We know for sure there is a criminal investigation by the City of Bremen?

Could this be checked (not German so I don't know)

As far as bitcoin goes I am smarter simply because I did not invest in the scheme of a tow-headed pratt.  That part is obvious and I was not trying to be subtle about my intelligence in this matter at all.

I am dumber because I invested money in GPU mining but smarter because I am still getting results compared to those who invested in BFL ever delivering anything. (but the net balance is still on the side of dumb).

But, I still maintain that critiquing shoddy practices when they fail and when they have not is not FUD,  FUD implies irrational doubt, and no one who is into bitcoin is spreading irrational doubt about them. We should spread doubt about the bad practices we see, including those by mtgox.com but so many people in this community tend to blame the doubter for causing what they predict than blaming the shoddy standards of those who handle trading.

I get it.  It's FUD until you can't make money.

Since he is so good at setting up exchanges I bet his withdrawal page will be both timely and flawless.

BTC:  The fastest peer to peer value transfer the world has ever seen and he needs to set up a "withdrawal page"

The words "late" and "delay" are the closest BFL has ever came to being honest.

The Box of Felons Fans is quite an accurate picture though.  When they go bust and have an asset auction I really want a BFL Box of Fans as a souvenir.  My plan for it is to keep my switch and my router inside to keep it cool and maybe just a storage place to put an Android tablet on it that I would have playing a GUI like screen saver promising cool things like Time Travel or attractive 20 year old women who want to pay a middle aged man for sex.

As soon as Mustang Convertibles can be had for BTC the porn industry will switch.

Careful everyone....You MAY be accused of spreading FUD.

There are two kinds of scammers. 

The intentional scammer, If I sold you stuff that I had no intention of sending you so that I could keep your money that would make me an intentional scammer.  I have no ASICs.  Who Wants to buy my ASICs?  (I take as much money as possible)

The Accidental Scammer.   I become a "bank" and offer to trade and invest while keeping your initial deposit safe.  I am balls-out stupid so I lose your cash and cannot repay or I am stuck, unable to conduct business legally but I have all this cash.  My intentions were good but I scammed you anyway due to my own clumsiness.

So I think Simon is falling into the accidental scammer category.  But he is not helping things by assuming an IRC log or Reddit offers any real explanation to people who have lost money (I am not one of them because I research the hell out of everyone).

Bitcoin may not be viewed as anything more than a "file" by law.  In the USA when the IRS seizes physical assets and someone claims those assets seized belonged to them and not the tax evader, then they have to produce a record that shows in some way that those assets belong to them.  So, those of you with BTC on bitcoin-24.com should start documenting a "digital trail" to the best of your ability to prove those electronic "files" belong to you and not the owner of the computer. (even then this might not work).  Also document the time and resources it took to aquire these "files" (BTC) because that might be your recompense if not the BTC themselves.

For cash, you might have it easier.  Prove it was your cash taken and they should have to return it to you.

In the US tracking assets is fairly easy because we don't have any of those privacy laws the EU and the UK have, so asset information can be found easily (like if someone claiming poverty just registered a new Mercedes) but I have no clue on the EU and how to track assets within those countries.

Good luck all and sorry you lost assets.

And Simon,  return as many BTC as possible before starting "2.0".  If you get into online financial trading again then hire someone to do the database for you who has experience in financials and can provide references that check out.

Cool, Thanks for the update.  I saw the 15 on the whois and just assumed it was today.

You just registered it today with Domains by Proxy.

Good luck on your new business but you might want to have actual contact information to start to make things seem less dodgy.

What I contemplated, but decided against was to "hedge" BTC with dollars.   Make an agreement with someone that if BTC goes below $20 they have to buy at $20 and if BTC goes above $50 they can demand I sell to them at $50.

Of course you can see why I did not go through with this, but you get the idea of the concept.

I am.  Bad news needs to be dissected and exposed.  Like it good areas of the more mainstream economy things like my eventless and pleasant bitcoin selling at Starbucks do not need to be mentioned though they happen every other day.  Others like me have similar experiences.

Why not use pressure to make Simon be more honest about what is happening and hope it serves as a cautionary tale for the next person with no experience who says "hey!  I know!  A bitcoin exchange for hard currency!  What could possibly go wrong?"

To me FUD is "bitcoin is untested...in spite of its daily use I dunno" and not "Scams look scammy so maybe scammy looking things is also a scam?"

So when he was saying his lawyers were applying pressure that meant his lawyers had never heard of it until some person called them.

Or am I spreading FUD?

I hear everything is going very well now in spite of what it looks like.

Once I saw a bunch of sheep that were mutilated in a field.  I wondered if a wolf had attacked them, and then someone said "Don't cry wolf...people will jump to conclusions" so I didn't and everything was fine.

The Unicorn that delivers the BFL machine will give you instructions while burping rainbows.

OK.

I am sure everything will be fine on Monday.  The 24 year old DJ turned international money trader will sort stuff out because that is what DJs turned financiers are best at doing.

Thank you again.

But I assume Simon has not posted an actual copy of the notice from the Polish bank?   To me it seems odd that when his transactional database goes titsup the bank also freezes the account.  We know for sure the database puked all over itself with the reports of double payments and stuff but the actual non-bitcoin money would not be frozen by database transaction, it would, however, be frozen by outside regulators or a bank itself.

So far we know mostly what he has told us, which people should be very suspicious of.

So if I were him and I were reading this, I would log onto his server and mirror his database, warts and all, to an identical server.  Then hire someone, or take people's offers who knows what they are doing to sort out the mirrored one.  Do testing and see if they can get the mirrored one and all the accounts back.   If they cannot, then recover the accounts and refund the BTC to the users with those that are not recovered given a polite notice to contact his lawyer for further statements (a polite way of acting in good faith but telling people "you are screwed for trusting me, now I must cover my butt, sorry."

Then provide a copy of the notice given by the bank.  Give contact information for his lawyer for hard currency and bank related issues.  Give bank contact information too (available online).

You might want to see what the UK can do for you too.

http://www.companiesintheuk.co.uk/ltd/btc24

Thanks.  Where did he announce that this was the bank?

Did he present a copy of the notice?

Its funny, each one of these says the same things "he is young"...we got it.  He is young.  "he is inexperienced" then why do currency transactions yourself.  "The bank stopped his account" to which I say "so he says", but where is a non-Simon based document that proves the account was halted?

But the one about "I hear he runs ASIC miners?" is new.  ASIC miners are as rare as a hybrid love child between bigfoot and nessie.  That statement with the question mark makes me think that the reddit post is a stall tactic of sorts.

So, which bank in Poland was the account in?  Give a name and people can actually contact them, ask them questions and explain what happened and maybe they will help, or you could trust a 24 year old incompetent to tell you his lawyers are working on it.

Since Simon is only communicating through Reddit, I suspect the Polish bank name will not come out because the last thing he wants is for people to be able to dig for themselves.

The first step to re-assuring people who have both fiat and BTC in limbo because of him is to give the name of the bank.

 

So his only contact with people is his one way conduit of information on Reddit?

I suspect the eventual outcome will be this:

Everything is so horribly wrong that the only outcome is that I keep everything.  Sorry.  In the mean time please read my reddit posts so that you may replace your anger at me with pity.

I predict that other bitcoin based "financial services" will end up like this soon too.  So if any of you who moved on from say Anime Enthusiast who did some php programming on the side to trading virtual currency to Ringgit and are worried about facing the death penalty in whatever Confucian country you based your business out of, you may either want to:

1. Run.  Drop shop, keep on posting reassuring things about how you are running into technical problems because bitcoins are so awesome and they should be fixed by the time your plane lands in Paraguay your upstream provider resolves the glitch.

2. PM me.  I work with financial modeling.  I will give you free advice (which will be how to hire and find a competent person to fix your site) or I will give you my own rates (I am expensive).

I expect most of you to run, and perhaps consider Paraguay for the first time after reading it here.

I give then a zero point nada chance of shipping anything that can fit in a box.

If a chip existed in theory that could spin straw into gold, BFL would be selling gold spinning looms on "pre-order" by anything but credit card.