Bitcoin Forum

First MtGox disapears with an BTC fortune and then Neo Bee. Besides them, there are countless mining companies that never refund their clients on empty promises. Sadly, in generall there is to much scamming going on in the BTC to get this mainstream! Noone want to get ripped off. Especially on his/her first encounter with BTC. And sadly, right now, too many people encounter a scam as their first encounter with BTC.

That is why is good time to buy in spring 2014.  no guts no glory. 


 

i agree with you, then i happen to read a book called "the vigilant investor". in any currency, there's no such thing as too little scam.

True....

And that's why they eventually all fail.
This attitude is like parasitic cancer - it initially allows certain parts to flourish - then develops to devour its own host, killing itself in the process. Not too bright folks... not too bright.

I do not know why people fall for them. If scam is done on fiat, people are vigilent, but when the same scam is done in bitcoins, people become careless.

and in the wild west, there were bank robberies everyday, there were railroad and stage coach hold-ups at gun point demanding peoples gold.

then this century there is the government stealing wealth buying mansions on their high pay, then telling everyone that the 'people' are in debt, and its all the fault of the unemployed (who get less then minimum wage)
then theirs HSBC doing criminal acts, Cyprus banks taking peoples wealth. mastercard banning customers.

there are 171,000 tonnes of gold in the world. do you know how much gold was stolen by bandits in the wild west, by hitlers army during WW2, by banks and governments more recently

gold has more of a "theft" taint percentage (based on numbers currently mined) then the bitcoin % stolen

these sorts for scam can happen no matter what kind of trade you're doing. Bank notes, cryptos, rocks.

It's all about trust, if you don't trust someone, don't trade with them.
And there are services to try to make trading more trustable such as escrows, use them wisely.

Sure there are scamming, but I think actually not so much. Things just happen with new tech & startups and I would say maybe more disapointments than scams. Things just turn bad because of poor management and too optimistic schedules and / or missing resources.

The thefts help prove BTC has real value.
Now people need to be more careful with their precious, rare BTC.

That's the beauty of this paradox. No one steals worthless stuff.

WOW! That only make the market cap of gold at $7T.

I really matters what YOU are doing with your BTC. I have a good friend I got into it and he is not interested in trying to mine, securities, group buys or anything like that. He travels abroad and is going to try and use it in actual commerce. He is hoping to find a pub, coffee shop or restaurant around his hotel in which every city/country his is in and have a spot to check out instead of just opening the phone book or using hotel reference to find some where to eat or drink after a meeting. Sure, your wallet could always get compromised, but again if it does, that is mostly your own fault. He has yet to have a transaction, but I doubt he is going to have to worry about being scammed.

Just my BTC0.00004719

There is so much scamming with email. I get scam emails everyday, but email is still mainstream. Same with credit card scams, but credit cards are still mainstream too. Scamming is not the problem and won't hold bitcoin back.

The number of scams has actually decreased from what I can tell - its just that the mtgox one was so big.

There seemed to be a new scam every week in 2012.

This. Get rich quick=get scammed immediately. Buy and sell stuff with BTC and escrow if you can't use the WoT.

I'd like to add that both Neo & Bee and MtGox had NUMEROUS signs ahead of time that something was not right.

For Neo & Bee, it was their business model/strategy, which depended on bitcoin's value going up, which is obviously unsustainable.
For MtGox, I don't get why people thought 'withdrawals in a few months or..y'know..whenever' was ok?! If they're not paying out what YOU deserve, you immediately voice your concerns (as most did) and do not use them again.

BTC-E, as much as some say 'do not trust them', I think is ok. They have a good model going, and I respect their desire to be anonymous. This also helps them avoid regulation scrutiny and risks as Mt. Gox learned when the government seized 5M worth last year. Also, they are very dedicated to working and improving their platform and that speaks volumes about the service and management.

In general, with any service you use, with fiat or bitcoin, try it with a few coins to start, if everything works out okay, invest/deposit/trade/bet more!

The amount of total scammed Bitcoins might be more than 3 million (around 30% of all the Bitcoins), if we add the wallet hacks as well. This much scamming never happens in any other currency. One of the biggest disadvantages of Bitcoin.

+1 then there are smaller ones all the time like coinmarketio coinex etc just in the last few months seems like one every week.

Actually it's probably worse with fiat, if you take Federal Reserve, taxation, inflation from printing more money, and other malfeasance into account.

Yes.
BTC is still much better than fiat in almost every way.

Sadly that is the case with anything valuable. People have to understand the risks and how to protect their money

Remember. Bitcoin has been in active circulation for less than 3 years now. And almost all of the scams have occurred during the last 2 years. Can any currency survive, when 30% of its market cap has been scammed in just 2 years?

look how scammy the internet was 10-15 years ago, premium rate dialers on every pop up, online credit card hacking ect,

Sane people know that scamming has nothing to do with Bitcoin as a technology. Too bad there are low number of sane ones, sadly...

Counterfeiting is easiest at the outset of a fiat currency. How many of those have survived?

Advise your good friend that Bitcoin's an "internet currency" and that brick & mortar usage of Bitcoin is a bit of gimmick at this point. One should realize that Bitcoin is a protocol like e-mail and that its properties differ from fiat currencies like the USD and commodities like gold.

If traditional currencies are a butter knife then Bitcoin's a Swiss army knife. True, it's easier to butter your toast with a butter knife but it doesn't have the versatility of the Swiss.

This video I found in another thread is the perfect example of doing Bitcoin wrong and making it look like a gimmicky scam. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnm4xFC2xNo



 

anything related to money always attracts scammers. Rise in bitcoin value further lured more scammers.

Increased scamming = Increased interest

That said, I am not seeing any significant reduction even after the value dropped by 70%.  ;D

Yes but scammers already know that btc will rise to 1000$ again!


 8)

hypothetically
imagine america owned ALL GOLD and bank notes were pegged to gold. (the 171k tonnes of it). then the market cap would be $7trillion.

but look at the DEBT of just america: $17.5trillion..

so that makes 2.5 multiples more banking theft by just american banks then all the value of the gold in the world


yep.

simply put american banks have stolen $17.5trillion.. the world's gold is only worth $7trillion.
USBanks have stolen more wealth then bitcoin ever could.

I am not sure about this. But I think that a large part of that debt is converted in to bonds (U.S. Treasury Securities). And most of those bonds are owned by nations such as China and Japan.  ;D

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/EE_Savings_Bond.jpg

china and japan are the majority stake holders of USA :D

i also edited my analogy slightly, its only aimed to show in laymans terms that banks have stolen more wealth by creating fake wealth (debt) which is equivelent to people in the wild west making/selling "fools gold".

just to show that gold/fiat markets are WORSE when it comes to gready scammers

China is OK... but I don't believe that Japan owns some of the US dept. Japan itself is in deep debt.

China owns $ 1,273.5 billion in US bonds, while Japan owns $ 1,201.4 billion.

But the biggest owner of the US bonds is the Federal Reserve ($ 1,700 billion).

So in short, the US treasury owns some $1.7 trillion in debt to the US Federal Reserve.

Because Bitcoin still young and too sophisticated.

Bitcoin is worse than fiat in terms of scamming

Because in bitcoin its tougher to get caught, once its gone its gone, with cash its somewhat recoverable

Some times the advantages of the Bitcoin can turn to be its most serious drawbacks.

You mean if I get robbed, I can recover my lost money?

If there is too much, how much is just right?

Scamming didn't start with bitcoin, & it won't end with bitcoin.

Ironically, the US DOLLAR will end up being the biggest scam of all time, when the debt is defaulted on. Trillions will be wiped out overnight.


Touche.

Sure like i said "somewhat" you get robbed and a few minutes later the popos catch him ... bitcoin once youre robbed i'd say the only chance is if the theif has a change of heart and sends the btc back

Similarly,  you could recover the ip intruded in your pc using a keylogger, for example, you can also trace somehow, maybe of course,  the person that had stolen you.

If you get robbed, doesn't matter if its btc or fiat, I believe its the protection similar in either case,  we always need to take.

I think the Bitcoin foundation should be putting out a clearer guide for Bitcoin starters, what's worrying is that even they don't seem to be certain regarding who is competent. To think MT GOX was a gold member is a bit of a joke, and seriously undermined their credibility in my eyes.

Even stuff like upgrading your Bitcoin Core software isn't as clear as it should be. There are a few too many leaps of faith for new Bitcoin users to be fully comfortable with. The whole thing should be idiot proof, Bitcoin foundation should be acting as that official portal, with how-to videos covering everything ideally. If there was a clear source of this kind of information, the scammers would have a lot less to work with.

Bitcoin= scam = Fast money = Easy money of fools

Bitcoin didn't rip anyone off. Someone ripped off bitcoin from other people.

So your statement is bullshit and both are not mutually exclusive.

Guess we shoudn't feed those who wants to start a flame war  >:(

Excuse me, but what are you doing here?

earning money

How?

YES!!!!!!!!!! Couldn't agree more with OP

And you know what, I have heard the red part above from others too. Be it exchanges going offline or asking for too much personal info, or scammers on localbitcoins (SEPA wires mean almost 100% you will be scammed), it is SCAM-O-RAMA and newbies connect BTC with that in their minds.

Very frustrating and very bad for Bitcoins.

Bitcoin needs regulation, but not KYC regulation - antiscam regulation. I think we can have a look at Sharia compliant legislation concerning cryptocurrencies, or maybe, if Bitcoin is wild west, that would be a possible scenario: Hang them!!

This is a new field with brilliant potential for intelligent people, and what do lots of them do? Buy coins with stolen accounts, hack peoples wallets and so on  ---> need to be removed from gene pool ASAP  >:( >:( >:(

The only good thing about KYC is that it makes it harder for that scum to cash out on a large scale...

Forex trading with leverage.

Are you high or something?

People prefer to get protected and scammed by their big master, slowly but surely

In a decentralized world, they are not scammed by any body by default, but they have to learn how to manage the risk by themselves. To be honest, this is kind of inefficiency in a decentralized system, I don't know if it really provide better protection than a centralized system,  in a centralized system you get much better protection and much higher risk at the same time

That is an over simplification. Yes... I agree party. Bitcoin owners who are too trusting, less intelligent and having lower levels of computer knowledge are more likely to get hacked compared to others. But at the same time, we take proud comfort in saying to the general public that the Bitcoin is a currency for everyone, not just the high-IQ types.

I really wouldn't equate intelligence with the ability to take the necessary precautionary measures to prevent loss of their BTC. While intelligent people may be more likely to read about how to have security in place - so too can a layman provided they aren't lazy/disinterested. Anyway, I wouldn't be too worried - most people using it at the moment are somewhat tech savvy and the corporations that support BTC in the future will help to babysit the people who are less knowledgeable in these matters.

Heh, it's amazing how naive some people still are.

A few months ago I found some noob who was having trouble with his wallet and was dumb enough to let me have remote access to his computer.

You can guess what happened after that.

Found some stash of homemade porn?

 ;D

You stole his wallet, or helped teach him how to be more careful after fixing his problem?

He probably stole all of his coins, just like 90% of the Bitcoiners. That is why most of the people don't want anything to do with Bitcoins or people who deals with crypto-coins such as BTCs and LTCs.

The guy is a troll.

He makes threads left and right for scamming.

Right indeed. Mybad. Forgot to check the OP.

It is a challenge for certain and finding trustworthy companies is part of that
But hopefully it improves with time

Welcome to capitalism - this whole shit is a scam, son.

Those with real power - real wealth, they pay very dangerous men to wield guns at you on their behalf. There is no capitalism without violence. There is no capitalism without deception and exploitation.

You should really watch "American Hustle".

Real capitalism does not exist in today's world.
So blaming "capitalism" is not accurate.

I guess we should probably call it corporatism and nepotism then if we are going to be technical

Scamming happens all over when people lack suitable knowledge on the topic.

Lots of 'experts' rip people off by charging over the odds for services they do not require, and because the customer is ill-informed they buy into it.

People criticise Bitcoin for various reasons, but they don't actually realise that they are actually describing fiat and gold too.

Yes, there are scams elsewhere - but nowhere on the planet will you find it as compressed and centralized as in the Cryptocurrencty world.
Even the FIAT world isn't even remotely scammed this concentrated (how often do you need to check your wallet at home, just to see if your cash is still there? Or take it out of the wallet and hide it somewhere on your property using elaborate cryptic hideout maps&pointers to find it again - just to get an acceptable level of safety?)

And with the Gold world, the scamming is literally very low and focussed on a few counterfeit products (many easy to spot, most relatively easy to test - if ever in doubt, you can ask a friendly dealer or goldsmith to perform tests for you with his equipment for a small fee and get definite results). Despite chinese factories increasing their capabilities recently, purchasing gold from any reputable dealer (which runs tests with suitable equipment) rarely has resulted in being scammed in the big scheme of things. Not even the most advanced counterfeiters can defy the laws of physics - and any additional efforts decreases their profits. In my ~5 years, I never ran into any problems following only very basic guidelines even a child could understand.

Like it or not, Bitcoin operates in its own world called Scam-U-Topia - a paradise for little and big scammers.
I mean when was the last time you heard i.e. even Wall St. openly announcing their latest Ponzi scheme (guaranteed 140% payout!)? - only in the Bitcoin world you get that on a daily basis.
People are so used to scams and see them literally every hour at every corner, some even made an open business model of it *lol*

Scamming happens because greed is human nature. Where there's money to be made there wil be scammers.

Where's the money, there is also fraud.

Don't have to be money.
There could be fraud at any form of trade.

My two pence... The world is a cruel place... Same applies to the net. So if your nieve as a few times I have been then your precious Bitcoins will belong to someone else being either a ponzi or a dice site  ;D

Keep gambling sites out of this. Wasting money in gambling cannot be considered as scamming. And I know a lot of people who have won huge jackpots in Dice sites as well.

gambling and scamming can be the same if the odds are tweaked.

There is at least more likely to be consequences for the perpetrator if the authorities ever catch them. Whereas currently with Bitcoin police are not interested in investigating any fraud.

It's easy to understand why scams and fraud are rampant in the Bitcoin community:

• Irreversible pseudonymous transfers
• Highly technical method of security
• Lack of interest from conventional law enforcement
• Crossing nation state boundaries is the norm, not the exception
• Financial infrastructure being operated by people with no training and experience in operating traditional financial infrastructure ("I can operate a blog in PHP about my cat! Time to set up a crypto exchange and transact 6 figures a month!")
• Crypocurrency financial infrastructure being operated without any of the regulation and safeguards that fiat financial infrastructure is forced to abide by
• Financial dealing being undertaken by people who would normally never engage in financial dealing (lack of subject knowledge required to spot/avoid scammy proposals)
• Recent history of incredible price rises instilling massive levels of greed into some participants

Whilst acknowledging these problems, I do not think they are crippling problems. I think their solution and the need for them to be solved will go hand in hand with mainstream adoption. The technology offers the possibilities and these are still early days.

All those crying about this have either been scammed because they are out of their depth, or are calling for an alt-coin where "freezing" of scammed funds is possible in the protocol, without actually doing any of the work to make that a reality.

Corporatism is accurate enough; Most people don't know what "capitalism" is since the current school system (and media) often blames the "free-market" when in reality individual freedom wasn't anywhere to be seen.

Not many gambling sites can survive of they manipulate the odds. People will find out within hours and the news will be spread like wild fire. Just search here in Bitcointalk about such incidents.

Agree.  True capitalism = laissez faire ("let do"), which is consistent with upholding individual rights (the only valid laws are those prohibiting fraud and initiary force). 

problem with btc is always btc is not regulated.

Bitcoin itself is rock solid, but anytime you deal with a third party you are introducing counterparty risk. Eventually everyone will just move to decentralized solutions anyway.

Although they are all bigger or smaller scams, they all survive because their customers are either mentally incapable of spotting the scam, gullible, naive - or suffer from gambling addiction.
They all manipulate, that's their very nature and sole source of revenue.

Why is that a problem? I think it's regulated by the people.

Do you have any proof for this? My friend plays on Prime-dice every week or so. So far, he hasn't incurred any loses at all. I have studied the results from hundreds of games played by him. I found nothing suspicious.

LOL,
children's mindset

If it's provably fair then how can they manipulate?


How so?

As you said none wants to get ripped off. What can we do to prevent this?

We've done all we can, I didn't even know about Neo & Bee but I personally stayed away from MTGOX because of it repeatedly having problems and I remember users warning about doing business with them, if people choose to ignore warnings backed up with legitimate evidence then them whining about scammers is just stupid.

I think the mainstream media is also partly to blame because they constantly gave MTGOX free advertising without checking into their history in the slightest.

Everybody gave mt gox free advertising. It seemed to be the biggest exchange here even before the big trouble.

All smoke & mirrors, nothing more. And if someone takes an edge on a game and lets you do the math - he still has an edge and is tilting the table (falsely interpreted as honesty by gambling addicts).
*hint* showing long lists of games does not mean this list is complete, there are many ways to present you with something you can calculate and be apparently correct, for as long as the house can add unlimited virtual/invisible sessions unknown to you - they can create any matching checksums for any lists they like...

Plus, noone can "break the bank", the most legit services hold back their manipulation algos for the most profitable targets and to protect the bank (those will gladly break any luck streak if a winning streak endangers the operator).

Common sense or knowledge is often absent in gamblers minds, together with the number of addicted it makes for very profitable targets. It suits the BTC world well I must say so I don't have a hughe issue with their existence.

Actually everyone here made a comparison between the BTC-E and Mt Gox. On the outside, Mt Gox looked more reliable. The owners were well known, and Karpeles had made a few statements supporting Bitcoin. On the other hand, the two owners of BTC-E (Alexei and Alexander), chose to remain anonymous and even shifted their office without any warning from Kiev to Bulgaria.