[ANN] BTCJam - Peer to Peer Bitcoin Lending

[owlcatz]

This is obviously a scam message, from someone who hacked this account, do NOT trust them. I am not worried about my funds in BTCjam, because to my knowledge it has never been hacked. I am sorry for the pathetic hackers, that are unable to hack anything, so they now hack the bitcointalk accounts. I am also sorry for bitcointalk.com, because it appears that their security is not as good. Oh well, I guess the future is with "yours" and Ryan X Charles. And Peer to Peer Lending is NOT going away, eat your heart out, keynesian morons!

No, the security here is just fine, fact is, he used a crackable password or soemone hacked the email on the account. That's his problem, not this forums.

Again, this motherfucker is a shitstain on the community, and by using that site you are just helping him rip you off and others to scam you. Good luck, you will need it.

[1715082094]

1715082094

[1715082094]

1715082094

[1715082094]

1715082094

[Tulkas]

Nice attitude owlcatz.

Unlike BTCJam, this sad excuse for a community forum got it's password hashes and email addresses hacked at least once, as informed by bitcointalk's official twitter account: https://twitter.com/bitcointalk/status/602017247788343296. That's probably how this thief got the password.

[owlcatz]

Nice attitude owlcatz.

Unlike BTCJam, this sad excuse for a community forum got it's password hashes and email addresses hacked at least once, as informed by bitcointalk's official twitter account: https://twitter.com/bitcointalk/status/602017247788343296. That's probably how this thief got the password.

Whatever. Let's look, shall we?  

Date of forum breach - 23 May 2015

Why didn't you change your password before today then? You are responsible for scams made using your account here, or are you that stupid?  

Seclog.php from todays lookup:

September 04, 2016, 11:57:13 PM - Tulkas - password changed
September 04, 2016, 11:39:47 PM - Tulkas - password changed

Edit - http://archive.is/9kmcJ

You say you got your account back however you clearly have not deleted your scam posts. WTF ... I call Bullshit. Otherwise prove it, scammer.

[btiAndy]

Nice attitude owlcatz.

Unlike BTCJam, this sad excuse for a community forum got it's password hashes and email addresses hacked at least once, as informed by bitcointalk's official twitter account: https://twitter.com/bitcointalk/status/602017247788343296. That's probably how this thief got the password.

The only sad excuse here is you Tulkas...didn't you start this thread in the first place? Seems this forum was good enough when you were shilling for business but now, after screwing your investors with BTCJam's dumping out of the US market followed by the distribution of worthless arbitration notices , the forum is out of order and a "sad excuse"?

You are probably more comfortable in an environment where you can censor comments, questions and responses like on BTCJam; maybe you are just no longer used to real criticism?  People here are making posts out of absolute exhaustion with how BTCJam has changed over the past few months. Your customer service standards are garbage and it is obvious by responses above that you no longer want to help with the valid and very real problems we are trying to report to you.

Unless you are prepared to fix the problems and offer some redress to your Investors then it is simply time for you and BTCJam to go away.

[Tulkas]

btiAndy,

What I meant for that was forum software, although the moderators here are well know for censoring posts they don't like here and elsewhere.

It is interesting that the guy that was complaining about us not being hard enough on scammers was letting an obvious scammer post using my account and instead of trying to prevent it he went on to attack me personally.

Bitcointalk has a lending session. What do they do to prevent scammers there? Are the mod's scammers because they let people ask for loans using the forum? What about the ponzi schemes? This forum hosted many of them, are the forum operators responsible since they hosted many of the "obvious" ones? If you prefer the diligence they do go to their lending session and lend your money there.

We do a lot of work to try to remove the scammers from our platform, we hired one person that calls every single new borrower before the listing is posted. We check job references, we check bank accounts, among many other things. Some loans go bad, just like they go bad here and everywhere else.

[owlcatz]

It is interesting that the guy that was complaining about us not being hard enough on scammers was letting an obvious scammer post using my account and instead of trying to prevent it he went on to attack me personally.

Wait, what, scammer?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1607660.msg16143004#msg16143004

If this is not a hacked account, why have you not cleaned up these scammy as F posts??  I call bullshit again, scammer.

Thanks

Edit - I did try and prevent it, I tagged your account as hacked, asshole.

[btiAndy]

btiAndy,

What I meant for that was forum software, although the moderators here are well know for censoring posts they don't like here and elsewhere.

It is interesting that the guy that was complaining about us not being hard enough on scammers was letting an obvious scammer post using my account and instead of trying to prevent it he went on to attack me personally.

Bitcointalk has a lending session. What do they do to prevent scammers there? Are the mod's scammers because they let people ask for loans using the forum? What about the ponzi schemes? This forum hosted many of them, are the forum operators responsible since they hosted many of the "obvious" ones? If you prefer the diligence they do go to their lending session and lend your money there.

We do a lot of work to try to remove the scammers from our platform, we hired one person that calls every single new borrower before the listing is posted. We check job references, we check bank accounts, among many other things. Some loans go bad, just like they go bad here and everywhere else.

Tulkas,

I do not think bitcointalk touts itself as a p2p lending site like you advertise BTCJam as for one thing, not a very good comparison really. Even there though, it appears for the most part it works better than Jam as members can freely talk to each other, comment on a borrower's request in the clear, demand some kind of collateral, etc... On BTCJam I have openly seen scammers start up loan requests and obtain funding without being able to pass a warning on to others. They get funded and then run...not much of a community for investors really.

If you really want to explain how your security works, look to the post I made a while back regarding this case:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=112447.msg15100653#msg15100653

How do you explain this one to investors? Please note that I am in contact with the borrower who was suspended so I do know a bit more than you may think about the situation. He has told me his side of the story, what's yours?  Whatever you are doing to prevent fraud you need to do better.

Your arbitration notices are worthless by the way, already checked for use in Europe, without an Apostille there is no chance and since your wonderful and mysterious Mr Dhami is nowhere to be found, we all are screwed. Remember, you pulled out of the US, investors like us in Europe are going to become more and more important moving forward!

[Kanati]

btiAndy,

What I meant for that was forum software, although the moderators here are well know for censoring posts they don't like here and elsewhere.

It is interesting that the guy that was complaining about us not being hard enough on scammers was letting an obvious scammer post using my account and instead of trying to prevent it he went on to attack me personally.

Bitcointalk has a lending session. What do they do to prevent scammers there? Are the mod's scammers because they let people ask for loans using the forum? What about the ponzi schemes? This forum hosted many of them, are the forum operators responsible since they hosted many of the "obvious" ones? If you prefer the diligence they do go to their lending session and lend your money there.

We do a lot of work to try to remove the scammers from our platform, we hired one person that calls every single new borrower before the listing is posted. We check job references, we check bank accounts, among many other things. Some loans go bad, just like they go bad here and everywhere else.

Tulkas -

Scamming accusations against you are understandable for anyone invested in the many bad BTCjam loans, and then left to themselves to attempt collections ...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AUG 29, 2016  |  10:21PM PDT
Original message
Kanati wrote:

Dear BTCjam Support

I am trying to collect my arbitration award on loan 52286, but the borrower refuses payment saying that he prefers to pay all investors at once using BTCjam, and he is afraid he will end up paying me twice if he sends my bitcoins directly to me.

To what extent does BTCjam remain involved in loans that have already completed the arbitration process, and what are BTCjams obligations to borrowers and investors in these situations? My arbitration award says “In the event that the Arbitrator issues an award in favor of the investor, an investor may enforce that judgment in a court of competent jurisdiction“, So I have been assuming that BTCjam is no longer involved, and it's up to individual investors to collect these debts. On the other hand I have also noticed that "BTCjam Debt Collection" sometimes buys notes, so it would be useful for us investors to know under which circumstances BTCjam will get involved and when we otherwise should expect to collect on defaults ourselves.

Some clarification on this subject would be appreciated.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kanati
Subject: What are BTCjams obligations after arbitration? (re: loan 52286)
AUG 30, 2016  |  06:53PM PDT

John replied:

Thank you for your question. We have no involvement with the loan itself and we don’t do collections, we are just a platform that connects lenders and borrowers making it easy for them to both ask and repay the loan. Our platform is available if the borrower chooses to pay through us, even after arbitration.

Best regards,

The BTCjam Customer Support Team

Best,
BTCjam Support Team

The last sentence ("Our platform is available if the borrower chooses to pay through us, even after arbitration") was rather vague, so I sent two more emails asking for further clarification (both remain unanswered...) -

From: Kanati
To: Support
Sent: 30-08-2016 09:03
Subject: Please elaborate - Re[2]: What are BTCjams obligations after arbitration? (re: loan 52286)
 
Thank you for your reply.

This borrower (loan 52286) is rejecting my direct request for payment by saying that if he pays me now and then repays everyone else later through BTCjam I would get paid twice - can't the borrower avoid this problem by providing BTCjam with documentation that I have already been paid?

Also, loan 52286 defaulted on 26 April 2016. Does a borrower pay additional interest and late fees accrued after the default date if they choose to repay through BTCjam?


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Kanati
To: Support
Cc: (loan 52286 borrower)
Sent: 01-09-2016 21:17
Subject: Conflict of interest? (Case #: 146711.)

Dear BTCjam Support

In your 30 August email (below) you said that BTCjam is not involved in loans, does not do collections, and is only providing a platform to connect lenders and borrowers. You also said that a borrower can "choose" to repay a defaulted loan through the platform after arbitration.

I sent the borrower of loan 52286 a copy of my arbitration award with a request for direct payment. The borrower wrote back refusing to pay me directly, saying instead that I should contact BTCjam Support since you instructed him to repay the entire loan amount through the platform, even though this loan is in default, and even though arbitration awards were issued in April 2016.

If borrower 52286 is telling the truth then it looks like BTCjam is denying me the right collect my debt, which would be in direct conflict with my arbitration award (quote from arbitration award with emphasis added..):

"The total amount owed by the Debtor at the time the Debtor stopped making payments is 6.07352376 bitcoins and is immediately due and payable to the Creditor(s) and their successors and/or assigns as follows:"

<...snip...>

"IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that:

A. Defendant, DEBTOR, is liable to Plaintiffs for the foregoing amounts.

B. Such award is to accrue interest at the maximum statutory rate permitted by the Debtor's jurisdiction.

C. Defendant, DEBTOR, is liable for all collection fees and expenses, including reasonable attorney fees and court costs.

This is a Final Arbitration Award. This 26th day of April, 2016, /s/ Sukhman Dhami, Arbitrator"

Since you never answered my last mail I still have 3 questions for BTCjam support:

1. If BTCjam "does not do debt collections" then why did "BTCjam debt collections" buy out my share of loan 51426 without even asking me first (https://btcjam.com/listings/51426-start-up-venture-investment-in-btc)?

2. In your opinion does the option BTCjam provides borrowers to repay defaulted loans through the platform supersede the lenders right to collect the debt directly after arbitration, and if you think it does then how long will you allow the borrower to wait before they choose to use that option and repay the debt?

3. Will the lender receive interest at the maximum statutory rate permitted by the Debtors jurisdiction after the default date if the borrower chooses to repay through the platform, and does BTCjam charge the borrower any collection fees and expenses, including reasonable attorney fees and court costs for this privilege?

I would appreciate your prompt attention in this matter, and I ask that you also send your reply to this mail Cc to the borrower so I can hopefully spare myself any more insults about me "cheating" him. I also request that the borrower be allowed to download my arbitration award from your website, so that he can see for himself that I did not change the amount of the award (https://btcjam.com/listing_investments/1035698/arbitration_award).

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

As "the man in the middle" you have complete insight and control over the entire payment chain from borrower to lender, which SHOULD at least imply a certain amount of fiduciary responsibility toward the investors who are trusting you to manage their funds. Instead we are met with no transparency, unanswered emails, obstructed debt collections, unexplained note trading done by a "BTCjam debt collection" account that supposedly does not even exist, and Arbitration Awards of questionable authenticity issued by a supposedly existing but invisible arbitrator.

I will remove your negative trust rating here when you fix these problems, otherwise I am sure that several of us disgruntled investors will soon be filing complaints to the California Attorney General regarding BTCjams business practices, as well as complaints to the New York Bar about the questionable validity of the arbitration awards issued by "the invisible Mr. Dhami"  

[isvicre]

btiAndy,

What I meant for that was forum software, although the moderators here are well know for censoring posts they don't like here and elsewhere.

It is interesting that the guy that was complaining about us not being hard enough on scammers was letting an obvious scammer post using my account and instead of trying to prevent it he went on to attack me personally.

Bitcointalk has a lending session. What do they do to prevent scammers there? Are the mod's scammers because they let people ask for loans using the forum? What about the ponzi schemes? This forum hosted many of them, are the forum operators responsible since they hosted many of the "obvious" ones? If you prefer the diligence they do go to their lending session and lend your money there.

We do a lot of work to try to remove the scammers from our platform, we hired one person that calls every single new borrower before the listing is posted. We check job references, we check bank accounts, among many other things. Some loans go bad, just like they go bad here and everywhere else.

I offered to do this over a year ago and i pointed out a bunch of obvious scams too...  No response given. We're not angry occssional scams happen,  we are angry you do the bare minimum to prevent or quickly stop scams and presumably wre laughing all the way to the bank with a commission you've taken for what I assume are mostly scams. I know at least a third of my loans weren't paid back and that was with high ratings given.

Don't get me started on arbitration either.

[arruah]

Hey btcjam.com please help me with my problem.
https://btcjam.com/users/5828
A year ago, my rating on the website was a B + and interest payments on the loan amounted to 4%. Last month I paid the loan in 16 Bitcoin, and now I found that my rating of B-. And the rate is 7.15% per month.
I would like to take a new loan of $ 10,000 but 7.1% is a lot.
I wrote a letter of support, but they do not want to help me.

[btiAndy]

Hey btcjam.com please help me with my problem.
https://btcjam.com/users/5828
A year ago, my rating on the website was a B + and interest payments on the loan amounted to 4%. Last month I paid the loan in 16 Bitcoin, and now I found that my rating of B-. And the rate is 7.15% per month.
I would like to take a new loan of $ 10,000 but 7.1% is a lot.
I wrote a letter of support, but they do not want to help me.

Best advice steer clear of BTCJam...total fraud at this point. Try building a rep up over on BTC Pop or Getline... something with a more active and communicative community that actively help each other point out and prevent scams, BTCJam is in its death throws and will be hopefully soon dead and buried...Serious investors are leaving or have left which is probably why Jam had to lower your rating in order to generate more interest in your loan with the promise of a better return.

[Hazir]

Hey btcjam.com please help me with my problem.
https://btcjam.com/users/5828
A year ago, my rating on the website was a B + and interest payments on the loan amounted to 4%. Last month I paid the loan in 16 Bitcoin, and now I found that my rating of B-. And the rate is 7.15% per month.
I would like to take a new loan of $ 10,000 but 7.1% is a lot.
I wrote a letter of support, but they do not want to help me.

Best advice steer clear of BTCJam...total fraud at this point. Try building a rep up over on BTC Pop or Getline... something with a more active and communicative community that actively help each other point out and prevent scams, BTCJam is in its death throws and will be hopefully soon dead and buried...Serious investors are leaving or have left which is probably why Jam had to lower your rating in order to generate more interest in your loan with the promise of a better return.

This theory might be hitting the jackpot here. I am not that familiar with rating system of BTCJam but if what arruah said is true then his rating shouldn't be lowered.
Questionable rating decisions are my main concern I always had about Bitcoin lending sites. I would like to hear what support will say about it.

[PizzaBTC]

Hey btcjam.com please help me with my problem.
https://btcjam.com/users/5828
A year ago, my rating on the website was a B + and interest payments on the loan amounted to 4%. Last month I paid the loan in 16 Bitcoin, and now I found that my rating of B-. And the rate is 7.15% per month.
I would like to take a new loan of $ 10,000 but 7.1% is a lot.
I wrote a letter of support, but they do not want to help me.

Hope they will respond and help you out appropriately. Though I do not want to get a loan as I never needed one also  interest rate seems very high compared to my countries bank rates.

[abhishek.g]

You must be backing it up on a daily basis . Running a website is a very responsible thing and you need to spend some bucks for its security . I can see some red trusts on your profile and I guess it might have happened due to the hack that was made on your server .

[arruah]

Best advice steer clear of BTCJam...total fraud at this point. Try building a rep up over on BTC Pop or Getline... something with a more active and communicative community that actively help each other point out and prevent scams, BTCJam is in its death throws and will be hopefully soon dead and buried...Serious investors are leaving or have left which is probably why Jam had to lower your rating in order to generate more interest in your loan with the promise of a better return.

Thank you for getline information.
https://getline.in/u/1925

[maincoon]

Best advice steer clear of BTCJam...total fraud at this point. Try building a rep up over on BTC Pop or Getline... something with a more active and communicative community that actively help each other point out and prevent scams, BTCJam is in its death throws and will be hopefully soon dead and buried...Serious investors are leaving or have left which is probably why Jam had to lower your rating in order to generate more interest in your loan with the promise of a better return.

Thank you for getline information.
https://getline.in/u/1925

Thanks for kind words. Active community at chat.getline.in is making GetLine different. We are also very picky at approving borrowers and not giving stars to anybody. But if you want to build rep Getline is way to go

[sbtctalk]

Best advice steer clear of BTCJam...total fraud at this point. Try building a rep up over on BTC Pop or Getline... something with a more active and communicative community that actively help each other point out and prevent scams, BTCJam is in its death throws and will be hopefully soon dead and buried...Serious investors are leaving or have left which is probably why Jam had to lower your rating in order to generate more interest in your loan with the promise of a better return.

Thank you for getline information.
https://getline.in/u/1925

Thanks for kind words. Active community at chat.getline.in is making GetLine different. We are also very picky at approving borrowers and not giving stars to anybody. But if you want to build rep Getline is way to go

What is stopping "Scammers" by gently build up their rep with small loans, then once they have good rep, loan large amounts then run away with the funds? 

[maincoon]

Best advice steer clear of BTCJam...total fraud at this point. Try building a rep up over on BTC Pop or Getline... something with a more active and communicative community that actively help each other point out and prevent scams, BTCJam is in its death throws and will be hopefully soon dead and buried...Serious investors are leaving or have left which is probably why Jam had to lower your rating in order to generate more interest in your loan with the promise of a better return.

Thank you for getline information.
https://getline.in/u/1925

Thanks for kind words. Active community at chat.getline.in is making GetLine different. We are also very picky at approving borrowers and not giving stars to anybody. But if you want to build rep Getline is way to go

What is stopping "Scammers" by gently build up their rep with small loans, then once they have good rep, loan large amounts then run away with the funds? 

Lending them less money than they already paid in interest. And performing due diligence for every borrower via investors community.

Also checking if borrowed money is really helping borrower in his business or  he is just stacking the loans

[crazyivan]

Best advice steer clear of BTCJam...total fraud at this point. Try building a rep up over on BTC Pop or Getline... something with a more active and communicative community that actively help each other point out and prevent scams, BTCJam is in its death throws and will be hopefully soon dead and buried...Serious investors are leaving or have left which is probably why Jam had to lower your rating in order to generate more interest in your loan with the promise of a better return.

Thank you for getline information.
https://getline.in/u/1925

Thanks for kind words. Active community at chat.getline.in is making GetLine different. We are also very picky at approving borrowers and not giving stars to anybody. But if you want to build rep Getline is way to go

What is stopping "Scammers" by gently build up their rep with small loans, then once they have good rep, loan large amounts then run away with the funds? 

Exactly, rep means nothing. Cause not only people who intent to scam, actually scam. There re bunch of people who ask for a loan with full intention to repay it. Then somebody unpredictable happen and they stop paying. Negative rep s not going to prevent them from doing this if they have no other option. Even if you differentiate and out of 10 loans, 1 becomes non performing, you re gonna lose money. So, unless there is some form of collateral, stay away.

[btiAndy]

Best advice steer clear of BTCJam...total fraud at this point. Try building a rep up over on BTC Pop or Getline... something with a more active and communicative community that actively help each other point out and prevent scams, BTCJam is in its death throws and will be hopefully soon dead and buried...Serious investors are leaving or have left which is probably why Jam had to lower your rating in order to generate more interest in your loan with the promise of a better return.

Thank you for getline information.
https://getline.in/u/1925

Thanks for kind words. Active community at chat.getline.in is making GetLine different. We are also very picky at approving borrowers and not giving stars to anybody. But if you want to build rep Getline is way to go

What is stopping "Scammers" by gently build up their rep with small loans, then once they have good rep, loan large amounts then run away with the funds? 

Exactly, rep means nothing. Cause not only people who intent to scam, actually scam. There re bunch of people who ask for a loan with full intention to repay it. Then somebody unpredictable happen and they stop paying. Negative rep s not going to prevent them from doing this if they have no other option. Even if you differentiate and out of 10 loans, 1 becomes non performing, you re gonna lose money. So, unless there is some form of collateral, stay away.

Good advice...I am watching one guy on getline right now who is just teetering on going full scam...he has debts all over and keeps borrowing from getline to pay off his other arrears on Pop and Jam (and who knows elsewhere...eventually it will explode in his face) I do not think he started with an intention to scam- but he is a bullshit artist and wants everyone to think he is a master of industry when in fact he sometimes can`t get a payment in on a 2 BTC loan. Best stick to loans with collateral and if not make sure the purpose for the loan makes sense: investments in crypto should be like investments in fiat: if you don't know about what you are investing in  then don't invest!!