How does this work?  Part of me kind of hopes scammers are full of intricacies and subterfuge while making the impossible seem simple through charm and wit and distraction but here is what most of them seem to be:

Me: I'll trade you 10k scamcoins for 100 Realcoins

You:  That is a good price.  Ok!

Me: You send first

You: >SEND<

Me:

You:  Where are you?

Me:

You

Me:

----------------------------------------------------

That's it isn't it? 

You guys better copyright your stories before David Mamet writes a play about you.

You might want to stop posting stuff here about him unless it is new information that can actually leverage you with him to get your money back.

If I was a scammer and I read post after post after post about how fat I was and how unhappy you were I would be quite happy.  Why?  Because I could point to it and say "This guy is a nut.  He thinks he gave me money (or he bought a product and like a crazy person, did not know how to use it and blames me now".

Instead, trace his assets.  Hit him where it hurts.  Most of these psychos have lots of little scams, crimes and what not going on and use their "legitimate" business to hide them.  Find those scams.  Find his undeclared money.  Find people who deal with him IRL and talk to them.  Don't talk to them like an angry person who got ripped off though, talk to them like a professional person who is just "doing business".

Also, If I were I scammer, I would read all this and say to myself "I bet this guy has another $5k to spend on someone who will help him get his money back" and then I would find a way to take $5k from you and seeing how fast you gave up more than that and how angry you are I am guessing it would be pretty easy to rip you off again.

Having done asset location and recovery work before, I can tell you that no one gets a cent until what is owed is recovered and no one can legitimately recover assets unless their is a court judgment against someone.  So if I said to you "Pay me a retainer and then I will get your money back" then you would likely never see your retainer fee again either.

Sue this person.  Stop posting stuff here.  Get a judgment against him, then the Asset recovery people will find you.

(and no, I won't help you)

I heard that Bryan Micon has a system that plugs into an Android based pad that is composed of specially designed chips that compute complex algorithms at a hash rate significantly higher than other poker decoding systems but really it is just a $30k box of fans but that has not stopped him from taking pre-orders as fast as he can get them.

Or maybe I am thinking of someone else.

Did he at least ship his non-working poker system?

I'm guessing he is Russian based on his facebook profile.  Most Russian scammers / hackers I have known have their avatar as friends with their real friends and their real name.

So all I had to do to make money was just say I made an outrageous GPU cluster and (not) sell it?

Mine are cranking along but it will be a while before I break even and to think all I had to do was pretend I had one and then offer it for sale.

This whole thing makes me think that the only way to make money in bitcoin is either speculation or fraud.  The speculation side will make it little used as an actual currency, so I am afraid it is gonna crap out bigtime one day.

Seems logical but you have to remember in some places of the world "a few hundred dollars" will last for quite a long time.  Even in more familiar areas of the world (like where I post from in the USA) there are people who simply have lots of pots on the scam stove.  So a person might be a MLM, Post ads on Craigslist to try to steal Ebay accounts, take surveys online, or whatever.  Plus a lot of scammers are easy to scam themselves, all you have to do is offer to sell them the means to perform a scam (like scammers in India getting scammed by being sold "Legitimate IDs" to take surveys online as a non-Indian) so they might be trying to recoup losses as well.

Most scammers are piss-poor since only a few get a big payout and the rest are just foolish people with no long term planning ability.

How many of the 1500 have you purchased from here? 

If "none" is your answer I think you may have to find another way to acquire bitcoins.

Appears to be scamming poker sites too by pretending to be people of a similar name as established posters.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28/internet-poker/p2p-transfers-chat-thread-no-trading-itt-1079166/index235.html


I bet these scammers have many, many handles and the reason why so many attempts are similar is that they are often the same person.

He is selling stuff sold in Starbucks retail outlets.

He/She/It apparently scammed people on a poker site not too long ago

http://forum.parttimepoker.com/appeals-forum/920556-swc_league-appeal-investigation.html

Perhaps his BTC scam is going to pay off gambling debts?

and 26 days ago he was gambling with bitcoin here:

http://www.bitmadness.com/pool.php?g=F3TBSWSF64


and here he is selling coffee and tea and offering to unlock cell phones.

https://www.bitmit.net/en/item/22863-cafe-escapes-chai-latte-24-cup-keurig-box

I get the impression he works at a Starbucks in the US.

He has also gambled on the Superbowl here:

http://www.properbowl.com/standings

You could be right and probably are.  But when I check these things I check with the possibility that someone made a mistake early on with an older e-mail found in a whois cache.  Sometimes they hit, sometimes not.  Sometimes they just cause more head scratching.

No, its not proof.  In fact, I have found bitlotto.com to be the only time bitcoingames@hotmail.com was used to register a site.

What I did was check bitcoingames.com , .net and .org

Those are the names I have and it proves nothing.  That was why I did not want to post them here but I thought others might know something I do not and be more helpful.

I did some checking and bitlotto has a false whois giving an address in Calgary that does not exist.

(or I could not find it on google maps so double check me.)

The old e-mail is bitcoingames@hotmail.com (if I am right in checking bitlotto.com) which leads to some interesting results but I have no idea if they are related to bitlotto.com.

I don't want to start rumors and I am new here so I do not know who is who.  But feel free to PM me for the names I got associated, possibly, with bitcoingames@hotmail.com but only if you remember it is not proof I am giving you so you gotta act accordingly.

Most announcements of BTC website ideas make me slap my forehead,  But this one is awesome.

What always ticked me off about "gossip" sites was that they tended to focus on what doesn't really matter to real people (Celebrities) but instead if "gossip" type sites focused on government and its players I think it would do more to keep people who really effect lives to be more honest.

So go forth, kick ass, and take names. (and good luck)

I just looked it up. 

I am one now.

What the BFL labs youtube video reminded me of (the one where everyone waved while annoying music played) was what I saw in NYC during the dotcom boom while I was going to interviews.

I went to one place, and I think it was called StockBack, but I am not totally sure, and they had people assembling computers there, a large and friendly staff and the guy interviewing me said "I hope you like stress because we are really busy".  The thing that struck me as odd was that they were assembling desktop computers.  This was 1999 and in those days you could save about $100 to $200 by building your own computer but to me it seemed like they were wasting time and some money paying people to do it.  I figured they could be up and running but they had a bunch of computers to make instead and it did not make sense.

I did not take the job but it turned out that the owners blew through all their venture capital and fled.  Employees then looted the place when they realized it was going to be put into receivership and they wouldn't get paid.

I know BFL is supposed to assemble hardware, but no one should be fooled by an office full of busy people on a youtube video.

TCollar?  Really.  I am curious as to why.

I have not requested any money / bitcoin from anyone nor do I plan to.  I do not even ask for "tips".

I totally dig your scam exposing posts though so I am not offended that I am on the list.

You bet on a two day old betting site that used anonymous registration?

Sorry, but some tips for the future:

Whois is your friend. 

Hidden registrations are great for personal websites but suspicious for businesses and twice as suspicious for BTC.

Time of registration.  For BTC sites you want at least 2011, anything less you gotta do more research.  Do research anyway if older than 2011.

You want a real name too.  You want to see old technical questions they ask from before the days of BTC.  You do not want to see someone who figured out a clever way to trade in WoW, a felon, or perhaps a club DJ.

You would want to see someone who had past experience with a fiat money gambling site.

Sometimes the enthusiasm of BTC advocates makes them vulnerable to the predations of scam artists.  So just look and look again.  Learn to research anyplace that you are trusting your money to for at least an hour.  A real investment should be researched for at least a working day or more.

Co-location.