Please be advised, an official scam investigation has now been opened. If you have been wronged by BTC-E.com, please send me by PM a copy of all correspondence, as well as any other evidence you have.

Hello, my name is Maged, and I'm a Global Moderator here at bitcointalk.org.
I have the authority to have people marked as scammers, but only after arbitration fails and the case can be well-proven. The standards are extremely high for marking people as a scammer here, which means some scammers slip through the cracks. However, this allows the community to trust that everyone that was marked as a scammer really was a scammer, and that people aren't falsely accused.
Yes. You were refunded, but you didn't realize that it would take a few days to process. However, because of your disputes with PayPal, you likely just delayed that refund from arriving. You can only blame yourself for that.
I'm sorry that you feel that way.
No, I barely know shakaru.
Clearly, quite a few people. In fact, most of them want YOU marked as a scammer. Believe it or not, but I'm actually trying to protect you.
Don't worry, I'll make sure that this will happen. That being said, he is fully in the right to keep any money that you cost him, provided that he can provide documentation showing it.
Is that what you truly want? Free money? Well, I'm sorry, but that will not happen. You will ONLY get back what you sent, minus any fees that shakaru incurred. Since this can only be determined once the PayPal disputes are resolved, you will have to wait until then. Again, this is your own fault.
Absolutely! If you prefer to keep them private, you can message them to me. Otherwise, post them in this thread.

If you feel that I am too biased in this case, you can also choose to send this information to Yankee or deslok. I trust both of them to evaluate the information you send them appropriately.

---

LoupGaroux, teflone, and gigasvps:
He can call people names all he wants, but all that matters is the evidence. I will not let this outburst sway my handling of this case, as much as I'd want it to. I must remain neutral and see this issue from both prospectives.

---

shakaru:
Were you able to stop the refund from going through?

Who says you have to wait?

Could "technically feasible" be Bitcoin's out? Even if the exchanges are forced to stop taking the funds, there are plenty of ways to filter bitcoins through intermediaries. In fact, a website could transact entirely in bitcoins.

Why do you think I contacted Adam? He's much more personable than Mark (for good reason, since Mark is first and foremost a developer and business owner), but he's also the most senior customer service representative. This is about the best that we can do for zwei2blum over here. Hopefully, it is enough to get things moving with MtGox again.

Current state:
Slots BTC person
3 3  Goat
5 1.5 wm-center.com

Verified. Thanks again. If you have any place that you'd like me to leave feedback (such as bitcoin-otc), let me know.

Oh, I agree. That's why I PM'd Adam from MtGox to have a look at this, since I feel that we could all use an explanation here.

This is really quite a reasonable precaution on their end to lock out a German IP address from an account linked with a US-based Dwolla account.

I'll PM Adam to see if he can take a look into this case, and hopefully provide a better explanation. (Other MtGox folks are free to respond, of course!)

I went ahead and removed the two moved topic redirects, so that should reduce the Google exposure. I also renamed the subject of every post to "I Think I Got Screwed out of 5 BTC".

That being said, it is against policy to remove any thread that has a meaningful reply by the request of the original poster. As tysat explained, there is a very good reason for this policy.

No, you couldn't. Scammers are not allowed to have sockpuppets, so the account would be banned on sight.
Thanks. We put a great deal of effort into ensuring that we don't have any false-positives when we mark people as scammers.

terrytibbs, I'll offer this again: Just refund all of your customers. Theymos said that he'd remove the tag (or create a new rank or something) if you just did that one thing.

I'll take it.

Repay 3.3 BTC to 1D4Yy1jm1qPp3EaDwXt75ScyMo6HordqUi by 12/27.

I know your pain. I'm waiting on Dwolla, too. That being said, I have a decent reserve in BTC.

That's all on you.

Just a quick update:
As of last night, we finally gathered enough incriminating evidence that objectively proves, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Amanda is a scammer. As a result, this case is now closed and the moderation team fully supports releasing any information that can help bring this scammer to justice in reality.

Same here, I'm also willing to spot some coins for you. Also, I'm on Bitcoin-OTC.

Sorry for forgetting about this case, but it is still open.

Damn it, sorry guys. I totally dropped the ball here. I forgot to follow up with him after he came back from France. That being said, the moderation team is not really responsible for anybody who gets scammed, which is why you should ALWAYS use escrow if you have ANY doubt.

Please submit all evidence you have on Amanda (via PM or posting here), and I'll combine it with my other investigation.

On the transaction list, right-click, edit label.

the joint did make his concerns known prior to the distribution of the winnings. It can be argued that the timezones prior to the standardization announcement should have been based on the user's local time, as shown in there profile. Because of this confusion, the distribution of the funds should have at least been brought into public opinion after his announcement of his ruling, but before the funds were distributed.

That being said, this was a free contest, and nothing about the rule change reduced the joint's chances of being correct. Thus, I don't think that it really matters how this should have been handled. It was handled, and not in an unfair manner.

Official ruling:
This was a misunderstanding. astana was sent a refund from shakaru's bank, but he didn't understand that it takes several days for the refund to complete. Because of astana's actions, this issue has become much more complicated. As a result, this investigation has been put on hold until all of the various Paypal disputes are resolved. I fully expect that both of you will send the other enough money to make this even between you in the end. PM me or post here if this doesn't happen. I am subscribed to this thread, so I will receive all updates as they are posted.

Folks, please avoid using ad hominem attacks while you are on the Newbie forum.

Tell me, what industries exist that don't depend on game theory in any way? Your small little business could go away tomorrow and the masses wouldn't miss it either. What point are you trying to make there? However, just like how you would be missed by your customers (at least I'd hope that they'd miss you...), the Bitcoin community would be lost without the miners. You see, it is a common misconception that the miners don't do anything. That isn't true. The service that miners provide is securing our transactions into the blockchain. Without that, there is nothing stopping someone from spending the same Bitcoin outputs to multiple people.