Bitcoin Forum

My bank ING DIRECT discovered that a customer who bought bitcoin from me last month, paid me money with a stolen account. That account's bank, ANZ in this case, demands it. My bank will empty my bank account to pay for it.

Phone call I received: "because the money is stolen, you have never been entitled to this money. This is happens. Your account will be empty in a couple of days and there is nothing I can do for you."

Since the transaction happened on localbitcoins, with purchase and delivery of goods provable, it seems to me that I am punished for someone else's fault. I already contacted localbitcoin to suspend the buyer's account. I also contacted ANZ bank's efraud team by email.

What to do? And if I call the bank to ask for paper trail, what document do I ask for that can authorize them to empty my account?

The event happens in Australia, but I think in general the western law system work the same?

Just to add that I asked about Bitcoin cases, and my bank (ING Direct) told me "It's not about bitcoin or any other goods. It's not your money (in your account). It happens a lot."

never buy an account of any kind, this is true for this, steam blizzard etc, and any other out there, i think you're pretty much screwed at this point, nothing we can really do to help your condition

Before you trade with the guy, did you ask him to verify his identity? Something like have a bank card with his face?

If you can afford a financial lawyer , you can still keep the things at hand.The bank managers can't take the money away directly from your account .This is stupid .You gotta take this things to legal officers in your country.You can demand your bitcoins back if they're taking away your money.You have the localbitcoins receipt in your  email right ? You can definitely use that as a proof of legal transaction.But you need a lawyer .

Sorry to hear you had this trouble. I'm not a lawyer, but I think you are right. According to the Western Law System, the money did not belong to the customer, so he had no right to send it to you. The bank is required to send the money back to its rightful owner.

Something similar can happen when you buy a used car. If the person who sold you the car is a crook and the car was stolen, it will be returned to its rightful owner by the police. The onus is then on you to try to get compensation from the crook who sold it to you.

Is it different in China?

When doing a deal with anyone, always try to verify their ID and residential address so you know who they are in case things go wrong. That is also why platforms such as Ebay, Airbnb etc are so useful: the platform will help you and maybe compensate you in cases of fraud like this and the platform should know the identity of all its users.

P.S. I very much enjoyed your commentry on the Bitcoin market. I hope you'll post again about this.

This was PayPals old trick. You claim some breach, either porn buying, or trading with a dodgy account a couple of links back in the chain. PayPal then takes the money and adds it to their p&l account. Find out if the bank is supposed to be sending you cleared funds, or if it is allowed to reverse a bona fide transaction. PayPal payments are only a loan for 6 months, as they can reclaim a payment at any time during the temp period. ( unless they have changed the rules).

The only thing you can do at this point is report to Police that you were fraud-ed and collect as much information from LBC about the trade to prove to them that you're not the one who stole money but the other person did.

Until you're able to prove that someone else did your bank account will remain frozen.

I think the bank could not do that, you are doing a fair trade, in this case, the bank acting as if they could not catch the real bad guy, and then took you to become the escape goat.
They need prove more solid than that to take your money from your bank account, unless they can prove that you have some kind of connection with the real thief here.

You can  withdraw the money from your account if it's not frozen. If you get a legal notice, hire a lawyer to represent you and make a case against the bank.
Even if the money is stolen you have provided a service or digital goods against the money that you received in your account. You have to prove that you knew nothing of the fact that the money was stolen before you dealt with this person, also make it a point that it is not your duty to freeze stolen accounts and funds so the end user/seller does not get in trouble. All the discussions in your localbitcoins account and the transaction records will serve as proof here. If they still want to play smart, then simply have them pay for your loss. If you play your cards right, you can not only sue the bank AND keep the money but you can get them to pay you for the trouble they're causing.

But only do this if the amount is very large, else it'll be like fighting a world war to win a small piece of your neighbor's backyard.

The same case happened with this user as well: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1290189.0;topicseen. However, he got his money back. You can probably ask him what did he tell his bank and how did he proceed. It's not your mistake that you received money from a hacked account and I'm surprised this happened despite of using Localbitcoins. Probably asking for an ID proof would be a safe way to deal with users when they make a bank deposit/bank transfer.


Please update us on this issue as it will help others who have similar trades with bitcoins.

Ohhh too sad..
But now nothing can be done...Because someone has used stolen acc and got btc he ran away and now it's case between you and account owner..
So my advice is too be careful while doing local deals..
And you can case to police about scam done with you..
But farly I don't see any solution by police case in this situation..

They're both the same users. :D

And that means that this is resolved. OP, kindly close this thread, you can do that by scrolling all the way down and at the left you'll see the link to lock it down.