Bitcoin Forum

What happened:
Wanted to buy a preloaded VCC. After I sent him the ethereums*, he changed the ethereum address to a new one and said I did not pay the money.
I then accused him of changing the address after I sent the money. His first reaction was that he didn't changed anything (keep that in mind!).
Afterwards I sent him an screenshot of his message where you can see the pencil besides his message. The pencil means it was edited.
Suddenly he changes his excuse to a mistake were he accidentally sent me a bitcoin address instead of an eth address, but he said he changed it immediately (Now suddenly he remembers  that he did change the message!)
You can read more in the provided link below.

* I sent the ethereums via my phone wallet, therefore I sent the eth address and the amount myself via telegram and then I checked the address so I did not mistakenly copied the wrong one or missed some characters. Proof with timestamps: https://imgur.com/a/0RTIHQb (https://imgur.com/a/0RTIHQb)

In order to proof that he changed the address, after I sent him my money, I looked up if there is a possibility to check when a message was edited in skype.
The answer was, you can download all you skype messages from this skype website, with the times when they were edited:
https://support.skype.com/en/faq/FA34894/how-do-i-export-my-skype-files-and-chat-history (https://support.skype.com/en/faq/FA34894/how-do-i-export-my-skype-files-and-chat-history)
Please keep in mind, you can not download the original content of the message, but the times when those were created/edited.
Those times in the file are in UTC, but I'm in UTC+1. That's the reason why there is 1 hour difference between the file and the images.


So what did I find out?
Oh, what a surprise I can confirm now, that he changed the message afterwards...

So there you can see he sent the original message at 21:29 and changed it at 21:36.
His excuse, that he immediately edited the message because of an mistakenly sent bitcoin address, is now busted.
Nearly 7 minutes difference is not immediately!!!

If we look now when I sent my message "Is sending"...
.. you can see that I sent it at 21:34. That means he changed his message after I sent him the money.

In order to proof this numbers I want to send this file to a moderator. So please contact me, so we can discuss a way, how I can send you the file with a proof that I didn't edited it.
I will not upload the file publicly because there are all my messages with other people in there too.

I hope this accuse is enough proof for vareole getting at least flagged or banned.

Scammers Profile Link:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2816771 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2816771)

Reference Link:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5256754.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5256754.0)

Amount Scammed: 0.121152 ETH (110€)
Payment Method: Ethereum
Proof of Payment: https://etherscan.io/tx/0x1f1c0da51240d750833f2f97c03496b4ee1ce3d1970a23340c96d1055d9dda69 (https://etherscan.io/tx/0x1f1c0da51240d750833f2f97c03496b4ee1ce3d1970a23340c96d1055d9dda69)
PM/Chat Logs: https://imgur.com/a/xJBZhEx (https://imgur.com/a/xJBZhEx)
Additional Notes:
Do not buy anything from vareole!!

Flag: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;flag=2587

Thanks for opening yet another thread against this piece of shit. To anyone who's new and might be reading this, I was also scammed by this motherfucker. My thread is here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5300411.0

By now, countless of people were scammed by this guy. How many more do we need to lose money and peace of mind before taking any action?

Additionally, from the info I gathered, this guy has scammed in the past under multiple identities. Once it becomes clear that his "Vareole" identity is a scammer (there are way too many reports and too many proofs by now, I suspect that he stopped caring and is cashing as much as he can), he will throw "Vareole" away and start being a thief all over again, under another nickname.

The only real way to deal with these vermins is to use escrow, other than waiting the loud blast karma has in store for him and anyone involved...

Please be careful everyone and don't make our same mistakes.

Now the older guys of the forum will come and again will say that you are my second account, or the account of the guy who also created a complaint against him.

I wonder if the guys with the high rank will be followed by an apology or some kind of excuse? After all, the fact that he deceived besides us and is still deceiving is only their fault, they could mark his profile and support the flag right away, perhaps this would have to be avoided.

Scam Vareole #1 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5300411.0
Scam Vareole #2 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5296419.0

Dozens of circumstantial evidence, because it was impossible to do this with all the screenshots, when people buy they do not assume that they will be deceived and trust the person who has a lot of fake feedback.

Trusted guys, go in and study all the evidence, I think it's time for you to make the right decision.

Although my heart tells me that we will again be accused of collusion with everyone who makes a complaint.

I unfortunately agree with your last sentence, because I have experienced your exact same pain on my own skin.

Btw, another report against that scammer Vareole just came up, this is getting crazy and out of hand. If I was an admin or moderator of a forum like this I wouldn't just ignore these reports altogether, especially not when many of them contain good enough proof given the circumstances, and especially not when the accused guy doesn't even bother to reply to any of these.

I know if I was a legit seller I would be livid if someone tried to pass my hard work as a scam, but that doesn't touch Vareole nor anyone in this forum and he keeps pocketing hundreds of people's hard earned money. Hell, I'm not even a seller but I become livid when all these coalized people try to pass me an alt of you or other people who make these scam reports.

One thing I learned for sure: this forum is not the place if you look for justice nor it cares about all the shady stuff it is going on; it looks just the opposite in fact, when you try to say what happened to you and bring the best proof you can, they will just accuse you of being an impostor for some reason, apparently without even looking at your case or coming up with valid and structured counter-arguments. Very scary given the forum's size and how much it is known.

Part of the reason that you'll find such an inhospitable environment is due to the way the forum operates.

Scams are not moderated and alt accounts are allowed, so effectively every new account that is created is automatically assumed to be a sockpuppet or alternate account by many users. I don't personally commit to this ideology, though at times it becomes difficult to contain my biases: it happens so often that false positives are sometimes dismissed and accepted as an unfortunate sacrifice.

The other part is that you'll have people who get paid to post, so you can understand why they might not commit all their time to reading situations in full detail.

I think this is one of the first reasonable replies I have received since I have joined this community to explain my unfortunate situation. Thanks for your constructive message.

I understand this forum's situation a bit better now. But I am not an alt, do you have any suggestion on how one could effectively demonstrate that he's not an alt, shutting down false accusations once and for all? I even offered myself to get on the phone and anything that might be necessary to prove myself (even meet in person in a safe place if anyone lives near me), but not only that didn't change a thing (I was still being accused of being an alt lol, crazy), I'm not even sure if that's the best way to do it.

About the highlighted part, I'm not sure what you're implying. Are you saying that some accounts are getting paid to post and defend the scammer? If that's what you meant, that's certainly something I thought about too given the absurdness and lack of logic in their replies.

There are these marketing campaigns known as "signature campaigns" and you might note that under my post is the typical forum signature slot you'll see with your common customizable individuality in these spaces. Unlike other forums, however, advertisers will sometimes pay users to brand their product with links and pay those members of the campaign to do so.

Some campaigns have payment structures where users get paid per post and others have ones where they need to hit x posts per week for some fixed payment. The reason you might see some people start posting garbage is probably because they want to hit their quotas.

---

There's no way to convince an idiot that their framework is wrong. People who trap themselves inside of their biases are limited in that struggle if they refuse to accept external insight.

I don't assume anyone to be an alt but you can't prevent people from doing the opposite.

I 100% understand now, thanks for taking the time to lay down your thoughts in detail.

Your reply was totally fair and objective - a breath of fresh air. Much appreciated.

If this guy is a scammer, and I have seen that name pop up for awhile now, why are you guys still doing deals with him then? I get that the services might be rare in the discussion but don't you think that it is a little desperate for you to go on your way to just accept the said service? Why not use an escrow to make sure that everything will go smoothly? With a lot of this mud slinging going on, I do not know who should I believe because some of them do not have a damning evidence to support their accusation.

I have tagged the account neutral for now with a reference link to this thread. Will wait to see what Vareole has to say regarding these accusations and the changing of addresses.

This is an instance of why I do not communicate trades off forum with users. PM's can't be edited once sent, and there is a particularly useful user who scrapes all posts for their original content so edits wouldn't matter.

---

No one on DT has tagged the account yet, that's part of the reason. With a lot of the accounts being newbie they will get dismissed more often than not. This was an instance that I think showed at the least very questionable methods of finalizing an exchange.

You do realize that you clown are collapsing under the weight of your own lies and weak defense excuses?

The weight of your own actions will be so heavy it will not only crush your body but your soul too. You can't even start understanding these things but you definitely fucked with the wrong people. Keep watching punk and remember my words when the time comes. They will haunt you for eternity

Because we are newbies. E.g. I didn‘t know that there were hidden untrusted feedbacks, he also has at least one or two vouches from heros in his thread and I have to say I didn‘t know what an escrow service was, but now I do.

This is bullshit, I have the proof that you edited the message several minutes later.
If one of the mods would PM me, I can proof that my numbers are right and your statements wrong!

It seems being in the DT is a curse LOL

What tool can I use to verify this message and how can I see this myself and also how would I know the address is user vareole's?
Telegram handle archived: https://archive.vn/wip/sPbAv

You don‘t need a special tool to verify. In the skype download there is a JSON file with all messages. Do you know JSON?
I will PM you for the exchange of the file.
You can see the skype id in vareole‘s post. https://archive.vn/FtBws (https://archive.vn/FtBws)

The main problem is with the fact that text files et al can be edited easily, after the fact.

If you can imagine a way for you to fake the details, then you can understand why it's difficult to verify the evidence without having direct access to anything.

As I already wrote in the first post, I will find a way to exchange the file with a 100% proof that I didn‘t edit the file.
I will add you to my PM so you can check it too.

In order to be a completely transparent with all of you I will provide you the method, how I exchanged the file with Royse777 and actmyname without the possibility for me to change the file.

Good thing that there is some compromise happening after all this debacle. I know about the DT part but wouldn't they be wary of the transaction in the first place, they made the transaction in this forum so they might as well ask some people on the right board about the one that they are having a transaction with. Pretty bad being a newbie in this platform, the concerns might be serious but if the scammer is smarter than you, you might get thrown down the gutter, understandably the forum also wants to prevent possible defamation of some veteran users.

I was able to download the file from OPs skype account. The json code provided was authentic, actmyname also confirmed me the same.

There is one problem with this export file which is - they do not show message that was before editing. OP also had an edited text just right before Vareole sent the address. The content of that edited text and original text was same that conclude me that skype do not keep log of the message that was edited.



If skype had previous unedited log then the case would have been very clear cut however considering the circumstance and considering the response from Vareole - it is clear that Vareole did not tell us the true story in fact, he lied to us which let me conclude that Vareole indeed scammed OP. It was a nice strategy to be fair..


On the above code green is original time and red is edited time.
Original time:  ~snip~, 21:29:07
Edited time: ~snip~, 21:36:25
Source converter. (https://www.freeformatter.com/epoch-timestamp-to-date-converter.html)

Calculator (https://www.timeanddate.com/date/durationresult.html?d1=&m1=&y1=&d2=&m2=&y2=&h1=21&i1=29&s1=07&h2=21&i2=36&s2=25)
This does not feel few seconds rather it's over 7 minutes.

I am tagging user vareole. adriankendrick, please create a flag type two too, you will have my support. Sorry for your lose adriankendrick.

Edit:
@vareole, if you have a better explanation within 24 hours then please feel free to share. I will consider revising the tag if it is satisfying also I will wait for this 24 hours before supporting any flag against you.

Okay well that clarifies that bit. I was inclined to believe OP but was fairly positive apart from accessing their account there was no way to validate their information. I previously opted not to place the following opinion on the matter in this thread until more was revealed.

Regardless of what address was posted I hold Vareole responsible for OP's lost funds. You do not post an address, ask for payment, then edit the address ever. Even if it's posted in error, you should leave it there, and then just post that that was the wrong address please send to: [Insert correct address] Never deleting or editing the conversation. Given what we know of Skype there is no way from us to see what address was in fact posted originally, this would be damning evidence either way.

My neutral feedback on the matter looked at this as at the very least poor practices in providing their service and at the worst shady dealings. Could Vareole have been taken advantage of in that moment. Seems far fetched, given OP could not have known that Vareole would have edited the address as opposed to typing out the proper one after posting their TX. I'll be revising my feedback to reflect that vareole lied about the edit, and dismissed OP until DT looked into the matter. Very dangerous for newbies when this is how service is provided.

Your replies make no sense.

---

Timeline:

vareole: 0.122152 [21:29]
vareole: original address [21:29]
adriankendrick: is sending [21:34]
vareole: ok, let me know when its confirmed [21:35]
[varole edits the address at 21:36:25]
adriankendrick: Already 6 confirmations [21:36:34]
vareole: let me check [21:36:48]

---

How does this make any sense we consider the following facts and claims?

Claim: You sent him a BTC wallet.
Fact: You sent an address, the user responded that they were sending the transaction and you responded - a whole minute before the edit.
Claim: You sent him BTC wallet and edited the BTC wallet to your ETH wallet.
Fact: You edited the wallet before you wrote the message that you were checking.

If you noticed the address was wrong, why didn't you say so before you edited it?
If the address was a BTC address, then why didn't anyone notice? After all, 0.1 ETH is a magnitude of value below 0.1 BTC.

Address 1: bc1qk59w4kupt5rrd4hka9zh4pv99rfjuaxp459fkm
Address 2: 0x3139029d8b651a039b3a3a3609baf7b8d71767db

Do you see a difference? The second one is the ETH address. How do I know this? Because there is the hexadecimal prefix 0x in front of it. BTC addresses don't use this.
I also tried multiple phone wallets (Trust, BRD, Stasis and Exodus) if it's possible to send ETH to an BTC address (even tried a BTC address with an added 0x prefix). None of those would let me send ETH to an BTC address. (I will provide no proof, please try it out yourself  ;) )

Even though I'm a newbie in this forum, I already did several bitcoin and ethereum transactions on other webshops and therefore know the difference between an BTC and ETH address.

How should we check that? It's impossible to verify or check that. You could always have thousands of additional addresses we don't know.

@Royse777 and @actmyname thank you two for helping me.
I created the type 2 flag.

Flag supported.
This is a very clear case of made up story. The user edited the message and changed it to different address and now to cover up the lie he is making up rest of the stories like he was very busy. 

Your words. Creating an Ether wallet is not very hard. You can easily create a disposable wallet and once you got the ETH you can move it to another address that is your permanent or whatever you like. The words mean nothing.

Not relevant. No one is asking you what you do and how you deal.

The fact is, the text was not edited before your next text "ok, let me know when its confirmed".

You are a lair. And everything you have done in this thread to convince others proves you are a scammer.

Not a problem. You in fact saved the next person to get scammed by this innovative trick.

The flag is fine. However you may need to update your OP with the flag link which is this: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;flag=2587
And there is a topic somewhere which is about to request supporting or opposing a flag. Post the flag link on the topic to with the request for supporting it. (Sorry, I could not find the link of the topic or I would do that for you)

These tags so far in his profile and the flag will work as a massive warning for others and hopefully no one else will get scammed by this account again.


You should be ashamed of giving one after another excuses instead of just confessing your intention straight forward, maybe you would have a second chance but now you have lost all unfortunately.

Posted. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5153445.msg56114432#msg56114432)

---

Post history archive (https://archive.is/HqyHv) related to the feedback about ignoring the scam accusation thread.

Doesn't really matter that much but only adds more credence to the situation as represented in the thread. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ are we going to get a response or not?

I've also supported the flag. I held out hope that it wasn't Vareole communicating with the OP, but he admitted that it was, and now it looks bad. Vareole was helpful in outing scammers but of course that doesn't necessarily mean that he's not a scammer himself. A shame.

Finally he got busted, exactly the same way as Walmart34 and Varpenter. Just wait until he is back here again with another username. His scheme is always same and it is pretty damn easy to understand when he is back.

Funny to see that all these DT members who blamed newbie accounts as alt ones and defended this piece of shit are now gone. Look my feedback, already in November I did give him negative mentioning he will pull exit scam sooner or later.

All those DT members should be removed from that list, as they do not put enough time and effort into analysing situation and just blaming any new account by fake accusations. All you DTs are crap, BIG BULL CRAP.

It's a problem that is part of the mind:

Since there are a lot of newbie scammers and detractors, a subconscious bias has probably developed in that people are less trusting of Newbie accounts.
Such a bias would make sense if the ideology was turned into, "do not trust anyone," instead of, "do not trust Newbies".

The real stick in the mud for this case, though, is the fact that we do not have direct and verifiable evidence: screenshots can be faked, logs can be faked, but in the case where the user showed third-party exported chat logs implicating Vareole? That is sufficient. The forum is extremely friendly to scammers but that is due to the (somewhat, maybe not really) decentralized nature of the trust system - how can you be sure someone is a scammer off of another person's words?

He scammed me for 100$. I asked him to verify one of my accounts but after he received LTC he removed whole chat on telegram. It happened few minutes ago.
https://pasteboard.co/JXqgN9k.png

https://live.blockcypher.com/ltc/tx/b063253fbbc4af0843a5c88f4ab91da2d90f4e5b6bd4a7a94cdc164c66053f16/

Sad.
This means he is still doing the same business under the same profile?

PS: I think in telegram there is a bot where you can report scammers. Maybe someone else knows the exact process. Some users should report the user so that the telegram mark him as a scammer and add the warning sign.

yeah i found his telegram server: https://t.me/vareoleChannel
Report it guys maybe we will lock it somehow. I picked "Other" As reason for report and i wrote he is selling stolen paypals and credit cards. Maybe telegram support will block his account if it get reported more times.

Just reported.

https://talkimg.com/images/2023/05/16/blob7960fdbf962dbd01.jpeg

Hopefully more users will report the channel. It seems this channel is the hub for him.

Reported him too.

I also wrote to the Antiscam support (@notoscam). You can locate the account by searching "notoscam" and write to them. Hopefully it yields positive results.

https://talkimg.com/images/2023/05/14/blobc3b578dde351c69c.png