What happened: Yesterday, I made a post with a buy offer for 10 BTC worth of Mastercoin (see
here). Received a PM from "Q" saying they would sell the MSC at my desired price using "Bitmerch escrow".
This invoice page was linked. I did some quick looking around to see if Bitmerch had been flagged anywhere as a scam, but wasn't able to find anything.
Those of you looking at the page that was linked are likely face-palming quite hard. I was in a hurry to get the trade done as I had other things to do and only took a quick glance at the blue text, which seemed legitimate. Unfortunately, in my haste I failed to notice that the blue text was a part of the description,
not the Bitmerch website. I did notice that the grammar was a little messed up, but in my quick search on Bitmerch it appeared they were Russian or something along those lines, so small errors in grammar didn't ring alarm bells. Silly mistake.
I made payment to the "escrow" address and sent "Q" a PM telling them as much. Never heard from them again.
I have
never fallen for a scam on the internet, and I've been a part of quite a few communities rife with scammers. Unfortunately, this slip-up was a costly one. Be diligent.
Scammers Profile Link: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=94036Reference Link: N/A
Amount Scammed: 10 BTC (roughly $185 each at the time, I believe)
Payment Method: BTC
Proof of Payment: Transaction sent from Bitcoin clientBitmerch page showing completed transaction. If you can't access that,
here is a screenshot of the page.
PM/Chat Logs: Here. I've edited them together chronologically.
Additional Notes: He has been online several times since this and is still sending PMs, attempting to scam people. (see
here)
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