titan bitcoin

[klondike_bar]

Ok it's been about a month since I opened this sealed Titancoin. Titancoin claims it was redeemed using the original owner's email address, and that this person has either tampered with the coin in a perfectly undetectable way, or their system has been hacked.

Long story short, they seem to have decided that they are not going to redeem this coin for me, and now they want to pursue a criminal investigation and legal action against.... someone but they are not sure who yet.

All I know is I opened what looked like a perfectly sealed Titancoin for 1btc and I do not have 1 btc, instead I have a protracted argument and scam accusations *from* Titanbitcoin themselves. I would advise anyone who holds a Titancoin to redeem it now, if they can.

My options now seem to be to contact the police, to start a criminal investigation against whoever may have redeemed the coin, and possibly to contact the attorneys general of my state and Titancoin's state, to have them investigated for what I believe may be securities fraud. Titancoin decided to go this path rather than "split the loss" with me and pay me even 0.5 bitcoin.

So, you bought the coin from another party, NOT titanBTC directly? Obviously that introduces serious doubt as to what happened.
What was the address the coins moved from? Its hard to make an accusation like this without sharing the address the coin moved from

"Titancoin decided to go this path rather than "split the loss" with me and pay me even 0.5 bitcoin." If I understand correctly, you accuse them and offer to settle for 0.5BTC?

[Todamont]

I spoke to Tim Fillmore, president of Titan Bitcoin this morning. I told him I would be taking this conversation public. He's aware of the situation and my intent to take this conversation public. Besides, if someone is out there tampering with titan coins, or has hacked their website, or it is an investment scam, then the public should know. I'm under no contractual obligation to keep this conversation private, nor have I ever been.

I'm unwilling to provide further information on any previous owners of the coin, not only because I don't have it, but also because they have insinuated that they suspect me of theft and fraud and now I feel that anyone who may have been in possession of this coin could also be implicated. I'm unwilling to throw innocent people under the bus to help them with what I see as a wild goose chase, or to participate in their personal criminal investigation in which I am also now apparently a suspect. There may have been n previous owners of this coin, and even if they were all identified, it would still be impossible to prove which one had fraudulently redeemed the coin via tampering with the sticker. I still maintain that I don't think the sticker was tampered with, at all.

So when I opened this sealed coin, I not only lost 1btc investment that I put into it because of this, I have been implicated in fraud/theft, and been asked by Tim Fillmore to help him in a criminal investigation that he has apparently not involved the police in, yet, and in which he implies that I am a suspect.

Great way to start the holidays! Thanks Titanbtc!

I have offered to settle this "disputed coin" situation with Tim, for 0.5 bitcoin, but this is unacceptable to him, and I generally sympathise with his situation to some extent. To him this is an already-redeemed coin, and he's being asked to payout again.

Let's say someone has tampered with the coin sticker, resold a sealed yet redeemed coin to someone else along the chain of n possible owners here. They had access to the original email, we know that much, so it should be theoretically possible to trace the chain of owners who would have had access to that email address. The original owner claims to have sold it on Ebay, but I know that I didn't buy it on Ebay because I have only bought coins for btc directly, in person or via this site. So, then we can narrow down the possible "redeemers" but not prove which one it was. I have been defrauded, and n possible people in the chain of ownership have bought/sold an already-redeemed, tampered-sticker coin. In that case, I am the victim of fraud, and it is not legally Titan bitcoin's responsibility to make me "whole", only to provide me information I would need to provide to the police to start a criminal investigation, which I would probably never do anyway, I would just write this off as a loss.

However, I don't think the sticker was tampered. It looked perfect, and I also peeled/redeemed another titan btc the next day, and it felt exactly the same "stickiness" as the disputed one. So this, in my mind, leaves open the possibility that their "redemption" website was hacked, or that this could have been an inside job. In those cases, Titan bitcoin *would* be responsible to make me whole, and I have offered Tim a month to look into these possibilities, even though this dispute has now already been going on for 4 weeks.

In my mind, this displays clearly a huge, big problem with physical bitcoins. Any time any "dispute" like this happens, it can throw entire groups of people "under suspicion" and then compel them to investigate each other and point fingers. I gave away some V1 cascasiuse coins in 2010 to friends and now I feel that I must tell them that they are only toys, which may or may not even contain a bitcoin, and are unsafe to sell as if they did, because they could eventually become under suspicion of theft if there was ever a later tampering by anyone in the chain of ownership at any point in the future, out of their control. I have a whole collection of physical bitcoins and now I feel they are too extremely unsafe to even use.

[Hellot]

At this point you should provide evidence.  Pictures of the redeemed coin would be a good start with focus on the hologram and secret.

[Todamont]

Here is an image of the coin and the hologram. Don't bother trying to redeem it, lol.

imgur.com/vrm6orV

[EDIT] this is just the front side. I'll post image of the 2fa code side of the sticker if Tim Fillmore, president of Titan Bitcoin, says it's ok here.

[Hellot]

Here is an image of the coin and the hologram. Don't bother trying to redeem it, lol.

imgur.com/vrm6orV

[EDIT] this is just the front side. I'll post image of the 2fa code side of the sticker if Tim Fillmore, president of Titan Bitcoin, says it's ok here.

I guess Not yet funded with a value of 1BTC is what a swept Titan looks like on their site?

https://www.titanbtc.com/verify/vFZKfWyJ/

[Todamont]

Tim has informed me that Titan btc does *not* sell unfunded coins.

[klondike_bar]

Here is an image of the coin and the hologram. Don't bother trying to redeem it, lol.

imgur.com/vrm6orV

[EDIT] this is just the front side. I'll post image of the 2fa code side of the sticker if Tim Fillmore, president of Titan Bitcoin, says it's ok here.

https://www.titanbtc.com/verify/vFZKfWyJ/    NOT YET FUNDED  Address: Not Yet Assigned

You did not verify before buying the coin from a 3rd party?

[Todamont]

I have a large collection of physical coins, and I have since lost the hard-drive containing the emails pertaining to this one. As I have said, though, I would not willingly implicate anyone else in the chain of custody here. Whoever redeemed the coin apparently had the original owners' email address, though, Tim has shared that much with me.

[Blazed]

How could he have an unfunded coin then?! If the hologram was intact how could it have been redeemed and why does the site show no address assigned?

[Todamont]

Those are all great questions. How could a sealed coin be "not yet funded" if Titan coin doesn't sell unfunded coins? That's a very, very good question, and it indicates that either Titan coin *does* sell unfunded coins, or there is some corruption in their tracking website.

[Hellot]

Those are all great questions. How could a sealed coin be "not yet funded" if Titan coin doesn't sell unfunded coins? That's a very, very good question, and it indicates that either Titan coin *does* sell unfunded coins, or there is some corruption in their tracking website.

 
http://www.ebay.com/itm/TITAN-ONE-BIT-COIN-UNFUNDED-HOLOGRAM-RARE-COLECTOR-COIN-NOT-CASACIUS-LEALANA-BTC-/111849058989?hash=item1a0ab932ad:g:l7QAAOSwrklVYzfE
  
It looks like they sold unfunded coins at some point.  I did not know this.  I am interested to know what this coins page looks like when that coin is funded!  Also it doesn't indicate if this is two factor.  How can you tell?
 
https://www.titanbtc.com/verify/bSe49yGd/

[Todamont]

wow, interesting. I didn't know this either. Tim said the coin was "already redeemed" though, which makes the whole thing even more interesting.

In fact, here is a snippet of the conversation between me and Tim:

ME:

[...] It appears to me that I have been defrauded, since I opened a sealed 1btc coin and you're telling me it didn't have value in it. That indicates to me that either:

1) it was never funded
2) it was redeemed without the tamper-proof seal being broken
[...]

TIM:

[...]
Option 1 is not possible.  We have detailed records on the funding.

Option 2 is possible.  It's entirely possible that we have a security issue with our 2FA system and I'm trying to systematic rule out possible locations for that breakdown.  I'm the one who manages the DB of all coins in circulation and it's duplicated and kept on an air-gapped computer, so that not the location of the problem.  More than likely it wa a social engineering attack if this is where the breakdown occurred.
[...]

[Todamont]

Apparently I had some sort of very rare "unfunded" coin, and I unsealed it, unknowingly. The odd "already redeemed" story is wild. If there's one thing bitcoin is good for, it's a rabbit-hole! lol

[Todamont]

from here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=311045.85

Titanbtc:

We don't sell any unfunded coins right now. Anyone selling coins unfunded has either purchased them from us at full price and redeemed them, or is selling one of the odd coins that was lost or stolen in the mail. If you see an unfunded coin with the hologram intact, its a good idea to steer clear as it may not be legit.


So, I would hope they would know which ones were "lost or stolen" in the mail! Wth!?

[Michail1]

Strange situation.

One thought is that coins go out unfunded and once the receiver tells Titan that they received the shipment, the coins are then funded.  I don't believe Titan specifically sold funded coins.
I can imagine people claiming they didn't receive the shipment in which case Titan reships another batch which then are received and funded.  The receiver then gets the first shipment and sells the coins intentionally scamming the person they sold them to (cough - or the post carrier or whomever found the lost shipment).

[Todamont]

This makes sense. But the confusion about this situation on the part of Titan Btc seems very unusual. They said they were in contact with the original owner and they didn't mention any "lost in the mail" situation. Would they then ship another coin with the same ID number, though, to someone else?

from Tim:

"this coin was redeemed quite a while ago"

ok, then... What?

[Michail1]

I just noticed you basically said the same thing as I did while I was typing in my first response (with regards to possibly being coins lost in the mail).

I don't know if coins are reprinted; however, it would seem unlikely.  If they are, then anyone could claim lost and second a second copy to sell, then redeem, then scam.

What curious to me is that you didn't know the person who originally owned it as you said you received the email address from Titan.  Have you tried also going to the person you bought it from and/or emailed the original owner to clear it up?  If they are not responding, then also likely the scam was intentional as well.

Maybe you should also email Titan a link to the thread and ask them for a reply on the forum.  Make it fair in notifying them so they at least have a chance to reply/explain/defend.

[Todamont]

I don't remember who I bought it from and I would not implicate them in the chain of ownership if I did. There may have been any number of owners between the original owner and myself, and it's not fair to throw any number of people under suspicion of theft or fraud over this unfunded/redeemed coin issue.

This unfunded coin sale on ebay is very, very unusual. Specifically the "certificate of authenticity" stating:

"At the time of sale, this coin was certified to be uniquely associated with an address which bears the amount and type of the cryptological currency stated on the coin's obverse."

Signed by Tim Fillmore

ebay.com/itm/TITAN-ONE-BIT-COIN-UNFUNDED-HOLOGRAM-RARE-COLECTOR-COIN-NOT-CASACIUS-LEALANA-BTC-/111849058989?hash=item1a0ab932ad:g:l7QAAOSwrklVYzfE

This really, really looks like some of the coins that Tim certified as funded were, in fact, not funded. I wonder what percentage of the coins they sold now show up as "unfunded".

[TitanBTC]

I'll address this general thread first, and then address the specific issue of coins showing as not yet funded in a separate reply.

Todamont is correct in the details that he has shared here, with the exception that I have not accused him of any wrong doing.  I expressly stated that I didn't mind that he take this conversation public, as we're not trying to hide anything about this situation. 

This was a coin that was not bought from Titan directly, and likely changed hands several times. It's likely, in my opinion, that the hologram was removed using a solvent (without breaking the security seal) and reapplied before being sold to Todamont by someone unscrupulous.  If Todamont has registered his email address to the coin when he purchased it, the value would have been protected, but it sounds like the seller also lied and told them it was a private key coin. 

This is the first case we've had of this specific type of claim.  We've been investigating all possible options for how this occurred.  Todamont and I have an email chain of probably 30 emails going back and forth discussing the situation.  We will certainly make him 110% whole if the problem lies somewhere in our system.  If his problem occurred because he purchased a Titan Bitcoin from a thief, we will assist in filing police reports as well.

[Todamont]

I don't want to file police reports against anyone in the chain of custody of ownership outside of Titan Btc. I will regard the coin as a total loss rather than go that route. I might, however, write an email to the DA about a guy name Tim who certifies physical bitcoins are funded, and then they show up as "unfunded" on his company website.

How do you explain that?