Bitcoin Forum

I placed an order with btcdeals.com back on July 1st. My order never arrived and now the site is down and the merchant has not responded to my email request for order status or a refund. Has this happened to anyone else? I'm wondering it the site was a straight-up scam or if the merchant is just irresponsible.

A couple weeks ago, when the site was still online, I wrote the merchant and asked for my order status and was told that I just need to be patient and my order would arrive soon.

The lesson here is that if you're getting suspicious and the seller tells you to be patient but cannot provide any tangible evidence that you're problem is being addressed (example: verifiable shipment tracking number) then you're getting scammed.

Oh my god ... goxed again??? When will this finally stop?

This is pure poison for bitcoin. I'm really sorry, man. Hope it wasn't too much.

We need to completely reorganize. All shops, exchanges and so forth have to be ultra trasparent from now on.

An we - the users - shouldn't deal with any less (especially not out of greed/potential profit). If the merchant/exchange in question wants anonymity please don't buy there, don't do business there.

I'm so sick of this!!!

Still waiting for my product too :(

Are you serious ? Seriously I was thinking that btcdeals.com was legit. Guess that we should pay attention to that. I feel sorry about people loosing money with sites selling goods, now seems the scammers are not only on forums or chat etc, they are on websites too.

It won't solve your problems for now but can be useful for this don't happen anymore, I might try to implement verification services for business and I'm also in the process of writing a cart plugin which will escrow all payment to my escrow services.

So far in this thread 2 people didn't received their orders, but I think the question is: Is there other people which received their orders on btcdeals.com ?

Still waiting for three things...

Lucky altogether I spent 2 coins, AND won a freebie from him ... supposedly..

Im still waiting..  was roughly july 1st too I ordered..



I started having doubts once I realized he had about 8 items he cycled through...whoop dee doo...

could this thead have something to do with it? Also look at the only reply. lol

http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=29448.0

LOL This is better than 4Chan.

I inquired to the owner of btcdeals about the business.  We considered acquiring it.  He was very up front about his number one problem being shipping times.  The 3rd party shipping companies he uses are VERY slow, sometimes taking over a month.  It's the price of being able to ship internationally for $1.  I'm NOT vouching for this guy, it is possible btcdeals is a scam, but I think it's more probable that shipping times are just excruciatingly slow.

all of the items i've ordered I have received. one took over a month because its shipped from China...

Did they use mybitcoin ?

Chinese drop shippers are crazy slow, expect a month of waiting.

-Garrett

QFT. Your item is 99% certain to be on the slow boat from China.

What happens to a package like this when it gets to the intended country? Does USPS take over and deliver in the states? Do any countries not have public mail anymore, making it have to be delivered by the regional equivalent of Fedex/UPS/DHL ? Amazed at the idea of $1 international shipping.

First it gets unloaded, which can take a while; those boats are LARGE. Then it goes through Customs, which can add a day even if it clears right through. If they decide to inspect your package, add 2 or 3 days. Then it gets passed on to the post office, which delivers it in their usual time.

Waiting too  >:(

... and now the BTCdeals main page doesn't work.

"BTCdealt"

sounds better than it is....

Some of the URLs still respond:
 - https://www.btcdeals.com/support/
 - https://www.btcdeals.com/about/

A month?!? Good grief, I haven't waited that long for the mail since I sent in those boxtops for my cherished "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" T-shirt.

I'll post back if/when my order is ever delivered, but at the pace of technological advancement these days it will likely be obsolete when I finally get it.

Their site got updated with the following text:

So things will get back in order and I wish for the people behind BTCDeals to get better soon, as it is a really nice service!

Hi all - sorry for all the issues with BTCDeals. I have (as titeuf_87 pointed out) been dealing with an urgent medical issue that has left my incapacitated from running the site - I'm not going to go in to details as it's far more personal than I care to divulge - but I assure you I have not been neglecting the site or people by choice. I have a lot of emails and people to follow up with and I am 100% aware of peoples concerns, frustrations and even anger. I will rectify all accounts that are having issues - you can send me a message on the support page, a private message here on the forums or even out in the open on this forum; I will answer all inquiries but be aware I am back logged and still not feeling completely up to spending too much time on my computer at this time as I continue to get better.

I apologize for this and wish I could have offered more assistance during this time and hope everyone understands I am doing my best to answer inquiries and follow up with missing or delayed orders.

In addition to this - the deals on the site for the next few days are all going to be repeats and I will probably mark them up quite a bit just to discourage sales so I can get things back on track;

Thanks,

Elliott / sublimnl / BTCDeals
admin@btcdeals.com

Get well soon, Bitcoin need a more merchants like you.

Ummmmm...

Still waiting up here in canada, I bought during your BTC Deals and hour day...

I believe that was Canada Day, as in JULY 1st.

1.5 months ago...


Sorry about your health... but whats going on here ?

Over 1 month is a bit much...

July 1st was 1.5 months ago.

A few weeks ago I responded to his post offering bctdeals for sale but received no reply as well.

Took just about 8 weeks for my order to arrive.  I placed another order a few weeks after the first, so it should be arriving any day.

He was pretty clear that items were dropped shipped from China!

Two weeks later, I now am of the opinion that BTCdeals is a scam.  My first order went through, the second seems to have been a scam.

Sorry, I live in the future...

Have you seen this boy ?

No response to 2 emails..

And today I notice you have another "day of deals"

Still nothing...Still waiting..

2 months..

....


....

*twiddling thumbs*

So how many people lost money here? 

Think I'm out ~6btc, 2 paid orders 2+ months ago and one of the "freebies" tv remote deals.

Me too brother...  :(

its a shame it went on this long..

Wasn't he trying to sell it? Wasn't matthew wright buying it or something I dont remember.  There is a thread on this board about it being for sale.

yes...

So wheres my stuff ?

still waiting for my items..

The main correlation with trustworthiness seems to be community involvement. Back during the crisis, MtGox was very heavily involved with the community setting things right, and now they're the ones bailing out other exchanges. BitMunchies was always engaged with the community, etc. MyBitcoin, on the other hand, was invisible on the forums, and even when people started complaining about it they made no effort whatsoever to do damage control.

Those are the kinds of businesses I would trust with my money - by participating in the community it's a sign that they care about Bitcoin itself and aren't just in it for personal financial gain, and they're putting their reputation on the line as collateral.

I do think this site did not start as a scam.  I think something happened, not sure what it was, but after that something should have been done.  I offered to buy the site but got no response.  If the owner was active, they would have replied because they would have been paid for the site and lost responsibility for the operation. 

Of course, with no action and leading along then nothing... it ended that way. 

Time to follow up since I started this thread. It's now been 2.5 months since I placed my order and still nothing. The btcdeals.com site is now an Apache test page. I'm also of the opinion that the site started out legit and the owner eventually decided it would be easier to disappear than to deal with an ever increasing number of complaints and refund demands.

The larger conclusion is that anyone who is only willing to do business anonymously will end up stealing your money sooner or later.

Holy hell people..


It was a complete SCAM, right from the begining.

Why in hell would he run a SECOND day of deals then close immediatly after..??

It was his last big cashout!..



Sublimnl or whatever it is should be labeled with the scammer tag.