Bitcoin Forum

Because I don't have an account on this forum so I post this thread with my friend's account. I lived in China.

I am not making a drama about my case but only looking for help. Please be patient and read my story below:

In the last year, for some reason which I am not proud of, I had this amount of money be stuck on Campbx. After a long time of communication till last month, they finally believed the money belongs to me. They asked me to provide a notarized translation ID and passport document for my account verification so they could release the money to my account.
As they asked, I provided my original photo of my ID, a notarized translation of my ID and the original photo of my passport to them. After a few days they told me my account is verified and then released the $2364 to my account on Campbx.com. On March 31th, they approved my withdraw request and ready to wire transfer the money to my bank account in China. But for some issue of themselves the transfer is delayed till yesterday. Yesterday they told me they are convinced my ID is faked. I told them I have no reason to fake my ID and there must be some misunderstanding but they told me my ID is a confirmed fake and they cannot help you anymore. So here I am asking your guys for help.

This is my argument：

1. For almost eight month of communication I finally see the end of my case, I never will take the risk of using a fake ID to ruin it.

2. It doesn't make sense that I provide a faked ID and a real passport. In China everyone has a ID but not everyone has a passport.

3. They already verified my account on March 9th, but all of a sudden they told me my ID is faked just before they are going to wire transfer the money to me. This doesn't seem to be right.

I don't know if Keyur will reply my mail anymore so I post my question here which I already sent to him by email:

1. Which document you believe is faked, the original ID photo, the translated ID?
2. Do you believe my passport photo is faked?
3. In what evidence you conformed my document is faked?
 
I really appreciated what Campbx did to help me get back my money but this result is not acceptable to me. Anybody have any idea what I should do to prove my ID is not faked?

I would be worried about any fake ID type stuff from China if I was CampBX!

I love CampBX ... never had an issue with them and I have moved thousands of dollars with them.

I provide my ID, my passport, the withdraw bank account all the same name, it doesn't make any sense for me to fake a Chinese ID. You can't just accuse me to fake a ID and take my money away from me. I am innocent and I need to clear myself.

Did they provide any proof that your ID is faked? Any indicators that made him believe that?

Not yet, last mail from Keyur said they cannot help you anymore, no reply and not answer my call since then.

That does sound unreasonable I guess as they should give you a chance to explain too. They seem to have a clean history, so let's see what Campbx has to say in defence...I would be apprehensive if they freeze client's funds for no reason at all.
You should probably move this thread to Trading Discussions subforum too as complaints usually go there.

Thank you for your advice. Keyur knew that I will post this on here and I sent him the link, so I believe he's watching this thread now.

Subscribing - will reply as soon as possible.

Xiong,
      We use a professional service to perform KYC / Compliance check and customer ID verification.  This service provider is used by many banks and large corporations as well, and they have deemed the documents you submitted as forgeries.  I have seen the analysis, but not going to share details here because it can be misused as a tutorial on how to make better fake IDs.


Everyone else reading this thread, here is some context that may be helpful:
1) MtGox had a bug last year in their multi-currency code, and Bitcoins showed up as $1 million per coin for a brief period of time.  XZ exploited this bug and managed to sell 0.008 Bitcoin for $11,000.
The drama is on this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=33197.0;all
2) The proceeds of the sale were withdrawn to XZ's Dwolla, even though Dwolla's TOS does not permit non-USA accounts.
3) XZ created multiple accounts on CampBX and funneled money in to those accounts.  This is against our TOS.

When the situation came to light, Mark Karpeles brought the hammer down hard and XZ's withdrawals from MtGox were recalled.  MtGox reported the issue to Dwolla, and Dwolla shutdown XZ's account.  Both companies stopped replying to XZ's messages completely.  CampBX also shutdown XZ's accounts, but we understand that perhaps he got a little too excited about the Million-dollar Bitcoins and made a bad judgement call.  So we gave him benefit of the doubt and helped him track and recover the money.

Now when we requested verification documents from XZ to transmit this money to China, he submitted ID documents bearing a completely different name.  The bank account details were also for a different person.  His communications came from multiple aliases including XZ, CM, and Pierre.  Surprised by these irregularities, we ran a check on his documents from our KYC provider and it came back as a fail.

Submitting a fake ID has pushed us on to AML minefield, and we cannot help him anymore with this issue.


Thank you,
      Keyur

PS: Edited for clarity.

All clear.

Not at all. I will reply later.

Looks pretty clear to me. Even if the money might be yours (I would say it isn't, but that is beside the point), submitting fake documentation was stupid. You deserve to be blacklisted by any and all exchanges for attempting such as lame stunt, and you don't deserve any compensation of any kind.

This +1.

No, I didn't submit any fake document. Keyur avoid the most important question but only dig out my history to make me look bad.

The name I used on the forum is not the same as the document I submitted. But that doesn't mean anything. My ID, my passport, my bank account is all in my name MC, so there is no way my ID is faked.

And Keyur avoid the most important question:

Which exactly my document is faked? What agent do they use for ID verification? Why did you already verified my account on March 9th but confirm my ID is faked now?

Don't judge so quick, if this isn't get clear, it could happened to any of us.

Orly? 3 different identities? And they are damn right in not saying how or why they know that it is fake - they sure as hell don't want to help all the trouble making idiots improve their fake identities.

If it isn't fake, you could probably sue to get the money back, and certainly win.

Not 3 different identities, I submitted my id, passport, bank account with my real name CM. Do you think I can use a fake id to get a passport and bank account in China? Keyur just accuse me submitted a fake ID but don't give me any detail about why and which my document is faked. If this happened to you, what would you do? I am in China so sue them seems impossible.

Dude, if you were funneling funds into multiple accounts on their exchange, you were willfully violating terms of service etc and providing them with multiple identities. That on it's own puts them in a position of have 0 obligations to you. AML and KYC law isn't just "O this didn't work let's try something different", it's one shot and you're out unless you can provide an awful lot of additional documents.

To sue them is actually a lot simpler than you may think, just go to one of the international law firms in China they are allover the place here and see if you can get one of them to take your case, yes that does cost money but money you can easily recover via the courts unless you have been doing any of the stuff Keyur informs us you have been doing. Otherwise you'd just be loosing money. Hell if you get yourself notarized and legalized (done via the Chinese foreign ministry) copies of the documents they've rejected you might find a law firm mad enough to accept your case.

Frankly you're a sad pathetic kid who needs to get a life and stop rehashing utter BS where you exploited a bug. Quite frankly I doubt that you'd actually be entitled to even the LR withdrawal you made as Mt Gox could sue you or something similar to get their costs covered from you exploiting that bug. And if you're actually in China and you've just submitted your real credentials to CampBx you're too dumb to live as:

A) Campbx and Mt Gox are both very reputable companies, what's to stop them from exchanging information in light of possible criminal proceedings, enabling Mt Gox to pursue a lawsuit in China against you, IMO this would be extremely easy for them particularly given the current political climate between Japan and China. Furthermore exploiting an obvious bug like this one would under Chinese law be considered the equivalent of grand theft landing you with a 5year minimum prison stint.

B) If you're a Chinese national in China engaging in any type of e-currency trading not licensed by the Chinese government you're already looking at a hefty fine as a minimum and quite possibly prison time as well.


Could a moderator please scammer tag this asshat.

Thanks for you long reply.

The money between Mtgox and me is clear month ago. There is no doubt about this. So it's my money Campbx is holding for eight month.

I never used a fake id or identities. I have 3 account on Campbx.com and they didn't acquire id information when I registered them, so I don't think there is any thing wrong about it.

The reason Campbx hold my money is that they think my ID is faked and which is not, so is there any way I can prove my ID is not faked? Can Chinese foreign ministry do this?

Submitting a fake ID has pushed us on to AML minefield, and we cannot help him anymore with this issue.
Yep, they can. Going to the nearest 'gong an shuo'/police station to ask someone to verify your ID is possible too IMO. You just need an authority to verify that your ID's are real and not faked.

However, having three accounts on CampBX isn't legal according to their TOS. And using three different identities does violate the AML laws. That should be one of the main reasons why CampBX withheld your money.

First of all if you created 3 accounts and didn't use your actual name on them then yes you did create fake identities. Furthermore you're saying that you violated their terms of service which you're supposed to read and accept prior to using their exchange. Well in that case you have absolutely 0 rights to anything. And quite frankly I don't understand how you could end up thinking you weren't doing anything wrong.

If you're going to try again then the only way to get indisputable documents accepted anywhere from China is A get the document translated and notarized with an appostille and then B get it legalized by the foreign ministry, this is usually done via you local city level government and they have to send a representative physically to Beijing so it's neither cheap nor easily doable.

OK I understand, I did use the wrongful way to transfer my money to CampBX.com, is that make my money not belong to me anymore?

Thank you for your help of get my document legalized, but it is not practically at all.

If you are not going to tell me how my document is confirmed faked, at least you could tell me which specific document of I submitted is faked?

What would you do about my money if you are not going to return my money to me?



I admit I didn't read your TOS and used the wrong way to transfer my money to your Dwolla account, but you know it well that this money belongs to me not Mtgox. The $1990 of my $2364 came from Mtgox (already clear) and the rest came from bitcoin7.com. You brought this up is just "helpful" for you to make me look bad. But none of this can change the fack the money belongs to me.


Mtgox (their support group but not Mark Karpeles) and Dwolla never “stopped replying to XZ's messages completely”. I asked Mtgox if they sent a request to Dwolla to reverse the transaction and they told me Dwolla already denied their request and made the request ineffective. Then I asked Dwolla about is the money I sent to your account belongs to you legally, they gave me a positive answer. I forward these mail to you long times ago and you confirmed this. Are you denying all this now?


I gave you my ID, passport, bank account is all the same name, where is "the other person" you are talking about? Do you really think I can use a fake id to get a bank account in China?

Thank you for your help.

As CampBX.com cut me some snack on the early mistakes I made I think the primary problem now is about the document I submitted.

I will check the police station to see of they could gave me a certificate for my ID and then get the certificate translated and notarized.

Keyur @ Camp BX, are you telling us the truth here?

In this post from 2011-08-01 18:14:25:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=33197.0;all#msg418381
Mark Karpeles writes that:

"We won't lock the account, as nothing was lost."

"Anyway in this case Xiong Zhuang told us exactly how to get the funds back (cancelling the LR withdraw, thru crediting $2000 to his account, solving the negative balance and setting everything right). There is nothing else for us to do here."

This shows that Xiong Zhuang balances with MtGox where clear and approved by MtGox's owner after the mess with the bug.

Keyur @ Camp BX, would you care to comment?

Are you trying to make it appear that the fund were stolen from MtGox, where in fact they where not?

That is all completely separate from the question of Xiong Zhuang identity document being real or not. No matter what great KYC teams you have, you can not completely prove that a document is fake - the only entity who can definitively judge that a passport is forged is the government that issued it. The only thing your KYC team can is suspect that a document is forged and not accept it (same as if the person didn't submit any document). And you can't refuse to return funds based on pure suspicion. If the person can not sufficiently prove his identity to your satisfaction, the only thing you can do is to refuse doing business with the individual, which means to return the funds to the account they came from (refuse to exchange).

Remember: anyone is innocent until proven guilty. At least in the civilized world.

The procedure is like this:

A) Take you passport and have it notarized, you don't need anything from the police station as it won't help and they are legally capable of issuing such a document under Chinese law.
B) Go to the local government and have the document sent for legalization (认证） at the foreign ministry in Beijing.
C) EXPRESS ship documents to CampBx as legalization expires after a set period.

The above procedure works for papers for processing visas, international marriages being registered in multiple countries, having contracts notarized in multiple countries etc and should be beyond any kind of questioning from anybody.

Miernik,
        I think we are both saying the same thing: MtGox did not lock the account - Dwolla did.

My point is that MtGox support guys may not be aware of what Mark said on the forum, because they stopped replying to XZ.  It took months of collective effort including PM to Mark to obtain a written clarification about the ownership of money from both MtGox and Dwolla.


Xiong,
      Our lawyer is exploring options of what to do with the money.  Most likely we will end up turning it over to a GA state or Fulton county agency and you can follow the due to process to claim it from them.  I will send you an email when we complete this hand-off.

Thank you,
      Keyur

+1

MtGox support guys never stopped replying to me at any moment, I just didn't try to contact with them but only try to contact with Mark in the first several month. I am waiting for you email. 

Hi Xiong Zhuang,

Let me make this really clear, unless you follow the procedure I outlined four posts back you're not going to receive these funds as you have no other way of legally proving that you are who you say you are. And Campbx atm is in no way obliged to communicate with you so why waste time and space on the forum on this?

CampBX is not obliged to communicate with the person who's money it is holding? Are you being serious? This sounds like a bad joke.

They are holding on his money, and you are saying they're not obliged to communicate with him?

If that is your view on obligations to people you owe money, I'm letting you know that I won't trust you, nor any exchange you might run, with any money - until you publicly reverse your bizarre statement.

So far CampBX in no way proved that Xiong Zhuang is using a fake passport nor that he has done any fraud with the funds.

So far its just they AML team thinks it is fake, which is basically saying that they don't know, because only the document issuer can make a proof (they, and only they have records).

In any case, in an inconclusive case - funds should be returned to where they came from if CampBX doesn't want to bear responsibility of processing them.

In what way where these funds deposited to CampBX?

Well, this would be a problem. I withdrawn the money from my account on Mtgox and bitcoin7 to the Dwolla account which I registered with the identity information I made up. After I transfer the money to Campbx.com's Dwolla account, my Dwolla account is suspended, and the money stays in Campbx's Dwolla account. I checked with the Dwolla support about the legality of the money in Campbx.com's account, they gave me a positive answer.

On your Dwolla account - was only your US address made up, and your name was real?

Or also your name was fake?

Anyway: CampBX should give the money back to Dwolla, and they should decide what to do with it. It came from Dwolla and it should come back there. If you no longer have a Dwolla account, CampBX should send the money back to Dwolla's general account, or by wire/check.

If they decided its clear, then Dwolla can send you a check.

The US address is made up, and the name I used is "Pierre Hossler". The name is not my real name on my passport, but "Pierre" is my English name.

Keyur: I think you should give the money back to Dwolla - you got it from there. And they should deal with it. You don't want to deal with the user - put the money back to the entity you got it from - Dwolla. The user has no longer a Dwolla account - no problem, send it to Dwolla as a company - by check or wire. And let them deal with it. Surely you don't want the responsibility of dealing with possibly tainted funds - so send it back where you got them from - simple! Its as if you would get a random transfer from Dwolla that you shouldn't have got - send it back. Dwolla has surely US bank accounts and/or you can send them a check. You will be clear, it will be Dwolla's problem.

Then here is how the issue should be dealt with: CampBX should send the money back to Dwolla - they got it from there.

As your Dwolla account was cancelled, Dwolla should just send you a check payable to "Pierre Hossler". How you cash the check is your problem. After all you told Dwolla you're "Pierre Hossler", so Dwolla pays pack "Pierre Hossler" with a check.

This way both CampBX and Dwolla's name will be clear.

And you'll have a check.

As Dwolla suspended my account because they knew my identity is invalid, how could they still send me a check with the invalid information?   

Read the whole thread before jumping to conclusions. And FYI that comment was directed at him not you, you're obviously not used to dealing with non native speakers where clarity counts for an awful lot more than content in terms of the original language.

Maybe you should keep the same identity....

I follow the whole thread from the beginning, I read every single post in it.

About clarity: can you repeat your statement in clear words. Or just mark what you think:

[ ] an exchange which holds money deposited by a user has obligation to communicate with the user and explain in all details how he can obtain the funds back

[ ] an exchange which holds money deposited by a user has no obligation to communicate with him, and can stop responding whenever their staff finds any suspected flaw in the users documentation

Do you run any exchange?

I just want to know which exchanges and which members of this forum I can trust.

No, CampBX and Dwolla will have knowingly laundered funds if they do that because they are well aware that Pierre Hossler is a fake identity and they cannot confirm that the funds were legitimately obtained.  They are required by law to file suspicious activity reports and cannot release the funds back to a fake identity.  Any funds in the accounts will eventually be transferred to government organisations responsible for enforcing AML compliance.

Ok I can conclude the following.

A) You don't know Jack shit about AML law as you're also posting BS in other threads.
B) You have reading issues.
C) You just enjoy trolling.

Even following your own line of argumentation:

They have already done so unless you're now saying that Keyur is full of shit as well. So they're not required to do anything further.

If you read the entire post history it looks like he's trying to find out information on which exchanges are the most lax when it comes to AML compliance.  He's done the "I'm not giving you any money unless you guarantee that you'll never hold my funds if I can't verify" bullshit to several companies now - when proper AML compliance actually requires that the funds of customers who fail to verify be held.  I'm sure he's totally aware of that fact by now and just looking to confirm which companies are and aren't fully compliant.

Interestingly, he claims to hold a German bank account and at least one exchange has had issues with fraud originating in Germany lately.  It's not unusual for scams to originate from certain locations and target certain others when they discover loopholes which facilitate fraud - and they move on quickly when those loopholes are closed.

Furthermore, no exchange is ever required to communicate with its customers on a public forum. If they choose to do so, that is their business.

I am trying to find out which exchanges are not misusing AML laws for purposes they where not intended to. And which do not have a habit of inventing AML procedures impossible to comply with, and coming up with new requirements after funds are deposited. No bank I know ever does this. Maybe in the US - but that is not a sane jurisdiction.

I have no problems with identifying myself to an exchange, provided there is good will from both sides, and no needless suspiciousness - the point of AML is not to create a witch-hunt, but to prevent traces of proceeds of robberies, extortion and theft from being hidden. Its point is not to allow exchanges to extort free indefinite loans from users who for some reason can't meet their requirements.

And after experiences with CryptoXchange marking my passport as invalid, I don't have much trust with them, and so my posts. If they can just mark it like that and do nothing, they can do it any time to any one. In fact I never yet deposited any currency or Bitcoins to CryptoXchange.

And my passport... well, a German policeman having access to the Schengen Information System http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Information_System finds it fully valid, and some private company having no access to any governmental databases can just mark it "invalid" with one click... funny. Come to Schengen, we can drive up to a policeman and I can prove you.


Nice you posted this, so everybody can read and make up his own mind.

You and Bitpiggy01 seem to have quite a... different sense of judgement, I respect that, we don't have to make business together, we can have different views and opinions.

In another thread I am trying to help users which might have had been unjustifiably punished, that's it. I had never myself had funds frozen by an exchange.

And about AML laws: yes, they can be, and are, different in different countries, I am aware of that. If some country has them so harsh to the level of insane, I refuse to do business with entities bound by the laws of that country. EU is a respectable jurisdiction. In many EU countries financial entities are not required to identify customers which make transactions of less then 15000 EUR in one operation or connected operations.

I had myself sent funds to an currency exchange (fiat currency exchange), which failed to pass identity (address), and the funds where instantly returned. I was never asked for any ID by this exchange. They (Walutomat.pl) deal with volume of several million EUR each day, and are in business since 2009. More volume then any Bitcoin exchange, and longer in business then any Bitcoin exchange. Of course, laws vary by country, but they are in a EU country and I am an EU citizen.

I'll respect your jurisdiction laws if I am to deal with you, but I need to know about them before starting to deal, and won't deal if I find them, or the practice of their application unacceptable. But respect my jurisdiction please, and respect practices of my jurisdiction, and not insinuate me of wrongdoing just because of asking how practices differ from practices in jurisdictions I have dealt with so far, OK?

However, if the exchange wishes to remain a clean, trusted exchange, it must publically announce resolution of issues such as this one. AML law does compel the holder to make a reasonable attempt to verify the unverified funds, something which CampBX at least publically has not done.

In many jurisdictions public disclosure of a customer's financial information without the customer's express consent is an offence in and of itself - and that consent is not implied by the customer discussing the matter publicly.

AML law is complex, but opening an account using a false identity breaches it and in and of itself warrants the lodging of a suspicious activity report with the relevant authorities and closing an account.  In many places it also triggers the obligation to apply enhanced KYC/due diligence requirements, which often require more stringent identification of the customer and identifying the origin of the funds.  Disclosing to the customer that an SAR has been filed and that they are being investigated for AML violations is often an offence.  Often, a determination about whether or not funds will be returned to the customer cannot be made by the financial institution involved - it's made by the authority to which the suspicious activity was reported.

Although I doubt that many people read them, organisations like Technocash and PayPal do put their AML policies in the legal section of their websites and explicitly state that in cases where a customer fails to satisfactorily verify or re-verify their identity and/or the source of funds they will hold the funds before ultimately turning them over to the government (and that they'll charge you for any staff time spent on co-operating with official investigations of your account/s) - but even if they didn't publish those policies, their legal obligations would remain the same.  Knowingly ignoring suspicious activity is a serious offence in itself, so most financial organisations (or other entities to which KYC/AML/CTF provisions apply) make damned sure they do everything possible to ensure that they're covered by the safe harbour provisions of AML legislation.

Most organisations don't reveal what will flag an account, for obvious reasons.  The list isn't a static one anyway - while some types of transactions will always be flagged, there are always new things being added to the list as different strategies for laundering money and/or committing financial fraud evolve.

CampBX is great.  They are my favorite and exclusive exchange.