Recent Events At Bitcoin Market

[opello]

I'll chime in here and add that I was burnt by user 5810 to the tune of ~$550 USD.  Two separate transactions and paypal closed one case almost immediately despite the initial notification stating that I had 7 days to respond.  There was no explanation or note of any kind in the case.

I'm a long time member of paypal in good standing, not that I *really* expected them to take that into account.

The second case is still open and I posted any/all supporting evidence, such that I had.  If I do get any serious response I'll update here.

About the same story for me too, #5810 took me for $541 across 2 transactions.  The first dispute looks like it was actually generated by the "buyer" and the second seems to be automatically generated.  The user-generated one looks to be closed (after I uploaded screenshots it was closed after about 2 minutes).  The second is *still* open.

I'm not sure what the solution is, but people were talking about opening and resolving a dispute so that it couldn't be disputed again?  I don't know if that works for PayPal, but otherwise intermediate escrow assuming the liability is the only "best for the seller" option that I can see.

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[Ian Maxwell]

Update: My account has been permanently limited for currency exchange. This is probably less because of b4rrydoyle and his scamming, and more because of the f@$king idiots who sent me payments with memos explicitly saying they were buying bitcoins.

[gonzas144]

We all know, PAYPAL is NOT the best choice.

But, think about this. The liberties that PAYPAL gives to scammers are the same liberties that we use. I have NO WAY to receive local currency from bitcoins, and Im wondering what would happen if I use a bank account on my country (hypothetically) to make bitcoin trades?. Probably the state will say "Hey, why are you moving that amounts of money without declaring them?. Soon or later I'll loose those liberties that PAYPAL gives me.

So let me help with some Ideas> We have two sides here>

Trading net> Variable
PAYPAL>NOT variable

So how we can make a risk free trading network?. Obviously we can't modify PAYPAL policies but we can modify ours.

More validation and rating systems must be implemented.

If you are not a "Great user" you cannot make trades for more than U$D100 in 24hs. Your bitcoins will be confirmed after x days, so you can't claim a refund.
What about unconfirmed transactions?. The user who already made the transaction simply can send a pic to the admin with the transaction ID and data. If the data is veracious then the trade will be auto-confirmed.

And, a trust network must be developed, awarding correct users by lowering the fees rates will be a nice idea to, more trustable users, less problems, less work. >)

Update for Ian> Happened to me once, I just sent an email to the user saying that he must not include anything about currency trading in the description. He apologized.
I think is more about informing the people. Even dwdollar was not aware of this. After the event that I've described, I sent an email to him with a recommendation to add an advice in the webpage so people will not commit the same mistake. He answered "I don't know of PayPal hassling end users?  Usually they just lock business accounts that have central accounts.".

We are in BETA stage, this mistakes are acceptable, we're all taking the risk in this new flourishing system.

I know that there are a lot of users that are in the same situation that me on this PAYPAL matter.

To dwdollar> Don't think that PAYPAL will do anything for us. We are violating their TOS. They will do all on their power to clean their hands. We have the hands tied...

[rhino]

...
The only reason that I use PAYPAL is because theres no other way in my country. In most South America countries PAYPAL is used for Ebay buying, and credit cards are not very abundant. People sometime have fear to link their CC to PAYPAL, so they buy credit to a trader. Thats how I get the money in my local currency. I can make that trade because PAYPAL is POPULAR, Ebay is POPULAR, and the demand of PAYPAL credit is hight.

I'm sure that we can think a way to make scamming harder to be accomplish.

I'm in a similar situation where my entire 'banking' profile is online and Paypal represents about the only way I can 'cash out' to live in the real world given my location.  I'm by no means a fan of Paypal, I have nothing but contempt for them and their support structures and fees, but it serves a convenient purpose in my case.

I was lucky to not be defrauded (yet - PP has 60 days to get nasty), and kept most trades small as a safeguard.   Paypal commenced somewhat clandestine investigations on several of my transactions and cancelled them very quickly to 'protect me' before I released the coins, the rest where legitimate.  I was actually quite stunned at how much money people are willing to hand over with absolutely no safeguards, and just an anonymous me and a Confirm button standing between them.  The suggestions here can hopefully make the process safer for both parties with a clean recovery strategy in the case of either side failing.

Regardless, I greatly appreciate the efforts thus far and agree Paypal is most definitely not on the critical path for bitcoin success - Paypal just helps take it to a wider audience off the beaten track of the major established finance sectors, and helps me liberate my bitcoins too

[Garrett Burgwardt]

http://thebitcoinsun.com/post/2011/06/05/The-Paypal-Problem 

[digdugg67]

you mean i have 60 days to reverse my PP purchases? Freaking sweet! I'm just kidding.

I'm glad i was a purchaser and not a seller. If PP did wind up reversing my transactions, I'd find a way to pay the seller but i guess that's just me newbie 5233 at BitcoinMarket.

I'd love to be able to use PayPal and have my ebay and paypal id available for potential sellers to review prior to accepting my offer to buy. As I've been on ebay since 2001.

I'm just glad i got in before just before the paypal issues and prior to going back to invite only, otherwise I'd be on the outside looking in.

PayPal was a good option especially considering the velocity that it was driving the market, it did have a lot of new people looking at picking up some bitcoins. Alas, it also attracted some less than desirable characters too.

[super6]

you mean i have 60 days to reverse my PP purchases? Freaking sweet! I'm just kidding.

I'm glad i was a purchaser and not a seller. If PP did wind up reversing my transactions, I'd find a way to pay the seller but i guess that's just me newbie 5233 at BitcoinMarket.

I'd love to be able to use PayPal and have my ebay and paypal id available for potential sellers to review prior to accepting my offer to buy. As I've been on ebay since 2001.

I'm just glad i got in before just before the paypal issues and prior to going back to invite only, otherwise I'd be on the outside looking in.

PayPal was a good option especially considering the velocity that it was driving the market, it did have a lot of new people looking at picking up some bitcoins. Alas, it also attracted some less than desirable characters too.

The reversals aren't happening by accident. They occur when someone says their account was stolen (perhaps even rightly so). Paypal then sides with the buyer and returns their funds because on paypal the buyer always wins.

[digdugg67]

The reversals aren't happening by accident. They occur when someone says their account was stolen (perhaps even rightly so). Paypal then sides with the buyer and returns their funds because on paypal the buyer always wins.

Well, I won't be requesting mine to be reversed!! 

I guess there are crooks everywhere.

I feel sorry for those that got burned. And those that can't get in due to a few bad players. 

[029xue]

I'm getting a lot of inquiries so I will post them here:

LoginID, MemberID, IP Address, Succeeded/Failed, Datetime

19913   5184   93.96.21.223   Succeeded   2011-06-02 19:15:25
20041   5184   82.22.253.146   Failed   2011-06-02 20:12:22
20044   5184   82.22.253.146   Succeeded   2011-06-02 20:12:40
21033   5184   80.7.151.74   Failed   2011-06-03 09:36:20
21034   5184   80.7.151.74   Succeeded   2011-06-03 09:36:50
21069   5184   80.7.151.74   Succeeded   2011-06-03 10:13:24
21515   5184   82.255.162.61   Succeeded   2011-06-03 15:47:56
21819   5184   82.255.162.61   Succeeded   2011-06-03 19:17:23
23760   5184   217.23.3.57   Failed   2011-06-04 12:03:02
23762   5184   217.23.3.57   Failed   2011-06-04 12:03:20
23763   5184   217.23.3.57   Failed   2011-06-04 12:03:33

24372   5806   81.97.172.21   Succeeded   2011-06-04 15:42:10
24768   5806   81.97.172.21   Succeeded   2011-06-04 17:56:06
25197   5806   81.97.172.21   Succeeded   2011-06-04 20:47:08
25483   5806   81.97.172.21   Succeeded   2011-06-04 22:42:58
25828   5806   82.16.104.171   Succeeded   2011-06-05 01:57:57
26252   5806   77.96.212.229   Succeeded   2011-06-05 05:28:31

24125   5810   88.176.67.195   Succeeded   2011-06-04 13:49:04
24147   5810   88.185.237.205   Succeeded   2011-06-04 14:00:20
24309   5810   82.251.192.128   Succeeded   2011-06-04 15:14:48
24631   5810   82.251.192.128   Succeeded   2011-06-04 17:26:42
25029   5810   82.251.192.128   Succeeded   2011-06-04 20:05:51
25123   5810   82.251.192.128   Succeeded   2011-06-04 20:27:28
25165   5810   82.251.192.128   Succeeded   2011-06-04 20:42:49
25186   5810   82.251.192.128   Succeeded   2011-06-04 20:45:33
25687   5810   90.47.111.243   Succeeded   2011-06-05 00:29:31
26598   5810   90.47.111.243   Failed   2011-06-05 09:44:38
26599   5810   90.47.111.243   Failed   2011-06-05 09:45:03
27983   5810   138.37.135.249   Failed   2011-06-06 10:43:45

23883   6038   95.208.79.58   Succeeded   2011-06-04 12:58:36
23889   6038   95.208.79.58   Failed   2011-06-04 12:59:17
23895   6038   95.208.79.58   Succeeded   2011-06-04 12:59:29
23917   6038   95.208.79.58   Failed   2011-06-04 13:01:10
23919   6038   95.208.79.58   Succeeded   2011-06-04 13:01:23
23947   6038   95.208.79.58   Succeeded   2011-06-04 13:03:32
24645   6038   82.65.5.209   Succeeded   2011-06-04 17:27:36
25033   6038   82.65.5.209   Succeeded   2011-06-04 20:06:15
25168   6038   82.65.5.209   Succeeded   2011-06-04 20:43:22
26036   6038   82.65.5.209   Succeeded   2011-06-05 04:06:08
26083   6038   82.65.5.209   Succeeded   2011-06-05 04:27:07
26171   6038   82.65.5.209   Succeeded   2011-06-05 04:55:48
26214   6038   82.65.5.209   Succeeded   2011-06-05 05:13:22
26305   6038   82.65.5.209   Succeeded   2011-06-05 05:57:09
26327   6038   82.65.5.209   Succeeded   2011-06-05 06:01:52
26736   6038   24.218.244.153   Failed   2011-06-05 11:32:02
26738   6038   24.218.244.153   Succeeded   2011-06-05 11:34:27
27008   6038   82.16.104.171   Failed   2011-06-05 15:49:22
27009   6038   82.16.104.171   Succeeded   2011-06-05 15:49:50
27265   6038   67.167.252.102   Failed   2011-06-05 19:28:35
27545   6038   217.23.3.57   Failed   2011-06-05 23:20:37
27546   6038   217.23.3.57   Failed   2011-06-05 23:20:51

As you can see, most of them are from the UK, Netherlands, France, and Germany.

There are a couple more on my watchlist but I don't have any evidence yet.

I've been scammed by seller 6038 two days ago.
He has two LR account: U5611306 (richielambert31) and U0696054 (DzhunietDzhu...)
and also two emails: richielambert31@yahoo.co.uk and richielambert@yahoo.co.uk

I want find him out and kick his ass...

Dose any body get scammed by him also?

[dabest1]

I am new to Bitcoin Market, but have made quite a few trades already. I have run into one person who sent me PayPal eCheck. eCheck can take a week or more to clear. I requested the buyer to send me instant payment instead or otherwise I will cancel the transaction. I gave him two reasons for this:

1. Buyer could buy bitcoins with an eCheck and watch for the value of bitcoins to rise. If the bitcoins fall in price, the buyer would cancel the transaction. If the bitcoins rise in price, buyer would continue with transaction. So the seller is taking buyer's risk for a period of a week or more.

2. Funds are not available right away to the seller of bitcoins, so the seller cannot trade on the market for a week. In this case, if the seller would like to reinvest the money back into bitcoins, it is not possible to do. In a week, the price of bitcoins could rise dramatically and the seller would be at a big disadvantage.


Dustin Dollar has not replied to my email to cancel the trade yet. I can understand that he might have a huge volume of emails to deal with right now.


The trade id in question is 1606 (https://bitcoinmarket.com/member/trades/view/?tradeID=1606). The trade occurred on 2011-06-01 20:41:38, but at this time I still have not received confirmation of the funds, it is still pending.

I would like to get some opinions if I am being unreasonable or unfair here for requesting to cancel this transaction. Member edmehlschau (4190) is a new member and does not have any ratings, so he could potentially take the PayPal money back and run if Dustin decides to rule in his favor for some reason.

Thanks,
dabest1

Update: To clarify, the transaction is still unconfirmed by me and bitcoins are sitting in the escrow on Bitcoin Market.

[Netsniper]

5810 attempted to scam me, but I reported the incident as soon as it was evident that I was dealing with a scammer versus a newbie trader.  To dwdollar's credit, I felt it was handled well.  

[evobigboi]

Dwdollar do you have an ETA at all?

Lucky I have only purchased bitcoins so far!

BCM with paypal is the only place I can sell bitcoins without getting charged $50 to withdraw! (I'm in Australia)

Im lucky I can pay with AUD through Mtgox with local bank account...plus AUD is killing USD, I just hope USD comes back when I withdraw

All the best
Michael 

[djex]

Well it was bound to happen. With the combination of people recently finding out about bitcoin and BCM having open registration it really attracted a whole slew of scamers. I've made a good amount of trades on BCM with paypal and have never had a problem but the weekend just didn't feel right. The price was to high and there were to many active trades going on for the typical day on BCM. Though I did sell 15 BTC on the weekend and took a chance, I was lucky and was not scammed. I found it odd that the people I sold to were German and their paypal accounts were non U.S. accounts but they bought with USD. Also I was receiving emails in German from paypal. So this kinda sealed the deal for me to not sell any more seeing that BCM is mainly a U.S. site and having multiple sales that were not U.S. based one after another was odd.

It will be hard to fix the problem with paypal since it's to easy to commit fraud and charge back someone as well as a limited control over the transactions. It's to bad some people have to wreck it for everyone else. In a perfect world with out ass holes and idiots paypal would be a breeze but as we all know that's not the case and never will be. The only reason I used BCM with paypal is because I'm from Canada and it made it easy, but I think for now I'll stick with interac transfers.

[Rolz73]

I'm getting a lot of inquiries so I will post them here:

LoginID, MemberID, IP Address, Succeeded/Failed, Datetime

19913   5184   93.96.21.223   Succeeded   2011-06-02 19:15:25
20041   5184   82.22.253.146   Failed   2011-06-02 20:12:22
20044   5184   82.22.253.146   Succeeded   2011-06-02 20:12:40
21033   5184   80.7.151.74   Failed   2011-06-03 09:36:20
21034   5184   80.7.151.74   Succeeded   2011-06-03 09:36:50
21069   5184   80.7.151.74   Succeeded   2011-06-03 10:13:24
21515   5184   82.255.162.61   Succeeded   2011-06-03 15:47:56
21819   5184   82.255.162.61   Succeeded   2011-06-03 19:17:23
23760   5184   217.23.3.57   Failed   2011-06-04 12:03:02
23762   5184   217.23.3.57   Failed   2011-06-04 12:03:20
23763   5184   217.23.3.57   Failed   2011-06-04 12:03:33

24372   5806   81.97.172.21   Succeeded   2011-06-04 15:42:10
24768   5806   81.97.172.21   Succeeded   2011-06-04 17:56:06
25197   5806   81.97.172.21   Succeeded   2011-06-04 20:47:08
25483   5806   81.97.172.21   Succeeded   2011-06-04 22:42:58
25828   5806   82.16.104.171   Succeeded   2011-06-05 01:57:57
26252   5806   77.96.212.229   Succeeded   2011-06-05 05:28:31

24125   5810   88.176.67.195   Succeeded   2011-06-04 13:49:04
24147   5810   88.185.237.205   Succeeded   2011-06-04 14:00:20
24309   5810   82.251.192.128   Succeeded   2011-06-04 15:14:48
24631   5810   82.251.192.128   Succeeded   2011-06-04 17:26:42
25029   5810   82.251.192.128   Succeeded   2011-06-04 20:05:51
25123   5810   82.251.192.128   Succeeded   2011-06-04 20:27:28
25165   5810   82.251.192.128   Succeeded   2011-06-04 20:42:49
25186   5810   82.251.192.128   Succeeded   2011-06-04 20:45:33
25687   5810   90.47.111.243   Succeeded   2011-06-05 00:29:31
26598   5810   90.47.111.243   Failed   2011-06-05 09:44:38
26599   5810   90.47.111.243   Failed   2011-06-05 09:45:03
27983   5810   138.37.135.249   Failed   2011-06-06 10:43:45

23883   6038   95.208.79.58   Succeeded   2011-06-04 12:58:36
23889   6038   95.208.79.58   Failed   2011-06-04 12:59:17
23895   6038   95.208.79.58   Succeeded   2011-06-04 12:59:29
23917   6038   95.208.79.58   Failed   2011-06-04 13:01:10
23919   6038   95.208.79.58   Succeeded   2011-06-04 13:01:23
23947   6038   95.208.79.58   Succeeded   2011-06-04 13:03:32
24645   6038   82.65.5.209   Succeeded   2011-06-04 17:27:36
25033   6038   82.65.5.209   Succeeded   2011-06-04 20:06:15
25168   6038   82.65.5.209   Succeeded   2011-06-04 20:43:22
26036   6038   82.65.5.209   Succeeded   2011-06-05 04:06:08
26083   6038   82.65.5.209   Succeeded   2011-06-05 04:27:07
26171   6038   82.65.5.209   Succeeded   2011-06-05 04:55:48
26214   6038   82.65.5.209   Succeeded   2011-06-05 05:13:22
26305   6038   82.65.5.209   Succeeded   2011-06-05 05:57:09
26327   6038   82.65.5.209   Succeeded   2011-06-05 06:01:52
26736   6038   24.218.244.153   Failed   2011-06-05 11:32:02
26738   6038   24.218.244.153   Succeeded   2011-06-05 11:34:27
27008   6038   82.16.104.171   Failed   2011-06-05 15:49:22
27009   6038   82.16.104.171   Succeeded   2011-06-05 15:49:50
27265   6038   67.167.252.102   Failed   2011-06-05 19:28:35
27545   6038   217.23.3.57   Failed   2011-06-05 23:20:37
27546   6038   217.23.3.57   Failed   2011-06-05 23:20:51

As you can see, most of them are from the UK, Netherlands, France, and Germany.

There are a couple more on my watchlist but I don't have any evidence yet.

A couple thing I noticed:
First, user #5184... He was the first encounter I had with someone doing the "dispute after confirmation" scam.  I had messaged him many times as well as the email of the PP user that had disputed the purchase.  I was persistent and eventually got #5184 to give me back the BTC that I sold.  After my negative rating of #5184, I got a lot of messages from other users who also got scammed asking me how i reacted (check out his ratings now).

A little while ago when the PPUSD price on BCM was going crazy ($40) I checked out the "recent trades" multiple times to see who was obviously intentionally overcharging for trades to push the price up.  I saw a lot of high price activity from both user #6038 and #5810, especially between themselves.

I have to say, I am glad that I was lucky to get in during the open invitation window because despite the scammers, I really like BCM.

[trackpantsboner]

What were the scammers doing exactly? I had quite a few buyers cancel trades and not pay but that was all. Im in Australia so really hope you do re-implement Paypal as its by far and away the easiest method of buying and selling bitcoins from here.

I am into sharetrading aswell and the broking firms here would only let you place a buy order for shares if you had at least an equivalent value of shares or cash in your account as collateral, which I think should be the case for bitcoin market too. If someone places a buy order and doesnt pay within 48 hours then Dustin can sell btc from the buyers account at the prevailing market rate in order to pay the seller.

[Zzzapper]

Could we get the email-addresses of the scammers? The ones they logged in with, not their paypal adresses. I just thought that if they are actually using stolen paypal accounts, it wouldn't seem likely to get any contact through that address. If the addresses connected to BCM are the real ones, they will be quite nice to have. Also, any chance that BCM has an unsafe password system  . It would be incredibly cool if it was possible to get the passwords of the scammers and they used the same passwords for email or other stuff!

[bitcoinTrader]

Update: My account has been permanently limited for currency exchange. This is probably less because of b4rrydoyle and his scamming, and more because of the f@$king idiots who sent me payments with memos explicitly saying they were buying bitcoins.

My aaccount has been limited as well.
They asked clarification for some bitcoin transactions which I did.
I told them its for software consulting, then they asked why did you take those payments as personal 
Then they told there will be review from accounts team and will reply in 24 hours.

Yesterday, on OTC, there was a suspicious buyer (scammer?) , with whom I did transaction for 345$.
I think he used stolen accounts for payment.
May be because of that my account is being reviewed?

Still awaiting reply..
Dont know what should be my next course of action

[kicir]

wow guys, all these stories of scammers and Paypal "siding" with them are really unnerving

I'm thinking that one way to potentially avoid Paypal reversals is to require the party sending the Paypal money to make a "Mass Payment" from their current balance

it would be great if someone could confirm but I've heard that Mass Payments are not reversible (and they only cost 1$ independently of amount)

anyone?

[piuk]

A suggestion for those using paypal. After payment get the buyer to open a dispute and then immediately close it, a dispute can only be opened once, so it's no longer possible to claim a refund.

[speeder]

I know what can be done!

Imitate Steam.


On Steam, if you do a paypal chargeback, they ban your account.

But why is this effective?

It is because you lose the stuff in your account.



So, we must do the same on BCM:

You can only use PayPal, if you have some bitcoins in your account, the more bitcoins you have, the more you can buy using PayPal, thus if you do funny stuff with PayPal, you risk losing all your BTC.