Bitcoin Forum

Hello forum!

Yes, Now it was my turn.

I have been mining for a while and decided to sell off all my bitcoins for some cash to invest in both new hardware, and to build a new server room for myself. I have been mining for fun the first years and been mining more lately.

My rig is rather small 5x 6870 and I pull out around 1550MH/s. But I put some money in this over the years upgrading. The first bitcoin I mined some years ago.

I decided to sell over ebay for fast cashout, And It went well, very well I though. sold during the past 4 weeks around 63BTC to my paypal. But 4 days ago, all my funds at paypal got frozen. My ebay account frozen. I have been scammed all time long and the person buying have been using hacked ebay and paypal accounts to pay me. it seams to be the same person all time..

I succeeded to cash out ~150USD and my BTC account has the impressive 0.00069 left. I got scammed 8200USD.

The reason I post is only to warn you guys. There is money in bitcoin, Bitcoin is a digital 'thing' and therefore you are not under sellers protection. All my funds have been removed. I have made police-report but since I live in sweden nothing will happend. I have been holding a very low profile - Actually this is my first time I have an account here. I been reding this forum for a long time!

FYI here is the transaction of one of the transactions.
http://blockchain.info/tx-index/29b7d4c2598aafaa0a08111cc717a859f6e678b5503abe07e1571b58c76f14ca
The funds are moving around the world..
I cant tell if I've been scammed from same person or not.

I'm sad, anger but I am still healthy, I been though a tough lesson!

What can we do about scams? Bitcoin police? :)

Well, keep safe!

//Daniel

Buy or Sell on BitMit.us next time.

Seems like avoiding PayPal is a recurring theme. Very sorry to hear it cost you so much :(

I do have contact with one of the scammed buyers. She sais she still havent recieved her funds. My account is frozen and funds removed. What does paypal usually do about this?

File charges against paypal in sweden for damages. Expose Paypal as not safe abd sue them for your money. How did you know those funds they approved where stolen  etc, They are responsible Get a lawyer.

I have filed a police report, but I cant sue. If I loose (wich I most likly will, I have to pay all costs for (all, both sides) attorneys and trial. The system in sweden is very unfair. I can risk loosing 100 000USD in costs if I loose, If I win, I get back my ~8000USD. Its not worth fighting for.

Me myself would like to see a maximum cost for trials in sweden. (instead, if the trial is low-cost you dont have to pay, fucked up imo..)

Why on earth would anyone sell over ebay??  You're basically bending over and lubing up and begging to get ripped off.

Because I didnt want the money to touch swedish grounds - Tax. (I later learned by the Financial Supervisory authority that bitcoin is not yet an official currency, therefore it is just goods, but I think I still would need to tax around 25%)
Sell on ebay -> paypal, paypal -> buy goods on ebay .

That was my idea.

It was stupid.

it was my idea also to sell them on ebay...
damn...

I'm sorry mate but you sold 63BTC for PayPal? Are you Fucking serious?! Sorry but you deserve it!

Sorry buddy.

Sorry for ur loss

The better idea would have been: Buy with BTC directly.

I think this whole project currently is at a turning point: If the number of services and stores that accept BTC as a currency for payment does not increase, but instead BTC keeps being treated as a good that you buy in and sell out of in order to make a profit in fiat currency it will eventually all collapse. Right now the only reason that there is a demand is many people just hearing of it and wanting to get in to be speculating themselves and have a shot at getting rich. This can't go on forever and will eventually collapse. So demand for BTC must be created by making it an actually useful currency.

This is hardly achieved by creating the next clone of a clone of a gambling site or click ads service nor by creating the next big altcoin in hopes of getting filthy rich. We must get places like amazon and online microtransaction based games to accept bitcoin, by asking them time and time again to do so.

Trouble is the big companies dont like accepting a payment method whos value is constantly going up and down day in day out!

Obviously noone is buying anything with btc ...
Even website that say that they accept btc, are just instant-converting btc into EUR or USD.

If you're still trying to get your future BTC sold for PayPal, use bitcoin-otc.com & trade them to those with high trust ratings in the Web of Trust.

That is really harsh, loosing all that BTC, thanks for sharing it with the forum so others can learn from your mistake.

Sorry for your loss!   :'(

Thanks for sharing..

Really sorry to hear of your loss. Over the years I've generally had a good service from PayPal and ebay but then I suppose I've been lucky cos I've heard a lot about scams. But then you don't hear of all the successful ebay and PayPal trades.

It's tempting to sell BTC on PayPal because of the better return but that has to be balanced with the slightly extra risk. However, looking at all the alternatives (BTC-e etc) there's lots of stories of disappearing coins with them too.

Nevertheless it does make me sick to hear of people being scammed.

I would say that the avantage of paypal is not the better return (which depend on agreement), but the faster transfert.

There are lessons to be learned here. 

Don't put all your eggs in one basket when making a very large BTC transaction like this.  Don't use Paypal (like ebay does) or any reversible kind of transaction like that.  Remember, one of the most important features of BTC is that transactions are irreversible once they hit the blockchain and get confirmed.  ONLY do transactions like this (irreversible Bitcoin for reversible Paypal/credit card) if you PERSONALLY know the other person and know they are good for it if something goes wrong.

If you must do large transactions like this, use trusted Bitcoin-experienced sites like Gox and CoinBase, and even then, don't do the transaction all in one go, but split it up into smaller transactions so even if you get scammed on one of them, you haven't just lost your entire roll.

If possible, use a trusted escrow.

The worst part is the amount of hacked accounts that had been used, its around 50 of them. each buy have been between 0.5btc to 2.0 btc.
Like I said, I dont know if its one person, or many, or an organized scam.

I was speaking to a represent at ebay and they are still investigating. They say I should tank to paypal too but they put the lid on 'Case closed'.

So, whats next earning bitcoins? I think the mining era is over soon. (For small miners)

Thats ugly...for people to steal. but since the world we live in is full of crime and frauds they consider themself feeding there own stomachs because of it.
But Karma my friend. One day you lose 10000$ in 10 years you will be free from money.

That really sucks OP, but that's paypal - as a buyer on ebay you're well protected, it's the seller that is always being screwed sadly.

Sorry to hear...I must agree that EBay/PayPal are a BTC nightmare...sucks bigtime

I'm surprised that Ebay allowed you to sell BTC there in the first place. I was pretty sure it was against their policy to sell digital currency.

sorry to hear that.... :(