Unfair Scammer Judgements

[danieldaniel]

So, I know how easily this thread could possibly turn into a conspiracy thread where people accuse the mods/admins of all sorts of BS.  I would like to ask that nobody turn this thread into this.

Essentially, I feel like some mods/admins (in this example, theymos) are being very unfair in scammer tag judgements.
In the Andrew Bitcoiner thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=143980.0), there are many accredited people in the Bitcoin community who have come forward and said that Andrew has scammed them.  Theymos even implicitly agreed that the funds were stolen, yet he claims that since he didn't explicitly say that he couldn't steal out Bitcoins, that he's in the green.

By this logic, I could scam EVERYONE in this forum and not get a scammer tag.  Simply because I didn't say that I couldn't in the contract!

By this logic, every scammer is not actually a scammer.  Pirate is all cool, since he didn't ACTUALLY steal our Bitcoins... We didn't say he couldn't! 

The difficulty with this case, IIRC, is that Andrew Bitcoiner's sites had terms which said that he could do whatever he wanted with deposited bitcoins. I might be willing to give him a scammer tag despite this, but this fact really strengthens his case, especially since not all users are affected.

There has never been a Terms of Service on his website (bitjack21).  I don't understand where he came up with this.  On the rules page, it says that the ToS is located at https://bitjack21.com/tos.php, but it's a 404!

And then, my main point:

Even though he doesn't defend himself, I don't feel like the situation is clear enough for a scammer tag. Mostly because this is an external site with unclear status and agreements. I can't find a provable instance of him actually breaking any agreements.

He's essentially saying here that JUST BECAUSE he didn't agree that he wouldn't steal our BTC, he's allowed to.  One would think this was implied!


I am not asking that theymos be kicked out of the forum or anything (because he owns it, iirc), but I would like to have a civilized (read: NO THROWING AROUND ACCUSATIONS) discussion about how the forum is to hand out scammer tags.

I fully accept that this forum is essentially a monarchy, and therefore theymos's decision is final, but I would think that the forum would want to make more fair judgements than this.

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[Isokivi]

If the evicence stated above exists, then this will most certainly put a permanent dent to my opinnion about Theymos, these forums and boths credibility. I will be reading the whole thread linked tomorrow and drawing my own conclutions.

[theymos]

Keep in mind that I never signed up to be the Universal Arbiter of Bitcoin Truth and Justice. I give people scammer tags when it's extremely clear to me that they've broken agreements or otherwise behaved very unethically. I don't have time to (and I don't want to) investigate these things thoroughly, which is why high-profile scam cases are rarely handled quickly. I wait until things settle down and the truth becomes obvious.

This case is different than others because:
- There seems to currently be no agreement between Andrew Bitcoiner and users of his site. Andrew Bitcoiner's other site definitely said at one point that he could do whatever he wanted with deposited BTC. I assumed that bitjack21 had the same terms, but maybe not. In any case, there is no agreement that prohibits him from doing anything. This doesn't mean that he can do whatever he wants, but it helps his case.
- The affected users haven't proven that their BTC was stolen. (And this would be difficult to prove.)
- There is no clear example of Andrew Bitcoiner breaking explicit promises.
- Only a few users are affected. Things would be clear if every user was affected. But since only a few users are affected, and there was no agreement prohibiting Andrew Bitcoiner from doing anything, I feel like not much justification is necessary for Andrew Bitcoiner to close accounts with some legitimacy. Maybe the accounts were closed after the users broke site rules.

This all adds up to make things not extremely clear to me. So I'm going to err on the side of caution for now. Andrew Bitcoiner should be defending himself -- I will reconsider this if he doesn't start doing so.

[danieldaniel]

Keep in mind that I never signed up to be the Universal Arbiter of Bitcoin Truth and Justice. I give people scammer tags when it's extremely clear to me that they've broken agreements or otherwise behaved very unethically. I don't have time to (and I don't want to) investigate these things thoroughly, which is why high-profile scam cases are rarely handled quickly. I wait until things settle down and the truth becomes obvious.

This case is different than others because:
- There seems to currently be no agreement between Andrew Bitcoiner and users of his site. Andrew Bitcoiner's other site definitely said at one point that he could do whatever he wanted with deposited BTC. I assumed that bitjack21 had the same terms, but maybe not. In any case, there is no agreement that prohibits him from doing anything. This doesn't mean that he can do whatever he wants, but it helps his case.
- The affected users haven't proven that their BTC was stolen. (And this would be difficult to prove.)
- There is no clear example of Andrew Bitcoiner breaking explicit promises.
- Only a few users are affected. Things would be clear if every user was affected. But since only a few users are affected, and there was no agreement prohibiting Andrew Bitcoiner from doing anything, I feel like not much justification is necessary for Andrew Bitcoiner to close accounts with some legitimacy. Maybe the accounts were closed after the users broke site rules.

This all adds up to make things not extremely clear to me. So I'm going to err on the side of caution for now. Andrew Bitcoiner should be defending himself -- I will reconsider this if he doesn't start doing so.

Theymos, no offense, this thread (and the previous one) has been up for weeks.  I (and a few other people, see my old thread) have emailed him multiple times.  He is ignoring this thread. 

Also, there ARE NO RULES!  If you look at the rules, it just tells you what the site does!  There are NO RULES TO BREAK!

Second, that brings me back to my original argument.  Do people who do Bitcoin trades explicitly say that the counterparty can't run away with the money?  In the majority of cases, no, this is implied.  It's pretty reasonable to believe that a site owner can't run away with a users money.

Third, I had emails with Andrew (posted in my other thread, iirc, I'll get those here soon) that prove that I bought BTC for an amazon GC on his site!  Then, once I won some BTC and I tried to withdraw, it didn't work.  I emailed his support and got ignored several times!  What more proof do you want?

And you kinda did sign up to be the arbitrator by being the ONLY person that can give scammer tags.  If you don't want this responsibility, sign it off to someone els!

[speeder]

Keep in mind that I never signed up to be the Universal Arbiter of Bitcoin Truth and Justice. I give people scammer tags when it's extremely clear to me that they've broken agreements or otherwise behaved very unethically. I don't have time to (and I don't want to) investigate these things thoroughly, which is why high-profile scam cases are rarely handled quickly. I wait until things settle down and the truth becomes obvious.

This case is different than others because:
- There seems to currently be no agreement between Andrew Bitcoiner and users of his site. Andrew Bitcoiner's other site definitely said at one point that he could do whatever he wanted with deposited BTC. I assumed that bitjack21 had the same terms, but maybe not. In any case, there is no agreement that prohibits him from doing anything. This doesn't mean that he can do whatever he wants, but it helps his case.
- The affected users haven't proven that their BTC was stolen. (And this would be difficult to prove.)
- There is no clear example of Andrew Bitcoiner breaking explicit promises.
- Only a few users are affected. Things would be clear if every user was affected. But since only a few users are affected, and there was no agreement prohibiting Andrew Bitcoiner from doing anything, I feel like not much justification is necessary for Andrew Bitcoiner to close accounts with some legitimacy. Maybe the accounts were closed after the users broke site rules.

This all adds up to make things not extremely clear to me. So I'm going to err on the side of caution for now. Andrew Bitcoiner should be defending himself -- I will reconsider this if he doesn't start doing so.

I can prove that he stole 13.14 BTC from me.

I have a automated e-mail that his site sent me:

Delivered-To: o...r@gmail.com
Received: by 10.49.13.41 with SMTP id e9csp73464qec;
        Tue, 4 Sep 2012 19:00:05 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by 10.236.77.229 with SMTP id d65mr20608258yhe.124.1346810405743;
        Tue, 04 Sep 2012 19:00:05 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path: <www-data@server10.hostco.com>
Received: from server10.hostco.com ([199.47.172.73])
        by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id v34si17157ann.53.2012.09.04.19.00.05
        (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=OTHER);
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Received-SPF: neutral (google.com: 199.47.172.73 is neither permitted nor denied by best guess record for domain of www-data@server10.hostco.com) client-ip=199.47.172.73;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=neutral (google.com: 199.47.172.73 is neither permitted nor denied by best guess record for domain of www-data@server10.hostco.com) smtp.mail=www-data@server10.hostco.com
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Received: (from www-data@localhost)
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Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2012 21:59:36 -0400
From: www-data <www-data@server10.hostco.com>
Message-Id: <201209050159.q851xaue015409@server10.hostco.com>
To: o...r@gmail.com
Subject: [BitJack21] Pending Withdrawal Notification
X-PHP-Originating-Script: 0:common.php
X-Mailer: BitJack21
Reply-To: bitjack21@gmail.com
Errors-To: bitjack21@gmail.com

Hello,

This is a notice that you have a pending BTC withdrawal from https://www.bitjack21.com for speeder.

A withdrawal of 13.14 BTC is now queued for manual processing and will be sent within 24 hours to address 1DwhUDPuhnjqnrjthcyVxvpTVGV4RgtrsQ

Thanks for playing!

--
bitjack21.com

Note that if you check this address on block explorer:

http://blockchain.info/address/1DwhUDPuhnjqnrjthcyVxvpTVGV4RgtrsQ

a 13.14 BTC deposit NEVER happened.


Now the relevant thread about this subject (me complaining of he stealing 13.14 BTC):

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=39591.msg1174948#msg1174948

Other thread about the subject:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=143585.0

There are other threads (But I won't search now).


Now, the only counter-argument to my e-mail paste here, is that the e-mail is a elaborate forgery just to be dishonest with Andrew Bitcoiner, but the e-mail is sitting on my mailbox (I can even printscreen it... or if needed, setup a very trusted person to access my account, and see the e-mail there to be clear that I did not edited the printscreen), it says 13.14 BTC will be paid to a address, and no payment ever happened to that address.

Andrew Bitcoiner defense was that he had run out of money, and that we should just keep trying to withdraw, except his system don't return the money it took from you (ie: if you attempt to withdraw his site will take the money out of your account, but if it fails to actually send the money to you, it do not put the money back, the thread where I complained of this has other people explaining this).

So, seeing that he still is not with a scammer tag, make me very, very, very sad and frustated, specially seeing that his money-stealing site is still up.

[speeder]

Proof the address is mine:

http://imagepaste.nullnetwork.net/viewimage.php?id=5761

[speeder]

Also you can try to juggle the amounts received and sent on that the all you want, it won't add up to exactly 13.14

On the day I was also doing arbitrage (buying BTC for USD in mtgox, and selling the BTC on mercadobitcoin for BRL), and decided to have some fun (I like playing blackjack) and spend some mtgoxBTC on bitjack and after I won 10 BTC (I spent 3 BTC on his site), I decided to withdraw to mercadobitcoin because it would break my strategy to continue playing (Because bet limit), and poof, 13.14 BTC is gone (the 10.14 I won, and the 3 BTC I deposited).

Reason why I was doing arbitrage: http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg360zczsg2012-07-15zeg2012-10-15ztgSzm1g10zm2g25zv (ie: extreme volatility on those specific days, leading to me having 10% profits on arbitrage, because when the price climbed, BRL climbed faster than USD, and when USD fell down, BRL remained high until I did my arbitrage).

Seriously, 3 BTC back then was like chump change, I was gambling with it because I liked to play blackjack, but the fact that LOTS of people pointed that the site operator (Andrew Bitcoiner) was stealing people money, and nothing was made about it, make me very sad, specially because many people unwary of it, end falling on the same trap too (deposit on his site, play a bit, get a failed withdraw).

I might understand the site operator having losing streaks, but he never made a attempt to pay back, never fixed the bug on his site (that when you fail a withdraw the site deducts your balance anyway), and when pressed about it, he edited bitjack post to read "removed" instead of replying.

[speeder]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=39591.msg1179111#msg1179111

Tried logging on the site (with my password that I really remember well), did not worked.
Tried creating account... old account still exists.

Read the site news... Oh, several accounts got broken in december, and he just ask you to recreate them (so, if any of those accounts had funds, you are screwed... mine like I said, was empty anyway, he never returned my 13.14 BTC balance or deposited it).

[21after2]

Keep in mind that I never signed up to be the Universal Arbiter of Bitcoin Truth and Justice. I give people scammer tags when it's extremely clear to me that they've broken agreements or otherwise behaved very unethically. I don't have time to (and I don't want to) investigate these things thoroughly, which is why high-profile scam cases are rarely handled quickly.

I don't say this to criticize; it's good that you realize what you do and do not have time for. But ff this is the case, then why not delegate this responsibility to the global moderators? It's a part of the job, and if you're not going to do it, then someone should.

This all adds up to make things not extremely clear to me. So I'm going to err on the side of caution for now. Andrew Bitcoiner should be defending himself -- I will reconsider this if he doesn't start doing so.

The scam thread for him has been up for quite a while now: he's had plenty of time to defend himself. Other scammers have been given much less time than he has.

Terms of service or not, it should be clear that the guy has other motives in mind for the money people have given him. And it is clear that those people did not expect him to or agree with him doing what he did. The purpose of a scammer tag is to warn people of someone who is out to take their money and run: I think it's warranted in this case, whether or not that statement was in his ToS.

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

If Andrew Bitcoiner doesn't get a scammer tag, then more people are going to get scammed out of their coins.

[speeder]

If Andrew Bitcoiner doesn't get a scammer tag, then more people are going to get scammed out of their coins.

That.

I don't expect he will ever pay me 13.14 btc. But I don't want more people falling on his trap. Scam accusations were already flying when I got scammed, if he was tagged, it would have saved lots of people from grief.

Of course, if he ever pay me, I will be happy to remove my accusations, but he should.be tagged until he pays everyone back.

[sublime5447]

This is why there needs to be policing of the forums by the members. There has to me a flagging system where post that are flagged say 10 times from different users will be removed if you get 5 post removed your account will be review for permanent ban if scammer status is confirmed.

You could just post scammer or not to suspected scammer with a poll attached. After 24 hours if the poll says yes you get banned.

it would be cool if you could see the number of flags a post has and who flagged. 

[speeder]

This is too easy to result into lynch mobs, not good idea.

[sublime5447]

You can defend yourself if you aren't scamming you can prove it. I like catching and outing scammers but it is a lot of work.

[creativex]

Keep in mind that I never signed up to be the Universal Arbiter of Bitcoin Truth and Justice. I give people scammer tags when it's extremely clear to me that they've broken agreements or otherwise behaved very unethically. I don't have time to (and I don't want to) investigate these things thoroughly, which is why high-profile scam cases are rarely handled quickly. I wait until things settle down and the truth becomes obvious.

That being the case, please reconsider GigaVPS for a scammer tag. A perpetual mining bond is either perpetual or the principle must be repaid less dividends. Doing neither while the borrower alters the original contract to impose a time limit and prevent transfers between consenting parties is thinly veiled theft.

[dree12]

Keep in mind that I never signed up to be the Universal Arbiter of Bitcoin Truth and Justice. I give people scammer tags when it's extremely clear to me that they've broken agreements or otherwise behaved very unethically. I don't have time to (and I don't want to) investigate these things thoroughly, which is why high-profile scam cases are rarely handled quickly. I wait until things settle down and the truth becomes obvious.

This case is different than others because:
- There seems to currently be no agreement between Andrew Bitcoiner and users of his site. Andrew Bitcoiner's other site definitely said at one point that he could do whatever he wanted with deposited BTC. I assumed that bitjack21 had the same terms, but maybe not. In any case, there is no agreement that prohibits him from doing anything. This doesn't mean that he can do whatever he wants, but it helps his case.
- The affected users haven't proven that their BTC was stolen. (And this would be difficult to prove.)
- There is no clear example of Andrew Bitcoiner breaking explicit promises.
- Only a few users are affected. Things would be clear if every user was affected. But since only a few users are affected, and there was no agreement prohibiting Andrew Bitcoiner from doing anything, I feel like not much justification is necessary for Andrew Bitcoiner to close accounts with some legitimacy. Maybe the accounts were closed after the users broke site rules.

This all adds up to make things not extremely clear to me. So I'm going to err on the side of caution for now. Andrew Bitcoiner should be defending himself -- I will reconsider this if he doesn't start doing so.

I don't want to join the witchhunt, but here's my case.

I was promised a generous payout for advertising, which I believed to be too good to be true; however, as Andrew Bitcoiner seemed trustworthy, I went for it. After very little time (less than a week) the account balance reached a point where the "automatic payout" should have activated. Instead of a payout, I was greeted with an inaccessible site for some time. I waited it out, leaving a broken advertisement on that I expected would earn nothing; the reason for this was purely laziness. After the site went back up, my balance was reset. Although the amount was little (just over 0.1 BTC), I immediately pulled the advertisement and my initial concerns were proved valid.

I believe Andrew Bitcoiner was acting extremely unethically through this account reset, that coincidentally occurred after an outage. While I never bothered to speculate or research on the cause of the outage, I have reason to believe he was hacked and intentionally dropped small amounts off people's balances to compensate. This was particularly noticeable on my account because of its newness; there was a very small balance anyhow. This would explain why only a few users reported problems.

Although I am certain that he is a scammer, I can understand the doubt and uncertainty (after all, I am also not the Universal Arbiter of Bitcoin Truth and Justice). In order to ensure that he does not scam more users on these forums, and in an incognito manner (the most dangerous form of scamming), I strongly recommend the use of a scammer tag which can be removed if he successfully defends himself.

In support of this recommendation, I must remind you of the purpose of a scammer tag—one, to deter scamming, and two, to remind newbies to choose an honest vendor. Andrew Bitcoiner has clearly acted dishonestly, and newbies should be reminded of such.

[danieldaniel]

Theymos, more and more people are coming out and saying that Andrew scammed them.  I usually don't start these kinds of threads complaining about the forum, but I really disagree with the decision you are making here. 

He made a thread recently (I remember someone posted about it in his scammer thread) asking for new business, which was of course locked (nobody could call him out).  People are going to to trust him if he doesn't have the red X's.  I hate to say it, but many people call looking to see if their counter-party has a scammer tag "research," and see no point to google his name or look through the forums.

I don't see what else we have to prove to you.

[Anduck]

His forums, his rules. If he doesn't want to tag him, then he won't. I think he should, since there's well enough of evidence. But users choose which forums they use.

[Isokivi]

Keep in mind that I never signed up to be the Universal Arbiter of Bitcoin Truth and Justice. I give people scammer tags when it's extremely clear to me that they've broken agreements or otherwise behaved very unethically. I don't have time to (and I don't want to) investigate these things thoroughly, which is why high-profile scam cases are rarely handled quickly. I wait until things settle down and the truth becomes obvious.

I can understand this, thats not a responsability or burden I would want myself. Perhaps in this case you should trust the judgement to another moderator or a well reputed member. After viewing the evidence myself I do believe that he has indeed scammed people, with the added proof of deleted posts and not defending himself things look even worse. I personallu did not lose anything, but am sickened by the fact that he's is the first service I have had bitcoin in myself that has done something like this. I suppose that was poor judgement on my part.

[danieldaniel]

Keep in mind that I never signed up to be the Universal Arbiter of Bitcoin Truth and Justice. I give people scammer tags when it's extremely clear to me that they've broken agreements or otherwise behaved very unethically. I don't have time to (and I don't want to) investigate these things thoroughly, which is why high-profile scam cases are rarely handled quickly. I wait until things settle down and the truth becomes obvious.

I can understand this, thats not a responsability or burden I would want myself. Perhaps in this case you should trust the judgement to another moderator or a well reputed member. After viewing the evidence myself I do believe that he has indeed scammed people, with the added proof of deleted posts and not defending himself things look even worse. I personallu did not lose anything, but am sickened by the fact that he's is the first service I have had bitcoin in myself that has done something like this. I suppose that was poor judgement on my part.

Exactly this.  I'm sure many of the global mods would be happy to do this.

So, is the forum consensus that I can scam someone as long as I don't SAY I can't?