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Well, it is disappointing that Binance is listing this terrible ICO token. I was SCAMMED during their ICO upon sending BTC for sonm tokens, they scammed not only me but some others (ask jack0m -- legendary -- and others), it is everything in SONM ANN thread with proof of the transactions, and all my addresses, so you don't need to believe me, just check from here and following msgs (see page 185):

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1845114.msg19966184#msg19966184

SONM dismissed SebastianJU as escrow just before the start of the ICO and didn't tell him until he asked, and they kept his name announced with posts in their threads as escrow without telling the investors they dismissed him. Again, don't need to believe me, ask SebastianJu himself if you don't believe, he is a highly respected escrow in this community.


SONM swindled his polish team, kicking them out of the project after they worked. Check the thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1895293.0

In that thread, Barnaba and krzyszpPL are ex-members of the polish former branch of the team. They were SCAMMED, look carefully at that thread, send messages to them if you want to check these claims, their names and faces are public there in the links.

Andrew Voronkov was a founder of SONM who LEFT THE PROJECT just after the ICO due to this scandal. Voronkov is a scientist and brought his polish colleges from @drug_discovery project which uses BOINC technology for grid computing. He obviously kept appearances and didn't want to comment, but the fact is that he left the project he himself founded.

During my "communication" with SONM, they showed repeated times they were not reading my emails. They finally tried to reply in the ANN thread with falsehoods and implicitly accusing me of some bad intention, while I was trying to talk for weeks and they only gained time saying they had a lot of emails and blah blah. They gave me tokens the moment they chose, manually processing my contribution nearly 5 hours after I sent the transactions, finally they gave me a worse exchange rate and wrong bonus. I published all the transactions, I even signed to prove ownership of the BTC address I contributed with, and they ignored for over a month saying there were "scam" attempts, when finally they came with a pathetic reply.

They were BANNING people who were complaining about those issues in their slack and telegram channels. They are really a greedy disrespectful untrustworthy bunch.

I asked many times for a refund, they ignored, showing how greedy they are and how they don't give a shit about their community.

Don't delude yourself with websites, names and marketing, this project is an outright marketed scam and I'm very disappointed Binance decided to list this junk.

They published one of their marketing videos promising Bittrex listing just after the ICO, but the truth is Bittrex listed half a dozen or so coins/tokens/icos after sonm's ICO, and they didn't list SONM, why? Well, maybe is because SONM contract is not even verified at etherscan:

https://etherscan.io/token/0x983f6d60db79ea8ca4eb9968c6aff8cfa04b3c63

Their reputation is "neutral" there, meaning they lack (click on the reputation to see):

3) 'OK' reputation

An OK reputation is not an endorsement, but it is of our opinion (and at our own discretion) that the project has (either or a combination of the following criterias):

a. provided sufficient and accurate information
b. clear project goals and communication
c. visible profile of the project founders/backers/advisers
d. no significant 'red' flags (that we were aware of at the point of time the reputation score was assigned)
e. the token is traded/listed on a major crypto exchange which has AML/KYC checks (i.e coinbase, poloniex, kraken, bittrex, yunbi or a similiar exchange)

Or maybe is because Bittrex checked all the problems above (as probably the etherscan team did). So they most probably didn't get approved in Bittrex compliance process, they applied nearly 3 months ago (around mid of june), as they also didn't get an OK reputation in etherscan.

Let all be aware of this shitcoin, trade it at your own discretion.

See how they dismissed SebastianJU:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1845114.msg19574248#msg19574248

I will comment the technical part of the schedule of these ICOs.

when they start they have no money, they just pay bills from their pocket.
soon the ICO starts and they start minting some money but the smart contract was created before the ICO by seeing videos on youtube now they suffer how to validate contract ??? ??? even having money they find it difficult because if you change the contract then the whole token goes waste.

The Forum guy "rebelsalesman" is a nasty pool of scum no doubt he was screaming over slack that SONM will be better than Golem but where we are.. Clearly this concept is beyond the reach of SOHM and even out of reach of Golem Team. I won't wonder if Golem Fails.

Exactly!!

I won't judge Golem project, but SONM showed they not only lack professionalism and honesty, they showed they can't handle an ICO, let alone building all the fantastic things they claim. They did bash Golem project, which is like kids bragging without showing a product, they are really a bunch of pretentious, dishonest and disrespectful people. Bringing shame to russians, which is sad because russians are a very capable people.

Just consider how many different and unrelated people they duped, ex team members, escrows and investors, very telling.

Shadiness on a quite high level; I'm certain that there is a fair amount of people who invested in belief that the project was escrowed by him (or just a third party in general). Provide a confirmatory statement from SebastianJu that this really has happened, and a list of accounts that are related to the project. Do you know how much time has passed between his kick and before he was finally removed?

Hi Lauda,

all I know came afterwards by reading previous messages in that long thread, if you click the link I sent in my second msg (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1845114.msg19574248#msg19574248
) you will see what SebastianJU wrote himself, please take the time to read that and some further msgs (and believe me, many invested without knowing SebastianJU was removed in a timely manner because it was just before the ICO in the same day!!!).

The account involved in the ICO from the SONM team that I know is this one:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=821847

There are other accounts but I'm not sure they are part of the team, but rather hired people to keep repeating ad nausea to contact support and bonus emails. If this is important I can try to fetch those too, let me know.

EDIT: this is one of the profiles of "hired" people, I'll link to their trust section:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=1016061

Thank you for taking a look at this, Lauda.

Almedia, can I ask you to focus on facts please. How much you've invested ? How exactly your bonus was miscalculated ? Which exchange rate was used, which one was supposed to be used and why ? How many tokens you think that you didn't receive as a result ? 

I need a summarized timeline. Could you fill this in?



He has been doing that. You're confused.

No problem, I assume you are asking about the SebastianJU issue first.

So, SebastianJU was used as escrow in their pre-ICO and, assumed to be used in ICO since they didn't update the information. I'll quote posts from that thread, the ICO was 15th of June, SebastianJU came to know (only by his own inquiry) he was not escrow anymore hours prior to the ICO, in 15th of June, they dismissed him without warning him or the other investors. See the timestamps.

PROOF:


They didn't say anything, rebel.salesman is responsible for SONM threads and is a sonm members. Then we have SebastianJU message warning everybody as he came to know HOURS PRIOR TO THE ICO HE WAS OUT:


(part in bold is mine)

Screenshots taken by investors showing how SONM mislead investors in their ANN:


I can't say this is true or not, but a member said this:


SebastianJU was removed to be replaced by a multi-signature of SONM team itself, as if this is really escrowing (granted, assuming they even did this in the first place)!! Of those mentioned in the post above was Chronobank  whose CEO is a formal adviser of the project.

Then they sent some person to attack SebastianJU and trying to say it is safer having them as escrows than having third parties!!!

PROOF:


The individual above seems to be SONM team member by reading his msgs. SebastianJU replied to that accusation, very typical of SONM people, to accuse and harass people in their way -- notice the first troll they sent asking me for details I already provided a dozen times and will again.


Also, isn't it funny the guy says "the escrow guarant (sic) is an unnecessary investor's money spenditure (sic) and we have no right to trust Sebastian the money raised as he's not an authorized representative", but yet USED HIM IN PRE-ICO AND TOLD EVERYONE HOW GREAT WAS HAVING HIM AS ESCROW!!!

Sebastian's reply:


See how SebastianJU was calm, well-balanced in all messages, and they accused him of being a mercenary? Only because he asked a sum for his services they disagreed? Very, very telling the behavior. And absolutely shady what they did.

Sry, I didn't notice this.

June 15, 2017 - SebastianJu posts about his removal from escrowing.
SebastianJu is removed from the thread. -- he was not removed from the thread
June 15, 2017 -4 to 5 hours later - ICO starts

SebastianJU posted some 4 or 5 hours only prior to ICO start, only then he came to know he was out. Only because of SebastianJU himself some people had time to read the thread and see he was out.

Interesting story line and potential conspiracy theory (not that it would surprise me if it were the truth).

How was he not removed from the thread? You said the following:

I'm asking until when it was left in the ANN thread that he was escrowing, i.e. when he was removed from it.

I posted the links, he was announced as the escrow and they didn't inform anyone he was not the escrow anymore. They announced him here:


Everybody assumed he was the escrow. This is what I've found so far, between the post of SebastianJU saying he was not the escrow and ICO starting was a matter of hours.

And he actually acted as escrow for the "pre ico".

That is not what you've said. You specifically said in the ANN thread. An update post != ANN thread.

i was asked by the OP to comment in this topic.

thats what i can add:

i contacted the team via bonus@sonm.io several times. i wanted to know which bonus i received for my ICO investment. the first mail i sent in the middle of June. I received an answer end of July. Till today i don't know how they calculated the bonus.

i only invested 0.11364839 BTC.
and finally i was able to sell almost all my coins above ICO price.

thats why i decided to stop asking and bothering about the bonus.

so i just don't know if they scamed me or not.

Ok, you understood the ANN post itself, that's not what I meant to say, I see the confusion. They announced him in the threads, pre-ICO time I found, and everybody was assuming the ICO has escrows using him. Please read the timeline of posts I quoted, SebastianJU himself is quoted.

EDIT: I updated that part to make it clearer, still they announced him as escrow and didn't tell anyone he was out, never, but only SebastianJU himself asking and knowing hours prior the ICO was the one telling the community.

I confirm I had a similarly unpleasant experience with incorrect bonus calculations. First they asked to send our complaints to bonus@sonm.io, yet ignored all emails for more than one month, while repeatedly promising all issues would be solved "within a few days".
In the end they denied any token difference on the unproven claim that they got the correct ETH/BTC conversion rate from Coinmarketcap. I asked them several times to prove their claim and disclose the exact calculations based on BTC transaction's timestamps, and show the history API they were using to get conversion rates one month back, but they never answered. That would be a chance to show their good faith and transparency, as any reputable and trustworthy business does, but they prefer instead to keep treating others like idiots and lack common basic respect for contributors...

It's not surprising that SNM price is still far below ICO's rate, despite the recent announcement that Binance is listing it: after all price is made by the market, and the market won't trust any business which behaves in such a shady and disgraceful way!

About the bonuses and exchange rates, they never, ever, released anything explaining how they did it. Their support was a joke, they made people waste time awaiting for clarifications to deny their request.

Some people are still constrained and afraid to tell everything because they still have tokens and they don't want to lose (more of) their money, because they know if many of them came here the token would tank even harder.

Almedia,

You are ignoring my question. While others clearly stated what was their experience, I don't see any facts and numbers from you. I understand that you are frustrated, so I'm trying to understand what exactly happened and what kind of solution would have satisfied you now should SONM decide to review your case and cases of others ? It seems that they were just overloaded with work, not necessarily there was bad intention on their side. Unfair behavior to investors would be just plain stupid.

It is everything provided in the links I posted in the OP, page 185 of ANN thread is where you will find all the details of the message I sent to SONM and they ignored so I exposed it. Following pages are where you will find their ridiculous reply and my other reply.

And what you are saying is not true, no one provided anything that I didn't and I don't see why exactly I should reply your questions, since I don't know who you are. You have a russian name, Ilia, are you related to SONM project?

Ilia777, go troll in another thread, I'll leave below the last message explaining to you what you asked.

According to SONM where? Provide some link where they say they explained how they calculated the bonus, because afaik they never did. Their only and final email to me saying anything was embarrassing:

---------------------------------------------
1. Bonus rate connected with time of confirmation of transaction, nor it was made.
 
2. Due our information, you gain 2.5 bonus from transaction 2017/06/16. At 17th, 15:46:20, there was no bonus rates for all contributors.
 
Timestamp   BTC_adr   ETH_adr   Tokens transfered   Bonus multiply
2017-06-16 01:34:09+03   1SnMfzJef62gv4jByDijAa6mNRngYb9MR   0x9c9582fb1b6e1e22f4c09f86fda41681241d590f   12376.801954662684945849   1.025
2017-06-17 15:46:20+03   1SnMfzJef62gv4jByDijAa6mNRngYb9MR   0x9c9582fb1b6e1e22f4c09f86fda41681241d590f   37740.001396386175345915   1.000
 
Cheers,
SONM Support
---------------------------------------------

The first fallacy, item 1, is saying they used some "confirmation of the transaction", but the time of the transaction 2017-06-16 01:34:09 is when THEY sent me the tokens, so they withheld the tokens for hours after it was already confirmed in BTC blockchain many times over. So what they are saying here is "we gave you the bonus of the time of the transaction we ourselves did, not actually the time of your actual transaction confirmed to our actual BTC contribution address".

Now item 2, they gave 195.81214 tokens as bonus for a 2.5% over 12376.801954662684945849, now please do the math yourself to see if even this matches... they cannot, or do not want, calculate even a miserable bonus.

This is all without saying they never explained which exchange rate they used to credit tokens in the first place. Their website was showing 1 USD = 9 SNM, but this was not what they actually delivered, they delivered much less. So everything about this ICO is either too dumb or intentional.

Here we see that SONM kept SebastianJU name during and after the ICO, not asking the translated threads to update the information and all of them were announcing him as official escrow in their respective OP's, including the russian thread while SONM is a russian project (he is still there announced as escrow):


I can't prove but it is very suggestive that they erased his name of the english thread very close to few hours before the ICO, SebastianJU was assumed to be the escrow by everybody there and SONM team didn't communicate this change at any point before the ICO, still keeping in the thread the ICO would be using escrows -- this claim being kept during and after ICO, then erased.


The message above was a few hours before the ICO. See the screenshot below.

not really a troll, he's one of SONM advisors:
https://blog.sonm.io/ilia-frankstein-joins-sonm-advisory-board-6a9ae8696269 (https://blog.sonm.io/ilia-frankstein-joins-sonm-advisory-board-6a9ae8696269)

Just to chime in on request of Almeida...

It has been negotiated and never taken back that I escrow both preICO and ICO. However it looks they underestimated the success of the PreICO a lot. It was the same for me also.

Next thing that happened was that the ETH-Price made a price rush and became worth a lot more than before. Nobody awaited that also. That led to problems with the bonus they had announced. Somehow a lot of persons claimed they would now have to invest a lot more on a USD-level than preICO investors because of the price rush. I didn't say my opinion at that time since it was not my topic but if I would have been asked by them I would have said that it was the decision of the preICO-Investors to "sell" their ETH in favor of that token + bonus. Taking out the risk of price development of ETH. They signed out of the option of raising eth price as well as a falling eth price.

SONM-Team might have feared about the investments in the ICO because of the complaints of potential ico investors so they decided to recalculate on a USD-level. Not sure how it turned out for the preICO-investors. If they would have decided to not take the bonus and keep their eth to buy into the normal ICO. Or if they would have gotten the bonus normally on top. For sure it was a hit.

Anyway. I could understand that in the face of the price rush of eth they would have wanted to save the escrow fee, which has been negotiated on other preconditions by the way. I also could understand that with the success of the preICO they thought the ICO will fill anyway fully in a short time. At that time ETH-ICO's were that crazy and with this start it was to be anticipated. So at the end escrow was an unneeded cost factor because the ICO would have been sold out regardless. Also they might have felt unsafe that someone else holds the funds.

In any case, everything could have been spoken about and fixed. Which I would have welcomed and waited for it.

Regarding the time of the announcement. I tried to get in contact a long time before already. Checked back again and again but found it ok when they claimed a lot of work has to be done upfront. At one point no communication happened anymore which might have been the point where the decision has been made. I pressured more and used more channels to contact someone. Finally could check the ICO contract and it did not contain an escrow anymore.

My quotes listed are correct as far as I have seen them. Only want to say that I tried to speak about the handling of the ICO a long time before.

Not sure how the development of SONM is going. It was a success for them regardless of the surroundings. Though some noobish errors has been made that could have been prevented. Each of them does not really provide trust though it was a success and maybe trust is not needed anymore because it was the ICO of a lifetime, no new needed.

Honestly I always had the impression that they really want to create something though of course one never knows. Future will tell how this turns out.

So they have a troll, ignoring the things laid out in this thread, i.e. intentionally diverting away from it with not really relevant nonsense? That does not surprise me. >90% of the listen ICO/token advisers are just full of bullshit and used for hyping/marketing. ::)

Tl;dr: To tag or not to tag?

@SebastianJU, you are being very kind, but let's face one thing: they kept your name as escrow without telling you that you were out and, much more important, without telling the community you were not escrowing anymore. Those who had time to read your message didn't contribute to the ICO. This is for me a very concerning trust issue, since having trusted escrows is a big bonus for an ICO in the eyes of the community, being malicious or shady about it is a scam-like attitude and deserves a negative trust.

Now, having had all the problems I had, I started to dig this and I found out all these problems. They are not a coincidence, they wouldn't have occurred with trusted third parties. They were not simply committing noobish errors, they had issues with every single step of their ICO process: part of their own team being kicked at pre-ICO stage, you being kicked after pre-ICO, changing the agreement with pre-ICO investors, falsely disclaiming they had you as escrow during ICO, a co-founder leaving right after ICO completion, ''problems'' with bonus and exchange rates during ICO, lack of communication and, finally, they answer all of this sending trolls or noob accounts to attack or discredit anyone in their way. Your message at that time was replied with an accusation of you being a mercenary, ad hominem attacks while you were mainly describing facts. This is what SONM is and I think this thread is making it clear.


...

Almedia, deleting my messages is a huge mistake on your part. It only proves that you are not interested in discussion but rather in creating reputation damage. I will make an article from your case which would include my replies.

Again I want to reiterate that my goal with you was first of all to understand what really happened.  Its too bad that you didn't like the conclusions I made to a point of deleting them. Obviously you chose to delete it if you have nothing to reply. Here is another thread for everybody willing to read what I wrote https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2175769.0

This is SONM stile. Go ahead, I couldn't care less for your article, you are making things worse for yourself, not me. I displayed everything about my case and have nothing to hide.


No, your goal is to troll and cause confusion. Your first message:

"Almedia, can I ask you to focus on facts please. How much you've invested ? How exactly your bonus was miscalculated ? Which exchange rate was used, which one was supposed to be used and why ? How many tokens you think that you didn't receive as a result ? "

Everything pointed in OP already, you ignored.

The whole thing you wrote before boils down to say that I want to damage SONM image since:

(i) a smart contract did everything and;

(ii) I'm complaining because SONM didn't tell me the exchange rate they used.

The first is false, unless SONM developed cross chain amazing tech between BTC and ETH chains, what I know you didn't, you imputed the non-ethereum transactions manually as your own sonm_community profile said, the former is also false because I'm not complaining that you didn't simply tell me the exchange rate, but rather, that you displayed a misleading exchange rate, delivered less both in exchange rate and bonus and, on top of that, refused to explain (still refuses BTW) which criteria you used. You can't explain because you fucked up, intentionally or not, and don't want to appear like a fool/scammer in public.

To this date your contract source code is not even verified in etherscan.io:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x983f6d60db79ea8ca4eb9968c6aff8cfa04b3c63#code

Even FuckToken has its contract verified:

https://etherscan.io/address/0xc63e7b1dece63a77ed7e4aeef5efb3b05c81438d#code

Almedia, I'm not sure if you are reading my messages carefully. Your transaction was confirmed 2 hours 45 minutes after it was sent. No tokens could be issued before the transaction is confirmed. Is this clear to you or not ? Your question about the exchange rate is strange because you can look up the exchange rate yourself if you like based on the timestamp of your transaction confirmation. Getting USD/BTC exchange rate in realtime is trivial to implement inside smart contract. Take a look here https://www.coindesk.com/api/ It doesn't require any complicated cross chain amazing tech as you put it. There is a  HUGE difference though between having the discussion about fairness of your bonus calculations and far reaching conclusions on your end about SONM team trying to steal from you. First type of discussion could end up in a resolution on who is right in this debate while second can lend you in a courtroom. So once again I'm asking you to be very careful with your statements.

You are again diverting from the issues I wrote and trying some intimidation and discrediting me. Let me tell you very clearly: I'm not afraid of you, this is not soviet union, you can't possibly intimidate me with anything you do or write. Acting like this is damaging your image far beyond my posts -- why it is that a single person like myself is capable of damaging your company? why are you so worried if you didn't do anything wrong?


I didn't say anywhere, nor did I imply, that tokens should have been issued before confirmations. I said the confirmations were yours.


Are you really saying that the investors are the ones that should discover the exchange rates you used to sell your product? You really think you don't need to explain this?

And the question is not strange, it proves you didn't read what was already provided in the OP.


So your API gets the price, now what? Which timestamp is used? The timestamp of the eth transaction of you sending me tokens? In this case, once again I repeat, you are delivering tokens not taking into account the confirmations in BTC blockchain. I'm curious to see how you explain this part.

Why don't you provide at once all the mechanics used in the whole process?


Go ahead and sue me, I won't be intimidated by sonm bullies. Your ICO was an unregulated public offering of a security, thus rendering you outlaw in half a dozen countries or so.

The reason I used the word SCAM is: sonm got rid of the trusted and advertised escrow in a veiled way moments before the ico without telling the community, and kept his name; after that sonm also was absolutely incapable of admitting crystal clear mistakes, to replying to emails properly and respecting investors, sonm hired profile came countless times to forums to say everything would be solved in 1 or 2 days and we should email this or that emails, sonm did this for MONTHS and at the end of the day all investors I know who had problems with bonus/exchange rates didn't get it corrected!!

You attacked the escrow calling him a mercenary, you attacked people who had issues saying they were intentionally misleading people. You banned people in slack and telegram because they complained over the lack of communication. Since you never, ever, opened a dialogue for any of this, showing no concern with your image, it is impossible not to conclude you simply took our money and then ignored the problems. This is what scams do, no matter how clever or expensive are the pictures and videos you publish.

Now, why don't you simply admitted you've made mistakes and refunded unsatisfied investors? Wouldn't that be far easier? That's also another thing pointing to scam, unconcern with self image before individual investors and resistance to refund some few BTCs. Refunding and investor protection is what security laws enforce and it would be in the interest of sonm itself not to tarnish its own image if sonm is a real business.

Almedia, you are incredibly stubborn and this is my last reply to you here. It should be clear to everybody reading it that you just want to twist facts eternally to prove your imaginary point. I include here your threats sent to SONM customer support:

"Do you want to solve this without any harm? I give your tokens back in exchange for my BTC back, what do you think? I leave this as it is and I won't be able to do anything. You go along with your business, I don't care."

In your email to support you are blackmailing SONM to give you full refund and make threats. Since you didn't get what you wanted you started this thread.

Go ahead and erase it as well and I will repost it in another thread.
 

Ok, bye.


Blackmailing? This don't even need a reply...


No, I'll keep it right there, thank you.

Let's see what comes next from your part...

No they do not. It is not their responsibility to do any sort of research other than to make sure that the links are correct. All they are is collection area for data that others put in. Do not expect them to do any research for you instead you have to follow the information and make sure that what you're investing in is proper investment. They are good to be trusted.

Yes, I trust Binance. But some exchanges do a little bit of research and technical checking before listing, like Bittrex for instance. I hope Binance take this path too, because so far it has been an excellent exchange.