Re: [ANN][ICO] Polybius - SCAM

[blurryeyed]

There are so many noob shill accounts appearing trying to push this scam it's crazy. Seems every time I log on there's another few threads pushing Hashcoins latest scam - they're obviously getting desperate & are squeezing every cent they can out of it before they run off. Again. Scamming b#stards.

[IconFirm]

Beware of threatening PM's from Polybius shill/alt accounts:

I seem to be getting threatening PM's from Polybius shill accounts:

!!! WARNING: This user is a newbie. If you are expecting a message from a more veteran member, then this is an imposter !!!
New Topic!

I will pay 150BTC for the real name and address of bitcointalk.org user IconFirm. Escrow welcome.

Let the hunt begin! 


I will find you! 

I will willingly pass my personal details to you for 150BTC using a reputable escrow.

Thanks!

[Exitsociety]

Hi guys! Just joined to share my research.

Being from Estonia, a tiny former soviet block country, now an IT haven where Polybius and Hashcoins are registered in, I know which sources to check. The Polybius.io webpage is registered to Polybius Foundation OÜ, a company that doesn't have much information on the register at the moment, but It was just registered 4 months ago. Source: https://www.e-krediidiinfo.ee/14202836-POLYBIUS%20FOUNDATION%20O%C3%9C

Though the Polybius Foundation OÜ company doesn't seem to have much information to go on, the executive team is the same collective that started hashcoins.com - registered as Hashcoins OÜ. Hashcoins has 14 employees, a yearly FIAT turnover of 153 525.00 EUR (period 01/12/2016 - 28/02/2017) and has payed a total of 38973.54 € in state and payroll taxes in Q1 of 2017. Admittedly, that doesn't seem huge, but given that the median monthly wage here is ~720 € and that they probably don't convert the majority of their assets to FIAT - not too shabby. The company also has a 5/5 star rating on innovation, personnel performance, social responsibility and quality of product/service. Source: https://www.e-krediidiinfo.ee/12490015-HashCoins

Taking into consideration that the execs all have identified themselves on the Polybius ICO team page and they have an actual successful registered company for which they are juridically responsible for, I'd say there is no doubt about them being legit. Looking at the companies long term goals and the whitepaper it seems obvious to me that IF they succeed in their endeavors they will become game changers as the system would bring a lot of new funds to the crypto scene. At least if it all goes belly up, I'll know which bus to hop on and which doors to bang on

You should ALWAYS do your own research and NEVER - EVER blindly invest money you cant afford to loose, but if you appreciate the tiny tip I just gave you, I wouldn't mind being tipped myself BTC - 1DRgD8UKdy32GKBbuJ7h3rWTJEKQjyZEV4
Thank you and have a nice day!

[IconFirm]

I found a very interesting recording of a telephone interview with Daniel Haudenschild, who is described as a Partner to Ernst & Young on their website (https://webforms.ey.com/ch/en/industries/financial-services/ey-contact-implementing-new-regulatory-requirements), on Soundcloud dated 6th June 2017, just after this Hashcoins/Polybius ICO scam started. The interviwee is a long time Bitcoin adopter & is very knowledgable in the field - this comes across very clearly in the interview with the questions he asks, which Daniel Haudenschild fails on all fronts to give an answer to.  Have a listen (ignore the first 30 seconds of silly music!):

https://soundcloud.com/junsethsworld/daniel-haudenschild-of-ernst-young-discusses-polybius-ico-6617-1151

There are several points of interest in the interview, here are a few that are relevent to this scam accusation:

1) 04.35 - Hashcoins confirmed as the people behind Polybius.
2) 06.30 - They don't hold a banking license.
3) 07.40 - Daniel Haudenschild admits that even he doesn't know who owns Polybius, which is not only strange coming from an "advisor" who works for Ernst & Young, but is also not disclosed in the white paper.
4) 09.10 - Ernst & Young did NOT endorse Polybius in any way & actions are underway to remove any Ernst & Young connection with Polybius. (*more on this below)
5) 09.30 - Hashcoins are a cludmining brand who sold miners that didn't exist.
6) 09.50 - Emercoin confirmed as partners & are described as a "non-sense project" (confirming the connection between Polybius, Hashcoins & Emercoin - which Emercoin have tried to deny on multiple occasions, despite me proving to them otherwise)

After the above & for the rest of the interview, Daniel Haudenschild seems unable to properly answer a single question, is often confused into silence & comes across as being pretty embarrassed about the whole thing. He must feel pretty stupid allowing not just himself, but the whole Ernst & Young brand name to be dragged into this whole scammy affair & I wouldn't be at all surprised if he loses his job at Ernst & Young for doing so.....

Wait, what's this?.......**MASSIVE UPDATE**

Daniel Haudenschild lost his job at Ernst & Young......

FT published a transcript of the above interview:

https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2017/06/07/2189826/building-blockchain-banks-with-icos/    (regtoread)

Updated at the bottom with:

Update (June 8th, 18:43 London time): EY have got in touch to say that “At publication of this story, Daniel Haudenschild is no longer with EY and his comments concerning EY’s Blockchain strategy are incorrect.”

*Ernst & Young have since instructed Polybius to remove all reference of Ernst & Young from the Polybius website & advertising. Polybius removed the Ernst & Young profiles from their website but continue to use it for advertising on various forums, websites & so called "news" outlets on the web:

https://www.cryptoninjas.net/2017/05/15/swiss-ey-officially-joins-polybius-cryptobank-advisors-ico-follow/

https://www.cryptoninjas.net/2017/04/25/blockchain-startup-polybius-bank-setup-switzerland-ernst-young-agrees-advise/

If Ernst & Young are prepared to fire anyone who associates their brand with Polybius, I'm pretty sure they will also go after Hashcoins/Polybius too. I hope they do, it will save many people getting ripped of by Hashcoins again, but you can do your bit too by contacting Ernst & Young using the below link (Fraud Investigation):

https://webforms.ey.com/uk/en/services/assurance/fraud-investigation---dispute-services

Let's be honest here, if Polybius are prepared to lie about their association with Ernst & Young then brag about it on the web - what else are they lying about? Add to this the fact that Hashcoins (older crypto users will know about them) are behind all of this & you've got a scam the size of Mt Etna waiting to explode.

Another point to mention here is the OP of the Polybius thread, nixoid, aka: Andrey Zamovskiy, founder of Ambisafe. nixoid has posted many ICO posts lately & I've read reports on most of them being a similar type scam as Polybius. I'm not sure if Ambisafe are connected to Hashcoins/Polybius - but the fact that Ambisafe are promoting them here & on their website is cause enough for concern:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1848751.msg19734730#msg19734730

All these scam ICO's are the scurge of crypto. For every legit one, there are 100 scam ones. The sooner we cleanse crypto of them, the better crypto will be for it.

I'm sure I'll get more BS neg-reps from the multitude of Polybius shill accounts (they love posting about it on their thread:)), but I really don't care tbh. I believe that if I can stop one person getting scammed then it's worth it - & the intelligent forum users here will see straight through the false trust anyway.

OK. Bash away

[blurryeyed]

No comment from Oleg:

**Oleg online**

How about you Oleg - care to answer?

Emercoin and Polybius are NOT the same organization.

You can assure everyone that this is the case by removing the Hashcoins scammers link from your website. After all, linking to & promoting proven scammers like them on your website is bound to create suspicion - don't you think?

No comment?

Well, seeing as Eugene Shumilov - Founder and CEO of Emercoin - has been so busy promoting Polybius & Hashcoins on medium lately:

https://medium.com/@emer.tech/polybius-bank-the-biggest-story-of-the-year-in-the-cryptocurrency-realm-634c9b1db57

..I can't say I'm surprised you can't (or won't) answer.

So it's true that Emercoin & Hashcoins/Polybius are the same team then.

Thanks for clarifying.

**Oleg logs off**

Amazing. Not a single answer from a single member of the Emercoin/Hashcoins/Polybius team either here or on medium, but they have no problem posting to advertise themselves.....

Guilty.

[aisyah88]

Is this really serious that the allegations on this project is true, maybe this is very in pity by many parties, especially the investors who have invested funds for this fraud site ...

[blurryeyed]

Is this really serious that the allegations on this project is true, maybe this is very in pity by many parties, especially the investors who have invested funds for this fraud site ...

Those that did invest (I don't think there's that many tbh) were warned about Hashcoins but chose to ignore those warnings, so only have themselves to blame I'm afraid.  The invested figures they keep posting are BS anyway & not to be believed - Hashcoins have a history of lying about figures & everything else.

[JammyJimmy69]

As it became clear in the last 24hrs, Polybius was indeed a scam and a very good one at that. It's the first scam ICO that trapped me, but at least I was covered by using a credit card.

C'mon guys... don't be shy, how much did you all lose?

I'd have lost $10,000 if I paid in cash or altcoins - phew!

[p3ppymon]

As it became clear in the last 24hrs, Polybius was indeed a scam and a very good one at that. It's the first scam ICO that trapped me, but at least I was covered by using a credit card.

C'mon guys... don't be shy, how much did you all lose?

I'd have lost $10,000 if I paid in cash or altcoins - phew!

Well done man. You are officially proclaimed the smartest ass in town!

[JammyJimmy69]

As it became clear in the last 24hrs, Polybius was indeed a scam and a very good one at that. It's the first scam ICO that trapped me, but at least I was covered by using a credit card.

C'mon guys... don't be shy, how much did you all lose?

I'd have lost $10,000 if I paid in cash or altcoins - phew!

Well done man. You are officially proclaimed the smartest ass in town!

No! Not smart at all as I was stupid enough to invest initially and I'm not ashamed to admit that. I very nearly threw all my ETH into this money pit. I just thank my lucky stars that my bank was behind me. I was so lucky that I'll not risk taking part in an ICO ever again. If the next scam is better prepared than this was, a huge amount of people will be losing a lot of money.

Smart? Not smart enough!
Lucky? Very!

Do any of you feeling like jumping off a cliff yet?

Kraken say that they are "not allowed" to announce a coin before listing it, but they did say that listing PLBT is extremely unlikely. You can't find this out via email, you have to speak to them. I've been told not to mention the name and I won't.

Don't say that I haven't warned you all or tried to help.

[Champ1]

As it became clear in the last 24hrs, Polybius was indeed a scam and a very good one at that. It's the first scam ICO that trapped me, but at least I was covered by using a credit card.

C'mon guys... don't be shy, how much did you all lose?

I'd have lost $10,000 if I paid in cash or altcoins - phew!

what do you mean about being covered by using a credit card? I used one... help?!

[p3ppymon]

As it became clear in the last 24hrs, Polybius was indeed a scam and a very good one at that. It's the first scam ICO that trapped me, but at least I was covered by using a credit card.

C'mon guys... don't be shy, how much did you all lose?

I'd have lost $10,000 if I paid in cash or altcoins - phew!

what do you mean about being covered by using a credit card? I used one... help?!

Your bank might refund your money if proven a scam. It will take quite a lot of time though.

[JammyJimmy69]

As it became clear in the last 24hrs, Polybius was indeed a scam and a very good one at that. It's the first scam ICO that trapped me, but at least I was covered by using a credit card.

C'mon guys... don't be shy, how much did you all lose?

I'd have lost $10,000 if I paid in cash or altcoins - phew!

what do you mean about being covered by using a credit card? I used one... help?!

Your bank might refund your money if proven a scam. It will take quite a lot of time though.

I simply had the payment reversed once I realised what was going on. It was only yesterday that Polybius removed my PLBT. I then bought 1 token at $2.22 for a "test" as I don't mind losing that.

[JammyJimmy69]

As it became clear in the last 24hrs, Polybius was indeed a scam and a very good one at that. It's the first scam ICO that trapped me, but at least I was covered by using a credit card.

C'mon guys... don't be shy, how much did you all lose?

I'd have lost $10,000 if I paid in cash or altcoins - phew!

what do you mean about being covered by using a credit card? I used one... help?!

Have you tried calling your bank? HSBC in the UK were very helpful and simply reversed the payment a few days later (AKA chargeback). I just told them that I was misled into buying into a poor investment opportunity. Just be honest with them.

[blurryeyed]

Is it me - or did the moderators finally delete the scammy Polybius thread?:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2372420.0

[kotwica666]

Is it me - or did the moderators finally delete the scammy Polybius thread?:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2372420.0

Yep, I just come back to look for this thread and first I thought that they change topic or something is vrong with search engine..

Mods move thread to trash with all links to communication channels.

Even if everyone is sure that Polybius is scam, do you guys have some links to social media, telegram or other sources about Polybius?

Thanks in advance!

[blurryeyed]

Is it me - or did the moderators finally delete the scammy Polybius thread?:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2372420.0

Yep, I just come back to look for this thread and first I thought that they change topic or something is vrong with search engine..

Mods move thread to trash with all links to communication channels.

Even if everyone is sure that Polybius is scam, do you guys have some links to social media, telegram or other sources about Polybius?

Thanks in advance!

You can try contacting Oleg Khovayko, the Emercoin CTO, on the Emercoin thread - he uses a few aliases but his main one on that thread is maxihatop. Good luck getting a straight answer though, I even offered him a face-to-face video chat to ask him some questions about his involvement with Polybius/Hashcoins - he refused of course & is ignoring all questions about his scams.