Bitcoin Forum

This user > https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=228806

I have been following his post from day 1, all he does is somehow shill a most likely fake miner called swiss miner that allegedly does 80TH at less than 1500w.

They are just a bunch of guys in Bulgaria, selling what's called a SWISS miner that's performance is about 300% better than the best miner on planet earth at this moment.

for non-miners ; this is more like selling a flying car at the price of a broken scooter.


chances of these guys being legit are slim to nothing.

while we don't have any solid proof against them YET, it's pretty much safe to assume that they about to scam newbies who don't know how the mining thing works.

and this guy "vb2005" who is a member since 2014 but only woke up this year to shill these guys seems to me like he is one of them, or at least shilling them , on purpose or not is something i am not sure of.

i would like to know what do you guys think? do you think it's fair that i tagged him ? or am i being very conservative here?

Hardware "miracles" like that are scams until proven otherwise. That's all there is to it.

It's a judgement call whether a shill deserves neg trust, but this one is quite aggressive, not merely saying "I bought it" but trying to dismiss valid criticism.

.. and to add.. a DT1 like Suchmoon should be the person that tags him. Nobody can see your tag Mikey because you aren’t DT2 or 1

I have a hunch that you're wrong about that.

You’re right. Just noticed. Yikes.

this is my main concern, he seems to desperately try to protect those guys, showing up after 5 years of inactivity only to shill a scam is a concern to me, i wouldn't say that he is certainly one of them, but chances are , HE IS !.

this is one of his desperate attempt to make those kids seem legit


i mean you can't be shilling so hard if you are not getting a piece of the cake. !

anyway he stated that he ordered the miners and that they should be there soon, and he will post his "honest" review. based on whatever review he has, we should be able to tell for sure.

i will revise my feedback based on his review.

Everyone is not guilty until proven otherwise you jerk.
Learn how the world working outside internet.
"scam until proven otherwise" what an idiot.

But we are inside the internet, the exact opposite is right.

---

I don't know if you know about mining, but use your common sense, would you trust someone selling a brand new lambo for 10,000$ on the internet?

Then you are scammer and should be tagged until proven otherwise ?

Short story I disagree with the negative feedback at this point. I completely understand why you feel the need to leave but I feel it's premature, and the reference doesn't support it, yet.

The user can be clearly seen to show in 2 posts that they state they do not recommend anyone buy the product. Each of the posts has a last edited time stamp of the Feb 11 and 12th respectively by Frodocooper, which predates your negative.

I look at it this way, is there a chance this member has actually tried to buy the miner and is then trying to defend his countries name, maybe. I've seen people go apeshit over how great their country is so that doesn't generally throw up any flags for me. People who might have been scammed and find a group pointing it out tend to go on the defensive first, no one likes being a sucker.

In the end all i'm saying is there is reasonable doubt. The member didn't actually start the topic, it's likely only still open as OP was banned for plagiarism if i'm not mistaken for this very topic unfortunately.

---

Just a small note in general, I think you should be as willing to paint green as red, or go neutral for possible red as you would for possible green.

Try to shore up references with all feedback, including risked BTC as that gives the feedback weight to anyone looking beyond the score under the avatar.

Good luck with your DT journey.

if i was trying to sell a lambo for 10k then yes, it's most likely that i am a scammer until i prove the opposite, i know you have a problem with the trust system therefore you leaning towards no negative feedback even for scammers, and you avoided my question, because you most certainly know the answer to it but it goes against your theory.



this reason or any other reason for that matter would make sense, but shilling/defending scammers for whatever reason is not justifiable IMO, i hope that we both agree that swiss miner is a scam, because i would be surprised if you think the opposite !

and if we both do agree to that point, then it's only a matter of whether someone who shills/defend them is supposed to be tagged or not ( which suchmoon stated somewhere above this post).

I do understand that there is a possibility that he is a good lad and not doing this on purpose ( he thinks that they are actually legit) . but he is desperately trying to defend them.

take a look at this


he also mentioned that he did pay for the miners and waiting to receive them, i will not be surprised that a few noobs will PM him and he would advice them to buy those fake miners.

This is not a clear cut case, that's why i needed community input. i don't ask for opinions for obvious scams, but this one is really shady, first post in 5 years is a shill for scammers, regardless of his intention of why he keeps desperately defending them.

I believe my page 2 response sums up my feeling on the company and product.


I think our only difference here, is whether you see it as a puppet account or someone who fell for their BS hook line and sinker like many noobs do.

I personally see this member as separate from the company, until he slips up and shows a connection to them. Sure all the points are positives for the company, but they could be the same positives that convinced him to buy.

I believe I may have even called him out on his willingness to buy from them, but left it at that. I'm sure the topic would have died if people stop responding there, and it has been called a scam more than enough to serve as a warning thread to anyone reading it.

In the end though good on you seeking community input when your not sure. Also it's your trust and, you can leave it how you see fit. This isn't some way out there tag, and there's a low amount of collateral damage regarding it for now. Especially with the willingness to "remove if proven otherwise".

I think there is a couple of ways to handle this:

1) leave the tag as is, revise if things change; or
2) revise the tag now to neutral and perhaps ask the user to refrain from shilling (well, not in those exact words, maybe "unsubstantiated positive claims").

I'm quite certain #2 wouldn't work but then you could say "I told you so" ;)

Innocent until proven guilty is great for criminal court.
Protecting users against extraordinary claims which have onus (the claims must be proven) is great for the forum.
You would rather temporarily cease transactions to stop a likely scam than wait for the scam to occur, then act upon it.

In both scenarios, one must disprove the null hypothesis. However, the difference is that in the former, the null hypothesis is guilt and in the latter, the null hypothesis is innocence.

Created an account in 2014 ===> 5 years after ===> created his first post on an unknown "Swiss Miner" praising "Bulgarians are very good at maths and informatics (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5093468.msg49685579#msg49685579)" saying that he won't be surprised if it was real ===> after that he kept repeating in the his other post that he is not endorsing their product.

In my opinion he just got in the wrong foot with what he said in his first post but I don't think he should be tagged for shilling but he should be tagged for being inactive for such a long time. This account might be stolen or bought so the one posting might not be the original owner anymore.

As a Bulgarian I can say a few things.

1. We have a bad name around the world for scamming, hacking, stealing even pickpocketing, etc. That's the main reputation and many honest people suffer from this. But that's because the bad news are more easily spread that the good news.
2. Bulgaria is slowly becoming the biggest IT hub of Europe. Companies like IBM, HP etc. have thousands of employees there. A huge part of the country economics is laying on the IT sector. There are also some Bulgarian companies like Telerik know worldwide.
3. I know the peoples mentality, so there is a chance for some hard working guys to come out with amazing product, but the bigger chance is to get scammed.

Now on the topic.
They have two websites >

For each site in the contact information is given different address>
For the first one the address is in Sofia, for the second the address is in Stara Zagora. Seems like they have two different offices/companies.
The interesting thing is that the contact phone number is the same for both sites >
Internationa format >

On the fist website two of the pictures are taken from Internet >
https://i.imgur.com/L2fblU5.jpg

Google result for the first picture (https://www.google.com/search?tbs=sbi:AMhZZiuxODS_1sGFdxhyXGkROpiTeCk3cLSw_1Y7275AZo1d5spGB4qH_1DzO4p3-glkQ4470zvAwGC6qlv6spVJWSfmn3B9XD2ZIX2j0sPlIyVcCNVfgcl7EwvOkCeTfYbqZi1M75j2UI8IALZVWnMKsuCVC8FH3lMzmBDOeWuuaZJbcSavHExOlnCeTiI9ukpXubhjsZ9HOkiiFOqbSuFFXBaJDtWGSafiFvt0olCOfzsA7FgUH8ND6tst1XOgzDK0VAFQldT9vH9hT_12fKReewspbZS9isYIoljRZKv9oIGqO0AI3KqfnqPS7kpqlXYxJ0DfkhwH0cSZ2aJ-9ZWqZYbf0iVZzRo7AA)

Google results for the second picture  (https://www.google.com/search?q=%D0%BC%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B3+%D1%84%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%BC%D1%83&tbm=isch&tbs=simg:CAQSmQEJW9SoBduZg8sajQELEKjU2AQaBggVCAAIAwwLELCMpwgaYgpgCAMSKKoYuw28DacYlw2NFecUqBiLFeMe7zjuOPI4hCjzOPA4uTmEN-o45CoaMNaqkRkzjsDaB8YXxGfnq_1T7cv1PF2FdiCEqFLZhYmKDwpSk-8HRU0f0X-2TGrs_1EiAEDAsQjq7-CBoKCggIARIEk7fZ5Qw&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiYhKeNqcbgAhUN7aYKHUZJA8wQ2A4IKSgB&biw=1536&bih=703&dpr=1.25)

This does't proof anything.  Can be legit can be not.
What I'm gonna do tomorrow, when I get more time is to check the both websites domain registrations, the actual companies registered in the Commercial register and register of NPLE (http://) and come back to you.
My personal feeling is that this might not be actually a scam. By saying (writing) this I do not endorse their project/company/products it's just my personal feeling.

This really has nothing to do with "where" they come from, even if big players like bitmain or Inno announced such machines everyone who has the slightest clue about the industry will call it fake.

they might be legit in terms of existence, they could have an office with a sexy secretary wearing a nice black skirt, but sure as hell they do not have the "alien technology" the claiming to have.



mgoz who is also Bulgarian confirmed that they are fake.


if you want to give the community more information since it should be easier for you as a Bulgarian, it would be highly appreciated, despite the fact that it's a bit off topic since this is about tagging the member who shill/defend them, i think most of US have passed the stage of discussion about Swiss miner integrity , but again any thing you have to add to the case is indeed appreciated.

Your negative is appropriate; if others talk you out of preventing this scam, I will tag him myself.

He is not making a fake vouch (or any vouch for that matter), he is only disagreeing with your conclusion that on its face that thread is a scam.

I think vb2005 is wrong, as I think the claims the OP made in that thread regarding the specs of their miner are fraudulent on its face. However this is based on my own experience, and if anyone wants to disagree with me, I am willing to back up my position with my reasoning.

I don't think it is appropriate to label someone a scammer because they disagree with you as to what is automatically a scam in non-explicit cases. It would be more appropriate to explain to him why you believe his conclusions are incorrect/inaccurate, and hopefully he will change his position. 

Perhaps his (what I believe to be) flawed reasoning is due to his inexperience. Some in this thread say patriotism might be influencing his stance. His worldview might be causing him to make this conclusion. Or maybe he is in fact a shill of that scammer.

I would not say it is a foregone conclusion that vb2005 is a shill, and I cannot rule out other reasonable possibilities. Until and unless you can reasonably rule out alternatives to him being a shill (within reason), a negative is not appropriate.

---

You can ignore anything suchmoon says. She will never tell anyone with power they are wrong, except in a dispute with two people in power, in which case she will take the side of the one with more power. She is a "yesman", or in her case, a "yeswomen" and should not be taken seriously. Any advice you get from her will not be useful to you.

---

tagging either one of these people is not going to prevent anyone from being scammed. Potential customers can read Phil's comments and reach the conclusion not to do business with that person. Tagging vb2005 is certainly not going to prevent this specific scam. 

I have not had any discussion with the member, it's not a matter of him disagreeing with me, many people disagree with me, i can't possibly tag people for disagreeing with me.

everyone and their grandmother tried to explain to him , he kept defending siwss miner desperately by ignoring actual facts.



you do know that newbies can PM him as he is the only one on this forum who announced the purchase of these miners, and it's very possible that he will fake vouch siwss miner in private. a warning on his profile might save a few poor souls.

i do understand that he might be doing this out of ignorance, the possibility is there, but what are the chances of someone who haven't posted in 5 years then in his first post, he defends an obvious scam ?


This is a personal issue between you and him/her, it's off topic to say least.

---

 Quickseller, would you trust someone like vb2005? would you tag him next week when his review on siwss miner comes positive?

I was scammed by www.noordminers.eu also several people on this forum were also scammed but this site is still online, google ads are working for this site also. The last time i checked the user on this forum called noordminers was not banned or even had no negative reputation - he was trying to sell miners here.
I was given negative reputation when i never sell anything on this forum, i just did not agreed with opinions here regarding the bulgarian miner and honestly i still dont think the miner is complete scam /but also i still did not received the miner - the miner should be shipped in June/
I was thinking if i receive the miner to post video on youtube and review here but from reading this thread i understand that if i post positive review here i will probably be banned and if i post negative review here my reputation penalty will be removed - this is funny :)
One of the reasons i think the company behind swiss miner m80 is not a scam is because they stopped taking orders several months ago when they could not deliver on the first expected date unlike noordminers.eu which still take orders and will not stop until police stop them.
If i do not get my miner in June i will go to police but for now the problem is delayed order.

Just a few things. If you were scammed by noordminers.eu you should open a scam accusation against them on the appropriate board - Scam Accusations (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=83.0). You can also reach out to the user noordminer and see what happened or point them to the scam accusation. Make sure you have proof to present. That is a seperate issue, to your own feedback and the Swiss miner issue.

Feedback can be left for any number of reasons, all you can do is try and work it out with the user who left it. It's a system that takes a while to learn about on the forum. The forum doesn't ban scammers or moderate scams, so unless you break rules/guidelines (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=703657.0) then you won't face a Ban.  One other thing along forum stuff, please stop multiposting, you can insert quotes to reply to multiple people at once. Here is a guide to posting techniques (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4667594.msg42124427#msg42124427) for future reference if you plan to continue to use the forum.

I am shocked that you are still holding out hope for the Swissminer. It is clearly vaporware that was never going to make it to market, and I think that thread has shown that to you. Don't get strung along to long waiting for the delays, as that just buys time to run further. Probably also why they stopped taking orders, you can only take in scam money for so long before needing to hide and rebrand. So learn from your mistake.

No, I have no affirmative reason to believe what he says, and as previously mentioned, I believe the miners being "sold" have specs that exceed current technology, and as such do not exist.

Just because I do not believe what he says, does not mean he is a scammer. There are three levels to trust, 1- positive, 2- neutral/zero, and 3- negative. Positive trust is when I observe something that leads me to believe the person is trustworthy, negative is when I observe something that leads me to believe the person is a scammer, and neutral/zero is when I neither believe him to be trustworthy, nor a scammer, and neutral/zero trust would generally mean I will ask the other person to send first to me, or that I would ask to use escrow if I was trading with the person.

If he were to change what he is saying to explicitly vouching for the what I believe to be fake miners, including saying that he received miners that match the description posted in the sales thread, then yes I would say vb2005 is a shill for Norm MacDonald, and it would be appropriate to tag him. Although I do have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight considering I did not have a chance to respond until after vb2005 posted that he was scammed, he did not end up claiming to have actually seen the working miners.

@vb2005

You are still trying to defend siwssminer scam, making it sound like a simple delay when it is pure scam.

Anybody with common sense knows this, yet for some reason you are still  trying to dig for excuses to make them look less-scammy than what they already are.

I understand that you might be saying all this just to comfort yourself and feel less miserable, but what are the chances??

Anyhow by all means, if you think i have been unfair to you, go ahead start a topic and ask other DT members to counter my rating, some of them might think i am wrong and counter my feedback or/and exclude me from DT for misusing this "power" which i am starting to consider not to be a part of simply because of all the drama attached to it.


He said he was scammed by www.noordminers.eu but he    in other words he is still defending a clear as day scam company.

---

The funny part is that he puts more effort in trying to convince us that Siwssminer could be legit and he doesn't seem to worry as much about his own reputation.

His belief is they will eventually follow through, and your belief is they are a scam (which I agree with). I believe this based on the available facts and my experience with the bitcoin economy, and my experience spotting scams in the past. It is my opinion that there is less than a 1% chance that Norm MacDonald is not a scammer, and I would personally advise other people to not trust money to this person.

vb2005 is saying that he believes Norm MacDonald will eventually follow through. Although I strongly disagree with his conclusion, I respect his right to make this conclusion. vb2005 is not claiming to have actually received any mining equipment, nor is he verifying the miners actually exist. AFAICT, vb2005 is not making any misleading statements about Norm MacDonald's credibility/ability to be trusted. Anyone reading vb2005's posts can look at the facts and come to their own conclusions.

Just to clarify - Norm Macdonald is now a banned account. I don't believe they were associated with Swiss Miner. The plagiarized content they were banned for was something negative about Swiss Miner and this machine.
It's not uncommon for someone not associated with a product to bring it to the forums attention. Most companies don't care to do so themselves anymore.

@ mikeywith

I have very simple and logical question to you - If swiss miner m80 is scam - where are their victims?
Why nobody complains they were scammed? I searched in google - there is no such thing - i can not even find out someone who made an order - it seems i am the only one :)
It is simple - you think it is scam - i think it is not scam - at least for now this is what i think.
On youtube there is a video review from some russian guy who claims that the miner is scam https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DttVr30tME - but also he never ordered it - he just think that such miner can not exist - if i compare it with innosillicon bitcoin miners - i dont see such big difference it performance and price.

There is a possibility the above is accurate,  anybody with common sense knows that an alleged 80TH for 1.5kw is out of the question, INNO and bitmain will need at least 2 years to make something that effiecent, swiss miner "made" that shit back in 2018, very convincing if you ask me.

Hi  vb2005 , I was also scammed from these swiss miner, till now already one year I waited to give me back my money. The thing is that I am from Sofia and I saw them many times personally. We became friends even in the beginning. Going to the church together , this guy Vladimir Ivanov Penev has 3 kids, I was pitying him the whole time ,because he was explaining to me that  they scammed him also, but now when I finally asked him we go together in  the police and write all down about the people that scammed him and me ,he refused and he started to threaten  me  that ,if I do so ,I will be the one to own him money  :'( . So here I started to search for victims , I found another guy from Stara Zagora , he actually went to the court and won the case against the company    http://rs-stz.bg/wp-content/uploads/decisions/03634519/498c1619.htm ,
but this is actually a scam that is not a single breach of contract, so here I don not know how or if I can give you  my telegram or email to contact me and make a bigger case ? Please advice for further action. Thanks

hmmm,


Just about a year later and I "for obvious reasons" turned out to be on the right side of the fence, vb2005 would you please now let us know if you received your Swiss Miner that does 80TH at 1500w? heck even now after all this time Bitmain failed to make something that is remotely close to that, maybe with the 5nm coming later this year, they would probably attempt to make such a gear.

@Amigoto, you should start a new thread regarding this in Scam Accusation  (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=83.0), I hope you manage to get enough people to support you, I however think you are one of the a few victims since that scam was so obvious, I feel sorry for you and I do hope you get your money back.

No miner received at all. But the guys behind Swissminer M80 are still in Bulgaria and i think there is a good chance we get our money back.
Their other company still exists and i contacted a layer to try to get the paid money - around 2000 usd. I think this was not planned as scam but if it was then the two guys behind it are very stupid.

Unfortunately back then i had no idea how asics work and i really thought that the software can make a big difference but also everything seemed fine with the company and owners and they still dont hide

Yes, the truth is that he invited me at his home , he has 3 kids just divorced single father and I was pitting him the whole year ,because after some time he started to say that the others have scammed him to believe they will give him the BOSS seat. But now I am sure it has been his plan from the very beginning. Anyway I know from him there are other people from Pernik city and others as well , and the One from Stara Zagora, lets see how many will be in the end.

What did your  layer said - how many people are needed and is there a way to find them - the bank have the records but i dont see how you can get them?