TradeFortress is a scammer.

[BadBear]

I never realized how flawed ripple is, thanks for that.

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[ervalvola]

Guys, do you understand that for this joke an account lost 1 BTC reedemable on Bitstamp?

TradeFortress should edit the topic to be no more self-moderated, allowing people to report financial loss and take the obligation to repay whoever demonstrate to have lost bitcoins.


About Ripple, (i'm a bit frustrated because a bunch of senior member are sistematically going Off Topic here, because we're not talking about Ripple here), ok yes, so you're right.

If someone decides to ignore the fact that giving trust on Ripple can bring a money loss, which is written in capital letters everywhere, this guy can be scammed. So through Ripple you can trick a person.
I was naively thinking that you can scam a person with fiat too. And with Bitcoin you can easy do money laundering, and buy weapons and drugs. So we just don't use any kind of money, crypto or not.

EDIT: still people giving him trust

[darkmule]

Let me remind you that Matthew N. Wright received a scammer tag on this forum for his trolling that appeared to be a binding contract, lol... And had to settle it somehow with his so called victims, i. e. to pay for it.

MNW explicitly agreed to a scammer tag in the event that he reneged.  His situation is kind of unique to him.

[darkmule]

Guys, do you understand that for this joke an account lost 1 BTC reedemable on Bitstamp?

Lost another IOU?  Where's the transaction on the Bitcoin blockchain where real BTC went from one actual person to another? 

It'd look kind of like this:  http://blockchain.info/tx/678a1eda47d92337246b1dbfe429baf9c6c89fbb0f50d274b0ae7c0078781e94

This is definitely an example of why someone shouldn't do this, at least not with an account with any real anything in it.  Did TF get this?  Is he actually cashing in things from people and turning them into real BTC in his wallet?

[dchapes]

Where's the transaction on the Bitcoin blockchain where real BTC went from one actual person to another?

That's as stupid as asking someone what the serial numbers on the dollar bills they lost were when someone loses money with a credit card or a bank card or a cheque or something. Do you think the police ask that and then say "well geez no `money` was stolen then sorry".

[BlackLilac Grant]

The posters starting these threads about Tradefortress should be banned. They are likely all Ripple sockpuppets. Scammer tags are for scammers; those who steal, don't pay back loans, break contracts, or the like. Not people exploiting holes in centralized systems like Ripple.

[BlackLilac Grant]

I don't recognize Ripple IOUs as binding agreements.

Exactly.

Thanks for making this clear, theymos.  

[r3wt]

The irony is this, you all get scammed due to your own greedy desires.

Scammers are opurtunists. Don't hate player hate the game

[Sukrim]

I don't recognize Ripple IOUs as binding agreements.

Why?!

They are signed statements that there will be a settlement of debt in the future, they are even more explicit than any "loan agreement" on this forum.

Issuing debt with the clear intention of not settling it should at least be mentioned in the topic... I can pull off similar stuff in Bitcoin but then I'd be labeled scammer for sure.

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

I don't recognize Ripple IOUs as binding agreements.

Why?!

They are signed statements that there will be a settlement of debt in the future, they are even more explicit than any "loan agreement" on this forum.

Issuing debt with the clear intention of not settling it should at least be mentioned in the topic... I can pull off similar stuff in Bitcoin but then I'd be labeled scammer for sure.

No, they are not explicit. When will they be settled? In what methods will they be settled (this is important for fiat like USD)? What about something like XAU - shipping availability, costs, insurance?

They're just arbitrary tokens. In fact, one person may think "FAV" is a favor, one person might think it's a favicon. Kinda absurd example, but that's another flaw for another day.

[lophie]

First of all leave trade fortress alone you bullies. If you are not one of the victims or lawyering for them, Then keep the accusations for yourselves. Everybody knows ripple is a scam and if someone really really wants some darn ripple IOUs, Why not giving them what they want? They got what they wanted and not being redeemable via a gateway is a whole different issue (Ripple is a SCAM)

I don't recognize Ripple IOUs as binding agreements.

Why?!

They are signed statements that there will be a settlement of debt in the future, they are even more explicit than any "loan agreement" on this forum.

Issuing debt with the clear intention of not settling it should at least be mentioned in the topic... I can pull off similar stuff in Bitcoin but then I'd be labeled scammer for sure.

Is this discussion about ripple IOUs or the US Dollar? As I recall even before the Dollar went off the silver backing you couldn't just go and redeem the silver.

[MPOE-PR]

You give trust every time you want to receive payments in Ripple, no I didn't get 1 BTC, someone else did. Mt Gox isn't responsible if someone sends coins to Satoshi Dice, even if you argue "but they should have added warnings!".

Actually there is ample room here for a cherry truck argument. "They are both equally something or the other because they both were involved and that's all it takes" or some such Joel Katz level idiocy.

If you dislike guns, will you shoot at people to demonstrate that it hurts? You would go to jail.

Not in Bitcoin. Which is precisely why people like Bitcoin. You can't have both ends.

I never realized how flawed ripple is, thanks for that.

Ditto.

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

Well, if you are OK with getting paid in Ripple IOUs issued that can't be redeemed.

I have not said that I will let you redeem the BTC, I've even implied that you wouldn't be able to. It would be a clear and shut case if I told people that I would send them a bitcoin via ripple that they can redeem from me, versus sending them a Ripple BTC - which are not BTC.

It's like those 5 BTC coins with no value / private key on them that were selling recently, you know? They say 5 BTC, they are not 5 BTC, they don't have the private key of 5 BTC. When someone sells that for 0.04 each (or even free, in this case), crying in scammer accusations isn't going to help you - even if the seller didn't explicitly state that "they cannot be redeemed by BTCs". Example:

Casascius.com:

Each piece has its own Bitcoin address and a redeemable "private key" on the inside, underneath the hologram.

Now this would be an agreement. Or something similar, especially if it's signed.

An arbitrary token of an IOU with no terms attached is not. I would have broken an agreement if I used Ripple to send BTCs where I had redemption / repayment terms, and broke that.

Ripple is the same thing. It's OpenCoin Inc's fault for saying "send money" on their website, when Ripple is incapable of sending money other than XRP.

[Francesco]

Ripple IOUs are binding agreements if and only if people believe they are.

Just as US police could or could not decide bitcoins have value, and thus persecute or not persecute someone who stole them. Same thing: the infrastructure is there, we give it meaning.

Anyway, never trust people not trustworthy, and the problem will go away by itself.

[ervalvola]

I'm stunned.

you guys are telling:

"I don't like Ripple, just let people to lost money to demonstrate it is flawed"

Cmon, let the game go on! Just use this forum and the bitcoin itself to organize a gigantic scam which could end in someone losing a big amount of bitcoin and some smart scammer exploit that stupid "experiment"!

Rly, rly.

[ervalvola]

If people are so stupid to use RIpple and give trust to TF, they DESERVE to be scammed! And he's not a scammer!!!


I love this pure and disinterested logic!!!

Let's stole all BTC of ingenuous people! WOW.

[dexX7]

They are signed statements that there will be a settlement of debt in the future, they are even more explicit than any "loan agreement" on this forum.

It's not about "binding agreements" or "signed statements". I don't see anything wrong here. That's just how Ripple works.

Anyway, there is no difference between his IOU Bitcoins and any other "coins" on Ripple. If you want to send BTC, Ripple has no way to do that, because Ripple cannot handle actual Bitcoin, it can only handle promises out of thin air (and XRP). By trusting an user, you accept his promise, which is never backed up by real value, till you find someone who is willing to exchange some real goods for that promise.

There will always be someone left, who ended up with no real value, but IOUs. It's not a zero game.

[misterbigg]

For a scammer tag, the accused person needs to have promised to do something and then failed to deliver on the promise. TradeFortress never promised to pay anyone any bitcoins here. If you trust him to do something that he didn't promise, that's your problem.

An IOU is a promise to pay. TradeFortress has issued IOUs which are essentially promises. He did this using the Ripple system. All of his transactions are part of the ledger. But he hasn't let anyone redeem his promises into actual Bitcoins.

This is no different than someone coming to the forum and saying "I owe you XXX BTC and I promise to pay you in the future." Except that he did it using a cryptographically secure accounting system (called Ripple).

To make matters worse, he took advantage of people by using the forum to promise bitcoins to people in order to get them to extend trust to him in the Ripple system. Then he used that trust to loot their Bitstamp BTC IOUs, replacing them with his worthless "TradeFortress BTC IOUs" (promises to pay Bitcoins).

All of this information is right there in the Ripple ledger. His Ripple address is rH3bZsvVUhzugvcYuJVoSYCEMHkfK6wHNv and you can see his transaction history here:

https://ripple.com/graph/#r3kmLJN5D28dHuH8vZNUZpMC43pEHpaocV

This shows that he has promised users 1,454.65 worth of Bitcoins. But when you try to redeem these promises, he does not pay the Bitcoins he promised.

If the SCAMMER tag applies to someone who makes a promise and then does not deliver, then TradeFortress is the poster child.

[Sukrim]

His reasoning is probably along the lines of "1 'BTC' on Ripple does not even mean 'bitcoin', it can mean anything!".

At least he gave these away for free, still there can be considerable harm done to anyone keeping the 100 BTC trust line to him. I'd advise anyone to remove the trust (= trusting him for 0 BTC) asap, especially if there is any intention of having other BTC IOUs in the same account.

[dancupid]

His reasoning is probably along the lines of "1 'BTC' on Ripple does not even mean 'bitcoin', it can mean anything!".

At least he gave these away for free, still there can be considerable harm done to anyone keeping the 100 BTC trust line to him. I'd advise anyone to remove the trust (= trusting him for 0 BTC) asap, especially if there is any intention of having other BTC IOUs in the same account.

There are very few TradeFortressRippleBitcoinIOUcoins out there - they may actually be worth more than 1btc - they may become collectors items in the future.