Bitcoin Forum

Now it has been 4 days. Since I used the old withdraw address that has worked before, and that bitcoin withdraw doesn't involve any cash transfer, 4 days is a long time to wait. Wonder did anyone also requested withdraw from intersango? How long did that take?

Thanks.

I didn't think intersango had been active in ages.

I did ask them why the fee is 10 times higher since they adjusted it 20th Dec, hoping I misread or misunderstand their announcements. Answer was a terse one:

At least that means someone is watching the support tickets! If it is failing we should expect to see Intersango price much lower than market price,  but that (price much cheaper) only started since yesterday, the last a few months price was somewhat following the market.

The last time I receive anything from Intersango is 27th Dec 2013 (quote: "If you do not like the prices transact elsewhere."). I googled and didn't find any one reported that they have had any successful comunication with Intersango since Christmas. So it is possible that I am the last who received update of support ticket. Personal email tried and unanswered.

I think the best way to be clear of the situation, is for any intersango customer who received support ticket update or withdraw, post the date you receive comunication. Being slow to respond and unresponsive are two different situations. I heard it was a one man company, thus a week or two week's fishing holiday is probable (even if not announced), one man can also get illness; but absolutely-no-response for a month would mean the owner chose the worse quitting strategies among what are possible. These two situations has to be considered separately.

If you did receive a suceessful withdraw, kindly post here the date your withdraw request change from 'requested' to being processed, and your request ID - you can omit the last 2 numbers of your request ID - I observed there are about 80 withdraw requests from Intersango everyday, so if you offer your request ID without the last 2 digits, others can still compare if they are waiting in line or gets skipped.

A few weeks ago I withdrew 0.01 BTC in a matter of minutes. Then immediately after I tried withdrawing 1 BTC and have been waiting for it ever since.

Backstory:

I bought BTC in 2011 before Britcoin changed to Intersango and forgot about it till recently. Then about a month ago Patrick helped me recover my account when I launched a support ticket. He could have easily just told me there was no trace of my funds and I would have gone away but he went through the trouble of finding my old account and credited me with my lost BTC.

So I'm inclined to believe that Patrick hasn't purposefully lost/ stolen anyone's BTC, although I can't be 100% sure. I am following Icicle's threads though.

My Id withdraw request is 585xx placed on 14 Jan for less than 0.4 BTC, I'm still waiting my BTC, no reply from the support.

M.

Can't add anything to this discussion other than a +1 right now.

I've attempted a few different sized requests and sent some support tickets over the last couple of months with absolutely no response whatsoever. Currently investigating what other action can be taken.

I'd like to add my own:

My latest withdraw attept is #586**, made on 19th Jan 2014. Before 586**, I had done many trials and cancellations in my impatiency, but this one I decided to wait for a few weeks. To compare, last July I requested a withdraw of a large amount of BTC, and was proceeded almost immediately -- seeing it is so easy to withdraw, I put half of them back to Intersango, which is the money I am trying to withdraw now.

On a side note, MtGox always reply the second day I ask about anything in support ticket, but, cash withdraw was held as long as 5 months, until today I requested my cash withdraw cancelled (and they confirmed the next day), because I let the very bank account intended to receive that money to expire, as the maintenance fee of that bank account is getting close to the amount of money I requested to withdraw!

Has anyone try to deposit BTC in intersango?

Up date from Intersango home page

NOTICE: BITCOIN TRANSACTIONS HALTED
The system running the hotwallet has halted due to scheduled downtime of power facilities.
All bitcoin transactions will be halted until such time as the system can be manually restarted.

 ???

My request was october 2013, around the 23rd. There is no request ID because the request was made via a support ticket. I have been locked out of my account, reason: no photo ID on record. I sent a high resolution passport scan in that same day. All tickets have gone unanswered since, I am still locked out of my account and still have no bitcoins.

The matter is in the hands of the fraud department at Ingleside Police Station in San Francisco.

Thank you for updating the latest news of Intersango (regarding to hot wallet). That piece of news evinces that not all Intersango people are on fishing holiday, and somebody is doing something in Intersango. Perhaps they don't take withdraw request a high priority now. In fact, as I observed, hotwallet stopped to react on 0.01BTC withdraw since 18 Jan 2014, it could have been down since - I hope it was not because of larceny when security fixes are behind schedule.

I have a question for all of you. If, when a condition is met that you think the waiting is over and that you are facing a scam, and should take the next level of action, what would that condition be?

- until a certain day without any user report that their withdraw request being processed. i.e. everybody has trouble
- until there is a user whos request has not been dealt for a certain months. i.e. someone has trouble and it will happen to me.
- if hot wallet canot be fixed in a certain days. i.e. when an execuse is identified.
- right now, because failure of hot wallet apparently does not have to suspend manual withdraw processing, unless they are magically coded together (e.g. manual processing considered a special hotwallet operation and all withdraws have to go through the hot wallet). i.e. the current news is suspicious enough

In mooting this I am not expecting Intersango to act on our deadlines - they could have acted on icicle's case,  but they chose to not to respond under that enormous pressure, so we already know they can afford to ignore. I am mooting the point because having a clear 'conditon of action' makes us act swiftly when needed, and having a plan let us feel less worried.

You also need to consider the disruptive nature of bitcoin world. It is not a legal tender - to police at the moment, at best a commodity, and at worst a casino chip. It is possible that the police can only get you the fiat money you deposite into Intersango account, as scams are often dealt this way, which is merely a fraction of its current value, overshadowing the ingenuity of your investment decision - and police probably are less interested in helping international investors like us, especially when the proof of deposite has been years away, if still exists. There are reasons for waiting, with condition, for Intersango to act professionally; and there are signs that they have acted professionally in some cases.

P.S. I know intersango is likely one man, but until he speaks of his company as himself, I try to remain objective, to not to rob him away of the chance of dealing this case professionally, that is, on the business entity level, not taken personally. On the other hand, if it is a one man show, it is a very hard job to do. Trade platform carries a lot of expectations with it, security, efficiency and customer communication. You need to be an excellent people person to glue different type of staff together to make it work, and it is very labrous for one man to run. Before the owner figure out a way to quit properly, he has to deal with these expectations in the pace he can afford.

#582XX 1.0 bitcoin ca. 1.1.2014 hanging (requested). Ticket from maybe 15th with request for "staff action" unanswered.

Intersango blocked me after i did a 2100 euro wihdrawal and ask for support..

wait now for 2 months and sent a lot of emails....

Amir Taaki en Patrick Strateman is scam and fraud.. Don't go in business with them!!!

zgenjix
amir.taaki@gmail.com
zgenjix@yahoo.com
genjix@foo.org
genjix@gmail.com
genjix@riseup.net
zgenjix@gmail.com
patrick.strateman@gmail.com
skype: zgenjix

They scam and fraud. To the court with them.

Interesting: sounds like your withdraw request is made in November, before user theta successfully withdrawed bitcoins in early December 2013. Either you are treated differently than theta, OR, together with icicle's case, it suggests that cash withdraw ceased earlier than bitcoin withdraw (notice that this thread was started with a bitcoin withdraw problem).


You meant Amir Taaki and Patrick Strateman.

Amir Taaki is nick named zgenjix when he was a computer game developer. Today he is known as an important bitcoin developer. When Intersango advertised that it is run by the people who maintained bitcoin software, I believe that refers to Amir Taaki, who is according to icicle no longer assocated with Intersango. His contact information is very easy to find - like most opensource developers, he made his online contact information public.

According to Internet posts, many emailed Patrick using patrick.strateman@gmail.com. Some got help (before December 2013), some are ignored. I read this:


Note that on the same page, someone nicknamed 'drcross' 2 months ago suggested "Contact patrick dot strateman a.t. gmail dot com. He's a nice guy and will sort you out". Also note that, from my days of Google search homework, everyone who complained against Intersango publicly seems to have difficulty speaking English in correct, full sentences, perhaps they are all foreigners like me.

At least from all the info we collected in this thread, it seems that although bitcoin withdraw doesn't seem to work, selling you coins and retry with cash withdraw would not get you any better. Some posts say that they got bitcoin withdraw successfully, as I did in July 2013, but virtually no one reported successful cash withdraw - not that they are obliged to, though.

I just emailed Patrick (in a nice tone), and my password is of good quality. My name would expose that I am a foreigner right away, before my English does. We will see if he disables my login outright, when that happens I'll let you know. Although I expect be ignored, I cautiously kept a screenshot while typing my password to evince that it is a good password, unlikely guessed out, before writing to Patrick, so that if my login stopped working, I have evidence to show it is unlikely a 3rd party hacked and changed password. Let me know if you think of something that I should do now, while I still can access my account.

I am ignored, as expected.

What kicked me to return and follow up this post is:
Intersango website isn't accessible today, from HongKong, Texas (U.S.) and China. The error is "ConnectionTimeout".
Edit: the next morning the website came back and I can login successfully.

for me 3 months that i try to withdraw 11.5btc :

I've opened several support tickets and sent emails to them

-----------------------------------------------

Withdraw #58610

Requested withdrawal of 11.56730000 BTC

------------------------------------------------

it's time to regroup all mail, tel number, FB profile, and make a big trolling action !!

Have been trying to withdraw from intersango since start of December. Some smaller amounts (up to 0.09 BTC) went through around December 10th.

Then tried to withdraw the rest (12.4 BTC) several times (#58315 and #58371) just before and around X-mas. Thought perhaps these amounts were too big to deal with in one go so was polite enough to reduce the withdrawal to 2 BTC (#58470) on January 6th. Logged a few support tickets and tried to email to Patricks gmail.

Guess in a way I am lucky because last withdrawal would have gone to mtgox, so I have just cancelled it and now I will have to go all the way to the back of the queue again...like the queue still matters...

I do not believe the message on the intersango homepage. Does it take a month to restart a computer? Should they not have been able to come up with a plan to avoid such a long downtime of their hotwallet system and at least warned us beforehand, if the downtime of the power facilities had been scheduled - as it says on the website?

It is really painful to see a bunch of nitwits and amateurs (I am being polite here) turning a beautiful idea, that even has potential to rescue humanity from our current debt-ridden economic system, into a complete disaster.

It would seem that Gox going down is the final nail in the coffin for all of our hopes of ever seeing our BTC returned to us.

Bitcoinica/ Intersango's BTC funds were on Patrick's account on MTGox.

I've lost all hope of ever seeing my 15 BTC again and I'd rather just move on and forget about this whole pile of shit than carry on by taking legal action.

Best of luck to anyone that does.

Fuck MTGox.

Bitcoinica/ Intersango's BTC funds were on Patrick's account on MTGox.

How would you know this, Dipsomaniac?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=260225.0

Patrick has bitcoinica's money in MtGox - okay, but what about Intersango's customers money? It was stored in a 'hot wallet' on Intersango, and when it was not, it should be in a 'cold wallet' by Intersango, no reason to go to MtGox.

I feel it is perhaps time to take action, to ride the wave and get some attention. Someone spoke him as having a little responsibility, helped a user when she couldn't fully proof ownership, so if he had money that he doesn't consider his own he may gave to owner, thus getting the rest of the coins from him requires more than asking. Meanwhile a case against him would make it public, so people are aware and learn something from it.

How many of you intersango users are located in England (where the company is registered - correct me if I am wrong) and how many live close to San Francisco (where he lives - correct me if I am wrong)? We need to file case in two places, see who has the jurisdiction.

Early this month I was tempted to file the case in Poland where Intersango bank account is, by asking my friend who was visiting - we failed to get authorization (signed) from other users to file case for them (I wasn't able to myself because my withdraw only had stuck 2-weeks, too short to be taken seriously). I believe simply trying to be noisy without any authorization letter wouldn''t help, so I gave up asking him to file a case in Poland.

I am Dutch and lived in the UK for some years. After that used to visit the UK regularly up until recently, but no plans now for the foreseeable future. I do however have contacts in London that may be able to file a case and I should be able to travel to London at a relatively low cost if needed.

Annoying thing now is that I had to cancel my withdrawal request because in any case I do not want any BTC to go to mtgox anymore. I can prove, however, that I requested a withdrawal and asked for support twice over the course of two months, and of course my emailing Patrick. I have now again put in a request for the full amount of BTC owed to me by intersango, but to an offline/cold storage wallet. Something I should have created a long time ago.

If we really want to file a case we will have to look into what we stand to gain and where we stand legally under UK law, where the company originates. One of the worries I had, and possibly share with other people, is that BTC is not legal tender and hence we might not get coins, but only original fiat investments. On the other hand, if we buy shares through a bank or company, then those aren't legal tender either. It seems only logical that if we had bought some shares in e.g. Tesla motors a few years back and they were owed to me by a company who can not provide those original shares, that I would get recompensed for the current value of those shares, even though those shares have doubled in value many times over since then. I will confirm with my lawyer friend how this works under Dutch law and I am quite sure in the UK it should be the same, or at least similar.

Thank you. This is important to check the possible outcome.

When the action is needed, there are several actions we can take:

1) We can repeate what icicle did in the U.S., filing a case in police - I do not know U.K. police would act to this, but in China the outcome is: they take the case, write a file, close it in a cabinet and it's there forever - bribing may or may not kick start the progress.
2) We can sue the company,
3) We can ask related entities to act, e.g. check if it requires a court order to freeze intersango account or request force liquidation - perhaps proof of delayed payment of debt is sufficient to start it without court order? I have never been living outside of China. I am oblivious.

Apparent to me that 1) and 3) are less expensive. 2) perhaps can be inexpensive too, because there is a chance he doesn't want to present in the court (if he has nothing to lose), making it less work for everybody. Again, this is a guess from someone whose knowledge of the western world is from hollywood movies.

P.S. We should pay your labour with a percentage if you are to go through all the trouble for others - it's nature. We can fix that when we are set on action
P.S. Losing the 30 coins in Intersango and the 100 coins in MtGox to a Chinese is like, losing between 650 to 1000 coins for people in the first world.

Just a quick update. I spoke with my lawyer friend but her expertise in this area is not specific enough to really help us in this matter. She, as well as the police, have told me this would normally classify as a civil case, relating to the agreement signed between me and Intersango and hence they advised to arrange a consult with a civil lawyer, which is what I think Icicle has already done. Also I don't think a Dutch lawyer can really help here, since the company is based in the UK and Patrick is in the US, so I think for now it may be best to follow Icicle's approach and contribute to her case the best we can.

In response to your comment on being from the first world: 12.4 BTC is a lot of money to me. I am a student and I could currently pay off a good part of my student loans with this (esp together with the BTC that went missing at mtgox), which will save me a lot of worries during for years to come.

AFAIK, she did not go the civil dispute route, and she did not hire a civil lawyer. Because I remember she said once "don't question me why I don't sue him" or something similiar: can't find the source now. She is following this thread occasional, may come and clearify. I thought that she is firmly on the police/FBI route.

I will help by repeating the story as another creditor, to any police officer who took icicle's case, once she announces the police officer's email address or contact method (icicle: if you are reading this: you can contact us with PM on this forum to avoid exposing the police officer's email address), be it a U.S. police or U.K. police.

I am not giving up the idea of hiring a civil lawyer. Did you check that we must have a civil lawyer to plead to force liquidating the company? And do you know the price range of such a lawyer? You would be helping a lot other people by some digging, and it is still possible to arrange co-share of the cost. That being said, I will continue to support icicle on police route as well as spend effort going through a civil dispute.

Intersango Ltd. UK registered company with the name Intersango LTD (company number: 07683978) under the Companies Act 2006.
A Ltd is a Limited Liability company. Which means that the company is only liable up to their share value which can be as £100

Company address:
Intersango Ltd
3rd Floor 14 Hanover Street
London
England
W1S 1YH

Filed on 16-01-2014   First notification of strike-off action in London Gazette (Section 652)   £4.99   
Filed on 31-07-2013   Notice of striking-off action discontinued   £4.99
Filed on 21-06-2013   First notification of strike-off action in London Gazette (Section 652)   £4.99   
Filed on 23-09-2012   Annual Return   £4.99   
Filed on 30-06-2012   Annual Accounts

A "strike off action" means that they have not filled in their annual accounts.

A company report is available (£9.99) which will have these details from companies house here in the UK it says it has details of:
Turnover, Company Registration Number, Pre Tax Profit, Year Started, Issued Capital, Incorporation Date, Nominal Capital, Annual Return Date, Net Worth, Number of Employees, Net Assets, Director Information, Current Director Position, Past Director Position, Current Director Name, Past Director Name, Date of Appointment and Date of Registration.

Someone has been trying to get more information about the address that Intersago is registered at.
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/14_hanover_street_3rd_floor (https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/14_hanover_street_3rd_floor)
But have not had any luck.

Goggle show up lots of companies are registered at 14 Hanover Street. So it looks like a company selling "off the shelf company registrations" is who is really there. The Company report from business intelligence company I use might give you more leads to follow

Here is a custom search that might turn up something.
http://www.cylex-uk.co.uk/google/companysearch?cx=016729864569533560013:5agkikkhevy&cof=FORID%3A9&ie=utf-8&hl=en&q=INTERSANGO%20LTD

I have an account at Intersango and so this thread caught my eye. I used them when they first opened as they where the only place you could get Bitcon back then. I logged in OK and found I had left 3 BTC in my account (small change at that time worth £12) so I have made a request for my 3 BTC.

Think of England as a pirate ship off the coast of Europe as far as finance is concerned so unless fraud can be proved rather than just sloppy business I would expect the police to get involved. In which case it would be a civil matter and it would be difficult to recover any money. If the company is forced into liquidation a Receiver would be appointed. They would sell any assets and the tax man would get first bit of the cherry. But I'm not a Lawyer. I can buy the report for you if you like.

Hope this is of some help.

12GyM6kF9ZTmbsRBdDNixpfpvLu8zBQWse

Thank you for your help PaperLess. It's rather professional. You are a person of details and very helpful to others.

The customized google search turns out empty page for me, is it inteded? That there is nothing?

I don't mind buying the report (less than 100 Chinese Yuan) but the problem is what action to take after having it. Even a visit to their office address is perhaps not necessary and should be skipped - you expect to see nothing and nobody there. The company is expected to have one person only, and he is expected to be in the U.S.

I don't even know which way to start to get these thing done - force liquidate the business. The procedure, cost and time etc etc.

Perhaps it make sense to start a small website 'intersango debt collect' to record the loses for the folks and as a basis of some action against Intersango? e.g. for people to file claims and make legal procedure to start.

Anyone who has lost money to these scum should Contact the City Of London Police and not the London Metropolitan Police.
The City of London Police deal with all financial and internet fraud and scams and they are very good at it they have jailed many market traders and fraudulent company directors both in the UK and abroad.

http://www.cityoflondon.police.uk/advice-and-support/fraud-and-economic-crime/Pages/Reporting-fraud.aspx

Thanks to you all for providing the above information. Much appreciated.

I notice today intersango.com is down (was fine yesterday) - the final nail in the coffin?

The shorter URL I was redirected to is:
http://www.actionfraud.police.uk/report_fraud

1. Remember don't select "Benifit, Tax or Passport". The Intersango is not a tax fraud, benifit fraud or passport fraud, and Action Fraud site doesn't deal the 3 cases.

2. When selecting Fraud Type, none of the default option seem fit. You can click the last option "give me more options" and this one in the expanded option list seem fit to me:
- Fraud to do with a financial investment, e.g. purchasing stocks or shares, a mortgage or an investment scheme

3. When an address of the fraud is needed, the postal code of 3rd floor, 14 Hangover Street, London, as I looked up, is "W1S 1YH "

I reported lose of bitcoins, but lose of fiat may call more attention? Here is what I reported, in case you want to adjust for your case and report yours:


Surprising to me, the reporting didn't ask for my passport or proof that I exist. Still, I am ready to submit these information. I also forgot to add any informatin of Patrick himself, you can add that part if you want. The combination of U.S.A. owner, British company and Poland bank account must be suspecious enough to call attentio to the officers, but I forgot to address this point and submitted.

Using "digital asset" instead of "digital currency" is intentional, because police vowed to protect people's asset, and digital currency (including in-game asset) are recognized as asset (in many countries, not sure U.K.). We are not asking them to admit Bitcoin as a currency in order to start their work. My naïve understanding is that the police face the dilemma whether or not recognize bitcoin as a currency only when we are buying things with it, so the Intersango case doesn't challange their idea of currency and I wish to address it is their duty after all. This one only my opinion, not a suggestion to everyone.

Thank you zhangweiwu. I have filed a report as well. I am sorry not having much time to investigate very deeply in these matters currently, due to impending deadlines. I have found out that first consults with civil lawyers tend to be free here in the Netherlands, but I am simply too busy to sacrifice half a day at the moment. But let's see how this develops for now and second half of the month should be better.

btw, since you also had coins in mtgox, I trust you have wrote an email here?

http://www.selachii.co.uk/solicitors-blog/bitcoin-mt-gox-class-action-update/

Deadline is 4pm GMT Friday...

Today I received an email titled "Fraud Confirmed". The content is an auto-generated message, that if investigation has any progress they would let me know, plus that if they don't inform me, then there is no progress (infer that "don't slow us down by checking").


Thanks a lot! I knew Selachii LLP is representing lots of people to sue MtGox, but I was vainly waiting for them to publish an online form. Thanks to you I just learned they are asking people to register by sending them email! A very inefficient way to handle multitudes of clients. I just emailed them now.

I had a look at the printout from Companies House.

There were initially three shareholders, now only two: Patrick and Amir.
Each has one share, value one pound.

Amir is the sole director of the company.

The registered address is a shell, AFAICT.

Intersango is a Limited Company, and "[T]he directors shall be empowered (whether expressly or implicitly) to exercise in pursuance of its objects and powers all of the borrowing powers of the Company," ......

It appears that the directors, officers and auditors have the right of indemnity.

Hence suing the company is likely to enrich only the lawyers, IMHO.

Abbreviated balance sheet as at 30 June 2012 (latest BS)
Current assets £254680
Creditors £(£252,133)

Total net assets £2547

The latest document is dated 21/01/2014 and is a notice from Companies House advising that
unless cause is shown to the contrary, the company will be struck off on21/4/2014
NB: Upon dissolution all property and rights vested in, or held in trust for, the company are
deemed to be bona vacantia, and accordinly will belong to the crown.

Please do not shoot the messenger.




 

I expect they moved money away in the two year's span. If it were two years ago, by the time of this asset table, suing them for liability isn't a dead-end, because when you "deposite" money into Intersango, you are the creditor, and the company should pay your credit with current asset, not with net asset.

If the information can be obtained easily, I wonder if the same should be done to all bitcoin businesses in operation, for the benifit of the community. Studies of Mark K.'s personality and background only surfaced in the aftermath, such background study should be done before.

Since you have the printout, can you post so that I can attach it to my fraud report? I perfer if you could file a fraud report yourself too (Action Fraud) if you are a customer, and attach the information. Having there business closed and the deed done, Patrick and Amir have no incentive to accuse you for exposing the record.

To my common sense, any evidence of Fraud could get everything siezed and his personal assets could be at stake. that means not limiting to the 2 pound the company registered with.


I hope I can spare more time on how U.K. system works. Perhaps it is easy, as quoted, but there is a huge culture gap to cross. As much as I want to be an law-abiding citizen, I do not live in the first world.

I have bitcoins at Intersango that I can't reach anymore too and a withdraw request that was never carried out and an unanswered support ticket.
I wanted to report the fraud the URL :
http://www.actionfraud.police.uk/report_fraud

according to zhangweiwu the following option is the best choice:
- Fraud to do with a financial investment, e.g. purchasing stocks or shares, a mortgage or an investment scheme

But if I do that I have to fill in fields about the money I spend (in pounds, estimated is all right too they say) and how much I got back.

Some questions about that:

Did anyone encounter those fields too?
If I can't avoid them: If I fill in what I really spend it will be a lot less then what the coins are worth now. And they ask for a date. So you only can fill in the lower fiat value of the past.
Did anyone had to handle this or am I in the wrong path in the report.

That's my opinion, because I did it for a financial investment and bitcoin in the current decade is an investment scheme. (WE are investing on the possibility it becomes a currency by 2020, at the current moment we are doing it for digital asset, that's my reading.)



When I deposited the coins into my empty account, I deposite with bitcoins that I bought elsewhere at a recent price, intending to sell them. So I converted that cost to sterlings and filled in the number. But, perhaps even your a few pounds look bigger to the police than mine tens of thouands, because I file for lose of asset and you file for lose of cash investment. Or you can fill in the current value of your asset and explain in a comment? You can refer to my case if you like, I just sent my case number to you in private message.

Just to be clear, I will list the possibilities that I see:

1. Intersango does nothing, gets delisted, and all their assets become the property of the crown.

2. The creditors, including me, start bankruptcy proceedings.

3. Intersango somehow comes back online.

I do not see a criminal fraud investigation assisting in any way, for reasons stated below.

I see 2. as the most likely. Amir seems to be the only one whose assets might be directly at risk,
and even he is protected by the limitations on liability of the company. Put bluntly, unless there
are company assets to be seized, there is no point in starting bankruptcy proceedings.

There may or may not be assets in the form of money and BTC. I seemed to be one of a few
active traders, and had almost no euro and bitcoin in the lowish single figures in my account.
I seem to recall that at most 20 bitcoin were shown as available for purchase, so forgive me
if I seem skeptical regarding some of the claims made here.

Aside from those, the only visible assets are the site's software, probably totally dependent on
Amir to maintain, and the Intersango name and business model. The business model got broken
when the UK bank account got pulled, so a sale of the business is unlikely to net very much.

Looking at the last deposit I made with Intersango, if I was paid for my btc at that rate, I am
perhaps owed 25 euro. The current value of my bitcoins is perhaps x100 in round figures so
my recovery would depend on convincing the receiver/administrator that I have a case for the
higher figure. With no legal history, that may be difficult.

As for the possibility of success with a fraud investigation, I have yet to see a good case being made.
Begin with this definition: 'Obtaining money by deception'

Accepting, for the moment that bitcoin is money, where is the deception?

Deception doesn't have to involve fiat money. e.g. deception with passport is deception, with or without money. I don't see why assets can't merit deception. I personally did not say bitcoin is money. It is an asset on which we speculate that may become money. Since paltry as the weapons and amors you got in World of Warcraft is considered asset and lawfully protected on the merit that players laboured to obtain it, I don't see why a commodity (bitcoin) widely accepted in the world not counting as asset. If someone says they are to buy gold from me, I give the gold and he disappared, can the police say I am not deceived because no fiat money was paid so far? If ths man instead pays me one Pound for a block of gold before he disappears, will the police say "now your case merit a deception because One Pound of fiat is involved"?

It is not the case that he said I cannot pay your money, it is that the company and website disappared with the money. I am really surprised that you think this is not deception. You asked me not to shoot the messenger, but what you said is simply against my common sense. All these: accepting deposite when withdraw is not possible, fake message of system powered down, and not disclosing the fact of insolvence when they know it. Hell, someone disappeared with a promise-to-pay, and you ask where is the deception. Please other members post to confirm whether or not I am just experiencing a huge culture shock.

There are only two persons who made public big claims, me and icicle. You ask that why do someone "deposite" 30+ coins into an exchange that at any time can only offer to trade 20 bitcoins, the answer is I did not know it was so until today you told me. Admittedly I am far less resourceful and informed as you are, but isn't that the characteristic of victims? I cannot speak for her but to prove my own claim, my biggest deposites are the two following:


The coins, as I track on blockchian, with following transactions, went to multiple addresses after deposited, and most of these addressess show 0BTC as final. If I track further, I am perhaps tracking other customer's wallet, so I stopped in 5 rounds.

So I answered your 'confusion' but may I know why do you think Patrick's asset is not going to be hurt? Is it because Amir is a public figure and Patrick isn't? Saying only Amir's asset at risk is also against my common sense.

"So I answered your 'confusion' but may I know why do you think Patrick's asset is not going to be hurt?"

I am thinking about the bankruptcy route for recovery of assets. On other threads the intention to pursue
all three founders of the company is discussed, and they may be successful. I have not seen any references
to case numbers, and until I see these, it is difficult to find out how far that has progressed.

So, back to the civil action route - IANAL BTW.

If these guys had any business sense, they should have gone public as soon as they knew the company was
insolvent, perhaps in June 2013 when the accounts were due. (I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt here)

At that time they might have avoided bankruptcy by offering the depositors say 40 cents on the dollar. Do not
take that literally! Now there may be nothing for us after due bills are paid, and the lawyers and accountants
get paid. The reason I say this is that they seem to be willing to let Intersango get delisted and have the assets
seized by the crown. The intersango business seems to be hosted in southern England, their bank account is in
Poland, and the people are in Spain, the USA, and Europe. I doubt there is anything worth seizing in the UK.

Intersango is a limited liability company. That means that not only are the personal assets of the directors
protected under law, but that they can use the assets of Intersango to pay for any legal action. Patrick may have
been Chairman, but he seems to have no right in law to direct the actions of the company (as would be the case
for a Director ie Amir).

The company has to file for bankruptcy as far as I can tell, and I have no knowledge of whether the company owes
a bank any money, or has any other financial obligations, so it is difficult to know how this would play out. I'm hoping
that the Intersango three still keeps an eye on these boards, because getting them to respond probably offers the
best hope of any recovery.   

 

AFAIK, they can claim insolvency but customer funds must be made available. If customer funds aren't made available, they are liable to go to jail for embezzlement. I don't think being an LLC has any matter regarding deposits and whatnot.

I have been transparent about my progress. I had hoped others reveal their progress too, and assumed the silence as there be no real progress (reasonable). Talking about transparency and cooperation, in fact, I find it is difficult to get trusted to report case for other customers altogether. My first attempt was to file it in Poland (physically, not online): 5 people are contacted and I failed to get any one on my boat in time. So this time when I file it in London (ActionFraud) I instead decided that it is better for everybody to file for themselves.

Did you file a case in ActionFraud mentioned above? I think filing it on everyone's own  filing on the same website has the additional benifit of calling attention, since they implied they have a big pool of reports and they can only procees a few of the fraud report (hustlers should be happy to read this information: the police are busy working on something else).

I have not yet given up on legal action. I am afraid I am not the best person to start: as I explained before, I never lived in the first world, there are too many things totally new to me, and I am rather far away (China). But I am ready to jump on other's boat: I would like to share cost with others if someone can start the process, find an agent to talk about the issue, figure out to do list and proceed on actions.

I am not a law man. It is of my common sense that law has more means to do justice than taking away 2 pounds to the crown.

I had £400 left in my account with them and i think i still had 1.6 coins as well. Wondering how to proceed next.

If I have learned one thing, it is that the Law is not Justice, and Justice is not the Law.

"If customer funds aren't made available, they are liable to go to jail for embezzlement."

I will read up on that. Until now I'd assumed that only bitcoin was at risk here. 

I *think* that in the UK, if less than £500 is involved, there is a cheaper route through the
courts to recover money - IIRC for over £500 you need to go via the High Court. If nothing else,
it may stop the assets being seized by the crown. Something else to read up on.

1. You can file it to London police like me and some others did. I believe repeated filing calls attention.
The procedure is here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=414764.msg5539367#msg5539367

When asked about the lose in Pound Sterling, scine 100% of my lose are asset (not cash), I filled in my total lose converted to Pound Sterling in market price.

The police has obligation to protect people's asset, be it cash or other valuable asset that has a price tag on it (bitcoin). I watched the latest youtube video of the deceased Autumn Redtke, a U.S. entrepreneur, who says virtual goods, including armor and weapons you obtained in computer games, are lawfully recognized as such asset - perhaps in U.S.. So bitcoin is 10 times more valid and more liquid than that. We are doing nothing illegal and we lost asset to other illegal practise, the common sense is that police has no reason to turn us down.

2. Consult a laywer (especially U.K. laywer or a country with a law system inherited from U.K.) or anyone knowledgeable about possible next-actions (and share with others here).

3. Visit other governmental websites, obtain the how-to knowlege of how this cases are commonly dealt. e.g House of Company and publish your learning.

4. Not accepting the lose and moan over it unless you learned how the system works. Be pro-active.

5. If we have to accept the lose, make sure the relative names are properly tainted in public so that less people fall  again. e.g. if an adult  is a fraud, addressing him so is not slandering but a social service.

That's my understanding.

Just an update on recovery of debt via the UK small claims court.
The sum involved has to be under £3000. You also have to have proof that
a) you have a contract with them for the amount you claim and b) that you
have written to them (Intersango) asking for your money back. 

Any way after such a long time it probably wont work any more

Me, being Dutch also, living in the States, had many coins in Intersango. Let me know what you think about some action.
Thinking file a case in the UK is the only option.
Amir blames Patrick.

jc

Hello

I'm also not able to withdraw bitcoins and are planning a small claims action against them.

Has anyone filed one yet?

Apart from filing police fraud case, did you file a companies house fraud report? We need to make sure they don't file for insolvency and I believe they will investigate their reports, returns etc. So once they go under the magnifying glass, they will find any abnormalities.

Link to companies house fraud page:
http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/infoAndGuide/reportingFraud.shtml

https://www.gov.uk/complain-about-a-limited-company

http://www.bis.gov.uk/insolvency/Companies/investigations-hotline

What do you guys think?

I think we all must complain as numbers usually prompt action.  This is fraud whichever way you look and I'll be happy with a prison sentence if i can't reclaim my money.  They haven't filed for insolvency have they? So where is the money

I will join your case when you start one. I will offer all necessary information and offer transaction details to you, and my personal identity if needed - to add credibility to the complaint, provide that I know who you are as well. I hope other forum member does the same. Just state what you need me / others to do.

If they file for bankrupcy, we need a way to know it before it goes effective, to buy some time for action. Is such thing usually announced on some governmental website? We should monitor that site.

But the best option is to act now. There are no more reason to wait for myrical. I am speculating that Amir and Patrick are now too disconnected with reality to act, and they lack the nerves of steel Mark Karpeles possesses, but share the same hubris, not caring mundane reputation - so they chose not to act so far - thus we should.

Everyone can phone companies house or insolvency service to enquire about the status.

http://www.bis.gov.uk/insolvency/Companies/investigations-hotline

I noticed the site has a message they are processing payments in orderly fashion. Even though this is a positive sign we should atleast phone and ask about status of the company. If its due to be removed and dissolved the we need to halt until all payments are complete.

They should really send out an all status email informing everyone what is happening. That would avoid all this if they are really genuine.

Has anyone received a payment yet?

I did not. My request was made 19th Jan 2014. I don't think anyone received.

There is a 'Proposal to Strike off' the company at Companies House.

http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk//wcframe?name=accessCompanyInfo

If you are owed funds or have a claim against the company you should consider to object the dissolution.

http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/about/gbhtml/gp4.shtml#ch1

Thank you very much for the information. Would you kindly share the steps you take to get this webpage? This web page is unprofessionally made, and cann't reproduce the content with just a link.

Someone needs to fill in the form and pay for small fee.

Could anyone do this asap and call them as well. If you dont do this now then court order is the only way to re-register the company.

I'm about to trek Himalaya, otherwise I really would.  You guys have to activate yourself before its to late. 

Zhang, if you are in China I understand the difficulty but can you open a Facebook group and add instructions we gathered over time? Then all the customers who lost
Money can collectively work. There could be hundreds but they don't know where to look.

My firm can do this for any of our clients with losses (for a small fee).

Thanks for your advice so far.  What is the name of your firm and your name. Are you offering to represent us?

Hi,

My details are in my profile.

You may email me at info(at)selachii.co.uk

I can then take details on an individual / per client basis.


Regards


Richard

I will try, but you know facebook is blocked by Chinese government, right? I can use a proxy, but my facebook account was almost empty, setting a group means every foreigner who look at my background on facebook sees only one thing: that I am after the money I lost - not a very good publicity for a career seeker, right? It implies carelessness and narrow focus.

Maybe if I really do it well I can avoid negative impression for business-partner or employer or my customer who does me background checks. For example, balancing it by writing how to modify violin to its mirror (for left-hand use), to counter the careless and cursory impression I should otherwise get.

Hi. Interested, but if have time, I should compare a few agencies before decision:)

I don't think we have time.

I'll take care of fbook group.

P.s. employers atleast in uk don't search for credentials.  And you can unlist

I'll join the group and keep advocating action.

Another two months has passed, it is clear that Intersango is not refunding users as it promised. There were no deadline given, so it is a simple trick to postpone actions.
\
I started a group:. The group's name is Legal Pursuit of Intersango
https://www.facebook.com/groups/322173374574448/

I already started acting with other fraud targets. We have an active host of our action in the U.K. (he is a fraud target too) who have contact the lawers and made plan for following actions. Please join the group.

by tomorrow I will post a current status, including possible following legal actions and possible outcomes.

Since Intersango does not follow KYC, if you do not stand out and join the legal pursuit, you are not known as a target and may miss the chance of legally reclaim your investments.

Just to let you know the facebook group is discussing the result of communication with Patrick and the following possible actions. Join the group to find out.

I HEREBY SET A PRICE ON THEIR HEADS OF 1000 us $  A PIECE WHEN YOU CAN BRING THEM IN.
I WILL GIVE YOU MUCH MORE WHEN THEY R STILL ALIVE.

They stole a lot of money from me, about a million. 10 % who can bring them or track them down.

Not sure if this is legal, but I do not think they should be on the streets.

Thanks and let me know.

fb

Wow you guys have been busy

what's the upshot?

I've asked to join the FB group - do any of us stand a chance of seeing anything - i didn't have much, maybe 9.5 bitcoins, but nonetheless!

what's next?

Lawful discussion aside, 1000USD per head is too few, that is 0.1% of a million. 10% is more justified, that is 100,000USD, so that two heads fetches a house. You also need to be explicit about "MUCH MORE" because contract killing nowadays barely  work even on explicit promises. Your best bet is that the pay is so high, that some began to consider it, then the money returns to you from whoever wants to live - a happy ending that on one has to die:)

How about this news: https://cryptobriefing.com/mt-gox-bitcoin-distribution-sparks-selloff-fears/

Does that give us new hope? I'm also hoping to get my 20 BTC back one day...