Bitcoin-24.com matching engine seems broken, site down.

[keatonatron]

Too soon? 

http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=1526

[bitbadger]

I don't understand these "eek I'm afraid I will not see my money again" comments.Please stop it. It's annoying and pathetic.

Yes!
It seems, if we want help, we should find the reason about the action of the German government! And how to solve...

In the German forum Simon was wondering last year, why mtgox wants that customers do verification.
btc24EUR had 33,113,295.34 Trade Volume in last 30 days!
http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/btc24EUR_trades.html

The German government sure, wants to know something about, if there is money laundering...

I don't think the german authority has any jurisdiction over an english company... Let alone jurisdiction over the bank account in poland of an english company. IF the germans had any issues with money laundering they should have contacted the English authorities.

The German government has jurisdiction over any company operating in Germany. It also has jurisdiction over banks and banking operations and conduct in Germany.

It doesn't matter where the company is registered. What matters is where the company operates from in practice.

This is not always easy to determine in practice. It depends on things such as where the business office (not the registered office) is based for managing and running the company on a day to day basis and sometimes also where any plant is based. It can also take into account where the revenue is banked. 

From what I gather of this situation, the bank accounts were/are in Poland and Germany, not in the UK. And it looks like the company is probably run from Germany, even if it is registered in UK.

So it is Poland and Germany who would have jurisdiction.

[gfoot]

The bank accounts are also in his personal name, not the business's, and I believe he is a German citizen, not a UK citizen.

[DeathAndTaxes]

But reading the above, I'm getting worried. Several exchange sites experienced several problems so far, but AFAIK it never ever happened that a site had lost its clients' money!

Really?

bitcoinica - lost funds - still in liquidation/lawsuit - deposits haven't seen a cent.
Crypto-X-Change - losts funds - operators AWOL - depositors haven't seen a cent.
bitfloor - lost funds - still operating - making slow repayment of lost funds (~3% so far IIRC)

[DeathAndTaxes]

The bank accounts are also in his personal name, not the business's, and I believe he is a German citizen, not a UK citizen.

Well the good news for creditors that makes his LTD worthless.  A court would find him personally liable for all losses and damages.  Then again who knows if he has any funds.  Hopefully his "lawyer" has informed him of complete personal liability (as in can lose everything he owns, personal assets, car, house, cash in bank, etc) and thus he is motivated to provide some transparency on what happens and what depositors can expect.

[bitbadger]

The bank accounts are also in his personal name, not the business's, and I believe he is a German citizen, not a UK citizen.

Well the good news for creditors that makes his LTD worthless.  A court would find him personally liable for all losses and damages.  Then again who knows if he has any funds.  Hopefully his "lawyer" has informed him of complete personal liability (as in can lose everything he owns, personal assets, car, house, cash in bank, etc) and thus he is motivated to provide some transparency on what happens and what depositors can expect.

Rule No 1.

NEVER run any kind of currency exchange business using your own personal bank account.

And least of all one that requires compliance with anti money laundering regs and all the other requirements. Suicidal.

The amateurism involved in this operation amazes me.

[gfoot]

To be clear, I don't know for sure about the Polish bank - the transfer I was looking at was sent after he'd switched the details on the website to point to his personal bank in Germany.  So it's possible that until that point he was using a business account.  I don't know exactly when he made the switch, it sounds like it was only a few days ago.

[klee]

The bank accounts are also in his personal name, not the business's, and I believe he is a German citizen, not a UK citizen.

Well the good news for creditors that makes his LTD worthless.  A court would find him personally liable for all losses and damages.  Then again who knows if he has any funds.  Hopefully his "lawyer" has informed him of complete personal liability (as in can lose everything he owns, personal assets, car, house, cash in bank, etc) and thus he is motivated to provide some transparency on what happens and what depositors can expect.

Rule No 1.

NEVER run any kind of currency exchange business using your own personal bank account.

And least of all one that requires compliance with anti money laundering regs and all the other requirements. Suicidal.

The amateurism involved in this operation amazes me.

What really amazes me is how ignorant & naive the people trading there were (including me)!

[DeathAndTaxes]

To be clear, I don't know for sure about the Polish bank - the transfer I was looking at was sent after he'd switched the details on the website to point to his personal bank in Germany.  So it's possible that until that point he was using a business account.  I don't know exactly when he made the switch, it sounds like it was only a few days ago.

Yes everything indicates the Polish bank was in the company name but it doesn't matter when he switched or why.  When his company bank account got shut down he should have stopped accepting deposits.  Period.  By using his personal account to accept funds in the company name he pierced the corporate veil. Hopefully this is a lesson to those getting started in business.

As bad as things got for bitcoin24 if he stopped trading when he realized a flaw in his trading engine and stopped accepting deposits when his bank account had gotten frozen the issue would be far less severe right now.  By continuing to operate with an engine that allowed double payments and rerouting massive flows of cash into his personal bank account he made a bad situation much worse.  Now it is unlikely everything will be resolved quickly and without cost.  Any cost and losses are going to fall on him personally so I hope he is independently wealthy. 

[bitbadger]

The bank accounts are also in his personal name, not the business's, and I believe he is a German citizen, not a UK citizen.

Well the good news for creditors that makes his LTD worthless.  A court would find him personally liable for all losses and damages.  Then again who knows if he has any funds.  Hopefully his "lawyer" has informed him of complete personal liability (as in can lose everything he owns, personal assets, car, house, cash in bank, etc) and thus he is motivated to provide some transparency on what happens and what depositors can expect.

Rule No 1.

NEVER run any kind of currency exchange business using your own personal bank account.

And least of all one that requires compliance with anti money laundering regs and all the other requirements. Suicidal.

The amateurism involved in this operation amazes me.

What really amazes me is how ignorant & naive the people trading there were (including me)!

Yep, Im also guilty. I got the impression the operation was flying by the seat of it's pants, but I willingly shut one eye to it. And this is what happens.

[klee]

To be clear, I don't know for sure about the Polish bank - the transfer I was looking at was sent after he'd switched the details on the website to point to his personal bank in Germany.  So it's possible that until that point he was using a business account.  I don't know exactly when he made the switch, it sounds like it was only a few days ago.

Yes everything indicates the Polish bank was in the company name but it doesn't matter when he switched or why.  When his company bank account got shut down he should have stopped accepting deposits.  Period.  By using his personal account to accept funds in the company name he pierced the corporate veil. Hopefully this is a lesson to those getting started in business.

As bad as things got for bitcoin24 if he stopped trading when he realized a flaw in his trading engine and stopped accepting deposits when his bank account had gotten frozen the issue would be far less severe right now.  By continuing to operate with an engine that allowed double payments and rerouting massive flows of cash into his personal bank account he made a bad situation much worse.  Now it is unlikely everything will be resolved quickly and without cost.  Any cost and losses are going to fall on him personally so I hope he is independently wealthy. 

THIS

[sbrzol]

if i knew that bitcoin24 is a "one person" firm  i would never deposit
when mtgox cool down for 12 hours, i wanted to sell 175 btc, before gox reopen and the rate goes down
i searched another exchange, found bitcoin24  with the highest EUR volume (after gox) with sepa deposit/withdrawal
i thought high volume  is enough to trust
i think not only me registered for this reason to sell some btc before gox reopen

i planned to spend this money within 6 weeks , but now i hope to get it back before August ,
perhaps only 50-80% but it is more than nothing  (if there is not enough btc,eur  cos of engine broken, we wont get back all our money)

[dscotese]

Too soon? 

http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=1526

Heh.  That's a lot easier than the insurance idea I thought of.  But I could probably earn more by doing the work than by simply placing a bet.

[realme]

Yes everything indicates the Polish bank was in the company name but it doesn't matter when he switched or why.  ...

Yes polish Bank account was in the company name:
BTC24 Limited
IBAN PL18 1090 1115 0000 0001 2021 9027
BIC WBKPPLPP

What really amazes me is how ignorant & naive the people trading there were (including me)!

Yep, Im also guilty. I got the impression the operation was flying by the seat of it's pants, but I willingly shut one eye to it. And this is what happens.

Me too. And especially, if I found this German topic called Bitcoin and the banks!, which he opened on bitcointalk  -> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=98434.0
He wrote about his bad experiences with banks. That they closed a lot of his bank accounts!!! Reading this posts after all this what happened, its so crazy. On November 02, 2012, post #79

Postbank hat mit 2 Monaten frist nun auch gekündigt
Grund ist halt das was alle anderen Banken auch sagen.

Langsam bin ich fast durch mit den Konten in Deutschland.
Werde ich jemals wieder eins besitzen können? Ne spaß bei Seite.
Commerzbank und Norisbank habe ich jetzt noch offen.

Das Polnische Konto (Bank Zachodni WBK S.A.) hat bereits über 500.000 EUR
stand gehalten und wird es auch weiter hin tun Sie sind einfach die besten.

P.s. ich war vor kurzem wegen Geldwäsche aussagen.
Ermittlungsverfahren wurde aber fallengelassen.

Außstehende 10.000 EUR von der DAB Bank wurden durch den Anwalt
wiedergeholt

I try to translate:
He says: Postbank cancelled my account too. They say the same as the other banks say...
Slowly but steady I tried and "failed" every bank account in germany!
Will I ever get one again in germany? sorry, jokes aside.
Commerzbank and Norisbank I have'nt tried.
the polish account (Bank Zachodni WBK S.A.) is already above 500.000 EUR
and well. And it will be well furthermore... (VERY naive, oh ma god)
Bank Zachodni they are the best.

We are all very naive to give this very young guy thousands of our Euro!  me too

[Amitabh S]

German banks are crazy. They once refused to reactivate my account for a 15 Euro bill I had connected to my account and forgot about it. They went to Schufa and now there are shoot at sight orders on me.

[GreekGeek]

the coins I had on btc24 were moved from my deposit address !!!!
any one else knows about this?

[RationalSpeculator]

I knew bitcoin-24 was a one man operation. I also knew he had used his personal bank account before the polish one. I actually send fiat to his personal account when I started end 2012. I knew he was taking high risk. But the risk was the banking system, not him. Later on I noticed he had incorporated and a new bank account in Poland on that company's name so I thought that was a good way forward to professionalization. And now the corporate bank account got closed. Not his personal one, the one from the corporation.

So, I get the impression, what happened has nothing to do with the fact he started out using his personal bank account. It has to do with governments shutting down bank accounts used for bitcoin. ALM and stuff might certainly lower that risk, but not exclude it, as I think was shown by mtgox their bank accounts also being closed before. I don't think I took an unnecessary risk. The same can happen with mtgox tomorrow, again. Right?

[Beutelschneider]

DO NOT TRUST THE "ALPHA" OF BTC24

IT LOOKS LIKE SOMEONE TRYING TO SCAM PPL

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1c7utl/bitcoin24com_the_polish_authority_closed_your_our/c9f9fcp

EDIT:

CHECK IF POSTET IN OTHER RELATED THREADS, IF NOT, DO SO

[Aianis]

DO NOT TRUST THE "ALPHA" OF BTC24

IT LOOKS LIKE SOMEONE TRYING TO SCAM PPL

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1c7utl/bitcoin24com_the_polish_authority_closed_your_our/c9f9fcp

EDIT:

CHECK IF POSTET IN OTHER RELATED THREADS, IF NOT, DO SO

Thank you very much, Beutelschneider. I know you were willing to file a lawsuit, glad you changed your mind, for now, at least. Thank you for helping us all.

[michaelGedi]

I'm don't work with computers really, so please could someone put my mind at rest about this URL - http://adminsimidi5544.bitcoin-24.com/


I entered my details here after someone posted it in another thread (or this one?). I'm sure it would have been flagged already - and I'm close to sure that the .bitcoin-24.com part of the address means it's still hosted in the same place as the real deal, BUT considering the rest of my tech knowledge I'd like to be reassured if possible... thanks and fingers crossed on the bitcoin24 headfuck adventure for all of us.