It's also a business risk Nefario should have been aware of, one that he should have taken into account before he sold shares of ownership Yes, but taking risks isnt illegal or scamming, nor is selling shares in a business that operates with significant legal risks, as mostly every business does. An investor prices that risk in his valuation. For instance, SatoshiDice is most likely a huge legal liability, but if it gets closed down by some government, Im not sure Id call a Erik a scammer for selling shares in SD, unless he knowingly withheld information about that to his shareholders. If he truly thought it was legal, then it's just incompetence, but that doesn't make it any less fraudulent. I have to disagree here. Incompetence!=fraud I'm not calling him a scammer because he sold shares. I'm calling him a scammer because he sold shares, then after getting their money, said "Sorry I'm worried about laws!", and just shut the business down in breach of contract and hasn't returned their investment. That's fraud, plain and simple. |
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If he's being forced by other parties to shut down the service because it's illegal, he's still the one who decided to open the service and he's still ultimately responsible for that. He caused financial loss to his investors by not doing his due diligence beforehand to make sure he would be able to keep his agreement.
Investors should have done their due diligence as well, but the buck doesn't stop there, and that doesn't let Nefario off the hook.
The owners are partners with him and knew damn well it was illegal, they even apparently were trying to sell out because Nefario wanted to come clean to the regulators. It sounds like you are judging one partner in the scam a scammer based on what you have been told of the internal politics of their illegal operation while ignoring that the partners in this illegal business are not the victims here. You aren't moderators of their privately run criminal enterprise, you are moderators of this forum. The scam is GLBSE as an organization. I don't know if it's illegal or not, like you said I'm just a mod. That's not the issue here. I care that he breached his contract multiple times and defrauded investors. And I wasn't told anything, I was provided chat logs and everything else I asked for, and verified that Nefario was acting on his own, against the will of the shareholders, without so much as asking for their opinion, much less a shareholder vote. You can believe what you want though, doesn't much matter to me. Just setting the record straight. |
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I gave him the scammer tag because he sold ownership of the company to various investors, after getting their money he then said "Sorry I'm worried about laws!" and shut the service down without the consent of the other owners, has not returned their investment, and caused significant financial loss. Pretty clear case of fraud. Even if it's the result of incompetence/ignorance it's still fraud. Reread the OP if you've forgotten what the thread is about.
Based on that, wouldnt you have to hand out scammer tags to all asset issuers that dont reimburse their investors in full? If Nefario had to do his due diligence before accepting investor money, then why not asset issuers? Of course. Also, I think a point can be made that GLBSE closing down due to legal pressure was a business risk that investors should have been aware off. It might have been different if Nefario knew it was illegal and his investors were somehow misled to believe the opposite, but if anything, it seems the opposite, and Nefario thought it was legal, whereas Theymos wanted and still wants it to be an illegal black market. Before passing judgment, I would like to see what the shareholder agreement said about that.
It's also a business risk Nefario should have been aware of, one that he should have taken into account before he sold shares of ownership and made promises he couldn't or wouldn't keep. Investors being aware or not doesn't let him off the hook, he's still ultimately responsible. If he truly thought it was legal, then it's just incompetence, but that doesn't make it any less fraudulent. |
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Okay I'd like to correct some misinformation some people are spreading about the scammer tag.
I did not give Nefario a scammer tag because he shut down the service and hasn't returned the bitcoins yet, it's only been a few days. I don't think he's going to cut and run, I do expect he'll pay everything back. That doesn't have anything to do with it.
I did not give him the tag because of the way he's handling the assets, we don't even know how he's handling it yet. Keep in mind I did not give him a scammer tag for the way he handled Goats assets, so it's highly unlikely I would have given him one for his handling of other assets.
I gave him the scammer tag because he sold ownership of the company to various investors, after getting their money he then said "Sorry I'm worried about laws!" and shut the service down without the consent of the other owners, has not returned their investment, and caused significant financial loss. Pretty clear case of fraud. Even if it's the result of incompetence/ignorance it's still fraud. Reread the OP if you've forgotten what the thread is about.
If he's being forced by other parties to shut down the service because it's illegal, he's still the one who decided to open the service and he's still ultimately responsible for that. He caused financial loss to his investors by not doing his due diligence beforehand to make sure he would be able to keep his agreement.
Investors should have done their due diligence as well, but the buck doesn't stop there, and that doesn't let Nefario off the hook.
He made an agreement, he didn't/couldn't keep it (entirely due to his own action/inaction), he got the tag.
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For a long time it was only small-time scammers who ever got the tag quickly. Recently theymos has been willing to give the tag to high profile people much faster, although if Nefario can be tagged for closing down a service with no notice and leaving users in limbo for a few days it becomes harder and harder to justify those associated with Bitcoinica not having scammer tags months after they ceased communicating with and trying to repay their users.
That's not why I gave him a scammer tag. If that were the only issue I would have waited much longer, it's reasonable to give him some time to return the money and get a system set up. |
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I wanted to mention one more thing:
I have not been scammed or dumb enough to get caught up in Bitcoinica, Pirate, or GLBSE to date.
Funny thing though is that I'm the 3rd most ignored person on this entire forum. The biggest scammers like Pirate and Nefario are not ignored at all. So that tells me that people are just aching to be scammed and deserve to be scammed because they choose to listen to scammers like those two and decide to ignore me. I know i'm not the nicest person but I wont lie or scam someone or spout propaganda to fuel my own agenda like even Lukejr does. But whatever...
Anyways, go back and wait for the next big scam to get involved with.
Correlation =/= causation |
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I've decided Nefario will get a scammer tag for this. Speculating on intents and motivations behind his actions is fun and all, but it doesn't really have any bearing on whether he broke his contract or not. Like I said in Goat's thread, my role is to decide if he deserves a scammer tag based on his actions. If Nefario can't or won't elaborate on why he took the actions he did, that's his problem and he should take it up with the appropriate people. Even if he doesn't have control over his current actions (which I doubt), he did have control when he decided to start the business, and he did have control when he made the agreement and sold pieces of the company to the shareholders. This was a pretty good analogy that made me look at it a different way. You cant sue people for obeying the law. Which is basically what Nefario is doing, That is absolutely not true. Otherwise, an unlicensed contractor could make a contract to do some work for you, take your money, and then say, "Sorry, I'm unlicensed. I can't legally do the work." and you cant force the shareholders to do something illegal. Of course, but it's always legal to pay damages. You're certainly right that you couldn't force the contractor in my example to do the work. But you can certainly get your money back alone with any other damages, including punitive damages. If it goes well people will get their coins back, it sucks that AMl is involved but you gotta do what you gotta do. That's pure speculation at this point, at least so far as I know. If the contractor in my example says, "Sorry, the contracting board says I'm not licensed to do the work. Bye.", do you just take his word for it and let him off the hook for any damages you suffered? Asset owners have suffered damages because they relied on GLBSE. |
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Andddd this  <Phinnaeus> Re. Where am I (off-topic BitcoinTalk): Theymos was kind enough to give me a seven day vacation for posting off-topic. Tell everybody I said "Hey!" Damn, the nice guy gets a 7 day ban for going off-topic and I only got a 4 day ban for being a douche. Life is rough on the Bitcointalk forums. Because it was your first, not so for Phin. |
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This isnt about money laundering. GLBSE assets are unregistered securities, and a such selling them is illegal - at least in the US. Securities dont have to be nominated in are traded for fiat. They only need to represent value/debt.
But unregistered securities havent been sold thats the point, because it has to be bought with fiat, therefore nothing was officaly sold if nothing was offical bought, the law must provide a remedy if its accusing you of a crime, therefore if you had approached the alleged authroitys and said I need to register these security's they would of turned you away because they would not recognise them as security's therefore you would have had no remedy in law for the accused crime. No they don't have to be bought with fiat. They can be bought with anything of value, or else anyone could get around this law by buying corn/cows/bitcoin and trading with that. It's not fiat so it doesn't count isn't gonna fly. If you think the govt hasn't thought this through and don't have a plan or law in place for loopholes you're sorely mistaken. |
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Nefario has already stated he won't give the user database to theymos, so unless you can change his mind it's not likely.
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Nefario has defrauded me and others in several different ways and deserves a scammer tag.
- The BitcoinGlobal bylaws state that BitcoinGlobal's purpose is to operate GLBSE. By shutting down GLBSE without amending the bylaws, Nefario has violated the bylaws.
- He has stated that he would ignore any motion to remove him as CEO.
- He is knowingly making BitcoinGlobal shares worthless, violating his fiduciary duty.
- He is refusing to release my GLBSE balance without my ID, which I did not agree to.
Theymos has backed up all of these with evidence, and I'm satisfied the burden of proof has been met, even for the last point, which I didn't initially buy (MtGox anyone?). However, if Nefario is being compelled to do these things under threat of force (govt), should he still be given the scammer tag? Normally the burden of proof would be on him to prove he's under duress, but what if he's not allowed to, again under threat of force? That was one of my first concerns with the situation with Nefario/Goat, and it still is now. Laws and regulations are a pain, and make things a lot more complicated than they need to be. |
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Nefario has defrauded me and others in several different ways and deserves a scammer tag.
- The BitcoinGlobal bylaws state that BitcoinGlobal's purpose is to operate GLBSE. By shutting down GLBSE without amending the bylaws, Nefario has violated the bylaws.
- He has stated that he would ignore any motion to remove him as CEO.
- He is knowingly making BitcoinGlobal shares worthless, violating his fiduciary duty.
Now this is something I can act on. It also shines a new light on previous activites, but that's mostly speculation so I'll leave that for a later time. These are all clear breaches of contract, and several laws for that matter. Nefario doesn't own the company, the shareholders own part of it as well. He shouldn't do this without their consent, especially without even giving them a say via shareholder vote or to amend the bylaws. I'm talking to theymos for verification of a few things (bylaws, ToS, Nefario's statements), so if anyone has something to say that could affect my ruling, it should be done soon. |
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I don't get it, it's trivial to turn signature display off in your profile.
Not all sigs are spammy, obnoxious, and annoying. Just the ones like yours. |
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Hmm, threaded PMs may help with this issue. Kinda like Gmail style.
Yeah, save as new would be nice too. |
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I will not be mediating the situation between Goat and Nefario. There are better places to do that, with people who know their local laws better than I do. Goat is already taking advice from his lawyer, he should consult him on how best to deal with this situation, he'd probably know better than most people on an internet forum. Unlike both Nefario and Goat, I don't have legal counsel so I'd rather stay out of it. There are just too many uncertainties.
My role here is to decide based on the evidence if Nefario deserves a scammer tag based on his actions. Mostly because of the concerns I wrote about above, I'm undecided on this, which likely means no. I need to be certain of guilt to stake someone else's name and reputation on me being right, and undecided is a long way from certain. I'd also rather wait and see what's going on with GLBSE since it's only a couple more days, maybe that will clear things up a bit as to what's going on. I'd also like to see the results of whatever route Goat decides to pursue, hopefully he'll keep us updated on that. If he can get an official ruling on the legalities surrounding the situation then it's likely I'd go along with that.
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Well considering 10k BTC bought two pizzas not but three years in the past.
At least he received those. The "MUST FE!!!" means finalize early, which releases your coins from escrow to the seller. Good luck getting your plane delivered  . |
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Lack of explanation implies lawyers got involved. Wait and see what happens.
Yeah that's what I'm thinking. Saturday should be an interesting day. |
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No, posts aren't deleted for that. People who want their account deleted tend to delete their own posts though.
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