Instawallet claim process

[davout]

The claim ID is character string labeled "Claim #" on the claims page.

[1714065620]

1714065620

[1714065620]

1714065620

[1714065620]

1714065620

[phelix]

no particular interest on the part of the Bitcoin-Central/Paymium/whatever bunch to produce such information.

Like I said, if you show me that there exists a way for me to produce a complete financial report that can be independently cross-checked I'll be all over it.
But apparently you have no problem entertaining this circular logic of yours.

It would probably help if you would simply publish the final balance. From the blockchain it looks like a whopping 2500BTC

[davout]

It would probably help if you would simply publish the final balance. From the blockchain it looks like a whopping 2500BTC

See, my whole point is that it would not help at all, whatever is meant by "help".

I publish some numbers that magically add up to whatever, what's the value of that? How does it "help", if by "help" you mean increasing my trust score with a select subset of bitcointalk forumites? The only thing it'll achieve fooling some idiots into the illusion of transparency.

That's like people sending GPG-signed e-mails being like "see! you can check the signature on this message, I've attached the public key".

[marcus_of_augustus]

davout : are you gonna make us whole?

(last time I ask nicely)

[Phinnaeus Gage]

The claim ID is character string labeled "Claim #" on the claims page.

Let's start with this one, for it's the easiest: https://www.instawallet.org/w/sMceOus2wYrDVAHxA5BssBwB7kgDqC9r4Q

I see two claims against this account, neither of which is mine, although I files one on the very first day InstaWallet started accepting claims, along with two others at the very same time.

The two claim numbers I see are 3a0d26d7-c7a1-45fd-b3fa-c77afe5c5ad2 and bf72db58-1ec7-4ff1-8f00-ceb0b0063063. I ain't got a clue as to how they received claims numbers. Perhaps it was emailed to them, then later InstaWallet added them to the page. I never received an email, nor a claim number generated when I filled out this or the other two claims. Taxing my memory, once I filled out the claims and pressed submit (enter, etc.), the page refreshed to exactly what it was prior to me filling out the form. I assumed that was normal the first time I saw it, thus continued the exact process with the other two claims, with all three doing exactly as I described. There was no claim number to glean, and even if there was one, I probably would have no reason to save it, assuming it would have been for internal proposes on your end, having nothing to do with me on my end.

Back to the wallet/URL above consisting of 0.835 BTC. The following quotes are proof that I own that particular wallet of which I put in a claim for it back in early April, the day the claim process was first available.

My 52.39 btc is also 'missing' sent from one instawallet to another address and the coins are not showing up in the block chain, and the new address isn't showing up either cause its never been used.....

and yet on the address where the 52.39 btc were sent from shows unspent coins but they are no longer in the instawallet

http://blockchain.info/unspent?active=17iQhdkNpoxYcNNcXodPjTWUqSuTC8XaF4&format=html    

I like IW, but something has changed recently and I can't put my finger on it.

Before, I was able to see my wallet in BlockChain and it will have the same amount as I view it on IW's URL page. Now the BlockChain continues to read 0 available with the coins set to some other address(es), yet still see a balance on the IW URL page. I'm still able to send coins and they get to their destination rather quickly.

To see what I mean, here's an address I set up to pay out a bounty: http://blockchain.info/address/1JppeHVdYQEBGR4uHVTqLQsb2FY1wUTziH

The wallet shows $0, yet at IW I clearly have 0.105 BTC of which I can still send, hopefully.

I look forward to having some light shed on this.

~Bruno K~

PS: To be clear, the wallet address is 1JppeHVdYQEBGR4uHVTqLQsb2FY1wUTziH

Then you replied with:

I like IW, but something has changed recently and I can't put my finger on it.

[...]

~Bruno K~

PS: To be clear, the wallet address is 1JppeHVdYQEBGR4uHVTqLQsb2FY1wUTziH

Dear Bruno,

Instawallet has always worked like a shared wallet, nothing has ever changed in this respect.

The fact you used to see coins remain at the deposit address simply means that :
 - there used to be less coin turnover,
 - the cold storage was less used,
 - any combination of the previous reasons.

Some stuff does change though, you used to get your transaction ID back immediately when sending coins, that's not the case anymore, sends are now asynchronously handled by a background worker. That's much more secure in terms of potential race conditions, much more robust in terms of infrastructure, much more maintenable (since now I can simply stop the worker, do some work on bitcoind and switch it back on).

The traffic also increases a lot, to give you an idea, our average weekly turnover is around 10kBTC in, and 10kBTC out, it recently peaked at around 50kBTC/week.

Your wallet has exactly the amount you expect to be available, you can't rely on blockchain.info to tell you how much is available in an account on a shared wallet.

This is how your balance is calculated :



Hope it's clearer

Then I thanked you with:

I like IW, but something has changed recently and I can't put my finger on it.

[...]

~Bruno K~

PS: To be clear, the wallet address is 1JppeHVdYQEBGR4uHVTqLQsb2FY1wUTziH

Dear Bruno,

Instawallet has always worked like a shared wallet, nothing has ever changed in this respect.

The fact you used to see coins remain at the deposit address simply means that :
 - there used to be less coin turnover,
 - the cold storage was less used,
 - any combination of the previous reasons.

Some stuff does change though, you used to get your transaction ID back immediately when sending coins, that's not the case anymore, sends are now asynchronously handled by a background worker. That's much more secure in terms of potential race conditions, much more robust in terms of infrastructure, much more maintenable (since now I can simply stop the worker, do some work on bitcoind and switch it back on).

The traffic also increases a lot, to give you an idea, our average weekly turnover is around 10kBTC in, and 10kBTC out, it recently peaked at around 50kBTC/week.

Your wallet has exactly the amount you expect to be available, you can't rely on blockchain.info to tell you how much is available in an account on a shared wallet.

This is how your balance is calculated :



Hope it's clearer

That's a fine explanation I can live with. Thanks, bud.

~Bruno K~

At some point, just prior to the hack(?), all three wallets showed a zero balance just like it did on the "block chain", but I wasn't concerned upon seeing this after I moved the two larger wallets containing 1,000 BTC and 132 BTC (though I claimed only 123 BTC), respectively. After I saw a zero balance in both those new wallet addresses, I checked the 1Jpp... wallet and saw that that too was at zero. I just assumed that InstaWallet had a hiccup or work was being preformed in the backend, thus didn't worry about it one iota after just recently being rest assured by you that all is well at InsatWalletLand.

The last transaction from the 1Jpp... wallet was to a fellow Bitcoiner to pay out a bounty: https://blockchain.info/tx/cb32e5147c0510a3423a9b9c57a90fa949a3960422563bf8ade5a621a0939cec

The 0.105 BTC bounty was paid here (surprised to see he's letting it sit): https://blockchain.info/address/13wVc8gyoBSeTGmc7Abz3xtJ5QYRjWenTC

I call it a bounty above, but I guess it was more considered a contest, but basically the same thing: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=132012

It was either March 27th or the 28th that I saw all three wallets showing a zero balance, the timeframe when I transferred the two larger accounts to a new InstaWallet address for obfuscation purposes. The 1Jpp... wallet containing exactly 0.835 BTC wasn't touched after I made the last transaction as shown above.

I have no idea who the other two people are that put in claims. The email address I used on all three claims was dabitcoinguy@gmail.com, the one seen in my profile.

I hope the above helps you in getting this resolved for me.

Bruno Kucinskas

[davout]

I hope the above helps you in getting this resolved for me.

Dear Bruno, please forward all the information to me by e-mail.

davout : are you gonna make us whole?

(last time I ask nicely)

I have no interest in entertaining your false dichotomies.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

I hope the above helps you in getting this resolved for me.

Dear Bruno, please forward all the information to me by e-mail.

davout : are you gonna make us whole?

(last time I ask nicely)

I have no interest in entertaining your false dichotomies.

Finally, we're making headway. I was going to use the email seen in your profile, but since you recently emailed me using a different email address, I will simply reply to that one.

The beginning of the email will consist of the long post above, outlining the 1Jpp... wallet, then providing info about about the two larger wallets.

Thanks, bud.

~Bruno Kucinskas

[davout]

I was going to use the email seen in your profile, but since you recently emailed me using a different email address, I will simply reply to that one.

I have a few, all work, just wasn't sure if my e-mail was publicly visible.

[wordofmouth]

hello davout and all the bitcoin-central crew

What about the missing wallets ? These were said to be treated after the initial period of 90 days and some haven't been claimed.
I'm actually having like 80btc frozen at your company servers, and was curious about the way they are treated, and why they're missing.

Thanks for your response !
Wordofmouth

[marcus_of_augustus]

hello davout and all the bitcoin-central crew

What about the missing wallets ? These were said to be treated after the initial period of 90 days and some haven't been claimed.
I'm actually having like 80btc frozen at your company servers, and was curious about the way they are treated, and why they're missing.

Thanks for your response !
Wordofmouth

Good luck, Paymium is operating like a rogue scammer now ... you probably wont hear back from them.

Edit: this is you right davout?

[davout]

hello davout and all the bitcoin-central crew

What about the missing wallets ? These were said to be treated after the initial period of 90 days and some haven't been claimed.
I'm actually having like 80btc frozen at your company servers, and was curious about the way they are treated, and why they're missing.

Thanks for your response !
Wordofmouth

Investigating the missing wallet cases is on my todo.
Correct reports submitted before the deadline will, of course, be treated like proper claims.
I won't promise a time frame but be assured my interest and desire is aligned with getting this over with ASAP.

Cheers!

[Phinnaeus Gage]

hello davout and all the bitcoin-central crew

What about the missing wallets ? These were said to be treated after the initial period of 90 days and some haven't been claimed.
I'm actually having like 80btc frozen at your company servers, and was curious about the way they are treated, and why they're missing.

Thanks for your response !
Wordofmouth

Good luck, Paymium is operating like a rogue scammer now ... you probably wont hear back from them.

Edit: this is you right davout?

To be fair, davout is currently working on my three claims totally 1,100+ BTC via email.

~Bruno Kucinskas

[marcus_of_augustus]

Good for you Phinnaeus, just be careful.

Apparently he won't even reply to me except to say ... "too late, tough, shit sir!" (paraphrased)

... and the coward will not come out and confirm definitively he will not be returning my coins ... in which case I could initiate counter action ... so still waiting ... but the clock is ticking.

Some kind of business he is running, slippery as an Frenchman ... oh wait he is.

[davout]

To be fair, davout is currently working on my three claims totally 1,100+ BTC via email.

To be fair too, I'm not in the "working on it" phase yet.  
Still in the "collecting factual information" phase. I'll try to update you this week.

... and the coward will not come out and confirm definitively he will not be returning my coins ... in which case I could initiate counter action ... so still waiting ... but the clock is ticking.

I asked you a couple of questions which you ignored. If you want a conversation, then converse. If you want a monologue then you don't need me.
If you, a bitcointalk regular, want to blame me for not finding five minutes in three months to make a claim, then go for it, blame me.

[marcus_of_augustus]

... and the coward will not come out and confirm definitively he will not be returning my coins ... in which case I could initiate counter action ... so still waiting ... but the clock is ticking.

I asked you a couple of questions which you ignored. If you want a conversation, then converse. If you want a monologue then you don't need me.
If you, a bitcointalk regular, want to blame me for not finding five minutes in three months to make a claim, then go for it, blame me.

There is only one unanswered question and I have repeated it several times.

Will you be making my family and friends whole for the lost coins from Instawallet?

It's pretty simple, you duplicitous little scammer. Either you are in business to make money or you're gonna be run out of town ... I'll make sure of it.

Edit: so I'm meant to keep track of every 2bit place that rolls over and goes belly up and claims processes 'windows'? Are you reading every forum thread these days davout?

[davout]

There is only one unanswered question and I have repeated it several times.

Learn to count, I'll restate them for your convenience. No answer, no conversation.

it is a matter of principle

Let's dig this one a little further, what's the principle at hand exactly?
That you should get a free, unlimited and unexpiring deposit insurance?

I don't like your tone at all, if this is your idea of good and proper business relations you will not be in business for long.

Please confirm that you will not be making good on my friends and family few missing btc ... then we can go from there.

You should be very careful how you proceed from here. A wise man once said to me that you should treat every customer with the respect as if they can do physical, financial or emotional harm to you because you never know which one actually will ...

Getting all agitated, and dramatic: much easier than constructing an actual argument that makes actual sense.
Oldest manipulation trick in the fucking book. Mostly used by women and children though.

It's pretty simple, you duplicitous little scammer. Either you are in business to make money or you're gonna be run out of town ... I'll make sure of it.

You signing-off on it is not required for the earth to keep spinning. No matter how butthurt that makes you feel.

Edit: so I'm meant to keep track of every 2bit place that rolls over and goes belly up and claims processes 'windows'? Are you reading every forum thread these days davout?

It really wasn't necessary to edit your post.
Seriously, spare us the "you should be the one caring about where I leave my own money" type of argument.

[marcus_of_augustus]

I refuse to get sucked into your long-winded arguments (conversations wtf?) on the semantics of your situation because that is exactly what you are using to avoid the fact that you are outright ripping off good honest people (maybe you are deceiving yourself?).... either you are in business for good or you aren't. You are by implication saying that I am a liar and your whole claims process is set up like this, it is offensive and I'm not going to engage in it. Of course people are going to get dramatic when you blatantly steal from them. Just do the right thing.

Will you give us our fucking coins back or not?

[davout]

I neither said nor implied that you were a liar.

I said that if you favor the display of drama and butthurt over logic then this conversation is over.
Go to your room, come back when you've calmed down.

[justusranvier]

I've never used Instawallet but I've been watching this thread.

I'll just note that, based on extensive examples. the way the people involved respond to their (former) customers is atrocious, and based on their behaviour I'll never be involved with any business they are involved in.

[marcus_of_augustus]

I neither said nor implied that you were a liar.

I said that if you favor the display of drama and butthurt over logic then this conversation is over.
Go to your room, come back when you've calmed down.

Ok, you've just confirmed for me that you are indeed a total shithead who intends to obfuscate and weasel word around the issue instead of engaging in an honest customer dialogue, with no intention of resolving anything except coins remaining in your possession, (basically though you are still just a petty scammer but the method is slightly more opaque).... based on numerous examples now, this is just the final straw.

I've opened up a Scammer accusation for all those who had small Instawallet balances but cannot be bothered wading through the offensive thicket of davout's claim process and semantic argumentation (this is designed to discourage people from claiming so that he ends up with the coins.)

All small Instawallet claimants who feel they've been treated unfairly or outright ripped off should register their disfavour here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=372784.0 and we can get this thief put in his place.