Bitcoin Forum

Economy => Scam Accusations => Topic started by: ICOEthics on February 07, 2019, 07:42:10 PM



Title: Windhanenergy = Resolved without any issues
Post by: ICOEthics on February 07, 2019, 07:42:10 PM
What happened: FAKE TEAM members AND PLAGIARISM found on their Whitepaper. RESOLVED without any issues Edited - 02/03/2019

Profile Link: They are not listed on this forum yet. If you see their post/thread please let us know.

Website: https://windhanenergy.io
http://web.archive.org/web/20190207190824/https://windhanenergy.io/  


Whitepaper: https://windhanenergy.io/file/whitepaper-English.pdf
Archived here: http://web.archive.org/web/20190207223351/https://windhanenergy.io/file/whitepaper-English.pdf (edited)

We received an email from Dennis Oosting pointing out this project has a few fake team members.
And he sent the link where the stock images can be found - see below:

https://icoethics.com/imgs/windhan/windhanenergy%20fake%20team.JPG - removed (edited)


https://icoethics.com/imgs/windhan/stock.JPG (edited)

source of images: http://bestwebcreator.com/cryptocash/demo/index-blue-modern.html.


After inspecting a few pages of their whitepaper, we detected plagiarized content. We have not checked the entire whitepaper - just a few pages.

https://icoethics.com/imgs/windhan/pl1.JPG
https://icoethics.com/imgs/windhan/pl2.JPG
https://icoethics.com/imgs/windhan/pl3.JPG
https://icoethics.com/imgs/windhan/pl4.JPG

https://icopanic.com/wepower/
https://medium.com/@sukantkhurana/renewable-energy-and-blockchain-cb46ca5bbe08
https://medium.com/greenx/the-greenx-whitepaper-ae531cedc6e4
https://gateway.ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72vedxjQkDDP1mXWo6uco/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Kazakhstan.html


We have contacted some team members and we are waiting for their response.


Title: Re: Windhanenergy = FAKE TEAM + Whitepaper contains plagiarism
Post by: witcher_sense on February 07, 2019, 07:44:04 PM
What happened: FAKE TEAM members AND PLAGIARISM found on their Whitepaper.
Profile Link: They are not listed on this forum yet. If you see their post/thread please let us know.

I found this profile on their website
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2538625


Title: Re: Windhanenergy = FAKE TEAM + Whitepaper contains plagiarism
Post by: ICOEthics on February 07, 2019, 07:47:34 PM
What happened: FAKE TEAM members AND PLAGIARISM found on their Whitepaper.
Profile Link: They are not listed on this forum yet. If you see their post/thread please let us know.

I found this profile on their website
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2538625

That was fast. Thank you.


Title: Re: Windhanenergy = FAKE TEAM + Whitepaper contains plagiarism
Post by: bubbalex on February 07, 2019, 07:52:53 PM
https://i.imgur.com/P2uDqgZ.png https://i.imgur.com/Eo4HVZg.jpg
Hugo Weaving?
Sorry for off-top, just for fun  :D

About subject, one of their team member also indicated in AsicVault team, maybe we need to check this project too?
https://topicolist.com/asicvault/
AsicVault Website - http://ico.asicvault.io/

https://i.imgur.com/kMFEsrc.png https://i.imgur.com/QRZqwfq.png


Title: Re: Windhanenergy = FAKE TEAM + Whitepaper contains plagiarism
Post by: morvillz7z on February 09, 2019, 12:40:46 PM
Hugo Weaving?
Sorry for off-top, just for fun  :D

It doesn't look like Hugo Weaving and it's not him.

Judging by how they assembled the rest of their team together (taking the identities of random people and putting them in a team). It's safe to presume that Richard Reinert is yet another victim. Here's his real LinkedIn profile (https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-reinert-825278/) and the fake one (https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-reinert-957a4a17a/). Bonus - his twitter account (https://twitter.com/richardreinert).

Off-topic, I'm getting Bowie vibes out the image in the real LinkedIn profile.  8)


Title: Re: Windhanenergy = FAKE TEAM + Whitepaper contains plagiarism
Post by: Windhanenergy on February 25, 2019, 07:29:05 PM
Hi there, I see there have been some doubts about our legitimacy. We have started a project thread, you can come over and ask us anything, we will be glad to answer your questions.

In regards to the claims in this thread --->

Fake team: At the time we hadn't publicly launched yet so, yes, our site contained some placeholder pictures and names. The ones who had real people behind them are the already on-boarded team members. Richard Reinert is a well-known guy in the London finance scene and you can watch an interview with him on our website. As for Martins Paegle - he is both on our and AsicVault team. Since we are fully launched, all the team members and advisors are visible on the website.

Plagiarism: We talked to the copywriter. The white paper was constantly being polished for the launch, therefore, the copywriter put a placeholder text of the same idea just to work on it later. We talked about that with him, said it wasn't a good thing to do. Currently, we have checked the white paper with Grammarly and it shows that our copywriter has corrected himself.

You might ask why are we approaching potential advisors with an unfinished, unpolished website and the answer is simple - to save a bit of time by doing these two things simultaneously. We may have made a mistake with that one, but overall we have nothing to hide. Come on our thread and we will answer all your questions:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5114243.new#new


Title: Re: Windhanenergy = FAKE TEAM + Whitepaper contains plagiarism
Post by: bubbalex on February 25, 2019, 08:03:18 PM
Hi there, I see there have been some doubts about our legitimacy. We have started a project thread, you can come over and ask us anything, we will be glad to answer your questions.

In regards to the claims in this thread --->

Fake team: At the time we hadn't publicly launched yet so, yes, our site contained some placeholder pictures and names. The ones who had real people behind them are the already on-boarded team members. Richard Reinert is a well-known guy in the London finance scene and you can watch an interview with him on our website. As for Martins Paegle - he is both on our and AsicVault team. Since we are fully launched, all the team members and advisors are visible on the website.

Plagiarism: We talked to the copywriter. The white paper was constantly being polished for the launch, therefore, the copywriter put a placeholder text of the same idea just to work on it later. We talked about that with him, said it wasn't a good thing to do. Currently, we have checked the white paper with Grammarly and it shows that our copywriter has corrected himself.

You might ask why are we approaching potential advisors with an unfinished, unpolished website and the answer is simple - to save a bit of time by doing these two things simultaneously. We may have made a mistake with that one, but overall we have nothing to hide. Come on our thread and we will answer all your questions:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5114243.new#new
It's so unfunny that I can use my previous messages to reply.
~
We have seen hundreds of examples, when the team began to defend itself after the accusations, can we just believe to their words? If I launch a scam tomorrow and answer all the accusations - the site was made at an outsourcing, WP too, the fake team is a stock photo from a template for the site and now I’ll fix everything, we’re not scam, but I will not give you any proof. How do you see it? This is of course extremely convenient - you were accused of scam - you will fix everything and there will be no evidence left. In any case, if you are so keen on development, you should have hired an experienced person, it is really difficult to invest money in a project that makes such mistakes, this is not professional, in the current market it is almost impossible to succeed in raising funds, especially after such accusations.
~
Is it worth it to create a topic with quotes from all teams that told tales that team on website was in test mode, but online, although this is absolutely not the case and they are just scam. Another Scam ICO trying to steal people's money. Is there really a school of sample answers to scam accusations somewhere? Because it seems like all scam projects are learning in it  ;D
AsicVault scam accusations - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4800954
AsicVault thread - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2706485
Launched by - cuteman (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1048305) (This user recently woke up from a long period of inactivity.)
Archived - https://archive.is/3NiU0
AsicVault Website - https://asicvault.io/
Archived 10 months ago - https://archive.is/tJOKi
Archived Today, in case they made changes, I didn't checked whole website - https://archive.fo/506J1
Windhaenergy new ANN - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5114243
Archived - https://archive.is/8YQvn


Title: Re: Windhanenergy = FAKE TEAM + Whitepaper contains plagiarism
Post by: Crypto-don on February 26, 2019, 05:01:04 AM
So,you trying to be a inspector here,who knows everything and other people can just listen to you.Just checked there website,looks great.Obviusly ,people do mistakes and learn from it.
You are advertising your bounty campaign here and wants to sell your services to ICOs or STOs,but do you know thoses teams or projects,absolutly no. Just who will pay for your services,you can sing a romantic song for that company.


Title: Re: Windhanenergy = FAKE TEAM + Whitepaper contains plagiarism
Post by: bubbalex on February 26, 2019, 07:00:28 AM
So,you trying to be a inspector here,who knows everything and other people can just listen to you.Just checked there website,looks great.Obviusly ,people do mistakes and learn from it.
You are advertising your bounty campaign here and wants to sell your services to ICOs or STOs,but do you know thoses teams or projects,absolutly no. Just who will pay for your services,you can sing a romantic song for that company.
Your account created today, I sure you part of windhaenergy project, I'm not promoting myself here, we not talking about my services here, your project was exposed by ICOEthics, great design of website doesn't prove that you not scam. Fake team, plagiarism in wp, you can't ignore this. And all projects I working with are trusted, you can check, recently one scam tried to order my services, they was exposed by me. All scams who can't answer to accusations start trying to accusate people, which exposed this scam, but it will not help you. Also, your account was created today and only to protect this scam, you know who doing like that? - Scams, real projects answered here with good proofs and solve their problems with reputation, not blame others. We not inspectors, you seen here proofs? I seen, but not from windhaenergy


Title: Re: Windhanenergy = FAKE TEAM + Whitepaper contains plagiarism
Post by: Crypto-don on February 26, 2019, 09:27:41 AM
I am the supporter of windhan energy and invest money in there project.You are the first who  blame people,without any reason ,if you are not promoting your Bounty management schemes,stop writing or promoting your banners.You guys are talking about my account,yes i created in 1 day,to give you the appropriate answers.One sided conversation is not good,so thats why i jump in.
To blame others and teach others,better look at yourself.


Title: Re: Windhanenergy = FAKE TEAM + Whitepaper contains plagiarism
Post by: bubbalex on February 26, 2019, 10:17:37 AM
I am the supporter of windhan energy and invest money in there project.You are the first who  blame people,without any reason ,if you are not promoting your Bounty management schemes,stop writing or promoting your banners.You guys are talking about my account,yes i created in 1 day,to give you the appropriate answers.One sided conversation is not good,so thats why i jump in.
To blame others and teach others,better look at yourself.
How about to check first message of this thread from ICOEthics? Or it's more convenient for you to take attention to me because you have nothing to answer on accusations? Don't teach me where I should write or not.


Title: Re: Windhanenergy = FAKE TEAM + Whitepaper contains plagiarism
Post by: Crypto-don on February 26, 2019, 10:59:03 AM
I have checked all, dont teach me as well.Just mind your business.It is really sad,no body contact you for Bounty yet.....With respect.


Title: Re: Windhanenergy = FAKE TEAM Members+ Whitepaper contains plagiarism
Post by: ICOEthics on February 28, 2019, 12:15:28 AM
PM SENT TO US TODAY:

Hello ICOEthics,

We have seen the thread you made about the possibility of our project not being real. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5107372.0

Also, we just noticed that you messaged us about this back on the 7th of February. Sorry to not have replied sooner, we simply weren't active here and no one was assigned to our social platforms yet.

This thread was started when we had not even launched the project. The Developers were using sample images while we were acquiring original photos of our team members, as well as the Copywriter we hired did an unprofessional thing that we noticed only later - he used plagiarised text as a placeholder for original text. Since then we have corrected mistakes, resolved issues, talked to the copywriter and double checked his work with Grammarly Plagiarism Checker, polished things and launched the project.

Here are our legal documents, including a building permit and the power purchase document with the government of Kazakhstan. (link removed)

It is important for people to trust and verify the projects that they invest their money in. Therefore we would like to prove trustworthy and resolve the thread. This project has nothing to hide, so please let us know how can we move forward and if you have any questions regarding our legitimacy.

Regards,
Windhan Energy ICO Team


Hello Team,

...This thread was started when we had not even launched the project...

There is not such a thing - Once you make your website live,  it is considered launched. When this thread was created, you already had your website working and running, including already asking for investor's money - see archive file on the first post of this thread.

...You might ask why are we approaching potential advisors with an unfinished, unpolished website and the answer is simple - to save a bit of time by doing these two things simultaneously.

We are not asking why are you approaching potential advisors, but why you approached potential investors with fake team members and plagiarized whitepaper.

https://i.imgur.com/0wBugyH.jpg

other sources:

https://i.imgur.com/Wy2EawS.jpg

...Fake team: At the time we hadn't publicly launched yet so, yes, our site contained some placeholder pictures and names...

...Copywriter we hired did an unprofessional thing that we noticed only later...

You can blame other people if you want, instead of blaming yourself - this is the typical response we received most of the time. An honest business will take responsibility instead of blaming someone. In your case, you hired the copywriter, so it is your responsibility to check everything before asking for money from investors.
And by the way, we are the ones who informed you about the plagiarized whitepaper.

What happened to this profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-reinert-957a4a17a/

...Richard Reinert is a well-known guy in the London finance scene and you can watch an interview with him on our website...

We saw the interview. Which project is he talking about? Did he mention this project?

...Here are our legal documents...

Please feel free to post the documents here.

...This project has nothing to hide, so please let us know how can we move forward...

We are not preventing you from moving forward, we are not calling you a scam/scammer. We made our accusation based on what was found.
You can fix it, replace it, re-write it, but it is up to investors now to decide if they want to invest in your project.

We have seen many projects accused of the same problems, they give the typical explanation/excuse like your responses, and they ended as a scam.
And we have a few hundred on our list, go take a look if you wish.

The best we can recommend to you is to make a video of your team, including Mr Richard Reinert saying that he is a team member(CEO) of this project.


Title: Re: Windhanenergy = FAKE TEAM Members+ Whitepaper contains plagiarism
Post by: bubbalex on February 28, 2019, 09:29:56 AM
It's so strange, they tried to hire me today, after all messages I wrote here about that they are scam, I'm not here to promote myself and protect scams for money, I really hate scams. Even if it's not scam, I don't want to be involved in any accusations. You are unprofessional at least.


Title: Re: Windhanenergy = FAKE TEAM Members+ Whitepaper contains plagiarism
Post by: TheNewAnon135246 on February 28, 2019, 07:25:46 PM
@ICOEthics, they sent me exactly the same PM. I'm not even responding to it. Anything they want to ask me they can do in this thread.


Title: Re: Windhanenergy = FAKE TEAM Members+ Whitepaper contains plagiarism
Post by: Windhanenergy on March 02, 2019, 03:12:09 PM
Hello again,

Meet the Windhan Team

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11xLrlZwJzQ&feature=youtu.be

Feel free to see the Windhan legal documents

VAT Certificate: https://windhanenergy.io/file/VAT-Certificate.pdf
Power Purchase Agreement: https://windhanenergy.io/file/Power-Purchase-Agreement.pdf
Building Permit: https://windhanenergy.io/file/building-permit.pdf
Wind Measurement Report: https://windhanenergy.io/file/annual-report-2014.pdf
Certificate: https://windhanenergy.io/file/Certificate-Windhan.pdf

Some pictures for those of you hesitating to click on links:

https://i.imgur.com/IYHyVF2.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/E0evH84.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/IttMZou.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/UitkOnt.jpg


Final Thoughts

1. We are not blaming anyone, just explaining how our mistake happened.
2. We weren't approaching potential investors with an unfinished website and whitepaper, just advisors.
3. There is a difference between a project launch and a website launch. If you read our message again, we specifically said "we had not even launched the project"
4. Mistakes are not unprofessional, they are a part of the process.

Best regards,
Windhan Team


Title: Re: Windhanenergy = Resolved without any issues.
Post by: ICOEthics on March 02, 2019, 05:23:05 PM
Hello again,

Meet the Windhan Team

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11xLrlZwJzQ&feature=youtu.be

~
Final Thoughts

1. We are not blaming anyone, just explaining how our mistake happened.
2. We weren't approaching potential investors with an unfinished website and whitepaper, just advisors.
3. There is a difference between a project launch and a website launch. If you read our message again, we specifically said "we had not even launched the project"
4. Mistakes are not unprofessional, they are a part of the process.

Best regards,
Windhan Team

Hello Team,

Thank you for providing documents and especially for making the video of your team - this is something that we dont see often, a project willing to make video of their team.  We accept as valid evidence and we changed this title of this thread "Resolved without any issues".






Title: Re: Windhanenergy = Resolved without any issues.
Post by: TheNewAnon135246 on March 02, 2019, 05:26:19 PM
Hello again,

Meet the Windhan Team

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11xLrlZwJzQ&feature=youtu.be

~
Final Thoughts

1. We are not blaming anyone, just explaining how our mistake happened.
2. We weren't approaching potential investors with an unfinished website and whitepaper, just advisors.
3. There is a difference between a project launch and a website launch. If you read our message again, we specifically said "we had not even launched the project"
4. Mistakes are not unprofessional, they are a part of the process.

Best regards,
Windhan Team

Hello Team,

Thank you for providing documents and especially for making the video of your team - this is something that we dont see often, a project willing to make video of their team.  We accept as valid evidence and we changed the subject headlines to Resolved without any issues.






Have the documents been verified or translated?


Title: Re: Windhanenergy = Resolved without any issues.
Post by: ICOEthics on March 02, 2019, 05:32:26 PM
Have the documents been verified or translated?

We didnt ask them to provide any documents, just the video, and the fact that they did in a very short time and provided extra documents (as we dont see this often ), we accepted as valid evidence of the real team. For this reason, this case is resolved and this thread will be locked. edited --> Thread re-opened because the team requested in case there are questions.


Title: Re: Windhanenergy = Resolved without any issues.
Post by: bubbalex on March 04, 2019, 06:32:11 PM
Have the documents been verified or translated?
Looks like real, it's Russian and Kazakh languages. I guess team from Kazakhstan. Good that they solved issue. I removed my negative feedback after ICOEthics notification.


Title: Re: Windhanenergy = Resolved without any issues
Post by: TheBanker on March 07, 2019, 03:49:59 AM
Whether the ICO is a scam or not is irrelevant. The mere fact of the matter is that icoethics and others like you are a discrace! You do no good yourself you just say everything is a scam while sitting in your ivory tower. Sure a lot of ICO’s are scams, however you have a growing reputation of being an idiot and discussed in many circles. You jump the gun and say everything is a scam just to make a name for yourself. I have been in 3 groups recently were Icoethics has labeled scam based on nothing. Most people think your an idiot but sometimes the damage you can do to a legitimate ICO is beyond repair. I don’t think that is ethical. I actually know someone involved in windhan and know it’s a legitimate company. You found the website weeks before it was released somehow and branded it a scam while it was underdevelopment. Yours a discrasce! Maybe get a real job and stop trying to bring everyone else down who is actually trying to do something!


Title: Re: Windhanenergy = Resolved without any issues
Post by: TheNewAnon135246 on March 07, 2019, 06:41:54 AM
Whether the ICO is a scam or not is irrelevant. The mere fact of the matter is that icoethics and others like you are a discrace! You do no good yourself you just say everything is a scam while sitting in your ivory tower. Sure a lot of ICO’s are scams, however you have a growing reputation of being an idiot and discussed in many circles. You jump the gun and say everything is a scam just to make a name for yourself. I have been in 3 groups recently were Icoethics has labeled scam based on nothing. Most people think your an idiot but sometimes the damage you can do to a legitimate ICO is beyond repair. I don’t think that is ethical. I actually know someone involved in windhan and know it’s a legitimate company. You found the website weeks before it was released somehow and branded it a scam while it was underdevelopment. Yours a discrasce! Maybe get a real job and stop trying to bring everyone else down who is actually trying to do something!

They used fake team members and a plagiarized whitepaper. Having a website that is under development is no excuse to use photos of other people without their consent. There is also no excuse for plagiarizing a whitepaper. Both can be considered as an offence/crime. Windham has corrected their mistakes and ICOEthics has redacted their rating, problem solved.

I have never seen them call an ICO a scam without providing the necessary evidence so don't try to portrait them as incompotent or unfair.


Title: Re: Windhanenergy = Resolved without any issues
Post by: TheBanker on March 07, 2019, 12:41:32 PM
Whether the ICO is a scam or not is irrelevant. The mere fact of the matter is that icoethics and others like you are a discrace! You do no good yourself you just say everything is a scam while sitting in your ivory tower. Sure a lot of ICO’s are scams, however you have a growing reputation of being an idiot and discussed in many circles. You jump the gun and say everything is a scam just to make a name for yourself. I have been in 3 groups recently were Icoethics has labeled scam based on nothing. Most people think your an idiot but sometimes the damage you can do to a legitimate ICO is beyond repair. I don’t think that is ethical. I actually know someone involved in windhan and know it’s a legitimate company. You found the website weeks before it was released somehow and branded it a scam while it was underdevelopment. Yours a discrasce! Maybe get a real job and stop trying to bring everyone else down who is actually trying to do something!

They used fake team members and a plagiarized whitepaper. Having a website that is under development is no excuse to use photos of other people without their consent. There is also no excuse for plagiarizing a whitepaper. Both can be considered as an offence/crime. Windham has corrected their mistakes and ICOEthics has redacted their rating, problem solved.

I have never seen them call an ICO a scam without providing the necessary evidence so don't try to portrait them as incompotent or unfair.

Read his latest accusations he is getting desperate using words like “possible fake team” lol when everything is a fork of everything else these days using information from the Whitepaper you forked the coin from is perfectly acceptable as long as you use it as a reference but when people do that he posts in huge red letters every way scam scam look at me. He’s an attention seeking wombat who preys on people’s fear and turns legitimate icos into scams! Do you really think all the scam icos start out as scams, the answer is no!!! They put their money time and effort into something and then when it’s killed by idiots like him they cut their losses and close shop because he destroys the reputation of legitimate coins. He doesn’t just do it for icos he does it with forked coins who don’t even ask people for money. Where is satoshi’s Kyc and website picture and LinkedIn profile? We don’t even know who he is and he is the father of all this because his vision is decentralisation not hiring a bunch of talentless gits to put up photos to make people like icoethics happy! You don’t even need a team to run a coin. Just create the code and let it run!


Title: Re: Windhanenergy = Resolved without any issues
Post by: TheNewAnon135246 on March 07, 2019, 01:05:49 PM
Snip

Are you talking about the Renovato (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5116514.0) topic? If so,

1. He is spot on. They are using a fake member and have edited their website several times without a proper explanation.
2. He hasn't left them negative feedback.

They always do plenty of research before starting a Scam Accusation. I have never seen them make false or baseless accusations either.


Title: Re: Windhanenergy = Resolved without any issues
Post by: morvillz7z on March 07, 2019, 01:29:30 PM
He is rather talking about EagleRockGlobal-ERG Project according to this comment (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5114450.msg50053630#msg50053630).


Whether the ICO is a scam or not is irrelevant.

Haha, what? Could you please elaborate?  :D

I have been in 3 groups recently were Icoethics has labeled scam based on nothing.

Mind if you share these 3 groups/projects? I'm afraid to ask how is your ICO team selection going on? I'm sure you will find enough suckers to buy your premine coins through discord though.


Title: Re: Windhanenergy = Resolved without any issues
Post by: ICOEthics on March 07, 2019, 02:23:29 PM
Hello Windhanenergy Team,

We are sorry but we have to close/lock this topic. Usually, we lock a thread once the case is resolved, but your team wanted to keep it open in case people had more questions.

Unfortunately, there is a person   TheBanker (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5107372.msg50053508#msg50053508) that is using this topic thread to spam and attack ICOEthics just to protect a project that was recently accused of scam.

Thanks
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


~snip

This is about another subject and it will continue here...

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5114678.0