Bitcoin Forum

Hey there, so I've used TORWallet in the past without problem until now when I tried to withdraw and all I see is "Hot wallet exhausted. Please wait while we move coins in from our offline wallet." I did a little digging and it seems this has been going on for months.

Now, I only lost 1 BTC but it's still very irritating to me. People like this are ruining our community.

So, just a warning to anyone who was thinking about using it: TORWallet IS A SCAM!

.. and to the scumbag scammer of TORWallet: Please get hit by a bus, thanks.

Yup.  


The TorWallet post has been updated by a mod in hopes to discourage anyone attempting to use it:

Never EVER bank on the darknet.

The second worst part is that I was about to double check and see if anyone was having problems with them before I sent my funds.

I'm just glad it was only 1 BTC at this point. Is there any way to have the public TORWallet (http://torwallet.net/) legally taken offline? I believe I saw in another thread that he's using false registrant details which I'm sure is against domain registration policy. Or maybe if there were a group effort to report the site as a phishing attempt using Firefox and Chrome, and by other means? Are his links still posted to his original thread? If so, maybe they should be removed as well.

I'd love to hear some more ideas. I just don't think this site should be left online like this for more people to be scammed. (Note: I'm not advocating illegal actions)

Anyway, thanks for the reply Stephen Gornick.

Good thinking.  The registrar is Microtronix, a vendor that takes bitcoin, so they should be able to justify complying with a takedown.

I'll write them and report back.

Thanks for taking the initiative. I look forward to seeing if anything comes of it.

Agree, best to avoid altogether. Too many nuts there.

The TORWallet site is still up and I've asked the operator of the hosting company for status on the takedown requests.

The response indicated that there have been no reports to him [Edit: with supporting evidence] of anyone being scammed (and thus without that, no take-down action is forthcoming).  I've provided the hosting provider's email to multiple people who have inquired via PM, but I cannot say with certainty that any have submitted a report of having been scammed [Edit: or if contacted him, provided evidence].

Should anyone wish report their losses, here's the contact information:


[Edit: I would think all the evidence needed is a screenshot of the "Hot wallet exhausted" message right?]

Keep in mind that there are two sides to the trust equation.  I agree malicious actors could ruin the community, but only if we fall for their activities.  We need to be aware that they are out there and know that they exist.  They do everywhere, I have a bridge I'd like sell to sell you.

They will not ruin the community unless we let them.  We as individuals in the community have a part to play. 

With new services there will not be trust and there will need to be early adopters of the services.  If you decide you want to risk it by being an early adopter so be it, we will need people willing to take the risk.  Go into it knowing your taking the risk and if it fails, it fails.  If it seems too risky and no one is willing to test the waters then its not a good fit for the community.

I believe that is what you were doing and you were just reporting back, which is good.  I'm only commenting on the fact that you feel people like this will ruin the community. I think its part of the growth of the community.  It might well be that the originator, felt they were adding something positive, that simply failed.  It could be that they fully intended to rip people off.

Hello!!!Torwallet does not allow me to withdraw bitkoin! 
I sent an email with the screen on jfreak53@microtronix-tech.com.
Can I get your bitkoin?I await your reply.
Thank you.

TORWallet has folded shop, and your coins are probably lost to them. Microtronix only manages the hosting, so there's no use contacting them to get your coins back.

' JFreak53@microtronix-tech.com ' keeps asking for more proof and documnetation and 'supporting evidence' .   Somehow he is not able to  google for the evidence  .

And TorWallet is still up and accepting new deposits.

And all along, Microtronix/JFreak53 is advertising their services of hosting bitcoins on 2 servers ( see :
 http://www.microthosting.com/  and   http://www.microthosting.com/bitcoin-servers.html  .)

Unless the Canadian authorities get involved, the coins in TorWallet are probably lost.

Doing a whois on the domain now shows SUSPENDED on this:


And as a result, there is no longer DNS resolving occurring (and thus the service is effectively now offline).

the Service is still up, but only reachable trough TOR

TorWallet is up, and accepting coins from new customers, and accepting coins from old customers ( on Tor ).

Any Canadians reading this?
 
It may be time to contact the Canadian equivalent of a DA or Attorney General. ( Microtronix/JFreak53 knows or should know who they are. )

Can't do much without proof.

I just don't see the point in what they are doing. If I'm not mistaken, the people behind TORwallet won't be able to access the individual wallets, the BTC are just sitting there...

Sure as hell wish I'd done my homework before depositing there...

Why would you think that?  I'm pretty sure they can.

Because of that unique address you need to access the wallet. Of course, it was setup to be a scam from the beginning they could harvest that someway on registration, but the coins I deposited are still sitting in my unique wallet so I'm not sure what is what :)

they developed the system, u get an address and such a key passed to ur URL to match it to your "wallet", the BTC itself goes into theirs pocket.
since they developed the system, its theirs money no longer urs. if you really believe they cant access it then this is stupidty/retardness. for example, il ship my money to u and label it with such a "key", now ur telling me u cant access the BTC due to this key?

The way it works is:

They give you a unique address.
This address is associated by them with a bitcoin address (or addresses) in their wallet.
Because the bitcoin addresses are in their wallet, that have the private keys and full access to send the coins wherever they like.
This means that when you add bitcoins to TORWallet, you are giving them your bitcoins and trusting them to give them back on request.
The unique address allows you to see how many of their bitcoins were sent by you to them.
When the scam hadn't been activated yet, it also allowed you to request that they send some of those bitcoins elsewhere.
When the scam hadn't been activated yet, your request would be honored, and they would send their bitcoins to the address you requested them to be sent to.
The unique address keeps someone else (other than you and them) from requesting that those bitcoins be sent somewhere.
After the scam is activated, they no longer honor requests from you to send their bitcoins anywhere, they can still send them anywhere they like, anytime they like.

So many scammers in BTC world hard to trust anyone.

FTFY  ;)

Got ya, thanks for the explanation! :)

I made the mistake once to trust a BTC mixing service (though with a small amount) on the darknet. Never again. Just to save newbies time and trouble: They are ALL scams, no exception.