Update:  iluvbitcoins paid in full plus an "apology tip". 

Thank you for making things right, bro.  I don't know how a miscommunication happened, but right now it doesn't matter.  I'm going to remove my neg from your trust page right after I post this.

Well, it's been over 24 hours since he PM'ed me, so I'm putting the negative feedback on his profile.  I've had no communication from him; he's got my bitcoin; and this is a piss-poor way of doing business.

We'll see how trusted he really is.  I have a hard time believing he's so incapacitated that he can't even drop me a PM to tell me what the delay is for.

And no, I would never take a loan from you and don't need to.  This is the world of bitcoin, and when people say "OK, let's do the deal right now" and then cease communicating after funds are sent to them, that should make anyone nervous.  I'm not being pesky.  I'm simply asking for a little bit of common decency when doing business.

I've never sent funds via wire and I don't feel like paying the fee--that's one reason why I'm not proceeding with the Gemini registration.  The other reason is that I don't like my bank, and right now it's the only one I've got.  A couple of years ago, the bank manager pulled me aside when I went in to make a deposit, and she asked me what "all those charges to Circle are".  I told her I was buying bitcoin, and I have a feeling I've been under suspicion ever since.

Thus I don't want to wire money from my bank to a crypto exchange.  And yeah, I probably should look for a different bank, but there aren't many available in my immediate area and it's just a fucking hassle jumping through hoops these days.  Banks and everything else have put up so many hoops it almost looks like that fuckin' awful Nintendo 64 Superman game when you try to create a new account with a bank or any other financial institution. 

How long has it been since your friend contacted support? 

I think I've used coinswitch a couple of times for some obscure altcoins and didn't have a problem with them--but there was another scam accusation thread that was started up against them not too long ago, too, so it sounds like either their customer service is extremely poor or they're not averse to scamming. 

It'd be so nice if apps didn't partner with instant exchanges like this one, which doesn't have an extensive (or very positive) reputation.  Thanks for posting the warning, OP.

Thanks.  I've done business with him once before, but I don't know much about him.  I did remove the neg I left on him after reading what you wrote, as I don't want to mess up his signature campaign if that even matters.

It's not that I mind waiting 24 hours or have no patience (though it might seem that way), it's that he seemed ready and willing to do the trade right when I agreed to the deal and sent the PM saying so to him--and then he just went away.  If that's not something a scammer would do, I don't know what is.  So that's why I'm a bit nervous and not just a little pissed off with the lack of communication on iluvbitcoins' part.  It's very unlikely he had a real-life crisis immediately after agreeing to the deal that's prevented him from communicating with me.

Anyway, I'll give him another 8 hours and then the negative goes back on his profile.  As of now he's got my money.

No, it was much lower than $1000.  They're a bunch of cocksuckers as far as I'm concerned--and I still haven't gotten either of my refunds yet.  I'm having a shitty day and I'm glad it's almost bedtime.

I fucking hate to start threads like this one, but you know when you get that feeling in the pit of your stomach that you're in the process of getting scammed?  Yeah, well that's what it feels like right now.

I PM'ed iluvbitcoins looking to sell him some bitcoins, as he had a selling thread and I was looking to sell.  He PM'ed me back:


This was the next PM from him:

I replied:
And then--very stupidly, and I know this so don't remind me--I sent him the bitcoin.  Keep in mind that the above exchange of PMs was around 12 hours ago and I've not heard a word from him since then or received any PayPal funds.

I was even feeling generous:

I subsequently sent him more PMs as time passed:
And as of right now, the bitcoin I sent him has been confirmed on the blockchain.

I'm leaving him a negative trust until this gets straightened out.  There's no reason why he should set up a deal and then just disappear.  It's nerve-racking and inconsiderate at the very least, and who knows if he'll even send me what he owes me?

If this isn't resolved when I wake up in about 9 hours I'll fill out a proper scam accusation form.  

Lol, I think you're overthinking the process--but at least you're thinking about it.  And I sometimes have trouble giving merits to Jr. Members and especially Newbies or Brand New members, because (and I hate to say this) chances are if they wrote a valuable, coherent post there's a good chance it's plagiarized.  Sometimes I'm too lazy to verify that so I just don't give any merits.

I don't know if you're a merit source or not, but if you're not then I could understand being so selective about what posts you merit.  But if you're a merit source it's much less of a concern, because those sMerits get replenished pretty quickly.

I should probably un-ignore Bitcoin Discussion and have a look-see and perhaps find some lower-ranked members writing some hidden gems.  You never know.

Yeah, I can't get past this:



And if vapourminer is correct and you need to wire money to them, I'm not doing it.  Today I had to get a refund from Bitpay for an invoice that they fucked up and they made me go through full KYC procedures in order to get that refund (which still hasn't arrived).  Shit is no joke these days--I even had a much harder time renewing my driver's license this year.

George Orwell's vision is coming true, man.  Big Brother is glaring at us from everywhere.

I don't know anything about those updates, but I was on their website earlier today looking at opendimes and some of the other products they offer.  I'd heard of the ColdCard before, but the aesthetics just don't appeal to me (though the functionality certainly does).

I did order something from them and was grateful that they actually accept bitcoin.  Later in the day when I wanted to purchase something from the Ballet site, I was chagrined to find out that they don't take bitcoin.  It seems crazy to me that any crypt-oriented business wouldn't take at least bitcoin as payment.  Oh well, they lost out on a sale.

No, you're on the money--a Ponzi is a Ponzi no matter how much you put lipstick and fishnets on that ugly pig.  But whether it's allowed or whether it's prosecuted when discovered by regulatory agencies/law enforcement depends on where the Ponzi is operating out of, and if I'm not mistaken Yobit is in Russia.

That's the only thing I've ever known (or thought I've known) about Yobit, that they're Russian.  So I'm thinking wherever in Russia they are, the government isn't looking very closely at what they're doing--or they're getting a payoff of some sort.  Corruption is everywhere, and not just in Russia.

And yeah, this YoPump is a bunch of horse shit served up on a poo poo platter to suckers who like gambling and don't mind losing money.

OK, so here's a followup:

I was able to easily add my debit card as a method of "instant funding" (or whatever they called it), and then after going through the KYC process they said the next step was to send a wire deposit to them(!). 

I've never sent money via wire before, and I really don't want to.  Therefore I figured if that was the only option to continue on Gemini, I would close my account.  Which I did.  I couldn't even buy bitcoin with the debit card that I'd entered.

Did I do something wrong here or what?

I'm not so sure we all know that--or perhaps I should just speak for myself.  I didn't think DeFi had anything to do with bitcoin's meteoric rise, nor did I see any mention of DeFi in any of the discussions I read about that rapid increase.  Most opinions I read (and I agree with this) were linking recent purchases by a handful of big institutional buyers like MicroStrategy and others to the price increase.  That makes a lot more sense to me, because tons of buying usually leads to a higher price.

That sounds about right--and I honestly don't even fully understand what DeFi is all about other than offering brave investors a chance to make astounding returns.  I have yet to hear how it's going to solve a real-world problem, and I've got my doubts about the whole thing.  Maybe I just got too jaded after all those useless ICOs went bust.

Me too--I can't stand too much white on anything, including websites, walls, cars, and sclera.  The dark mode and the overall look of what OP created it pretty damn good if you ask me, and if I ever accessed bitcointalk on my smartphone I'd be happy to have the site showing up like that.  

I used to visit the forum a lot on my phone, but I don't anymore--but when I did, the lack of a modern mobile-friendly site used to drive me up a fucking whitewashed wall.  I (and a lot of other vocal members) could never understand why Theymos hadn't kept up with the times in that respect.  Yeah, I get that the new forum software should be arriving any day now, but bitcointalk has been mobile-unfriendly for as long as mobile-friendly sites have existed.  Think about that.

I kind of agree with you, although the image you showed is kind of overused.  It looks like Mycelium's, Reddcoin's, Curecoin's, and I'm sure tons of other coins and assorted blockchain projects' logos, i.e., it's very unoriginal. 

However, the benzene-sniffing part of my brain really likes it.

OP, I don't know how you ended up on DT (other than it's a rotating system now), but if you think this guy is still the shady person who tried to blackmail and impersonate you, don't hesitate to leave him a negative.  That's what the power of being on DT is all about.

However, if you think he's being sincere then let the neutral stand--but in my cynical head, he might be trying to make peace with you precisely because you're on DT now, and any neg left for him has a much greater impact.

Good, I'm glad you're being responsible--but again, if someone deserves a negative, leave them a negative.

And I'm going to ask a simple question here, because I haven't read all the posts in the few threads about the Ledger leak:  is it safe to keep using my Nano X to store crypto on?  Right now I've got some altcoins on it that otherwise don't have a home.  I'd appreciate it if someone a lot smarter than me could advise me on that single question.

Thanks in advance.

Edit:
I get that, which is why I like hardware wallets, but there seemed to be a vibe of doubt that Ledger perhaps wasn't storing data like private keys and such.  Is that an actual concern for anyone or am I just being paranoid?

It surely is, and I don't know about the P&S section, but some of the others are floor-to-ceiling moronery 24/7.

Being pro-Trump right now isn't very popular at all, given what happened in Washington, but OP and anyone else has the right to express their opinions however they see fit as long as they don't break forum rules (like inciting violence or threats).  Bitcointalk is awesome in that Theymos doesn't want to censor free discussion, so I think you're in the clear OP.

I basically just wrote out what you said--I should have read the thread before posting, but that's a bad habit of mine.  What you said is on-point.

Bro, I am being sincere when I tell you that I'm very happy for you--I read an article yesterday mention in this thread about how a journalist was finding it really hard to buy bitcoin, and one of the exchanges he mentioned was Gemini.  And ever since Circle stopped selling bitcoin I've been having a problem buying bitcoin on exchanges as well, so I created an account with Gemini.  Right now it's in the process of being verified, and I haven't tried to buy anything yet.

I have no doubt that they're like Coinbase in so far as they kind of have to look into where your bitcoin is coming from and going to, but that doesn't have me all that concerned.  I'm not gambling or buying anything illegal with any bitcoin I buy from them, and I don't plan on selling or otherwise depositing any bitcoin onto Gemini. 

Should be interesting to see whether I'm actually going to be able to make a purchase and withdraw it to my own wallet.  Wish me luck.

Props to you for that.  I thought I tried pretty hard and yet only moved up to #32 from #33--but hey, at least I made a little bit of progress!

My sMerits seem to be replenishing much slower than they have been as of late, and I'm almost out of source sMerits, which usually never happens.  Anyway, I'm hoping to improve on that #32 by next month.  It was my new year's resolution to be a better merit source, and I'm trying.

It's a tossup between Spoetnik, MPOE-PR, and mixan, but unfortunately neither one of them are active anymore.  If I had to recommend the nicest member who's currently active, it would be myself.  I'm not a cunt like OP and a lot of other shitposters and generally try to help people out even if they're being complete morons.

Or Jet Cash.  He's pretty nice, too.

Edit:  Jesus, how could I have forgotten about him so quickly?  Yet he's also inactive these days, so I guess OP's question has yet to be answered unless he goes for Jet Cash.