Looking into the compliance requirements of some exchanges can be very educational. Just googled these countries with internal and external passports. Fascinating stuff. The level of government control over their citizens. They need an internal passport to travel within their own country! Wikipedia says it is used to “control and monitor the internal movement and residence of its people”. Scary stuff.

That would be like needing a passport to travel from Boston to Atlanta. Imagine.

You want someone to lend you $8400 on the strength of your word alone? I can’t believe you have the audacity and shamelessness to nonchalantly type those words TYPE OF COLLATERAL: NONE

Why won’t you post your explanation here for not providing any type of collateral? All these stories of total and complete strangers borrowing thousands of dollars without any repayment assurances make for fascinating reading.

I'm a bit disturbed by all the newbies swarming here writing good things about the exchange.

That aside, it's always good to see diversity in the bitcoin community. Having options and choices is healthy for this industry and the technology driving it.

Trust is incredibly important when you run an exchange. Especially a new exchange which has no verifiable record of sustained success and credibility, no proof of consistent and balanced inflow and outflow of traded coins, and an insufficient operating history showing lengthy and significant track records.

Technically gifted scammers have the resources and know-how to build sophisticated websites designed to impress and entice even the most discerning and seasoned cryptocurrency trader. Scammers know it's difficult to steal here as an individual because of the escrow system which is why opening exchanges overnight is now all the rage. It's the best and surefire way to bypass the escrow challenge. That's because exchanges traditionally do not incorporate an escrow system. They are seen as the good guys while the users are, well, the less trusted little ones so they are expected to send or go first.

Using a fake exchange open doors to a higher inflow of coins at any given time which in turn translates to a proportionally larger loot for the thieves accrued within a very short period of time. The 3 components scammers need to initially invest are A) time to create the exchange, B) the technical elements and coding know-how for creating that exchange and C) the money to pay for A and B. Scammers are wiling to invest if they know the operation will later yield them a pile of money. A really big pile of cash.

OP might be a legitimate exchange but this is difficult to establish and ascertain. One has to look at the entire picture here, consider all angles of the triangle and think very carefully before sending coins to their hot wallet. There are so many out there that promised to be THE exchange which everyone has long waited for, only to do a quick exit after raking in millions or even less.

I see. I apologise for overseeing the other transactions.

I still recommend that you be careful. Even if PayPal is disputable and reversible, I suggest never sending first to zero-trust members. There seems to be a quick way to convert transferred PayPal funds to money or coins. I am still trying to find out how it’s done. I saw a few shady threads about BTC being sold for PayPal, undeterred by the reversibility issue.

Quickly withdrawing the money from the scammer’s PayPal account can’t be their way of doing it. It takes a few days for PayPal to actually execute the withdrawal process, during which time a dispute can stop it.

Bookmarking that link. Thanks for that.


Sounds like a good idea. This should be seriously considered just to be on the safe side.

Would be nice to see an additional link, perhaps beside next to home or logout above this page, showing a list of active escrows. Good for those super urgent trades. Just thought it might be useful for the community.

Am I right or am I right?

I was prepared to retract and apologize if I was proven wrong but in retrospect I won’t be using the edit key this time.

Were you somehow hoping he would send them to you first? I see you said no problemo but I swear I can almost smell and sense the disappointment.


Wisely said and done.

From day 1 of receiving the card up until it was deactivated for being a non-EU resident, my card always required a PIN to be entered for ATM and POS transactions. In situations when the cashier ignored the PIN challenge and pressed the green OK button, the transaction was always declined so I'm not sure how the thief in the above story managed to use the card, let alone steal the money.

Mistertango's MasterCard is a chip and PIN card. It is not a contactless card.

The only thing that comes into my mind is the customer being negligent. He probably had his PIN spied on when he used the card somewhere or he negligently exposed his PIN in another way.

He is lucky that Mistertango refunded the money in good faith. Probably did it to protect or boost their image. Other banks (mine especially) would fight tooth and nail against it. Banks will usually check if the customer was either negligent or if fraud was involved (for example, a friend acted as the "thief").

If all goes well, with the late afternoon or evening train from Paddington or Waterloo.

Or hitch a ride on the M3.

Be sure to meet up in a safe location. If not, lender might end up parting with more than 1 ETH.

It's a bit hard to rely on that single feedback of 3 years ago as a solid indicator of credibility. On top of that, yes, PayPal is definitely a high risk payment method. It is reversible and having a time window of 180 days to reverse the payment compounds the risks.

This is risky for you too. Scammers might invoke the old feedback/trust defense and ask you to send first. If you do that, you put your PayPal funds at risk. I'm not sure how scammers quickly spend PayPal funds before a dispute or chargeback is raised but they have ways of quickly converting them to coins.

That’s an unacceptably long wait. 20 days to respond to a ticket? This explains why there is so much doubt, uncertainty and skepticism about bitcoin as a digital asset. The wider public is afraid of the exchanges, traders, tools and whatnot which drive this technology. They advertise the ideal world of things, a perfect service, but the reality is the complete opposite.

Exchanges used to have my trust but I’m now wary and cautious. Paranoid even. Impressive websites no longer impress me. Thieves can build them overnight.

Store your assets in your own bank. That bank is a private key you and you alone know and control. You won’t have to wait 20 days to access your coins. Total peace of mind.

Forgot something? Hint: starts with e and it protects both seller and buyer.

Escrow. That’s the protection factor missing on your post above.

You keep bumping your thread but there are no offers. That’s because nobody will send first to a newbie. And if you’re expecting coins sent to you first, that’s just wrong. You should erase that from your mind and rewrite that post. Let a trusted escrow act as a middleman and you might see some offers trickling in.

As you can see above, if you want PayPal, you will be bombarded with offers from untrusted sources. Be careful. PayPal is reversible and your account will be locked and restricted if you receive funds from fraudulent sources.

Scammers know how to exploit PayPal's reversibility loophole and if you are not on your guard, you will lose your money AND account privileges. If you receive money sourced from phished or stolen credit cards or from hacked bank accounts, an entirely separate nightmare awaits you.

If trading BTC, LTC or ETH, use a trusted escrow for peace of mind.

Guardia di Finanza is a law enforcement agency. They won't share information about whatever they are investigating. Don't rely on this as the actual cause of this problem. You should first exhaust all tracing efforts. The post office should do an end to end check on their SWIFT or SEPA system. If the post office used a correspondent or intermediary bank, that bank should be contacted to check on the whereabouts of the money. The post office is not a bank which leads me to assume they might have used a commercial bank to execute the SEPA transfer.

These are large amounts so you should stubbornly investigate these SEPA transactions. They can't just disappear.

And that's a Dingtone number created on a Dingtone app using free credits. This app supports on-app SMS and calls which is how these scammers verify WhatsApp to make it seem like they're in the United States (in the above case, Texas).

Uhmm hello?? Did you forget something?

Perhaps that part about escrowing all transactions? Or was it intentionally withheld, hoping maybe that it might be overlooked?

When dealing with strangers, you can't expect them to send you coins or money upfront. The safe way forward is to use a trusted escrow on this forum. A trusted middle man secures the coins while you pay for them using an IRREVERSIBLE payment method. Now isn't that a much safer system compared to your post above?

Forget this fb and whatsapp nonsense. They are dangerous platforms to trade on. Use a trusted escrow on this forum for maximum transparency and safety.

__
Edit.. "middle man" finally inserted. Who would that be?

If Mistertango can't trace the payments on their end, then you should probably focus the tracing work on your client's end. You should also explore different angles of this issue and not just look into the non-receipt of the SEPA transfer. For example, you might want to check if your client did indeed send the money and wasn't making you run around in circles. After all, there are clients who tell Mickey Mouse stories too, you know?

If you are absolutely convinced of your client's integrity, then you might want to look into the red tape... Italy's Guardia di Finanza perhaps delaying the transfer while they do checks about it. They are, after all, well above the EU's 10k Euros mandatory reporting requirement.  

That's a vindictive way of seeing things. Just because people find your artwork extremely expensive (something I very much agree with) you then proceed with attacking the very philosophy behind this currency.

Yes bitcoin is volatile and prone to fluctuating rates and as such the price can rise and drop unpredictably. Why would you advertise your artwork here in exchange for bitcoin if you see no security and stability in it? If you don't believe in it, then you should approach Sotheby's or Christie's and ask them to auction off your artwork.

You are deluded if you think art always gains value. "Always" is the wrong word. Some artworks are worthless and might command a few dollars at most. Some do have value but they are those created by some renowned artists.

If you see your art as one so valuable, you shouldn't sell them. Keep them because, in your own words, they always gain value.

There is no need to mock people who find your prices absurdly high. It may not be a Van Gogh or Picasso but it's still expensive, given they are unknown artwork. Try selling them in Bucharest at those prices. Update us here if or when a buyer actually gives you that much money.
 

Curious about that highlighted part of your post above. Did you mean shipping on the same day or following day after receiving coins? Not everyone is within driving distance of Florida so I'm sure you're assuming the overwhelming majority of offers will come from those who need the Antminers shipped.

Have you considered using a trusted escrow here? Buyer sends the coins to the escrow and then you ship the Antminers. When the buyer receives them and confirms they are as described (brand new, never used, still boxed and fully functional) escrow releases the coins to you.

Just a few things... why do you use the non-standard dot in "9.999" and a comma left of the cents? This is usually used by someone who lives in Europe and not in the US.

Buyers.. use a trusted escrow on this forum. Avoid sending first. Even incrementally.

Did he actually do the deal? Or did he give you the silent treatment after you challenged him with getting escrow?


Have you actually completed a trade and sent any bitcoins?

Just seems like you're fishing for newbies who will send first. I know you keep saying you'll use escrow but I haven't seen any actual escrowed trade happening.