If they found you funny, someone would have bought you a SomethingAwful account by now.

He named some of them in another thread, not that the names are going to have any meaning to us.  While I think that referring to the people working on his projects as "executive" or "management" is pure wankery, I think he means that there are a total of 10 people working on the 13 projects he has on the boil.  This would certainly make more sense than trying to oversee 13 projects himself or having 10 people working on what is currently a minor project.

Mtgox has been having problems with LR withdrawals for over a month now.  Here's their latest notice about it.


https://mtgox.zendesk.com/entries/20239036-important-notice-libertyreserve-delays

It seems to me that the entities people are most concerned about are the exchanges and the online wallet services and obtaining financial services licences in their jurisdictions would do more to bind those services to a standard of conduct than any paid for endorsement by a newly established consumer group.  Short of expecting the exchanges and wallet services to hand over their accounting records, there's no way that UABB could legitimately verify their conduct as being totally above board - and no financial service provider in their right mind is going to hand over those records for a currently meaningless tick of approval.

That really leaves merchants as the ones who might be willing to pay for some kind of accreditation - if they believe that the fee they'll be paying for that accreditation will be more than offset by increased revenue and profit.  As those merchants are located all over the planet, it will be interesting to see what kind of accreditation process is planned and how it's going to be implemented across many different locations.

According to the "from the desk of Tom Williams" statement in June, two technicians have access to the server.


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=22221.msg279396#msg279396

You'd think that by now one of them would have realised that there's something wrong and that if something dramatic has happened to "Tom" they'd be trying to find a way to communicate with the users of the service.

It's going to be hard to get any authorities to take this seriously unless the coins are actually moved.  Right now the evidence of wrong-doing is limited to a website being down, something which I doubt is an offence in any First World nation.

Given that Mybitcoin went for maximum anonymity when creating the LLC and registering the domain, I'd be surprised if the hosting company has any details about the actual owner.  It's most likely that was arranged through their company agents as well, which means law enforcement would hit a dead end unless they're willing to devote a huge amount of resources to sifting through the hosting company's records to try to determine where the unknown owner logged in from. 

According to this thread, posted yesterday, there've been 62 changes to the whois record since the domain was registered and the original registrant was a William R Smart.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=33815.0

A Tracey Williams-Morton is listed as is listed a contact for Meridian Trust but Meridian Trust and its affiliate Morning Star Holdings are licensed trustees and company agents respectively.  It's likely that any name appearing in the whois records is that of a Meridian Trust or Morning Star employee rather than an owner or manager of Mybitcoin as there is no requirement for the identity of owners or beneficiaries to be disclosed when forming an LLC in Nevis.

Their ToS are "interesting", to say the least.  It seriously looks like someone's just cut and pasted from another contract and then made up a few additional clauses for shit and giggles.  I'd guess that at least some of those clauses would be found void by a court (I have no idea whether Minnesota law voids an entire contract if one of the terms is invalid).

Regardless of what bullshit they put in their terms of service, they're bound by the laws which regulate money transmitters in their jurisdiction - they can't contract their way out of those laws.  The clause stating that they won't entertain disputes in respect of virtual products is especially stupid because it precludes lesser remedies than a civil action (which would obviously be commenced in the plaintiff's jurisdiction) and courts generally don't like that.

They probably can change their ToS.  Banks and other financial services do it all the time by giving their customers advance notice of the change and therefore the option to "opt out".

I never cease to be amazed at the sheer length of time which seems to be involved in resolving disputes with financial service providers in the US.  I complain about it taking up to 10 business days here, but 90 or 180 days is utterly ridiculous unless the account has been frozen by court order.

Every legal system is different, but the Nevis clause won't necessarily protect them if they've committed a civil wrong such as the tort of conversion in another jurisdiction - they can't opt out of that jurisdiction's laws by means of contract.  That said, if they don't live in a particular jurisdiction where they've committed a civil wrong and they have no assets there, then judgements against them are effectively unenforceable anyway.

Just because their ToS states they're not acting as a bank doesn't make it factually true.  And all the disclaimers about liability in the world wouldn't help them if a court found that they are liable - some jurisdictions don't allow you to waive your basic legal rights so those clauses won't necessarily hold water in all cases.  The real questions are whether a court outside of Nevis would accept jurisdiction over the matter and whether there's any realistic prospect of forcing Mybitcoin to disgorge funds if they did.

All of the payment processors associated with online poker have been under scrutiny by the US Department of Justice.  There's obviously a risk that those services may find their funds frozen as the online poker drama continues to unfold.

Typically class actions can include plaintiffs who aren't citizens of the jurisdiction in which the action is being brought.  However, there are rules regarding the type of injuries which can be the subject of class actions, and a lawsuit doesn't become a class action until a motion for it to be designated as such has been granted.  The action needs to meet certain rules to be given that classification and they'll differ somewhat by jurisdiction, but there's often a requirement that the action be a certain size both in terms of the number of injured parties and dollar value.

This place is getting more like high school every day, with multiple service operators now acting like butthurt teenagers whenever they don't like a question about or a comment on their service.

Y'all need to grow up and behave like business professionals if you want the trust of the community instead of reacting like spoiled toddlers whenever someone criticises your precious ideas.

My understanding is that many of the services do put customer deposits in a single aggregated account.  Of course if that account gets compromised then you've got a whole lot of customers who are going to be SOL when it comes to redeeming their deposits.  Backups aren't going to be much use once funds/Bitcoins have already been transferred out of those master accounts.

The transactions may be visible but the block chain can't tell you whether they were legitimate transactions or not and in most cases ownership of the addresses can't be tied to a specific individual.

Sounds like CYA stuff on Dwolla's part.  It's not difficult to fake photo ID which isn't going to be physically examined.

It's not as though people aren't aware that the exchanges and other Bitcoin services they're dealing with are unlicensed and unregulated.  Anyone using those services should be well aware that their funds can be frozen by outside agencies without any notice and not store money or Bitcoins to which they might need immediate access with those services.

I also think it's a bit disingenuous for businesses to claim that financial services regulations don't apply to them unless they've actually applied for licensing and been told it's unnecessary.  It comes across as intentionally avoiding finding out about legal requirements until some outside authority steps in, which hardly inspires confidence that those services are following standard business practices with regard to separation of funds, maintaining adequate records, keeping data secure, etc.

It's even more complicated than that.  You're talking about a niche area of the law across multiple jurisdictions.  Your average "first consultation free" lawyer isn't likely to have expertise in the area of digital goods and services, let alone be familiar with the inner workings of contract law in other countries.  You'd literally need to hire a local lawyer to assess the merits of the case in each jurisdiction where you're considering taking action.  Even if you did somehow manage to find a lawyer willing to take the case on contingency and you did prevail in court, enforcing a judgment is another matter entirely.

From a lawyer's point of view, it's not going to be an attractive case to take on contingency, both because there's no 'deep pockets' defendant and because it's highly likely that the company's assets are located in a safe haven which won't domesticate the orders of a foreign court.

While I'm sure a private investigator can be found who's willing to take money for trying to track down the location of "Tom Williams", I question whether they're any more likely to come up with concrete, usable information than 4 chan would given the same starting point.

Just for the record, Blizzard is setting up an official auction house which will allow its users to sell their in-game assets for cash, starting with Diablo 3.

http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2011/08/01/diablo-3-to-allow-trading-gold-and-items-for-real-world-cash

Not sure whether you've seen this thread over in the Newbies section, but there are other names you can try to track down.  I suspect that they'll all turn out to be registered agents rather than the actual owners of Mybitcoin though - it looks like the domain (and probably the business itself) is being passed through a series of shell companies.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=33815.msg422131#msg422131

I think you also need to make clear that what you're asking people to send you at the moment is just information - it won't become an affadavit or a deposition until it is properly sworn in the presence of a legally authorised witness.

There are a few places online which are very good at tracking down real life information about people.  Depending on how far you're prepared to go, you might want to consider turning to those communities for help.  While they're likely quite hostile to Bitcoin in general, there's usually someone who wants to show off their internet detective skills.