Bitcoin Forum

Two weeks ago Paymium (who run Instawallet, Bitcoin-Central and Paytunia) claimed they were hacked, and that coins were stolen.

They also said they had filed a police report in that regard.

Forum member Boussac (who is Pierre Noizat, Chief Operations Officer for Payium) has been actively communicating on the forums about this alleged "hack" and the Instalwallet "claims process", which will no doubt net Paymium a huge chunk of unclaimed and "un-paid out" coin.

On the various threads on which he has been active (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=167215.0 / https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=164143.0 / https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=173902.0) he has been asked repeatedly, by many different forum members, to kindly supply the police report file number, or other verifiable evidence, that a police report has actually been filed. Perhaps 50 requests so far!

He has ignored this ever single time. Not answered the question, not responded to the question, and not once even acknowledged it.

At first it was a simple, natural and rather innocent question seeking further clarification. As he continues to directly avoid this repeated request, the questions have become more insistent and demanding.

And still it is ignored. The question of course is WHY?

It certainly points to the fact that a police report was not filed, and this suggests that there was in fact no hack at all, and that Paymium have created an opportunity to profit from the demise of Instawallet.

I really hope that this is not so, as we would then have in our midst, a bunch of lying dodgy fraudsters, who continue to be active in the Bitcoin community via Paytunia and Bitcoin-Central.

Ironically all it would take to refute this "heinous slanderous accusation" of mine would be for Boussac to just simply provide it here. Such an easy thing for him to do. And so, in order to be transparent and fair, I invite it again:

Boussac, would you kindly supply the police report file number, or other verifiable evidence that a police report has been filed, as you claim it has.

I would be very interested to hear comments and suggestion from anyone in the Bitcoin community about this.

In my opinion, the greatest threat to Bitcoin, and its acceptance in the world, are the ongoing scams (or even just rampant unprofessionalism) being perpetrated by various "insiders" and corporate entities within the Bitcoin economy.

Paymium has a responsibility to be accountable to their customers and in fact to all in the Bitcoin community, and they should be held to that IMHO.

I have no coin in Instawallet, but I agree, it is a bit suspicious that he has ignored every question in regards to the police report. And note to pyedpiper, it would be the latter appearing likely.

This could have been a "from the desk of Tom Williams" classic stunt (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=22221.0): sell the coins on the bubble and buy them back later during the claims process. There's zero liability since they will eventually return the coins, they were indeed 'hacked' (the Google link disclosure) and they don't need to raid more than 1% top worth wallets to make millions. It's almost dumb not to seize such an opportunity.

Watching (on the reply feed.)

Busy right now, but I got to thinking on a long drive yesterday,

 - "Where is the Bitcoin Foundation?"

 - "Do they have any resources to help here?"

The Bitcoin Foundation has, for better or worse, made no bones about wishing to embrace and be embraced by the mainstream political bodies of our societies.  This would be a good opportunity to demonstrate this willingness in my opinion.

Good point from OP.

I can't see any reason to reject giving the police report number apart from it being non-existent. That also leads me to believe that the operators of Instawallet are dishonest,and as such also all other businesses they're associated with will suffer from the same kind of dishonesty. This alone is enough for me not to give them any business.

Therefore, nobody should give them any business at this point. Of course this will not happen, as not everybody do research or care about such things.

What would be possible would be to send a formal letter to the french police in Paris (sent it on paper, snail mail) inquiring about whether they have any cases related to the Instawallet incident (all names and company names should be listed), and perhaps sending it directly to the nearest police department of Pierre Noizat would be a good idea. I am sure someone with good google fu skills can find the nearest police station.

Also calling such a police station and asking could be a good idea, but I think a letter could be the best thing. It could be weeks to get an answer though, if there ever will be an answer.

Since Pierre Noizat aka Boussac doesn't address giving out the police report number, although he stated such an investigation exists, and he also stated there are independent investigators looking into the case, and he even stated that bitcoin-central is being audited by a professional security company. I think all of it is just a bunch of bullshit. A legit company would have no problem saying that a certain company is doing the audits, and then giving them permission to confirm this if asked by a customer.

In essence this is what he's doing:
http://www.infobilder.com/struts-med-hode-i-sanden-t19630.jpg

Unless somebody seek him out in person and ask him some hard questions, we will never have the answers. He had repeatedly proven that he is not a professional businessman. A professional businessman would've ignored the personal attacks and the less civilized attacks, and adressed all issues that he could in a professional manner, and if there was some issues that he could not address he would've explained calmly that unfortunately he can not adress these issues in public because [insert reason].

We don't know who or how much was stored at instawallet, but if there was some sharks storing a lot of money there, I for one would not sleep well at night knowing that my name is out there in the wild and I owe a lot of people money.

The most serious part is the fact that nobody knows how many coins were stolen, if any. He has not made a concise statement in regards to this, and currently all coins are in limbo.

Things that should've been answered are:

1. How many coins were stolen, and how much of the total percentage is this ?
2. Who is managing the reclaim process, is this the same person(s) that are evading and lying on this forum. How can we be sure that this process is just. For example, knowingly wiping out 40% of all funded wallets from the reclaim process, would still give coins back to 60% of the holders, and when complaints from the remaining 40% surface, Instawallet reps could just say they're lying or making up fake wallets. As long as the reclaim process is not done by a trusted party, we have no idea how this is going to end, or if it will be just at all.
3. Pierre Noizat seems to be a person of 40+ of age ? He doesn't handle the whole mess as a professional businessman, and I have no reason to believe this will change at any point soon. He takes stuff very personal, and his response to anyone he deem to do a personal attack is to stop communicating with that person. For instance when I said bitcoin-central should do a security audit by a professional firm, he called me out as condecending, instead of adressing the issue at hand. Personally I would thank anyone for their interest in the company and pointing to the fact that such matters are attended to, and give the details that I saw necessary.

Sure we could all sugar coat our words every time we communicate with someone, but the business world is not a candy store.

No - it's not. Doing so is criminal in each and every jurisdiction.

To the best of my knowledge, the leader of the foundation is the same individual that is running Coinlab, Peter Vessenes. I haven't checked the foundation's webpages for a while, but they certainly doesn't seem to be very active around here, so frankly I don't have much of an idea what they're up to, or how active they are.

Personally I don't understand how Peter Vessenes can be both a leader of the Foundation and Coinlab. Common sense tells me that he can't be dedicated enough to play a good role in both enterprises, one or both of them will suffer.

It is merely the beginning of the further process of verification that what Paymium are saying is actually true.

If he actually makes up a fake police report number then he's even deeper in, and the consequences will be upped.

And if he does supply it (and thereby simply be professional and responsive) it will be the beginning of confidence being restored in Paymium.

Of course there is the question of whether the rest of the board of Paymium is aware that he is single-handedly trashing the company's reputation with his refusal to answer. Or whether this is Paymium's policy in the moment.

Either way they are not to be trusted as it stands now.

Corrected - thanks :)

Might be worth looking into... As Paymium is not a member of the Foundation, they probably don't have any leverage over them though...

Thanks for your comments :)

A company can only be trusted to the degree that its board members and senior officers can be trusted. If their COO can not be trusted to be honest or professional then what does that say about the company altogether? And what does it suggest may happen in the future to someone who does entrust their money to any of their services?

I want to believe that they are being straight, but in the face of the ongoing refusal to provide confirmation as requested, I simply can not.

Yeah, but it's the perfect crime. If they manage to buy back at lower prices, there's not even any basis for a criminal complaint, you have your coins back. If questioned they will tell the police they covered the coins "that the hackers stole" out of their own pocket. Maybe some civil liability for not being able to access your coins for an extended period of time is it's not already covered in the TOS.

http://betabeat.com/2012/12/bitcoin-central-becomes-first-bitcoin-exchange-to-operate-as-a-bank/

Rather ironic then that this company is appearing to be one of the more sketchy around...

You, ~ghdp, are my best hope yet for getting police reports filed.

If you are willing to either:

 - locate a suitable legal person to do the next bullet item, or

 - formulate a suitable report for international victims to use as a template and publish it on this thread for public comment and utilization,

I will promise at least 2 BTC for this task from my own funds.

----

If anyone else who has experience in the corporate world wishes to formulate some documentation to present first to the marketing departments of the 'mainstream' banks that 'Paymium' claimed to be working with, and thence (possibly) on to mainstream media outlets, that is another task.  And also one which I will be inclined to personally commission if necessary.

The goal would be to enlist the legal bodies of said corporations if they feel like it would be in their interest that their names not be sullied in association with 'Paymium' who, by all appearances, seems at this point to be a criminal organization.

Thanks,

 - Tom

It would be insane to suggest they caused this crash, right? Take all the coins and sell them all at once- cause mass panic and buy them back now?

As most people following this know I have a lot of coins tied up in this problem. (Stupid I know, but I genuinely believed that if I kept my URL safe no one could acces my money)

I am hoping that Boussac and paymium are honest but there are reasons to be suspicious.

I am meeting with a lawyer on Wednesday to discuss options. I believe that i should be doing something towards registering a crime regardless of if they are guilty or innocent. I am hoping to claim skmething through my insurance xompany if possible. He is a finance lawyer who worked in Paris for 10 years so hopefully will have contacts in all the right places.

I am hoping to arrange some kind of fee based on money back with him as nearly all my coins were held by instawallet.

I will keep you all updated.

It just allows you to confirm that a report has been made.  There are many reasons why it might be undesirable for the actual information in the complaint to be made public but those who've been affected by this incident need a way to reassure themselves that appropriate action has been taken.

I know you all think I'm something of a dinosaur when it comes to management styles, but this is the kind of situation in which management needs to come out very publicly and allow themselves to be subjected to scrutiny.  I've previously suggested that a public letter from the auditors investigating this incident would be appropriate.  Users essentially want some kind of confirmation that this incident is being investigated from a third party who is unlikely to lie and it's within Paymium's power, and certainly in their best interests, to provide that.

I'll appreciate your updates.

I feel that it would be in the best interest of those who've lost high values to operate as individuals in the system.  It strikes me as more likely that Paymium will 'pay off' those who are willing to take these actions.

It makes sense to me, though, that those who lost smaller amounts of value can form an effective cooperative pool to push this thing forward and try our best to make sure that this thing does not become forgotten about.

In your discussions with your attorney(s), if the opportunity comes up, please mention that at least one person is interested in seeing a multi-pronged attack as described, and feel free to e-mail me if anything comes of it.

One more thing to note is that especially for this possible 'small fry' cooperative adventure, I highly value as much public visibility as possible.  Hopefully there would be enough information freely available that effected users could easily just pick up the ball and file their own complaints without needing a high level of communication or whatever.

Thanks,

 - Tom 

Gambling with client funds is not the perfect crime. It's extremely risky and could put the ones responsible in jail for a very long time. Of course, if it was never discovered, then it could be 'the perfect crime', but what if they sold off, then price made a U-turn, and they couldn't buy back all the coins, then they would've been in deep shit, and could've claimed another hack, but trails would've shown the truth as to what really happened. Anyway - all of this is mere speculation.

https://paytunia.com/


A couple days later they no longer were using that one address because they split up the funds into a myriad of wallets.

Now, who has exclusive control of them?

http://static.wix.com/media/cebb1ef60fe39de0b6c1e3aae3860986.wix_mp_srz_620_495_85_22_0.50_1.20_0.00_wix_mp_srz

I bet you can't guess which one of GRANDVAL Gonzague company's he's trying to pass off this woman as being on its staff. Hint: The other three images of staff are also public domain images.

I'll make it easy for you: https://www.google.com/search?q=33.786541133&aq=f&oq=33.786541133&aqs=chrome.0.57j60j62l3.24792j0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

These fuckers are beginning to truly piss me off.

http://web.archive.org/web/20120609071056/http://paymium.com/


With all that experience, nobody was able to hack our sites, so we opted to do it ourselves, blaming it on outside forces because you fucktards would believe it. Besides, we offered a free service and even warned you bastards to not leave your money with us, but you didn't listen, so we are going to teach you ANOTHER lesson.

And about that police report number: Fuck all of you, for you're not getting it. How do you like them apples.

Team Paytunia, et al.

esad

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends
Only One, Only One

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wG-Wt0dAm_U

Sometimes, you just can't make this stuff up.

Well, as a bitcoin-central client, i hope this is fixed for good.

I have suffered huge losses and i'm starting to think there's too much insider trading here. Notice the huge lag in bitcoin-central? Don't tell me is the bots because they have no api.

The hack, if it's true, were very simple: database of url stolen.

The question about if they are going to profit: They profit from the dust of coins never reclaimed and from playing with your coins in the mean time, and there's nothing we can do about that. I'm talking about "dust" of milibitcoins that were sended there and could not get out, since the minimum amount to withdraw was 0.1 or 0.01, and many services like https://coinad.com?r=7084 (https://coinad.com?r=7084) and others pay 0.000001bitcoins for viewing advertising and browsing pages.

they think, "mehh nothing is going to happen, we can control the server from some beach in thailand..."

They are like a bank in regard to bitcoins, so i will advise them against doing anything illegal, just look at what happend to bitcoin-24, first of all starting verifying all their costumers, look for multiple accounts from the same ip with 500E withdrawalls etc. If there's money laundering going on, anyone of us can close their bank account right now.  So they better explain what happened.

I tried looking for a cache, but to no prevail. I'm pretty sure it's going to be similar to what they use on their only sites.

Yep, it looks like this will work: https://a.bitcoin-central.net/s/terms_of_service

If they really did run a scam- why didn't they return the BTC yet? It was 'hacked' before the collapse- and they had plenty of time to sell everything before it hit the bottom, buy back and keep the profit.

That would have been the perfect crime really. I'm sure there was enough in there to send the market in a death spiral. But if thats what they did- why not return the funds? Just insane greediness? Not willing to get out with less money but no legal repercussions?

Even though they said the way their database was accessed means they can't come back online, doesn't mean they couldn't refund everyone. So strange.

Thanks for this ghdp :)

Was very interesting to stumble across this thread as well https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=86278.0

Instawallet being sold very hard it seems. It does raise a question as to what the motivation would be for that?

Boussac has already made much of that Instawallet was a free service and therefore no revenues earned by Paymium etc etc.

So why sell it so hard? A possible case for premeditation here I think...

Dear God! He succeeded. The first Bitcoin entity to do what they set out to do in their mission statement.

Boussac,

And just for the record...

Please state who the "independent auditors" are that are conducting "computer forensic analysis" on the alleged "hack".

And please state what they have discovered so far. I'm sure your clients are interested.

I need confirmation of your refusal to answer this (another) direct question as well for my statement...

Have a nice day ;)

This isn't a proper ToS but AFAIK these were the only terms visible on Instawallet: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=122677.msg1320842#msg1320842 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=122677.msg1320842#msg1320842)

Surely, this is not their "independent auditor": https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=6125.msg89874#msg89874

http://web.archive.org/web/20120116132913/http://www.amivulnerable.com/

http://web.archive.org/web/20111113122934/http://www.amihackable.com/

this.
I'm not sure the bitcoin business ecosystem have really understood the difference between cash and bitcoin.
With bitcoin unlike with normal cash, when you got a troube YOU are the main suspect. Because YOU are the one that has the biggest incentive to profit out of this hack. This imply that you have to be cristal clear about any move you do mainly in crisis time because otherwise it s gona look suspicious.

i believe they are honest for some reason now i also believe this all shit was not handled very professionally and i vastly support op. Not being clear in a bitcoin business is VERY unprofessional.

It's not innocent until proven guilty it's the other way round.

This is Boussac's response when you ask for a police report number:

I'm sick of all this bitcoin scamming!  I still expect to get my bitcoins back from Instawallet but I try to keep a positive outlook.   It's not much but at least somebody is admitting that they received our bitcoins and claims that they will eventually be returned.  Many supposedly reputable businesses will just steal your money and lie to your face and even call you a liar and claim you are trying to steal from them.

I don't care for going another round, for this time I have real money at stake.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tNDhoq96o3c/UB2LdZ3E3eI/AAAAAAAAW_I/5thIrJRn2m0/s1600/Pirate+COve.jpg

I asked for a simple police report number and what do I get? The current owner of my bitcoins, in no uncertain terms (maybe even certain), tells me to go fuck myself by sticking it up my ass.

I got an idea. I can start a bit stating that he'll pay, and when he doesn't deliver I'll be the one who'll get the scammer tag.

This is fucked up on so many levels, I'm beside myself.

Quick question- why doesn't someone just go find the guy? Paris isn't very remote. If people care- they should just go there.

EDIT: Or at least hire a private detective. There are plenty in Paris.

He showed that file, but I can't tell if it is a real one or not...


http://www.e-ducat.fr/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/recepisse-declaration-Paymium-BEFTI-avril2013-4.pdf

Can't access...

Can you also provide a link to where he communicated that that information was available?

I don't have any trouble seeing the file.

http://hebergement-pdf.com/mypdf.php?n=630

Can see it now - thanks.

Did Boussac post a link to this in the forums?

How did you come to find this?

I can access it.  It gives an incident number so it should be easy to verify its authenticity.

One worrying thing about the report is that it says the intrusion occurred between 1 March 2013 and 31 March 2013 - which suggests they don't know exactly when it happened.

 The crooks never sleep and neither does Clouseau.

https://gs1.wac.edgecastcdn.net/8019B6/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_mdjci8dC5u1qkropqo1_500.jpg

Obviously, he just put it up, for Google has yet to index it as they've done with previous /wp-content/ urls of his site.

The bastard doesn't even have the balls (because they're tiny French ones) to come here and let the community know he put it up. The same community that he's profited from and wants to stick it up our asses.

So, the crime happened between March 1 and March 30. That really narrowed it down for the police department. Speaking of which, this is not really the police department, but an agency that acts as a liaison of sorts for internet related crimes. (at least that's the best I can ascertain what they do)

I look forward to reading what somebody who speaks French learns when they call the number and sees what they can find out.

~Bruno K~

@naphto: Thanks a lot for that link. At first glance, and with my limited French, it looks legitimate. Of course it could be doctored, but publicly uploading a photoshopped police document when you are a legally registered finance service provider would be a very bad idea. Also, looks like it was indeed filed with the French "cybercrime department" (not a literal translation), like Boussac said earlier.

Too bad that Paymium has a horrible way of communicating their decisions lately. A few days ago, I wrote an extremely polite (and not too long) PM to Boussac, asking for a scan of the police report, before deciding whether to open an account at bitcoin-central and transfering a substantial amount of Euro to them. Never got a reply, so I took my business to bitstamp instead. :/


@Phinnaeus: Jeez, could you perhaps dial it down, just a tad? I mean, your posts usually are pretty entertaining, but you're not helping anybody (including yourself) with your method. One moment, you're all official "Dear Mr Boussac, I politely request that you upload...", only to be followed up, in BRIGHT RED LETTERS, by something like "Hey Boussac, you fucked me in the ass and now you don't even go for a reach-around, what the hell?". I get it, responses by Paymium are frustrating (and I didn't even lose money or time to them), but it'd probably be more helpful to make up your mind if you want to address things seriously or go for a vulgar style.


@Boussac/Paymium: Your company's communication with the public is terrible.  You really need someone to do better PR for you, for example by speaking for your company on this forum. I remember that davout was pretty good at it, but he probably has more important things to do at the moment.

Please consider hiring someone for that role (communicating properly, and in time, with your customers and potential customers), or set aside some time to do it each day.

I can guarantee you, you lost several potential customers for bitcoin-central because of that problem, and it's kind of sad, because I actually like the approach you're taking with bitcoin-central, trying to legitimize bitcoin trading by registering your business in France, and partnering with aqoba.

following this  :o

Boussac posted it in the French section ( https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=179224.0 ).

Oddly, I replied to that post, but didn't click the link, for I thought he was just linking to the police department site again.


Noted! It's just that I don't have any experience in losing a vast amount of money before, albeit doling out over $20K due to the Bitcoinia episode, indirectly (I had no funds with them), could have prepared me for this much bigger lost, directly.

As shown, the requests were mostly civil in nature at the onset, but at some point I've went overboard. I apologize for not apologizing, and appreciate the tone used in your statement directed toward me.

As you can imagine, this episode is now taking a tow on my personal well-being, business- and health-wise, though trying to be level-headed, with resorting to logic and humor to maintain my senses, tossing in vulgarity for good measure, but seeing now it best to scale that back a tad.

Hopefully, the vulgar that's in place will act as a warning to those who come after us and deal with this unprofessional individuals. (<---note, toning it down just doesn't seem to cut the mustard)

Most here have seen this exact approach in the past, all to no avail, yet we are now being led to believe that this time it will be different--just wait 90 days, and in my case possibly a helluva lot longer.

I've spent countless hours conducting research via the internet, posting my findings so that fellow bitcoiners don't get burned, coupled with helping them hunt down certain culprits. Ironically, I was doing just that when I opted to putting my wealth in a more secure place on hold to protect others. I'm not complaining, and will continue to do it, but it's now coming at a tremendous expense.

As a reward, I'm put on ignore by a Frenchman who possibly will live a comfortable life thanks to my ignorance and inaction.

Madness!

Yes, there's a warning put up here for Norwegian users as well:
http://bitcoin-norge.org/w/index.php?title=Bitcoin-Central

Was Paymium really hacked? Or are they running a scam? Latter appearing likely.


This post brought to you one of a handful of guys who are trying to exploit the situation of which Boussac has proven to be utmost forthcoming.

Looks like heeding your advice didn't help either. I'm still out 1,132+ BTC (claiming 1,123+ BTC due to a lapse in memory, giving InstaWallet the benefit of the doubt).

Three wallets were submitted on the very first day that option was available, in spite of glitches. One wallet contained exactly 1,000 BTC. The second wallet contained either 132 or 123 BTC, albeit I believe it's the former, but claimed the latter. The third wallet contained exactly 0.835 BTC of which can be viewed here: https://www.instawallet.org/w/sMceOus2wYrDVAHxA5BssBwB7kgDqC9r4Q

Neither one of those two claims are mine, and am not sure if my claim is included among those two, even though not shown publicly.

The other two IW URLs are:

https://www.instawallet.org/w/rL2DhMWW9tDvs24oFwtiq99zhh7A3ii6bg
https://www.instawallet.org/w/gZh1afVVl5aAtjNwXo0BiYChTxjwln33ab

Up until recently, I've learnt that the final part of the URL is what's considered the key, in spite of trying figure out what was meant by a key each time it was used by Team InstaWallet, namely Boussac, in the main IW threads.

I've since resubmitted claims to the two IW accounts above and have yet received a single email sent to me from anybody at InstaWallet stemming all the way back to when I first submitted all three claims.

The disputed 1Jpp... wallet I am unable to resubmit a claim, for it's locked with no such options available.

We are now 8 months out since the hack, and I was assuming that I would be returned my bitcoins at some point after the 90 day period due to the size of two of the claims, with no problem receiving the smaller wallet early on since I was one of the first, I believe, to submit a claim(s).

To date, in spite again of a myriad of requests, no InstaWallet principle has share with us who their independent auditor is/was, though there's no reason for this information to remain secret.

All three of these claims are legitimate and, according to the "block chain", as far as I can ascertain, InstaWallet has more than enough in their coffer to pay back what is rightfully mine.

This has gone on far enough, and I've held my vitriol attacks, mostly, due to the fine post of which I've quoted above. My next course of action may consist of a full dox of all principles involve in the scam section, and perhaps elsewhere, if this is not resolved immediately.

Apologies, if the above comes across as a threat, but currently I'm left with few options, seeing that I've yet received any communications from any principles of InstaWallet.

Bruno Kucinskas

BLOCKCHAIN.COM ann

https://blog.blockchain.com/2018/09/20/blockchainio-ico-red-flag/