Knowing who we're dealing with doesn't seem to help. Look how many idiots there still are supporting Bruce for an example.

Actually, I'm pretty sure he's way too stupid for jail to be a deterrent, but comedy doesn't always have to be completely accurate.

I've been doing transactions with BitcoinExchange pretty much since he first opened up shop. I've found him to be nothing short of helpful and prompt. The closest thing I have ever had to having a problem with him was when I swapped some BTC for an electronic gift card, and the merchant I wanted a gift card for has a somewhat too aggressive "anti-fraud" system in play. BitcoinExchange went to them as soon as I indicated I hadn't gotten the card after the 48 hours and I had it the next day, which was actually pretty good considering the trouble I had when a friend got me a gift card at the same place for my birthday... took weeks of my friend arguing with them before I could spend it.

Now, I've never actually gotten anything besides gift cards to go spend when I end up trading bitcoins for fiat through him, but what I can tell everyone is that I have never actually had a good experience with Western Union. And BitcoinExchange deals with a bunch of different services when people want those -- all of which are fiat organizations that have a business model that depends on their "right" to charge for anything passing through. If these companies weren't such a giant pain in the ass we wouldn't have had a market niche for Bitcoin in the first place, would we? Bitcoin offers secure, instant transfer of wealth worldwide, just like the existing systems claim to. Except the existing systems charge a sometimes very large fee, have terrible customer service, and play games with the money while delaying its delivery. I've never had money sent to me via WU that I've been able to get in less than 3 days, ever. So even if you discount the fact that WU might have a reason to see Bitcoin die, it's not as if they're some stellar company with tons of satisfied customers and no complaints...

If you choose to give Western Union your business, and have BitcoinExchange send your money through them, put the blame where it belongs when Western Union screws the pooch, because this guy has a lot of happy repeat customers, including myself.

Fixed it for you.

Um, this was the Bitcoin forum, not the sex workers forum. Guess with Bruce being in both worlds it was an easy mistake to make though.

*facepalm*

I thought it was cute that I got a dialog box saying my wallet was being uploaded. First thought in my head was, "Neat trick, since there's no wallet on this machine."

Almost everything has supporters, no matter how obviously stupid it is. Just look at some of the people we elect to Congress. :/

All the facepalming I do reading this forum is giving me carpal tunnel syndrome, guys...

Actually, I am quite convinced that rms would never do such a thing, which is why I just said "Obviously doesn't like the MIT license." This thread was a takeoff of one in a different section of the forum that was frankly funnier in this one.

I'm sorta wondering what's wrong here where I can't post an obvious joke and have it taken as a joke.

I'm only repeating the findings of a court that Bruce couldn't successfully appeal, so he can't touch me.

Not me. This is just too much god damn fun.

Yeah, Atlas never seemed to mean any harm and he likes Bitcoins and that's really the point here, so I got no problem with him.

Unless the big bad wolf eats her first. *BURP*

Well, you putting in your two cents (literally) is a good start.

We could all get together and beg Gavin to reduce the block reward to 5 coins and make 0.5BTC fees mandatory. Same net effect, forces everyone to participate, still seems pretty fucking pointless.

Yes, it did.

There was a very long list of victims to compensate, by amount.

Uh-huh. Bruce was accused of charging tons of money with no intention of providing services. Obviously Bruce's lawyer is going to make damn sure to bend the story so his client LOSES by telling Bruce "Hey, ignore the request for a list of customers you actually provided the service to after taking their money, and don't admit to having successfully helped anyone."

Could not name to the court even _ONE_ customer he helped, but claimed to have had successes when taking customers' money.

If it was just an issue of overestimation? Taking on too much work? Getting overwhelmed? Well, he would have helped -some-, just nowhere near as high a percentage as a properly functioning business would. The only way you run a business for several months and take money from every single customer but do not provide a service to _EVEN ONE_ customer... is if you didn't plan to provide service. Or if you got hit by a tornado or some shit, of course, but that isn't what Bruce claimed happened.

If you had read my posts on the Pattaya thread you would know I was repeatedly telling the people shouting "pedophile!!" to either provide proof or shut the fuck up. The same is true of MyBitcoin. Many people have suspicions, especially given Bruce's prior scams, but at least so far nobody has unearthed enough evidence to make a reasonable accusation.

As to whether he was the sole employee: Well, as the owner, yes he actually is responsible for things like the content of the ads. Especially since by his own admission it started as a very small operation (he implied, though did not numerically state, only 1 person besides himself) and he claims to have only gotten "overwhelmed" after he ran the ads. Yes, if he's the owner of a two person company he's responsible for the content of the ads. He's responsible for making sure they're factual. The guy in charge is supposed to be in charge. Which is true even for large companies, but in a two person company... it's really hard to say, "Oh, yeah, I never even thought to look at the webpage I paid a web designer to hire" with any credibility.