Bitstamp is most definitely not a scam. They are a properly licensed exchange and they enjoy an almost bank-like status in the EU. This is a rare honor among exchanges which is why Bitstamp jealously guards it against withdrawal by Luxembourg's financial regulators. It is this accreditation which gives their customers the peace of mind and confidence, knowing there are proper accountability and audit systems in place.

If you are experiencing any problems with your account, you should contact them if the issue persists outside or beyond the range of dates mentioned on this link:

https://www.bitstamp.net/article/bank-holidays-25-26-december-2017-and-1-2-january-/

Be persistent and patient. Remind them about it and I'm sure it will eventually be resolved.

When transacting with you on Skype, I'm curious how you intend to do this "instant exchange from your list". Do you insist you get the coins first without engaging escrow from this list:  

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=855778.0

Or do you refuse escrow requests and want coins sent first to your wallet?

Until he responds, I would urge anyone interested in trading any of the pairs listed above to think and act carefully before sending any coins first.

Hint to everyone: Bangladeshi whatsapp number with Nigerian connections (see previous posts). He is also known to start threads and never follow up on those threads or respond to comments made on those threads. He posts here and sits and waits on Skype for those who just can't resist biting that bait.

If it's been a few days, I doubt the thief would have left the coins sitting on his Localbitcoins account to this very day. He might have already tumbled and laundered your coins long before PayPal limited your account.

I have been repeating myself here about PayPal's reversibility risks to a point where I probably sound like a broken radio or a retarded parrot but I do it in the hope it will at least save one from being victimized by a PayPal chargeback scammer. Your experience is an example of the kind of scam you see on an almost daily basis in the currency exchange, loans and goods sections. The throwaway accounts keep coming, a never ending cycle of creating accounts, scamming, discarding accounts and creating more.

Yes, you can open a ticket but I doubt you will get any coins back.... unless the thief's LBC account was locked after the transaction or placed on forced holiday. This happens when users trigger the site's automated fraud detection system which then refers the account for manual review or identity verification. If you're lucky, the thief's coins might still be on his account. Open a ticket but don't get too excited. Expecting a loss will help you cope with the situation better if it turns out the coins are gone.

I would still recommend that you report the matter to Localbitcoins. Banning and suspending the thief's account will at least help prevent further misuse of that account.

This is a sad story of exploitation but it's all done legally. I wish I knew how to mine coins had I known it would be so profitable... or maybe not. Seems like mining equipment are complex toys and you really need to know what you're doing to recover the cost of those super computers. Then you have electricity. Won't work where I live. The local utility company here are in bed with the Prime Minister and they enjoy monopoly at its finest (and priciest!) form.

Going back to the topic in hand, I can't help but agree with you about that bus ticket analogy you used above. I accept and realize however that it's either I pay or I wait ages in line. I'd rather pay and enjoy priority service served while the rest of the stingy penny-pinching crowd waits.

Sending microscopic small amounts of coin will hurt badly. Using bitcoin as a merchant in a retail environment is probably best avoided. Imagine paying $4 worth of coin for a cup of coffee but seeing $20 taken from your wallet with fees included.

70 days is a horribly long waiting period. Even banks resolve account issues within days but never months. Just imagine the scandal it would create if exposed.

These are the challenges which prevent bitcoin from being adapted and accepted widely in a commercial or retail setting. It's the computer age with super fast systems in place and not those years of 64kb ram desktops. What I'm saying is it's unacceptable to wait this long to resolve any issue which has to do with a technology that was designed to speed up financial transactions in the first place.

For as long as exchanges continue this cycle of locking accounts and blocking coins, sometimes even indefinitely, there will always be uncertainty and fear in the trading environment. I'm not sure if the idea of creating a Crypto Ombudsman might help in quickly resolving open issues. Banks use a similar resolution system and they seem to act quickly when customers escalate problems to the Financial Ombudsman. 

You just destroyed your account. As a bank clerk, you should know that valid collateral is always required when applying for a loan. This is the basic and inviolable rule of lending anything, whether it's money or bitcoin.

Address, ID, passports, bank statements and similar stuff cannot be sold or auctioned off in case the loan is not repaid. Collateral must be something your bank also accepts, one that is valid and with value preferably exceeding that of the loan.

8000 Euros is a lot of money. Nobody will lend you this money unless you can provide a lien or collateral of at least 120% of EUR 8000.

You worked for a bank and you should know that collateral is a universal requirement of any bank on this planet when they lend money. No bank lends on the strength of their customer's word alone.

Can't you borrow from your employer?

Kraken's site has been having issues for months now. I have a Kraken account and it was linked to a protonmail email account. My protonmail subscription lapsed so I requested Kraken to de-link that email address and link my Outlook email account instead. From that day I submitted that request, the whole updating process was a nightmare. I had to reverify my identity, KYC, proof of address and latest bank statements etc. For every submitted document, I had to wait weeks for a response. The entire procedure took 3 months.

They used to be a very good and professionally run exchange. SEPA transfers were executed on same-day basis. The money arrived on my IBAN account within hours. Withdrawals were quick and painless. Not sure what happened since then. Management issues perhaps or policy changes or maybe operational issues. Endless open tickets and countless complaints about them on this forum alone. Their website seems to be online on certain hours of the day with frequent cloudfare outages. Sometimes I suspect they deliberately refuse access to their trading site as a way to manipulate the market.

Never store massive amounts of coins (or all your crypto assets) on any exchange. The risk of being locked out and denied access to your coins is a dangerous game of Russian roulette.

Such a shame, the scam didn't work nicely for you this time, hey? Well, you could try again tomorrow or perhaps create a new throwaway account and start selling nonexistent coins to naive newbies here. As the saying goes, there's always a rainbow after the rain. It rained today and you obviously didn't get any dough but who knows, tomorrow might be a good day to scam someone, right?

Find a decent job and make your family proud. Be a role model to your own family. Stop stealing. Does it give you satisfaction knowing you robbed someone online of their valuables? Aren't you ashamed of putting food in that stomach of yours, knowing it was paid for with money you stole? And who is Shantelle... your user name spelled backwards? Your mother or wife or girlfriend or daughter? Do they know you're a thief?

 

PayPal is reversible and you have no history of successful trades here. You can charge back PayPal payments up to 180 days. You are offering above market rates to lure or entice people to do this.

Ebay and PayPal are a scammer’s perfect scam tools. Escrow cannot help because you can recover your payment after getting the ETH.

Offer a different way to pay for the ETH. It should not be reversible and it should be an escrow-friendly type of payment method.

Trade here. Telegram and Skype are scammer territory. Stop scamming people. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?

Your other thread is telling a different story:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2636659.0

Which is really which? You wanted bitcoins and now you’re selling them. You also wanted to get rid of PayPal and now you want PayPal. This is a confusing scam. Please fix it and scam properly.

Ok now I’m confused. On another recently created thread you claim to need PayPal for your bitcoins:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2650483.0

On this thread you want to get rid of your PayPal and want bitcoins instead.

This is showing all the red flags of a full blown obvious scam. Threads like this destroy your credibility and might even get your account painted bright red by those who take offense at your dishonesty.

You will have some explaining to do if you want to save this throwaway account from being negged soon.

Your (hopefully) honest and genuine intentions aside, PayPal is not just frowned upon. It is downright despised for the 180 days window of opportunity for reversing and disputing transactions. Scammers exploit these generous 6 months to recover their payments. There have been stories here of people trading and finding out 3 months later that payments were reversed. If there is no money on the PayPal account, PayPal will stubbornly dig into linked bank accounts and credit cards, putting scammed victims in such a financial mess.

Having a new account here doesn't help much. It's in fact a bit discouraging and is often seen as a red flag.

As for newbie account offering to sell you coins, be on your toes. Use escrow and don't count on their claims that you could reverse or dispute the transaction anyway so go ahead and send the PayPal payment first... take none of that nonsense. Escrow is a must when transacting with strangers.

Have you tried VirWox?

This is a lesson on the importance of paying the right fees. Pay almost nothing and you wait forever. Pay the correct fee (yes, it might be expensive) and you are given the red carpet treatment.

As mentioned by others, you should try free accelerators or search for someone here who might know someone from a mining pool who can confirm your transaction for a fee. A lot of "who" there. When you need something done, it's all about knowing someone with friends of friends of those you need help from. To avoid all the drama and confusion, pay the right fees.

22 days. That's a long wait. Wait longer and you will have a whole month to talk about. The perfect ice breaker topic to end any dinner party awkwardness.

Sorry to see you in this predicament. On the bright side, bitcoin seems to be regaining strong ground again. Better than 22 days ago at 12k per coin. If you see your coins confirmed today or before the end of the year, this should be something to be happy about.

Credit cards come with charge back risks. They are reversible and disputable. Banks conservatively side with the non-bitcoin party (the person claiming to have been defrauded when in fact he did use the card to buy bitcoin). Simply dispute the transaction and drop the B word (B as in Bitcoin) and banks might reverse the money to the card. Scammers know most traditional banks are anti-bitcoin and they exploit this window of opportunity which explains why buying bitcoins with credit card is still a challenging piece of work.

Then you have the phishers, cloners, identity thieves etc who all do their part to make it even harder for legitimate bitcoin traders to build a positive long-term relationship with their card payment processors and acquiring bankers.

As for any vouches here, be careful of such recommendations. You never know until it's too late. By that I mean they might be after your card information which you input on their website. You don't get any coins and end up seeing a bunch of strange transactions on your next credit card statement.

This is morally, ethically and plain wrong. He needs the endorsement and good name of well-connected bitcoin professionals to be linked or attached to his ICO. There is always a motive for such things and the only one I can think of right now is a fishy one.

Having someone's good name endorsing or vouching for his ICO will lure unsuspecting and naive investors to pump funds into his ICO. It's the connections which count and which make a difference. Imagine a scenario where Roger Ver's credentials are linked to his ICO. That would be a huge jump from nothingness to greatness!

And of course he will compensate for those credentials. It's akin to bribing someone to say he and his ICO are on the up and up. Then when the scam (if it does turn out to be a scam) is exposed, guess whose name is dragged through the mud later..

Why is it BS? Are you in tantrum mode again? They told you there is a problem with their SMS system and to wait for the problem to be fixed. What is wrong or abnormal about a Korean (or any other) exchange having such issues? If you live in a perfect world, then there is a lot to learn and catch up with outside that world you live in.

The exchange is in Korea and therefore caters primarily to users in that jurisdiction. If you live elsewhere and hope to use this exchange's services, they are not obliged to offer that service and if they do, it wouldn't be "BS" if there are issues here and there. It could be a very real SMS systems issue. It could also be a precautionary or preemptive issue as a result of recent hacking problems affecting Korean exchanges.

http://on.wsj.com/2kQQdN4

No need to throw a tantrum over a system glitch. Wait for them to fix it or look for alternatives.

Thank you for that. That’s the right approach. Straight, direct and blunt.

I have a feeling this is one of those “collateral for sale” tricks again. But going by the kind of collateral offered, I should probably rephrase that with junk for sale.

Take everything with a grain of salt and do your due diligence. That’s Safety with a capital S at its finest.

As for the borrower, looks like your junk coins will find no takers here. Try again with a valid altcoin for a happier ending.

A friendly reminder... do not forget to use escrow. Promises to pay or deliver something have no redeemable value here. Rely on a middle man to protect both buyer and seller.

List of trusted escrows:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=855778.0

Use escrow and you won’t be sorry.

Here is a list of trusted escrows:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=855778.0

PayPal transactions are not escrowable trades because the risk of payment being reversed defeats the core purpose of escrow which is meant to protect both buyers and sellers from reversing payment or defaulting on the terms agreed. Skrill, Venmo and Neteller transactions are also reversible and therefore high risk payment methods too.

By using escrow you contribute positively by promoting a safer community. Over time you will gain the respect and trust of this community.

As for the escrow procedure, you should contact a trusted escrow on the link above and discuss the transaction including escrow fees, if any. The escrow will provide instructions which should be followed to protect everyone involved.

Yes, lots of questions indeed! So geht es nicht, meine Herren!

You have a new account here and you are discussing high value transactions without escrow. Transactions must be escrowed which means a trusted escrow from this list:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=855778.0

must be involved and engaged to hold the bitcoins in suspense until the car is delivered and inspected to the satisfaction of the buyer. Not a single Satoshi is paid upfront.

A lot of scammers offer nonexistent products and services. Buyers are asked to pay upfront. If a buyer disagrees, the scammer insists on a deposit instead. Either way, it’s still a scam. The scammer’s goal is to gain or steal something, no matter how large or small the amount.

For this offer to work transparently, you must agree to use escrow or a trusted middle man to hold the bitcoins. This would mean having enough money to buy and ship the car upfront. A challenging task that is, I’m sure.