Always use escrow. Never rely on anyone’s worthless word alone.

Escrow is the one and only safe way to deal or trade with complete strangers.

These people have no references, no extensive historical presence, no track record, no feedback from independent entities or persons with verifiable and believable reviews. Given the risks, transactions should always involve a trusted middle man. “Test transactions” should never be entered into. The same goes with incremental payments of any kind and amount. Such test trades almost always will require users here (and never ever these “gold traders”) to go or pay first. The goal is to extract any amount upfront. Any amount is, after all, better than nothing.

Use escrow.

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Edit...

Red flags: virtual address. No phone number.

Always be cautious when offered too good to be true deals. Hard to understand how people with unlimited volumes of coins will find the time to post offers on this forum. I mean step back for a minute and reanalyze the situation. They claim to have half a billion to a billion dollars worth of BTC and they are looking for buyers here who can give them that much cash. How and why? There are exchanges which can handle these volumes but they are giving those exchanges a wide berth. Why? Because exchanges will NEVER send them fiat first.

They expect buyers to send money first. I already did a mock transaction with one of them and he wanted a test amount sent upfront as a test of credibility. But hold on.. here’s the trick: the volumes they offer here are intentionally in the millions of dollars so that when they ask for a test amount it would be along the lines of “only” $10,000 or so.

Proof of BTC holdings are watch list addresses so be careful. And no, they stubbornly refuse to send even satoshis upfront as proof of bitcoin address ownership.

It's a scam. Meeting up is not on his agenda. He will drag you into a long-winding conversation to try to build rapport and trust but as that conversation progresses, he will ask for things like your private key:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3052757.msg33021227#msg33021227

Problem is credit cards are considered risky payment instruments. That's because card information is prone to phishing and account hacks. Fraud is spelled with a capital F in the payment card industry. It is a very real and challenging threat. For this reason, you will find it hard to pay by credit card if your intention is to purchase bitcoins without giving out much information about yourself.

The risks are:

1. You can dispute the transaction after getting the coins and request for a chargeback. If you invoke the fraud defense, your card issuer will aggressively pursue the chargeback claim, making it very difficult and time consuming for payment card processors to fight it. You have up to 90 days to dispute the transaction and file a chargeback.

2. If the card information used for the payment is later discovered to be fraudulently sourced, the payment will be reversed in the form of a chargeback. There is no recourse for fighting this chargeback in this situation.

If you still want to go ahead and purchase the BTC via credit card, expect strict KYC and card authentication procedures. Here is a list of services which allow you to buy BTC and pay for them by credit card:

https://www.simplex.com/simplex-partners/

The limits are quite high. Usually USD 20k per day and 50k per month. Read through the FAQs on the above link. Be aware though that your card issuer might find it suspicious when they notice a pattern of daily purchases of USD 20k and they might put your card account on review or even lower your limits.

The problem is even if you open a second or third account with a different bank, they wire funds to Kraken via their correspondent or intermediary banks. Most of these intermediary banks are internationally listed and they are usually the ones which decide whether or not the transfer should be processed. If they are against crypto transactions, they will flag and reject the transfer and there is nothing you can do, even if your bank is more relaxed about cryptos.

You could try opening an account with Mistertango, then do a SWIFT transfer to your own MT account. From that account, you can then forward the funds to Kraken. It's only a matter of time when the rest of the banking world will discover this loophole. When that happens, they will refuse transfers to MT's SWIFT system.

Username: warningsigns
Loan amount: 0.2 BTC
Address for the loan: 3GQUKCbLsy5SeSohfXRBcC2DWVUMGHVFTs
Collateral: As discussed by pm
Payment period: Within max 10 days (with option for earlier repayment)
Interest: 17%
Repayment amount: 0.2 x 1.17 = 0.234 BTC

Reference address: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1935179.msg20497425#msg20497425

Look at all the newbies (alts?   )  praising this coin project. There is no end to this endless list of dead coins popping up like mushrooms on an almost daily basis. The naive and gullible are reeled in, lured to invest and buy these worthless tokens until finally the developers pack their bags and make a quick exit. With all your BTC, ETH etc.

With the more stable coins being corrupted by these scam coins it’s no wonder the crypto landscape is viewed with suspicion by the rest of this planet's inhabitants.

There is an open scam accusation on the scam section which I hope you will resolve reasonably and without delay:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3209852.0

People put their trust in your exchange. It's just fair to reciprocate that trust. Letting your customers wait this long is very inconsiderate. You might think it's just $100 but for some here it's all they have.

Please resolve this guy's problem and if his claims are correct, it would be nice if you could finally credit his account with bitcoins. Waiting 4 months is just too much.

Get a lawyer to write to Bitfinex in legalese language. If you can compile whatever you have (police report, transaction records from your Electrum wallet and maybe notarized affidavits from your friends certifying and explaining the flow of funds from them to you) I'm sure you will have a strong case in your hands.

If you really own the coins, you should assert your ownership and claim rights. There are exchanges which will make the reclaiming of coins as complicated and daunting as possible in the hope that you might give up the chase. There is a chance here that Bitfinex might have identified your account as dormant and added your coins to their revenue coffers. No company on this planet willingly relinquishes assets which explains why they are making the process as challenging as possible for you.

Main problem with PayPal is that it is reversible. This means using escrow is pretty much moot. The risk of the payment being reversed later defeats the purpose of escrow.

FnF is reversible. Some think it is impossible to reverse payment sent as a gift or donation but the truth is it can be reversed. Scenarios which allow the reversal are:

• "Carded" payment or a hacked card was used
• Payment is disputed on grounds of being unauthorized by cardholder
• Gifted or FnF payment was induced fraudulently

This is not to discredit you in any way. The post is simply meant as a precautionary advice. Looking at clearing the PayPal balance urgently is usually a red flag because scammers often try to move or liquidate funds before the account is limited or before a dispute is raised by the person who originally sent them those funds.

Rates tend to be insane because of the risk of a reversal.

I suggest you include escrow terms on your posted offer above. Here's a list of forum escrows:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2439910

Nobody will send USD 62500 by bank transfer or in bitcoin to you upfront. It's risky and dangerous. If you want to attract buyers I suggest you seriously consider using a forum escrow.

This sounds like a loan so you should probably move this to the lending section.

Be aware that you will need valid collateral to secure any kind of financing for the kind of amount you are asking. It’s quite large and most lenders will want solid repayment assurances from new members here. “Photos of the business” will not help dispel doubts or concerns.

Valid collateral is almost always a stable altcoin but lenders might consider alternatives such as precious metals but it would be logistically too costly to ship physical collateral to a lender or escrow based outside Peru. Costs would be just as prohibitive for the return journey of that collateral.

100% scam. Don't send any coins or PayPal any funds upfront without escrow protection. If you do, you can count on losing your money with mathematical certainty.

Refusing forum escrow is a red flag. Scamming is almost impossible when a trusted middle man is involved which is why scammers will do and say anything to avoid it.


Months from now, you will still be bumping this thread... in vain. Nobody will send you 0.24 BTC on the strength of your word alone.


PayPal is not an escrow agent.

For a safe transaction use a forum escrow from this page:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2439910.0

Wow, they really want to make the process as impossibly difficult as possible, putting up wall after wall after wall for you to scale and go through. And tall well-greased walls they are.

For 500 btc I would comply. Do all you can to give them what they want. For anything else you can’t provide, draft an explanation in legalese language and engage reputable lawyers to prepare these documents with their official letterhead on every page.

To maximize your chance of a successful retrieval of your coins I strongly advise and suggest that you let lawyers handle the communication work with Bitfinex.

Loan repaid:

https://blockchain.info/tx/d829d0280a160b178089ab62961daa0c22f774df136228706314a7945150694c

Thank you.

How can one spend bitcoins in a war ravaged location, let alone use the internet so freely and conveniently?

Not posting this to discredit you or your intentions but I’m just wondering if there is any truth in the war zone story, given cellular networks and access to internet resources would be severely constrained in such circumstances.

I have a personal account but there is an option on the settings page for opening a business account. You can open it on their app:

Remember to meet in a safe public location within close proximity to police or people who can help you in case either party attempts to dishonestly game the deal.

Might be good to do this inside a bank where money can be counted, inspected and checked for genuineness. The added advantage of doing this is that the money can be directly deposited into an account. You wouldn't like to walking around Amsterdam with close to 1 million Euros in cash, would you?

Taking PayPal for $400k+ worth of BTC is a recipe for disaster.

Not sure if you are aware yet but PayPal is a high-risk reversible payment method. A single dispute will trigger a chain of unpleasant events. One would be the payment being blocked or frozen. Others include the entire balance on the account (even the undisputed ones) also being frozen, the account on limited mode, previous transactions (even if completed) also being at risk of a reversal. When one transaction is disputed, the account itself and it's entire transaction history are flagged and the review process is a painstakingly long procedure involving endless documents and you will hear a lot more about "escalating the dispute to the escalation department".

Hello,

I’m ready to repay this loan. Please provide repayment address.

Thanks.