My friend got 60 extra BTC from his Mt Gox account and insists it is not theft.

[calista]

he made me promise not to say his account username so i won't, and anyway it is only about 60 btc so it is no big deal.

basically he has a very common mt gox account name, something like "simpson" (but it is not simpson!). when the hacking episode happened my friend wasn't too worried because he only had a couple of btc and a couple of u.s. dollars in his account.

when mt gox reopened he checked his account balance and was surprised to find it says it had about 65 btc and $200 in his account.

he said nothing, and as soon as mt gox allowed withdrawal he tried to withdraw all btc to his own address, and successfully got them.

he says he is waiting mt gox to start trading, then buy btc with all $200 and then transfer them out to his own address, then abandon the account and start another one with mt gox for his own proper trading.

i agree with him this is not theft, as it is just some extra money from mt gox mismanagement, like that guy in nyc walking around the diamond district and picking up gold coins.

[qed]

That's theft.

If you find more money on your bank account that what should be you must not use these. If you do, you can be asked to the money back. Finding something on the ground is a totally different thing and anyway it doesn't imply you can keep it.

[wegotpickles]

I would argue that it is theft. Someone else on Mt Gox was likely shorted in this mismanagement, and now the BTC has been removed from the system so that it cannot be easily undone.

Also i would call 60BTC a big deal, thats $918 USD at current rates, and more than i mine in 2 months with my 5970 at current difficulty.

BTC cant be magically duplicated in database error, so somewhere someone is getting screwed, whether its a user or Gox itself.

[peach]

Why post this here?

I'm personally fine with his (your?) call, but nothing good ever results from sharing your sins, especially when you're so specific about them.

[nemo]

This is theft, but that's not what worries me. What worries me is that MTGox has no idea how many bitcoins everyone has.

[Tasty Champa]

Great.

3 more days.

Good Job!

[triforcelink]

I'm curious, when your friend claimed his account, how many coins did he tell mtgox that he had?

[fascistmuffin]

I feel like there may be more to the story, since it's not too much in human nature to tell the whole truth when things like this come up. It's sorta like if your mom gave you $5 (she's so generous) for your school lunch, then you going up to her and asking for it again. She gives you another $5 through error, and now when you say you have $10 to your friends, you might say that your mom forgot and gave you $5 twice. What you really did was trick her into giving you more money than she intended, which is quite a "small" detail.

[Maged]

Your friend might have accidentally claimed the wrong account, and was successful. This should be rectified with MtGox immediately, as they may accidentally think your friend did this intentionally and press charges.

[FlyingFlapjack]

calista, don't kid yourself, legally it is theft.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theft

Especially take note of the parts about actus rea and mens rea.

I'm also pretty sure that based on your post you could be compelled to identify him.

Given that as part of the cleanup of the MTGox situation, people will be watching this forum, it's probably a good idea for your friend to give it back before they or the bean counting catches up with him(and you).

Even if you hadn't posted here, there's a pretty good chance they'd find the error as they continue to make passes over 'the books' as part of reconciling all the accounts, transactions, etc.

Simply ditching an account and making a new one wouldn't matter unless he has been hiding his IP and such. They'll have logs and so will his ISP.

[bitcoin.monger]

Homo homini lupus  Keep cheating your mother, you will get rich!

[finack]

pretty weird you have so many friends that have unusual things happen to their accounts at mt. gox:

My friend's account at Mt Gox was successfully claimed by *someone else*.
https://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=22150

[qed]

pretty weird you have so many friends that have unusual things happen to their accounts at mt. gox:

My friend's account at Mt Gox was successfully claimed by *someone else*.
https://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=22150

We really need to find a way to stop trolls, this is getting out of control.

[MaGNeT]

pretty weird you have so many friends that have unusual things happen to their accounts at mt. gox:

My friend's account at Mt Gox was successfully claimed by *someone else*.
https://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=22150

We really need to find a way to stop trolls, this is getting out of control.

[Sannyasi]

lol- as soon as i read this thread i knew it was the same person, didn't even have to check.

[comboy]

I don't know if that was your friend or you, doesn't matter. But I hope you do realize that giving quite exact info about balances narrows it down to very few accounts.

[bitcoin0918]

Your friend should have informed Mt. Gox, and if they either said there was no problem, or decided not to do anything about it, only then should he have felt free to do what he pleased.

I once ordered something on ebay for $500, and it turned out that the seller's account had been hacked, and several people (including myself) were being ripped off. I freaked out, and opened a case with Paypal, but I also had my bank reverse the payment (from my checking account).

When all was said and done, Paypal actually refunded me $500 twice. I explained to them what they had done wrong, but they said that their records did not indicate anything was wrong, so they could not do anything to correct it. So I was up $500 after the incident. Not bad, since I was trying to buy a gift card.

[Man From The Future]

Erm...

?

[HappyFunnyFoo]

It doesn't matter anyways, since exchanges aren't regulated.  You can call it whatever you want, but it's a legitimate transaction in the bitcoin world.  If money goes from person A to B and is validated by the blockchain, then the transaction is irrevocable, valid, and OK. It's as legal and fine as banks adjusting your mortgage based upon the contract you signed without reading

[bitcoinminer]

I would argue that it is theft. Someone else on Mt Gox was likely shorted in this mismanagement, and now the BTC has been removed from the system so that it cannot be easily undone.

Also i would call 60BTC a big deal, thats $918 USD at current rates, and more than i mine in 2 months with my 5970 at current difficulty.

BTC cant be magically duplicated in database error, so somewhere someone is getting screwed, whether its a user or Gox itself.

1. It's theft
2. current difficulty sux
3. Gox has more than enough to cover it.  They shouldn't come out of this unscathed.