Bitcoin Forum

Who the hell is the UABB and what authority do they have?

Sorry for the spamming, for a brief moment there it seemed like a much better way to communicate than starting another thread about MyBitcoin. I apologize (for the third time now) and have decided that was a general bad idea. My bad.

Sorry for the spamming, for a brief moment there it seemed like a much better way to communicate than starting another thread about MyBitcoin. I apologize (for the third time now) and have decided that was a general bad idea. My bad.


The UABB is being designed to function as a sort of BBB for the Bitcoin world. That said, typically this kind of thing would not be a UABB issue, but since the entire executive board (myself and the other 4 executives who help me run it) all have expressed tremendous curiosities in the truth behind a major player (up until now) in the Bitcoin community, we decided to take it on as a side project.

You shouldn't concern yourself with the UABB, you'll probably never even use our services. We're there to try to stop fraud. You should concern yourself with this investigation though.

To answer your question, we have no 'authority'. We are collecting evidence on faith, hiring private investigators (with or without contributions from the community) and intend to hand over the investigation to the local and national authorities when it reaches a point that prosecution would be possible.

I personally have only a few years of experience working with law enforcement, but that's not going to be a problem considering we are not handling this investigation on our own.

Thanks.


Matthew N. Wright

The UABB is being designed to function as a sort of BBB for the Bitcoin world. That said, typically this kind of thing would not

Good work Mike. Though neither of the numbers is registered still, this is a step in the right direction.

We are not planning on taking a trust to court in Nevis, we're planning on researching other human beings that might be able to lead us in the right direction of Tom Williams. You make it sound like being a part of a trust makes you invisible as you walk down the street. Someone knows him. We're going to find a way.

I've found a copy of MyBitcoins ToS, pasted it here http://pastebin.com/9Fb0uauU
for those who did not read it before, rather read it late then never ...
it's for sure not off topic here. could help you to estimate your chances for a case uhm

The real questions are whether a court outside of Nevis would accept jurisdiction over the matter and ...

this. in the tos we agreed to the use the nevis jurisdiction. now reread the agreed part and nevis jursdiction.
seems clear to me. just because we agreed to tos does it mean it is not valid just because we don't like it?
kinda reminds me of southpark episode 15.01 HUMANCENTiPAD and the biggest lie ever "i have read the terms and conditions"

Searching on the MyBitcoin address gave me the following:

Meridian Trust Company Limited
Hunkins Plaza
Main Street
PO Box 556
Charlestown, Nevis, West Indies
1-869-469-1333 Tel
1-869-469-0968 Fax
info@meridiantrustnevis.com

And:

Meridian Trust Company Ltd.
Mr. Ernie Dover, Managing Director.
P.O. Box 556
Hunkins Plaza
Charlestown
Nevis, West Indies
Tel: 1(869) 469-1333
Fax: 1(869) 469-0968
E-mail: edover@meridiantrustnevis.com
Website: www.meridiannev.com
Tracey Williams-Morton
Trust & Fiduciary Services Manager
twilliams@meridiantrustnevis.com

See who the "Trust & Fiduciary Services Manager" is? I already mailed Tracey a few days ago, no reply. Maybe someone else want to give it a try?

It is already a failing attempt however, as the previously vocal victims of MyBitcoin have signed up to participate in the project, but have provided absolutely no data of any kind to date. If things move on in this direction much longer, the UABB will cancel its efforts and let the community once again handle it in its own unorganized way.

Seriously guys. If you LOST MONEY, POST PROOF. Stop with this spraying of diarrhea on the walls. I'm not saying MyBitCoin is safe-- hell, no place is. I wouldn't trust ANY of you to hold my wallet, much less the door for me on the way out of a building. That doesn't mean that it's a SCAM. Your libelous and ridiculously abusing and ignorant banter has driven me insane, and for those of you who can't understand where my aggression is coming from-- this is the 999th thread I've read where people blindly believe what the poster is posting and go along with it like some rerun of high school idiocy. I have no idea what I'm going to do when I read #1000. I'll probably just donate all my BTC to that OP cause I'm random and cool like that.

It is already a failing attempt however, as the previously vocal victims of MyBitcoin have signed up to participate in the project, but have provided absolutely no data of any kind to date. If things move on in this direction much longer, the UABB will cancel its efforts and let the community once again handle it in its own unorganized way.

Matthew N. Wright

I agree with the public consensus these days on what it "looks like", and that there are few people here who actually have the energy or experience to know when something is good or bad by looking at, and prefer to just yell scam or 'fake' at the first sign of a startup.

It's not easy trying to start potentialy one of the most influencial organizations to affect Bitcoin. I realize not everyone sees it that way, even when looking at it from a calm and intellectual approach, but that's why it's on me, my colleagues, and our efforts in the meatscape to prove it! And by god we will  ^_^

I'd love to believe that your business is real.  But you come across as a dickhead that has a "holier than thou" attitude.  You shouldn't insult people and expect them to do business with you at the same time.  The tradehill guys do a great job of being active in a positive way.

After some long and hard thought weighing the pros and cons of continuing on attempting to be any kind of a movement in finding out what happened with MyBitcoin, at the advice of my colleagues and good friends I have decided to officially remove it from our list of priorities completely.

To tell you the truth, this 'investigation' attempt into MyBitcoin has truly opened my eyes to both A) how the snide community treats newcomers, and B) how much of I dick I can sound like sometimes. Even my CFO was surprised. He said "maybe you shouldn't post so much". I couldn't help but chuckle because I knew he was right.

The truth is, I want to be part of the community in a humorous and involved way, but at the same time I have thrusted some serious responsibilities upon myself and I haven't quite gotten used to that yet (and may never considering I don't particularly enjoy it).

Also, I can learn a lot from most anyone who already had a business site up and running BEFORE they advertised it (-_-;;;) but I am sometimes prevoked by the seeming lack of logic and 'cover-all-bases' insults from people. From the community's side, it appears that someone who claims to be a business owner is being 'arrogant' to a poor, innocent user.

But in reality, it's that user1 says "Your business is fake because it has A" while user2 is saying "Your business is fake because it doesn't have enough A". If anything, I'm learning a valuable lesson in not-caring-at-all-what-anyone-on-these-forums-think-and-just-doing-the-work-I'm-going-to-do-anyway-regardless, something my colleagues have been trying to tell me.

My apologies for having anyone believe I am anything but genuine, but I really don't deal with baseless insults too well, it's not the part about being insulted, it's the part about people being allowed to live in society who treat others like that. It's not just bullying, it's de-evolutionary.

After some long and hard thought weighing the pros and cons of continuing on attempting to be any kind of a movement in finding out what happened with MyBitcoin, at the advice of my colleagues and good friends I have decided to officially remove it from our list of priorities completely.

Growing up from a family highly involved in law enforcement, personally having worked on a task force for the past 3 years here in Korea as an investigator for academic fraud and drug trafficking, and having worked since childhood with security and law enforcement for IT/network security, it is difficult for me think that given tremendous evidence of foul play, the owner of MyBitcoin could get away scott-free. This, not any greed or 'grab for funds' was the main reasoning behind involving myself and one of my newest, most promising, and arguably most useful organizations in an attempt at investigating the matters that surround it.

I obviously made a large erorr in judgement when it came to the willingness of the community to band together for the common good, and also hadn't expected that such a viscious and vile response would be given to any one person trying to organize anything (or as it has been referred to, "taking charge").

The problem does not lie in my inabilities to financially support such an investigation from competent and willing individuals who are experts in doing so, nor is it in the general lack of evidence people have provided (which as a side note has caused me to lose some serious faith in the community as awhole) in an effort to band together. The problem lies in my original mistake of claiming this to be an effort of the UABB, which is in fact not cut out to handle such an activity under its own business model.

Due to my mistake, the UABB now suffers a loss of reputation, individuals shouting 'scam', and people thinking it's just a shell to 'grab some funds'. This is disasterously wrong and the opposite of what the intention of the UABB is. The UABB is an extremely useful tool for helping to create a better, safer and happier Bitcoin community. It may not be finished to everyone's likings yet, it may in fact still have a hidden WHOIS (WHOCARES) and it may in fact still have a few bugs in the code that I will fix on my own no doubt-- but that doesn't make it any less of a useful, important service to the community.

For this reason and this reason alone, I regret to say that I will be ending any further official participation in the investigations, if there ever will be any, and am no longer attempting to organizer or contribute (I'll still contribute personally, but in a much quieter way) and apologize to anyone who may have gotten the wrong idea as to what the true nature and intentions of the UABB are in fact.

For those of you who have already signed up for the UABB, are already emailing me daily asking when it will be ready, and those who have already inquired about the terms for accreditation, the site is expected to be finished by the end of the week. I have asked for some more help as I can long handle all of these projects on my own (I am the sole web developer, and write everything by hand in Notepad++, hence the time delays).

I feel this is not only a step in the right direction for me personally, professionally and towards the community, but that it will free the UABB of any liabilities that may have existed to my poor judgement. My apology is also extended to those working with me who I may have upset.


To a brighter future, a new UABB, and a less hateful community-- for all.


Matthew N. Wright

I think you're just looking for drama now.

matthew n wright thinks that dressing up in a shirt and tie makes him a ceo

I started a new poll at https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=34016.0

There's only one caveat: You must wear a suit and tie (or bow) to vote.

http://nickbohme.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/mr-_beavis.jpg?w=400&h=300

Rofl. You're a gem.

Ok, so I understand that Matt isn't investigating MyBitcoin anymore for some reason... Has anyone at LEAST called that Leaseweb host to see what the truth of this matter is? Seriously, we could all rest a lot easier if we all knew whether they took down the site for some legal reason, or if the owner of the site took it down themselves...

If they shut it down due to lack of funds because the guy didn't pay, then there's a chance that we could throw down $20 and get all of our money back.

Seriously folks.