SCAM - Coinabul owe me 90btc

[Coinabul]

date:    Wed, Mar 6, 2013 at 2:22 PM

Hi Petr,

Thanks for being patient with us over the weekend, I sent some money to MtGox to give you a MTGOX-USD code but had a delay along the way- it's ready now. Let me know if you have a MtGox account to receive the $1603 on your buyback, or if you need me to purchase Bitcoins and withdraw them to an address instead.

Thanks,
Jay

I've been trying to refund his coin along with the shipping cost(of course) for nearly two weeks now - he continually refuses my attempts to do so, and requests that we break the laws of the country in which he resides instead which is obviously not a possibility.


Beyond that, our International Shipping page is quite clear:
"You are responsible for assuring that any product you order can be lawfully imported to your destination country. When ordering from Coinabul.com, the recipient(purchaser) is the legal importer of record and must comply with all laws and regulations of your destination country."

No matter what the origin country, precious metals are unable to be imported into his nation(see http://countries.bridgat.com/Czech_Republic_Import_Restrictions.html http://www.fedex.com/us/international/irc/profiles/irc_cz_profile.html http://pe.usps.com/text/imm/ce_019.htm). Since I saw this issue pop up after having no order volume to the Czech Republic until a couple of weeks ago, the Czech Republic has been disabled entirely in our system. We remove any countries that are glaringly obvious, but with 244 countries and countless territories in service, as well as language barriers for many of them which makes research very difficult, it's nearly impossible to verify on our end which countries across the globe have a specific ban on the import of precious metals, hence the special International Orders page linked to from the footer on every page within our site.


Bitcoin is heavily volatile- when a customer places an order, we replace his metal within our reserves, ship the order and convert the BTC to fiat as quickly as possible in order to preserve the spot indices as closely as we can between order placement and completion. Once an order comes in, the conversion process engages, and the customer owns their chosen metal from that point forward.

We deal with millions of dollars worth of bitcoins- sitting on that kind of risk profile is averse to the entire concept of the business via preserving wealth via stable precious metals. If someone bought $1,000 of gold when BTC is at $50, then it suddenly falls to $2/coin as it has in the past, and assuming that gold stays stable as it tends to they'd be getting a refund of $1000 in either straight fiat on MtGox(our prefered for the transitory capability) or coins at the updated rate- not $40 worth of BTC. The same goes inversely.

If in the prior scenario gold skyrockets to 10x the value, the customer would get $10,000 as the refund instead of $1,000. Once the transaction is engaged in by the customer, the turbines spin up on our side to fill it as humanly fast as possible, and the customer owns metal as opposed to Bitcoins, as do we since we've already started replacing the metal that we've allocated to fill the customer's order. If the customer needs a refund, we'll refund the equivalent value of their metal provided we're legally allowed to.

Our TOS states this quite succintly:
"If an order cannot be filled by Coinabul we will either: provide a substitute product of your choice of equivalent value, or provide a refund, minus any market loss incurred and at our discretion."

We'll happily refund the going market value of the customer's metal + shipping costs whenever we are not specifically legally banned from doing so, and that hasn't happened yet.

I've emailed Petr again just a few minutes ago as I have been for a couple weeks trying to send him a refund, ideally in USD so he can be poised to repurchase bitcoins when they're close to his original price point(as he could have over the last week had he accepted my continual attempts to refund him previously).

[1714998584]

1714998584

[1714998584]

1714998584

[bravenec]

Hi Jay

You are trying to refund me the trade which never happened.
I have no gold, never had any gold and you make nothing to send the gold to me.
I do not want money for gold which I never had.

Now I send to Jay this email:

I want to make the trade and I accepted the price "The Krugerrand" = "90 BTC".
So this is third time I offer you this:

Buy the Krugerrand for me elsewhere in Europe and send it to me.

I have offer from this company:

http://www.bitcoincommodities.com/

to act as a man in the middle for such trade. They sell to US and Europe
and there would be no problem for them to make such trade. Please, contact
user "2weiX" on bitcointal.org forum and ask him for details.

You have received from me:
90.78 BTC at BTC/USD rate 21.18 = 1922 USD.
As a BTC/USD rate is taken the closing price from MtGox Feb 6.

Buy from bitcoincommodities.com gold Krugerrand for todays price
1709 USD + shipping and everyone will be happy.

Petr

[bravenec]

Uchhhh, the sentence : "Now I send to Jay this email:" is located inside the mail :-(

[bravenec]

I'd like to note that Coinabul offered me to refund gold "at the current spot price". This is the first email from them in which they offered me to refund the shipping also.

[DarkHyudrA]

I think the value is what needs to be refunded.  That is about 40BTC right now.  That way, no one is really at a loss.  Of course, my reasoning falls apart when you consider that if the price of gold doubled then it would be ok to send only half an ounce; if you consider things as only the value they represent.  But, Gold is a commodity and Bitcoin is a currency.  Bitcoins represent buying power, and so if 40 BTC were refunded then the gold coin could just be bought elsewhere.  This way no one could hedge anyone (as far as the currencies are concerned).

AH yeah so let's refund 40BTC and keep 50 BTC, profit for doing nothing.

[2weiX]

I think the value is what needs to be refunded.  That is about 40BTC right now.  That way, no one is really at a loss.  Of course, my reasoning falls apart when you consider that if the price of gold doubled then it would be ok to send only half an ounce; if you consider things as only the value they represent.  But, Gold is a commodity and Bitcoin is a currency.  Bitcoins represent buying power, and so if 40 BTC were refunded then the gold coin could just be bought elsewhere.  This way no one could hedge anyone (as far as the currencies are concerned).

AH yeah so let's refund 40BTC and keep 50 BTC, profit for doing nothing.

safe bet is coinabul automatically sold the btc shortly after receipt, so no "profit" there.
only theoretically.

[rpietila]

Considering that:
- The buyer is willing to receive the Krugerrand he bought,
- It may get Coinabul into trouble, to send Gold to a country where it is not allowed to do so, and
- 2weiX is willing to ship the coin to the buyer, and Coinabul can easily pay him the market price of the said coin,

I believe that this is a reasonable way to make all parties happy.

[bravenec]

I think the value is what needs to be refunded.  That is about 40BTC right now.  That way, no one is really at a loss.  Of course, my reasoning falls apart when you consider that if the price of gold doubled then it would be ok to send only half an ounce; if you consider things as only the value they represent.  But, Gold is a commodity and Bitcoin is a currency.  Bitcoins represent buying power, and so if 40 BTC were refunded then the gold coin could just be bought elsewhere.  This way no one could hedge anyone (as far as the currencies are concerned).

AH yeah so let's refund 40BTC and keep 50 BTC, profit for doing nothing.

safe bet is coinabul automatically sold the btc shortly after receipt, so no "profit" there.
only theoretically.

Yes. I think so. They have no hedging against the bitcoin market moves so they are not willing to refund in bitcoins.

[bravenec]

Considering that:
- The buyer is willing to receive the Krugerrand he bought,
- It may get Coinabul into trouble, to send Gold to a country where it is not allowed to do so, and
- 2weiX is willing to ship the coin to the buyer, and Coinabul can easily pay him the market price of the said coin,

I believe that this is a reasonable way to make all parties happy.

Yes. I have offered this to Coinabul three times.

[rpietila]

Considering that:
- The buyer is willing to receive the Krugerrand he bought,
- It may get Coinabul into trouble, to send Gold to a country where it is not allowed to do so, and
- 2weiX is willing to ship the coin to the buyer, and Coinabul can easily pay him the market price of the said coin,

I believe that this is a reasonable way to make all parties happy.

Yes. I have offered this to Coinabul three times.

Yes. If I were Coinabul, I would accept this with apologies.

Even as I am not Coinabul, I am willing to apologize all who feel that I am a jerk, and try to serve them better in the future.

[JoelKatz]

Beyond that, our International Shipping page is quite clear:
"You are responsible for assuring that any product you order can be lawfully imported to your destination country. When ordering from Coinabul.com, the recipient(purchaser) is the legal importer of record and must comply with all laws and regulations of your destination country."

Fedex's terms at http://www.fedex.com/us/international/irc/profiles/irc_cz_profile.html say, "An export license is also required when exporting toxic commodities, steel and steel products, precious metals, raw wood and wood products." Coinabul is the exporter, right?

[2weiX]

Another reason to order from within the EU when being in the EU.

As a European Union Member, the free movement of goods between Member States is allowed. The current members are: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Spain and United Kingdom. EU members form a customs union that calls for free trade and the absence of customs duties and quotas on trade among members.

[rpietila]

Another reason to order from within the EU when being in the EU.

EU is restoring our liberties! Hooray

[2weiX]

Another reason to order from within the EU when being in the EU.

EU is restoring our liberties! Hooray

heh.
well, at leas it allows transport of goods from A to B, amirite?

[rpietila]

Another reason to order from within the EU when being in the EU.

EU is restoring our liberties! Hooray

heh.
well, at leas it allows transport of goods from A to B, amirite?

Yes. Considering that this right was suspended for us between 1914-1995, there is a reason to celebrate! 

[bravenec]

Beyond that, our International Shipping page is quite clear:
"You are responsible for assuring that any product you order can be lawfully imported to your destination country. When ordering from Coinabul.com, the recipient(purchaser) is the legal importer of record and must comply with all laws and regulations of your destination country."

Fedex's terms at http://www.fedex.com/us/international/irc/profiles/irc_cz_profile.html say, "An export license is also required when exporting toxic commodities, steel and steel products, precious metals, raw wood and wood products." Coinabul is the exporter, right?

Now I carefully read the part of "International Shipping" page sent to me from Coinabul:

> General Customs + Tax Information:
> You are responsible for assuring that any product you order can be
> lawfully imported to your destination country. When ordering from
> Coinabul.com, the recipient(purchaser) is the legal importer of record and
> must comply with all laws and regulations of your destination country.

As far as I know there is no law forbiding ME to import gold to Czech Republic.

Coinabul did not know that they must have licence to export gold to Czech republic and now they says it is MY responsibility.

[Raoul Duke]

BRB, opening a bitcoin webshop to accept orders from every country in the world, even ones I can't ship to...
We'll figure it later, after you pay, if you'll get your stuff or a refund in whatever currency gives me more profit.

[SgtSpike]

Considering that:
- The buyer is willing to receive the Krugerrand he bought,
- It may get Coinabul into trouble, to send Gold to a country where it is not allowed to do so, and
- 2weiX is willing to ship the coin to the buyer, and Coinabul can easily pay him the market price of the said coin,

I believe that this is a reasonable way to make all parties happy.

How is Coinabul supposed to trust 2weiX to ship the goods?  What happens if that package is "lost" - who pays for it?

No, the best way to make all parties happy is for Coinabul to refund the full amount in USD equivalent as their policy states.  Including shipping (why they didn't include shipping as part of the refund to begin with is beyond me).  The customer can then take his business directly to 2weiX and deal with him without having Coinabul as a middleman.

[bravenec]

From the beginning this is Coinabul's fault. They are offering services they are not licensed to. Look for the value they offered me as a refund and tell me: where is a _licensed_ eshop where I can buy Krugerand + shipping + insurance for 1603 USD? Is such eshop existing? This is the reason why I demanded such solution.

[rpietila]

Considering that:
- The buyer is willing to receive the Krugerrand he bought,
- It may get Coinabul into trouble, to send Gold to a country where it is not allowed to do so, and
- 2weiX is willing to ship the coin to the buyer, and Coinabul can easily pay him the market price of the said coin,

I believe that this is a reasonable way to make all parties happy.

How is Coinabul supposed to trust 2weiX to ship the goods?  What happens if that package is "lost" - who pays for it?

No, the best way to make all parties happy is for Coinabul to refund the full amount in USD equivalent as their policy states.  Including shipping (why they didn't include shipping as part of the refund to begin with is beyond me).  The customer can then take his business directly to 2weiX and deal with him without having Coinabul as a middleman.

Hm, undecided   Upon lock-in, the seller transferred the ownership of a Krugerrand to the buyer and undertook a commitment to deliver it to the buyer. The buyer could not reasonably have been aware that the seller cannot deliver to his country, as importing is not forbidden, and the country was available in the seller's list. As seller is canceling the deal because of his own fault to deliver, he needs to make sure the customer is not worse off than he would have been, if the seller had delivered.

Even if seller's terms say something, they may not be used to defraud a buyer who has not committed a fault. Especially as it only costs them about $100 (or nothing, depending on if and when they transferred the Krugerrand back to themselves).

I got a reply from Coinabul regarding the other one, and it was very courteous and on top of the situation. I am sure they understand how to deal with this one also.