Coinex threatens to contact local police on me.

[Edward50]

After coinex was down for three days and came back online I have a negative balance. It is hard to say I agree with the negative balance.

They sent an email saying that I have to make the account positive again or they will consider it a theft and contact local police.

[Bram]

Tell them, you want proof.
You need details: how, when
You need audited report from independent auditor

Did you make the account negative by selling more than what you had? then do the right thing and fix it.

If it was an accident, do the right thing and fix it.

if they screwed up and you did not do anything, fight them.

[Edward50]

Bram, I am not really sure how this happened. And it is difficult to determine what happened as I made many trades and bought different alt-coins.
I really did not keep great track of how many bitcoins I sent them and how many I bought.

If I do look in my alerts, It does add up that I bought all the alt-coin. So I did place orders for all those coins.

They also have tied up anyway some bitcoins, which almost makes it a wash, so we are only talking a little money if I used my bitcoins to buy back the alt-coin.

Since I can't be sure what happened and since they obviously made mistakes by allowing me to get a negative balance in the first place, I just don't want to send them money at this point.

Could they really just contact the local police and the police would come to my house for something like this? Could the police confiscate my computer?

[kalus]

can't you track all transactions in the block chain?  should be easy to show if and who stole things.

[Zen00]

What Ed said, it's their fault, their system shouldn't even be able to allow for a negative balance unless they're set up for making loans. Technically they're doing something illegal by allowing that to happen and they should be the ones with cops on them, turn it around, call it an extortion or racketeering system on them.

In my opinion, don't pay them, don't do anything except get everything you own out of their system in case... no, strike that, keep your stuff in the system, if they try to confiscate it then they have really stolen your money and you can press legal charges on them.

But yeah, it's their fault for allowing negative balances on their system (which can easily be programmed to not allow...) and they need to suck it up and walk away.

And as Kalus said, it's their job to track the block chain to see where the transactions went, not yours.

[smalloy08]

Read the agreement that you put your digital signature on when you signed up.  It will most likely state something giving them complete power over the situation. I wouldn't pay until you got full proof and an explanation of it, but just make sure that there are no catch-alls lingering before you consider taking any actions.

[albertdros]

what can the police do. No one in the justice system has any idea how this stuff works. I wouldn't even care if they threaten you with this. They probably just do it because they wanna scare you. They know if they contact the police and explain the problem, the police has NO IDEA what to actually do and charge you with. I bet they wouldn't even do it. It's their problem. If they REALLY want to contact the police, let them go ahead. What are they gonna do? I wouldn't worry one bit.

[Kungfucheez]

what can the police do. No one in the justice system has any idea how this stuff works. I wouldn't even care if they threaten you with this. They probably just do it because they wanna scare you. They know if they contact the police and explain the problem, the police has NO IDEA what to actually do and charge you with. I bet they wouldn't even do it. It's their problem. If they REALLY want to contact the police, let them go ahead. What are they gonna do? I wouldn't worry one bit.

This.

The police have no authority over something like this. It's just a scare tactic used to try and correct a negative balance. Most likely if they were to make such a threat, the problem is at their end, and they don't wish to admit fault, so they're trying to scare you. The police legally can't do anything in regards to such a claim.
Either way, there should be proof somewhere in your transaction history or in the block-chain.

[NUFCrichard]

I expect you know if you owe them or not. If you do, then make it right.
Trades will surely be off the blockchain, otherwise every trade would take ages for confirmations.

[Sampey]

Ahahah the police for What??? For a negative balance of Cryptocurrency??? 

[cryptohunter]

Depends how much negative, if it's a tiny amount just pay up...not worth the hassle.

[markm]

Read the agreement that you put your digital signature on when you signed up.  It will most likely state something giving them complete power over the situation. I wouldn't pay until you got full proof and an explanation of it, but just make sure that there are no catch-alls lingering before you consider taking any actions.

Coinex uses digital signatures? I thought only MPOE and Open Transactions did that?

What kind of digital signature? PGP/GPG? Or do you sign using a bitcoin/cryptocoin message-signature?

Don't laugh at the Bitcoin Police, have you seen them in action?

Local Police not so much, yeah.

-MarkM-

[Edward50]

Just to give an update, I did a audit of my account and I found a couple of things.

The first thing is they did not record a .1 bitcoin deposit.

The 2nd thing is, I think they are right in that I should have a negative deposit. However, I have more bitcoin deposited in the account after I get my .1 bitcoin than I owe in a negative balance. So I will just make the account positive at this point.