Bitcoin Forum

Do tell us Bruce...are you the convicted Scammer?
A simple Yes or No will suffice.

A better question would be 'Were you Bold Funding', those documents make it look like he was shut down

I wish people would stop making threads about Bruce. 

I wish you'd realize that, as the man basically declared himself the Bitcoin Jesus and got the support of everyone here, this is a Big Deal

That's what I meant, of course.

All we need is for Bruce to Confirm or Deny this.

This IS a Big Deal, I agree with JeffK.

There is no way we can have a notorious scammer at the healm of bitcoin as the spokesperson Bruce has been, if this is true. Not if Bitcoin is going to survive!

May I remind you Bruce....Failure to Respond to an Accusation is called "Default" and "Dishonor" and leaves the accuser and the accusation as it stands, as TRUTH.

Agree

And posting threads about Bruce and his escapades helps bitcoin how?  The same people making these posts will be the sames creating "why is bitcoin losing value" threads when the media tags bitcoin to "pedophiles".   Lots of haters browse these forums looking for any reason to attack it.  I see bitcoin bashing threads every day on other forums, because people read this forum.  Oh well.

I think all of the threads need to be consolidated into one, but it is a very valid topic right now given his status as the face behind Bitcoin and the media goes to him first for information/interviews/etc. I wasn't a fan of the pedo accusations, but I think there was a lot of valid discussion about what brought Pattaya to the forefront and his reasoning for standing behind it as a Bitcoin conference site. Now these fraud discoveries are even bigger, in my eyes, because it goes to the very heart of what we are trying to build here - and that's trust in Bitcoin.

No it doesn't. Only in your head is that the way things works.

For me, I don't care if Bruce is a scammer or not. I can't see why this is relevant. His enthusiasm for Bitcoin is true and contageous, and as such good for the community.

Go spend your time elsewhere!

Better you deal with sorting the problem here and now then when CNN/MSNBC/FOX reports that the spokesperson for an anonymous currency is/was a serial faudster who enjoys taking trips to the child sex capital of the world, hope this helps.

Are you sure it's relevant, or is this another scam? maybe he's just pumping and dumping. Maybe he's Tom Williams. Who knows really

Enthusiam for Bitcoin. Or Enthusiam for my Bitcoins?

If he was the Bitcoin Jesus, the 25,000 bitcoins he lost would have returned in three days.

Hahaha holy shit I love you

Dealing with something like this face on is a lot better than trying to sweep it under the carpet. As long as it done appropriately and one sticks to relevant information etc.  

That is just a pathetic acqusation!

This is all so pathetic. Kinda sad really...

IF YOU DON'T THINK THIS IS IMPORTANT THEN WATCH THIS SECTION OF THE LATEST BITCOIN SHOW:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqpX4Wxlnbs&feature=player_embedded#!
e:Oops, skip to 12 minutes in

He's trying to get people to give him bitcoins so he can escrow them and then 'give them to charity'.  Do you really want someone who has been convicted of defrauding people to hold your money in escrow?

+1, +1, +1 +lol

I dare you to give your Bitcoins/Money/etc to whatever 'service' he props up next, unless of course he flees and moves on to something new.


Here's a fun summary for anyone wanting cross-references
http://www.freezepage.com/pub/U737985/BruceWagner

I just wanted to post in a thread that involves SomethingAwful.

I <3 you.

Good Job Jeffk. Thanks for being a persistent ass.  ;)

Hey, I didn't want him to hold my money in escrow when all I knew is he was too stupid to handle his own wallet security and he gave the MyBitcoins scammer over 25,000 coins!

Well, I know his name, I know where he works, I even think I know where he lives. If he screws up, lots of people can sue him.

How about you, dear friend? Do we know who you are? Aren't you just a troll?!

Bruce's own postings are the sources of evidence, I don't see your point

Do you also know of his tendency to disappear from the country?  Not sure how you plan to get back an untraceable crypto-currency with non-reversible transactions either way, though...

Me?  I'm on the internet, and while I like trolling from time to time, I'm hardly just a troll

I agree.  I've got a big enough position in BTC at this point that it is in my personal interest in seeing it eventually succeed...in addition to considering the system to be potentially very valuable to 'humanity.'  So, if a fraction of the stuff that SA and friends have dug up is true, I will be officially thankful to this group (who I had never heard of before) whatever their motives.

I cannot help but notice that some investigative work nipped the 'Bitcoin Better Business Bureau headed by an utter clown' thing in the bud.  And against considerable resistance.  I, for one, am willing to put up with a good bit of nonsense and unpleasantness if it means catching some problems early.  If the 'problems' turn out to be false-positives there will be unnecessary damage but it should not be terminal.

It does seem to me that the whole Bitcoin thing is such a hot potato at this point that anyone thinking about setting up shop had better be prepared for the worst.  If they cannot stand the heat, they best stay out of the kitchen.  The heat has already proven valuable as I see it.

---

Come to think of it, everybody should ask themselves 'why am I' and 'why are they' so interested in something like Bitcoin at such an early point in it's life?  There are a lot of possible reasons, and a lot of them might have a less than wholesome smell.  It might be expected that there would be an extra-ordinary amount of scammyness here for that reason.  It's a reality that just needs to be dealt with in whatever ways are effective (as always, IMHO.)

Excellent Post!
I was just thinking about what you are saying in your last paragraph, right before I read your post.

Hey, check out all these glowing reviews of BoldFunding:

https://i.imgur.com/E9Y9B.png
https://i.imgur.com/RNOvx.png
https://i.imgur.com/RNOvx.png
https://i.imgur.com/vMwDa.png
https://i.imgur.com/I4l7I.png

Interesting name that person has.  He really seems to like ellipses, too.  

Why does this seem so familiar?
E: not found by me, just reposting.

This sums up exactly how I'm feeling about Bitcoin and all of the stuff that's come to light. I signed up around the time the Better Business Bureau (Bitcoin Division) came to light and found the Something Awful guys extremely well informed. They may not like Bitcoins, and I can understand that, but they've certainly helped this community in their own weird way. Bitcoin to me may not be the ultimate solution to our currency problems, but I think it's an important pioneer in the field, so some of their points may ultimately be proven correct, which is a good thing so we can learn from it.

As for this Bruce deal, I can't believe it got moved to off topic since it is very important news. Oh well, the beat marches on and at least it wasn't completely shut down.

Don't sweep yet!

‘Nightmare On Elm Street 3’ Writer Bruce Wagner To Pen ‘Across The Table’ http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/archives/2011/08/05/nightmare_on_elm_street_3_writer_bruce_wagner_to_pen_across_the_table_for_d/#

He is the MyBitcoin scammer - or at least, an accomplice.

Bruce is the one that got me into bitcoin. So at least he's done some good things in his life. But I hope his petrifying past doesn't hurt the value of bitcoin. He's done his part, but I think sometime soon we'll need a new spokesman.

I know that is being investigated by some people, but at least at the point I made the comment, I didn't feel I had a good faith basis to make the accusation.

The two possibilities are that he didn't know what he was doing and lost his coins, or he was part of a massive fraud. Either way he looks pretty bad, and he can't try whining I'm falsely accusing him of, well, his version of events. :)

Apparently, yes, he is Bold Funding.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=40404.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=40404.0)

He of course put his defense as a locked thread in the main forum, so everyone can see his defense and nobody is allowed to have a rebuttal or comment unless it's "off to the side" where fewer people will see it.

PMI, but who is Bruce Wagner?  Cliff notes?

The thread is no longer locked, apparently.

Wolftaur. You did indeed.  In a back-n-forth you and I had about it (at least.)  You were %100 right and I was %100 wrong.  Cost me a few BTC and a very red face.

Bruce fooled the shit out of me.  In fact, thinking back on it, I believe I am the dumb-ass who suggested that he take charge of doling out the remains of the mybitcoin loot.  Thank God nobody listened to me on that one (I hope...I went on vacation for 9 days and didn't really follow things around that time.)

Live and learn.  But can someone please tell me that Bruce was indeed a relatively good con-artist and I am not a _complete_ retard for thinking he was genuine?  Please?  Anyone?

(BTW, I _still_ feel that having a demonstrated chunk of funds going to charity from anonymous members of the Bitcoin community is a damn good idea.  The rest of those in that brainstorming session will have some work to do to wash their hands of The Bruce and convince me that they never were part of the same nets of rats.)

Look around. He still has people defending him. This sort of thing does happen a lot in con games.

There's a guy sitting in prison in my home state for exploiting a lot of elderly people and taking money and stealing valuables from their houses. It took him almost ten years to be caught and convicted, and a lot of the problem was that the victims wouldn't press charges, because "he did do some nice things." My next door neighbor was one of the victims.

This guy met her at a hospital after she had hip surgery, in the parking lot while she was waiting for her daughter to arrive to drive her home. That's what the guy did, actually, he hung out in places like hospital parking lots and church social functions to meet vulnerable people. In this case, he was "nice" and offered her some food he conveniently had with him. He tells her all about how he knows what she's going through because his mother had hip surgery. (This was not true.) He ends up volunteering to help and gives her his phone number.

For several weeks he shows up bringing her groceries, he drives her for a doctor's appointment, he mows her lawn. He stole over $15,000 worth of jewelry, her credit cards, the emergency cash (several thousand dollars!) in the house, some antique furniture... and she still defended him because he had done a few "nice" things for her.

No matter what else Bruce did, he raised awareness of Bitcoin. It's quite easy to look at that and think the only reason he would do that is because he's a "good guy", and frankly, if it turns out to have been a scam (and there's a reason they call this type of thing a "confidence game", which is just "con" for short) a lot of people will not want to admit they were wrong, and continue defending the criminal.


I agree completely! And I was extremely thrilled to see someone else pick up the torch and turn his existing product into a charity-friendly one and waive the fees. I hope that gets some real traction -- and in fact, I'm talking to a local friend who is a director at a local charity to see if I can interest him. I loved the Bitcoin for charity idea... I just wanted the charity to not be Bruce's retirement fund.

And for a little more salt in my wound, the SA guys just dug up some dirt on the memory guy.  Or so it seems at first glance.

Relax, sit back, give it time, and don't jump to any conclusions.

The SA guys also made plenty of accusations about Bruce that didn't stick, such as, well, him being a pedophile. I've seen no proof of that. I've only seen innuendo being repeated by people who obviously don't know gay lingo. (Being gay and more than a little kinky myself, I know just how many ways that "evidence" can be taken, and frankly, just about no way I would read it involves a child.)

Just because the memory guy was associated with Bruce -- and remember, during a period of time where none of us knew what Bruce really was, the Bold Funding scam, etc -- does not mean he agrees with Bruce's morals, or opinions, especially if he thought Bruce was what many in the Bitcoin community thought until recently. The memory guy, just like Bruce, should be treated as innocent until proven guilty.

Unless there's something I didn't see, the Memory Dealers accusations are pretty tame compared to what Bruce has been up to, and probably not even something a lot of people on here would disagree with (though I definitely do).

He sold explosives on eBay and sent them through the mail and ended up spending 10 months in jail for that. Also, some quote from him about preferring Japanese women who won't talk back and know their place instead of more independent American women. (Apparently FREEDOM really sucks when other people have it)


"The 500 Baht Virgin". In the child sex capitol of the world. Unless "virgin" means "experienced 20-something gentleman" in gay lingo, I'm going to keep on calling Bruce a creep.

Someone here explain to me how someone over 18 in the sex industry is a virgin, I will drop any mention of it then.

Either way I don't really want to focus on it I just wouldn't dismiss it so easily. The real issue is that some people still trust Bruce way too much (ie the sponsors). These people are going to be the most likely to be defrauded.

Heh... Explosives... I can't exactly say I'm innocent of that. Not selling them, I mean. But I did get myself in quite some trouble at the boarding school I used to attend. :)

As far as the comment about Japanese women versus American women... It's not as if things like bondage or domination/submission are unheard of. And some newbies to that realm take a little bit to, well, 'get it' that it's a game, and if someone is wearing a leather harness it has to be because they want to be wearing a leather harness, etc. At worst, the comment is pretty sexist, which is objectionable but not unforgivable. At best, it's actually relatively benign and he's expressing what is a legitimate preference that he hasn't yet been educated about the proper etiquette and lingo for.

"The 500 Baht Virgin". In the child sex capitol of the world. Unless "virgin" means "experienced 20-something gentleman" in gay lingo, I'm going to keep on calling Bruce a creep.
[/quote]

That comment, I had not seen. All of the stuff I had seen was that he was referring to them as "boys" and things like that. The other comments I saw, yeah, I can easily take them many ways that don't mean pedophile. The 500 Baht Virgin? I think I have to say that one would convince me. I've been sitting here for several minutes thinking about all the things I like, the terms I've heard from people like me from different parts of the world (lingo is always at least somewhat regional), conversations I've heard with other people into stuff that's legal but much more bizarre than I'm into ... I'm sitting here thinking really hard on it. Like I've said before, pedophile is a really, really serious accusation. One which I must now admit I believe is likely to be true, because even with all the fringe stuff I'm interested in, the multitude of people from different English-speaking areas I've talked to, all the chat I've seen and heard even on things I'm not into...

I cannot think of any remotely plausible way to interpret that phrase in a way that means Bruce is probably talking about an adult.

In case you worry about my mindset, know that this whole Bitcoin thing generally, and the Bruce-and-possible-friends thing in particular, is one of the most amusing things I've run across in a long long time.  I'm not unrelaxed, per-se, but am quite interested and have not laughed out loud at so many things for a while.

I fancy myself a pretty good judge of character generally, and usually pretty careful and suspicious.  So the way I was stone cold fooled by Bruce is embarrassing, amusing, and very valuable to me.  The several BTC I donated to 'charity' was about the most money I have lost to a scammer in a long time, but in fairness I am not really in an environment where I run across that many at the present time.

Nah, I don't worry about that. My words were meant for everyone, and it's something I have been saying repeatedly throughout this whole drawn out fiasco -- just because there's been so many accusations made without thought of getting real proof first.

And, yeah, some of this stuff has been drop-dead funny. Personally I'm still proud of myself for the Bitcoin Jesus comment. :)


It's because the guy is so cheerful and energetic all the time. "UP UP UP!" Signing emails to random viewers "Nothing but love". Things like that. It honestly just isn't what you expect from a con man.

I'm calling for it, but it wont happen.

+1 LOL

Even the GBS goons liked Bruce for a while (especially when he bought them the quadricopter), so don't feel too bad about taking him at face value initially.  People were already getting cynical about Bruce before the goons started any serious digging.  I suspect that had Bruce continued to over-hype and under-deliver then people may have started delving for more information about Bruce anyway eventually - goons have just brought that information to light sooner than it might otherwise have surfaced.