets
Oh yeah!
Scaring the nation with their guns and ammunition
Police and thieves in the street
Oh yeah!
Fighting the nation with their guns and ammunition...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alI3Vp1zkOQ