Bitcoin Forum

As posted here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=61505.msg718653#msg718653).  What is your trust level of bitscalper.com.  I think this idea of putting levels of trust around services that use Bitcoin is a good idea.  I changed it to a "Trust Level" instead of "Threat Level" to make it more positive.  Maybe a service can or is being made to do this exact thing.  

If you say it has a low threat level then explain why you feel so.  

If you feel it has a high threat level then explain how they or someone else could gain your trust.

0 - I don't trust assholes

Especially when their stories don't add up. If they were trading with the volume they said all exchanges would equalize instantly. He continues to insult everyone and that should give you some insight into what type of a business person he is.

"Give me your coins and I'll make you rich!"

Too good to be true?
I think so.

For the record this thread is not an attack on bitscalper.  It is an honest attempt to gauge the trust in bitscalper.

I rated them at 5.  I don't have a lot of trust in them, but I hope they are not a scam and I think they can improve.  Everything has risks and giving your money to someone with a high risk but low reward is not good sense.  If they had a Trust Level of 7 or 8, I think their current rate of return would allow me to put my money there.

Other things I don't trust them on is their business model.  How long will it last?  What happens if they lose money, will I also lose money?  Do I still get compensated if their server goes down?  Those are questions that they should address.

Trust is not set in stone.  If those things are addressed then I would consider parking some bitcoins there for storage.

• Completely anonymous
• No accountability
• Reckless/careless handling of customer funds
• Excuses own behavior instead of working to fix problems
• Continuously pushes back dates with more conversations about new endeavors to sidetrack
• Talks behind others' backs and lies

I do not trust his website, and although it pains me to say this (I was absolutely the last in my organization to agree, and I put up a very long fight about it too) I have no reason to believe he is not a scammer.

0 - the service on offer is entirely feasible. The manner in which it has been offered is so opaque that it can't possibly be the service that they state to offer.

<shrug> I made a few coins, withdrew my balance.  The withdrawl took... uhm about 10 hours.  58btc.  Letting my little nest of coins grow to see what comes of it.  No biggie either way.

I think we all know who voted 10.

6

Ooooohhhh.

Yes. You're probably right.

6

If there comes more proof from Mr. Bitscalper i'll probably put more BTC back in there. By now i got my money out of there.

if you want to throw away bitcoins send them my way, they could really help with groceries and rent!  ;D

obviously zero

I'm working on a formalization of trust for Bitcoin software products. If defined as a measure of how much I trust someone with, trust of an unknown party should be either exactly zero or some communication minimum epsilon-like thing that is really very small. Much smaller than 1 BTC in any case. Otherwise, we invite scammers, which is not a good idea.

I have no information about Bitscalper on which I would base trust, so I voted 0. That's not an insult, just the formal response that I know nothing about them, and therefore would not give them my coins.

1

benefit of the doubt :)

<1>

1) Show us, or a trusted member, that a working infrastructure exists
    (in fact I bet some parts of it are GPL, so *have* to be published anyway!)

2) Show exactly what is going on: Gained %, total invested sum etc

3) Then, list what exactly is going on: "10:51 buying at MtGox x$ for y$/BTC, 10:52 selling at Tradehill a$ for b$/BTC"


Then, with 1-3 visible, I at least trust you that you do what you claim to do.
This is not to say I immediately trust you to not run away with the whole sum eventually.
Only time (and transparency) can esthablish that trust. And that is totally out of the picture if 1-3 are not there first.

Ente

I offered Matthew to eventually verify part of our codebase and waiting for someone from the trusted members pool to contact me. Withdrawals are processing correctly.

1. I guess I always want to have the option of having an even lower opinion of something.

Actually I'm pretty neutral about it. No trust sums it up, but I think you can go lower than that, into active distrust. There is a difference...

Maybe the scale should be more like:

5: implicit trust.

0: no trust.

-5: It's a scam.

+1

That's a good way to go I think.

my humble 2 cents ... SCAM SCAM SCAM AGAIN AND SCAM. If I'm wrong - where is the source code of the algorithm? (well, at least about how it works ...example ..??)  I know how to scalp for a small sum, but it is not possible to do with 500, 1,000, and more ...

my humble 2 cents ... SCAM SCAM SCAM AGAIN AND SCAM. If I'm wrong - where is the source code of the algorithm? (well, at least about how it works ... example ..??) I know how to scalp for a small sum, but it is not possible to do with 500, 1,000, and more ...

I'd just like to mention that I spoke with bitscalper in #bitcoin-otc and publicly offered him 100 BTC for proof that the system was real and I was able to confirm trades made by it on the exchanges.  Not even asking to see the code just proof that its really doing what he says the site does to scalp the market.  He agreed and said he would come back the next day to setup a screen-cast.  

He has since been MIA from IRC, without even an attempted to contact me.

0 - SCAM

Exact same experience. The more people I talk to, the dumber I feel. He seems to be playing the same confidence game on everyone.

Alas, we're not talking about him though-- he more or less seems like a very nice guy. Just his business is a giant risk.

Hmm, it's not like the business will pack up and leave without Mr Very Nice Guy intervention.

Besides, evasive tactics always point to a corpse in the closet.

I have a good experience with Bitscalper but it would be nice to see a more transparent business style.

That is a good idea.  It is also easier to visualize.

It is nice for you to offer that, but I don't personally know who Matthew is either.  You have a communication problem with the community.  When you come out of Beta testing I hope you address people's worries.

http://i1248.photobucket.com/albums/hh492/dropoutbox/bitscalpertrust.jpg

Matthew is the head of the DCAO, which most Bitcoin business owners are members of. He is also the editor of Bitcoin Magazine and the main host for BitTalk TV. He is about as trustworthy of a person as you will find in our little community here. It would have been in bitscalpers best interests to be more forward and open with him. There is no Bitcoin mafia and we would just like to prevent another MyBitcoin from happening. Him insulting Matthew and saying he was extorting him is just absolutely stupid.

Members of DCAO: Give-or-take 30.
Definition of "most": "The greatest part or number: Most of the town was destroyed. Most of the books were missing."
Businesses listed on the Bitcoin Wiki (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade): More than I can fucking count.

Ba-dum-tish!

Members of DCAO ~ 50

Most of the businesses on the wiki page no longer exist and many of them own multiple businesses.

Can't help but notice you are labelled a scammer.

I will make sure to count all the individual Bitcoin business owners when I get some free time tomorrow, if only to prove you wrong! :-*

Yes! Arr, how unfortunate!

I know who he is.  What I meant was, bitscalper showing one person their code does not calm the fears of many people.  I was trying to explain to bitscalper that they need to open up to the rest of the community and make what they do with their client's money clear.  He made it seem like if he offered to show a highly trusted member of the bitcoin community his code then he should be trusted as well.  My reasoning is, biscalper has a lot more to do than that.

By the sounds of it the code that he did show did not really prove anything. The fact that Matthew does not think he is trustworthy is something to take note of.

I am surprised the when his AutoVPS went down and he had no access to any information that no one took more note of this. There was no backup of the site so if he was unable to recover the data from his service provider then anyone with coins in it would have been SOL. It sounds to me like peoples money could be at serious risk even if he is 100% legitimate (which is highly questionable a this point). It's a variable gold mine to hackers from what I can tell.

There was never any answer to this either:

^------ This.

Oh-so-many questions and hints never answered by BS..

Ente

There's a growing trend: calling Bitscalper BS ;D

Yep. That's the scale I'll be using in software. Unit of measure will be BTC. Trust = amount of BTC one would loan. Negative trust marks an enemy of the trader (participant who has scammed, attacked or otherwise misbehaved). Needless to say, an unknown person starts very close to zero.

^^^ This. This is why I felt it was time to bring this public. Fuck me if I'm responsible for letting everyone's money get stolen if I had a chance to do something about it.

http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chxr=0,0,2|1,14,29&chxt=y,x&chbh=a&chs=500x300&cht=bvg&chco=A2C180&chds=0,2&chd=t:0.53,1.95,1.22,1.09,0.83,0.5,0.41,0,0,0.35,0.38,0.3,0.28,0.48,0.44,0.59&chtt=My+profit+from+bitscalper.com%2C+%25%25&chts=676767,13.5 (http://imagecharteditor.appspot.com)

More charting skills. Mostly sub 1%, 0.5% average. January 21-22 - downtime.

I also received nearly 3 BTC in 1 day. One man's profit is another man's loss. We aren't arguing that he is giving people money, we're arguing where that money is actually coming from and if the site is just a confidence scam. Without a single shred of proof of the site's inner workings (understandable) and the owner insisting on absolute and total anonymity, there is nothing else to argue. It shouldn't be touched with a ten foot pole.

This. 100% This. Even if the service itself was legitimate, how could  I trust someone who got no backup in any way of my BTC?

What to think about this neverending story - bitscalper was down now for the last couple of days. I really thought "thank you guys i got out my BTC to the right time". But now it is online again and people report correct payouts.

If Mr. Bitscalper would be a scammer, he could have make the cut already. But nope, bitscalper is still running. (Okay, running again finally...  ::) )

..as long as more money comes in than is withdrawn..  ::)

Ente

Passwords leaked:
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=63659.0

Has anyone had their withdraws processed in the last 24 hours? Something tells me this big sell off we just saw might have been bitscalper running away with the cash as his ponzi scheme collapses, under the guise of being hacked. Post your successes and failures. I have none since I did not invest in this venture.