Dealing with scammers on BitcoinMarket

[Cdecker]

As hard as it is to admit, I have been scammed.

I sold 20 Bitcoins by putting up an order and I quickly received a buy offer. The money came in on my Paypal account and I was happy to confirm the trade and leave a positive rating, but as soon as I did so the buyer put a hold on the Paypal payment. It turns out that the e-mail registered with the BitcoinMarket is completely different from the one associated with the Paypal account (though both are from france). And I believe that the scammer used a hacked Paypal account to pay for the Trade.
Now I'm a bit in trouble since I don't know what Paypal will do if I try to resolve the claim by providing the trade details of BCM since they don't like Bitcoin at all.
I also contacted a guy that had put a negative rating on the guy for the same reason, and he said that he got his BTC back from the scammer.

Any ideas on where to proceed?

The suspected scammer is b4rrydoyle (5184) on BCM

[jjVon]

Don't know how to resolve that issue, but thanks for the guy's number.  This whole game is a little nerve-racking, but I find it exhilarating.

[Cdecker]

AFAIK there is no way beyond the rating system to downrank a user, and there is no way to change a rating once it has been submitted. I'll definitely wait a few hours/days before rating from now on.

[Ian Maxwell]

I and several others have been scammed by the same user. So I started a thread in which I am offering a 5 BTC reward for his identity. There's already some good, though incomplete information. If you and others scammed add to this reward, I bet someone will be interested enough, and skilled enough at "finding people", to do this.

ETA: You may want to write Dustin about retracting/replacing your feedback. He already knows about this guy, so he'll probably be quite accomodating.

ETA: Don't worry too much about PayPal. There's nothing you can do to recover your money from them, since the claim is account fraud and not failure to deliver. Interesting that they ask you for evidence regardless.

[tavsi]

That's exactly what I'm afraid of, scammers! I'm new and I'd like to buy some BTC but I don't know who to trust to That's why I thought maybe I should ask for local BTC sellers and do the transactions face to face. What do you think of this method?? Of course it's more convenient to buy/sell online, but let's say I want to buy about 100 BTC and have a Dwolla account, where am I gonna find trustworthy sellers? Should I just go by hero members in this forum?? Do you guys care for selling some BTC to me?

[FreeMoney]

That's exactly what I'm afraid of, scammers! I'm new and I'd like to buy some BTC but I don't know who to trust to That's why I thought maybe I should ask for local BTC sellers and do the transactions face to face. What do you think of this method?? Of course it's more convenient to buy/sell online, but let's say I want to buy about 100 BTC and have a Dwolla account, where am I gonna find trustworthy sellers? Should I just go by hero members in this forum?? Do you guys care for selling some BTC to me?

The problem that the OP describes cannot happen on MtGox. With bitcoinmarket PP you are receiving funds from another trader's PP account, with MtGox you receive funds from MtGox directly (you trade with others, but MtGox holds the funds and pays you with cleared money).

Bank->Dwolla->MtGox->Good to go

[jjVon]

I got up this morning ready to sell a little BTC on bitcoinmarket to get some PayPal cash... and that option was gone!  I guess I'll need to move it over to MtGox and sell there.  So much for my maser plan. 

BTW, If I sell for MBUSD I don't see and option to withdraw that.  So is there anything else to do with my BTC?

[tavsi]

Bank->Dwolla->Mt Gox sequence is good but still it takes forever to transfer money from bank to dwolla! I hate working with banks and USD. The change is happening:)

[JoeTheTech]

I was scammed out of 6.10 BTC in trade ID 2655

Buyer ID 6038 BTCbuyer

Payment was sent to my Paypal account then removed (held by Paypal) 8 hours later. Currently I am out the $ and the BTC.

Emails have been sent to all involved parties. I am waiting to see what happens next.

Cheers.


Updated here
http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=12678.msg177172#msg177172

[jjVon]

I'm guessing that type of thing is why bitcoinmarket removed the paypal option.  This forum is chock full of lots of alternatives, just not that much for novice traders to deal with...

In the meantime, I ran across this fun little game to circulate some more BTC:
http://fxnet.bitlex.org/?ref=1139

[Maged]

I was scammed out of 6.10 BTC in trade ID 2655

Buyer ID 6038 BTCbuyer

Payment was sent to my Paypal account then removed (held by Paypal) 8 hours later. Currently I am out the $ and the BTC.

Emails have been sent to all involved parties. I am waiting to see what happens next.

Cheers.

Did you contact HIM? It might just be that you were caught by PayPal as a Bitcoin seller.

Please contact me if the MD5 of his paypal email address was e4a0b9bcc67f49d815dacbe94b93bf0c

[Grant]

I'm sorry to read this, i been there done that myself and so have some friends of mines. My best advice is: people don't use paypal/moneybookers, their policy of: chargeback no-proof required is a heaven for thiefs and there is nothing you can do to stop it. Use only non-chargebackable payment methods (you can hide behind virwox, in some magical way virwox manages to avoid being scammed with the paypal/moneybookers exploit).

[Nythain]

I was scammed out of 6.10 BTC in trade ID 2655

Buyer ID 6038 BTCbuyer

Payment was sent to my Paypal account then removed (held by Paypal) 8 hours later. Currently I am out the $ and the BTC.

Emails have been sent to all involved parties. I am waiting to see what happens next.

Cheers.

I also have been hit recently by this person.
Sadly, I don't know if I will use bitcoinmarket again in the future, for any trades. It's just not trader friendly at the moment, there's no real limitations sellers can set on buyers other than price and currency. And the inability to change feedback is a real pita.
When this transaction when through, the buyer had over 10 positive feedback, so even if i could review buyer stats before going through with a transaction, i probably would have approved it on rating alone.
I have submitted email to PayPal and screenshots of all transaction information as my proof that i in fact sent the goods in question, which is just a silly requirement to refute my case since goods received isnt even the dispute, its unauthorized transaction. I will also be closing my paypal after this incident too. I dont think i should be held personally responsible for someone elses weak passwords.

[TiagoTiago]

When dealing with someone of unknown reputation, i would start with a small value, then if that goes well, double, rinse&repeat 'tll you bought/sold all you wanted

[jjVon]

When dealing with someone of unknown reputation, i would start with a small value, then if that goes well, double, rinse&repeat 'tll you bought/sold all you wanted

That's not realistic if you're putting up a limit sale or buy.  the system matches you up with whomever has a matching offer.  Then you just have 2 options:  take it or leave it. 

If you like that kind of gamble, you can try this little game I stumbled across:

http://fxnet.bitlex.org/?ref=1139