PAYPAL SCAM ALERT, scammer is John Binns and paypal.

[blumpkinpie76]

First of all, I thought that Ebay was removing Bitcoin listings so im surprised to see so many selling there. Second of all, 3 days after I found out about Bitcoin I figured out by reading forum posts and by trying to use Coinpal, which is now closed because dealing inBitcoin is against Paypal policy, that bying BTC with Paypal is a huge mistake. WTF are you all doing? Not tying to be a dick, but you kind of deserve to get screwed doing this. If you want people to steal you BTC, you should just store your wallet on an unfirewalled unsecured Windows machine and wait to get owned That would mean less effort and frustration on your part.

[sergio]

The problem the way I see it, the scammer is stealing bitcoins, he could very easily steal other items as well, since shipping does not seem to be an issue, blockexplorer is proof of shipping.

Up to this point neither ebay or Paypal  has said anything against bitcoin to me, they have acted against bitcoin which is a different thing.
On the email from paypal or the chat with ebay there is not a word against bitcoin.

As far as the seller protection, I have no idea what this protects but seems to be an scam since there is very strong evidence that the-mullet09 and jabgasrm are the same guy and has charge many chargebacks during a week against other sellers and continue to do so.

It it very hard to believe that both ebay and paypal account were hacked, it is even harder to believe that he gets hacked on a daily basis, since after his first charge back, paypal or ebay should have alerted other ebay sellers and investigate why a single user goes by different ebay ids and it filing charge backs on different days against different sellers claiming his account was hacked each time. After the first charge back it should have been ebay and paypals responsible to secure the account, no such action has been done on either part of ebay or paypal, this crook continues to charge back all bitcoin purchased, and paypal is honoring those chargebacks.

I agree with everyone that says paypal should be avoided, but it is difficult since ebay has a monopoly over paypal and only allows paypal as the only method of payment, therefore saying paypal should be avoided is like saying ebay should be avoided they are basically the same thing, and very true the should be avoided by all means.

As far as shipping, it is very easy to prove that a shippment took place using blockexplorer, I have submitted the evidende of blockexplorer to paypal, but it seems paypal prefers to ignore this evidence, since they do not reply and there is absolutely  no feedback on their part in regards this matter.

Not everyone that sells on ebay does it for more profit, some do it to get the money quicker, since it takes me a whole week to convert bitcoins to dollars by avoiding paypal, mtgox is very quick, dwolla is very quick,  however the money has to go from dwolla to banks, and that part is very slow sometimes a whole week, and I have tried with 2 different banks and it takes an entire week in either direction.

I would like to see if anyone can recover the money from paypal, I think we have very strong evidence of Paypals wrongdoing, ebay, and of course the scammer, in my case paypal froze the money on my account, not only the money for the chargeback, but all the money on the account, I have access to my paypal account but can not withdraw any money at all, I get an email saying the money is being delivered to my bank, but during the process there is a warning message that there is an investigation open and funds can not be withdrawn.

The more I know about paypal, the more I like to use bitcoins.
We should stop using ebay as well it is the same scam company that paypal is.

[jack102938]

a guy using the accounts "christian-dbr" and "tinchen-hro" has emailed me claiming to have been stung by the same bitcoin/paypal scam.

[zerokwel]

I hate Idiots like that. Makes me feel like driving down there and keying his car.

[sergio]

A lot of sellers got stung, was is amazing is that paypal insists that the account got hacked, and it does nothing to secure the account.
Very hard to believe that the account gets hacked on ebay and paypal, on different days and continues to get hacked.

Paypal should immediately void all the chargebacks to all the sellers, unfreeze all the sellers acounts it has frozen, and ban this scammer from both ebay and paypal, but neither ebay or paypal seem to care.

Paypal and ebay have been lying to us, making it look like the account was recently hacked, and hiding the fact that the same guy has filled many chargebacks using exactly the same scam.

This is how the scam works:
 
1. buy bitcoins on ebay.
2. pay with paypal
3. receive the bitcoins.
4. file a chargeback claiming account was hacked.
5. keep the bitcoins and the money.
6. repeat this process.
7, after process has been repeated a few times, change ebay id, and repeat the process again.

and repeat this same process on different days with different sellers.

Paypal know about this, and if failing to warn the sellers, in fact when the seller gets the email from paypal, paypal makes it appeared that the problem is only with you, and that the account was hacked only for your transaction, which is clearly false.

It seems Paypal wants to kill bitcoin by encouraging fraud against bitcoin.

Well this serves us as a lesson to learn on ways paypal has to atack the bitcoins, and how low  paypal has fallen.

[TraderTimm]

Using paypal with bitcoin is like training for a marathon while smoking a cigar.

[CurbsideProphet]

You can't prove shipment.  Blockexplorer doesn't mean shit.  If Paypal doesn't consider a receipt from the USPS as a form of shipment (they require a tracking #) you think they're going to give a rip about blockexplorer?

Bitcoins were banned from selling at Ebay.  If you continue to use it, then you do so at your own risk so stop crying.

[Saledo]

Paypal much like Visa/Mastercard DOES NOT CARE ABOUT THE MERCHANT.  Period.  End of Story.  When I first started working for my employer, I found out they were using paypal to run their credit cards.  A buyer purchased 60K of equipment (not unusual with our equipment), and we had proof of delivery via UPS.  Got a charge back from the guy, faxed IP info, shipping confirmation, signature from UPS, would paypal work with us at all?  NO.  We weren't even allowed to forward the info to the credit card companies because we were going through Paypal.  We were literally doing half a million a month plus through paypal and they were willing to screw us over 60K in chargebacks with no thought.  You really think they care about your bitcoins?  Lesson learned, move on.

[chuckypalumbo]

I took payment from a guy via paypal, but it wasn't through ebay, and so far no problems, but it's only been about 3 days. I knew the risk going in, got his phone number, address, etc. etc. and these horror stories will keep me from dealing with ebay and paypal in regards to these types of scams. Whatever happened to seller protection though? And what about all the people selling gold and silver through ebay?

[zerokwel]

well the story goes DON'T USE PAYPAL... Unless your 100% sure you can trust the person

[sergio]

it is not about crying, at least I am not crying, it is about alerting others and doing something against scammers, ebay, and paypal.

But it is good to expose the scammer and paypal and ebay for what they are, this post may have helped some people on this forum by alerting them of this situation, the problem with paypal is not with bitcoins, it is a problem in general, paypal or ebay has not sent me a single email the problem was because it was a transaction with bitcoins.

I lost very little, but others lost a lot, and it is very sad to see this type of fraud take place, and for paypal to encourage the fraud to take place.

Not trying to fight  the fraud would be the wrong thing to do, I know paypal is probably going to burn me, and all the other guys that got scammed, but it is worth a try to try to do something about, and then lose, than to give up immediately and act like paypal not do anything, and actually encourage the fraud.

This problems somehow affects us all, for example you buy something from a legitimate vendor, then you have to pay a little extra, since the legitimate vendor has extra expenses due to fraud, and to cover for fraud he has to increase his prices, the legitimate customer is then force to pay this extra prices, for any business if the operational cost is increased due to fraud, that cost is passed onto the customers.

The problem with ebay and paypal is that the play a huge role in the market, they have become so big, that they do not care about their customers, and posts like this is that make people aware of scams.

If paypal continues with its scams, and people complain in forums, blogs, etc, paypal will fall, I will not be surprised that in 5 years from now  bitcoin is the big thing, and no one gives a shit about paypal, when that happens I will know that we have won, so a short term loss is no big deal, but if no one does anything,   people accept  paypal behavior as acceptable, then 10 years from now paypal will even be worse than now. that is not something that is acceptable. This post will help many in the long run, and I predict there will be many more scams like this by paypal, until its downfall.

Once paypal begins to fall they will listen to their customers and service will improve, but by then bitcoin will be big and strong, ebay will probaly start accepting bitcoins as a form of payment in about 5 years, otherwise it will be lost sales to them.

I really doubt any of the sellers will get their money back, but it is worth a try, at the very least paypal gets exposed for what it is.

I do not expect to get my money back due  to everyones experience with paypal, but posting paypal as a fraudulent enterprise, and having my prediction of paypals downfall in 5 years, and to have bitcoin strong as ever when paypal colapses, and to have contributed to paypals downfall even if it is a very tiny amount, it is worth a lot to me, that alone is probably worth infinitely much more to me than my lost btc.
This post probably helped many more people from being scammed.

In regards to seller protection, it does not seem to work, when  I received the email of paypal payment from the scammer, the email said I was eligible for seller protection, but then after the charge back no word from paypal on seller protection, I even asked them about the seller protection and have got now replay, it has been more than a day and no word from paypal, seller protection seems to be an scam.

[jack102938]

it is not about crying, at least I am not crying, it is about alerting others and doing something against scammers, ebay, and paypal.

But it is good to expose the scammer and paypal and ebay for what they are, this post may have helped some people on this forum by alerting them of this situation, the problem with paypal is not with bitcoins, it is a problem in general, paypal or ebay has not sent me a single email the problem was because it was a transaction with bitcoins.

I lost very little, but others lost a lot, and it is very sad to see this type of fraud take place, and for paypal to encourage the fraud to take place.

Not trying to fight  the fraud would be the wrong thing to do, I know paypal is probably going to burn me, and all the other guys that got scammed, but it is worth a try to try to do something about, and then lose, than to give up immediately and act like paypal not do anything, and actually encourage the fraud.

This problems somehow affects us all, for example you buy something from a legitimate vendor, then you have to pay a little extra, since the legitimate vendor has extra expenses due to fraud, and to cover for fraud he has to increase his prices, the legitimate customer is then force to pay this extra prices, for any business if the operational cost is increased due to fraud, that cost is passed onto the customers.

The problem with ebay and paypal is that the play a huge role in the market, they have become so big, that they do not care about their customers, and posts like this is that make people aware of scams.

If paypal continues with its scams, and people complain in forums, blogs, etc, paypal will fall, I will not be surprised that in 5 years from now  bitcoin is the big thing, and no one gives a shit about paypal, when that happens I will know that we have won, so a short term loss is no big deal, but if no one does anything,   people accept  paypal behavior as acceptable, then 10 years from now paypal will even be worse than now. that is not something that is acceptable. This post will help many in the long run, and I predict there will be many more scams like this by paypal, until its downfall.

Once paypal begins to fall they will listen to their customers and service will improve, but by then bitcoin will be big and strong, ebay will probaly start accepting bitcoins as a form of payment in about 5 years, otherwise it will be lost sales to them.

I really doubt any of the sellers will get their money back, but it is worth a try, at the very least paypal gets exposed for what it is.

I do not expect to get my money back due  to everyones experience with paypal, but posting paypal as a fraudulent enterprise, and having my prediction of paypals downfall in 5 years, and to have bitcoin strong as ever when paypal colapses, and to have contributed to paypals downfall even if it is a very tiny amount, it is worth a lot to me, that alone is probably worth infinitely much more to me than my lost btc.
This post probably helped many more people from being scammed.

In regards to seller protection, it does not seem to work, when  I received the email of paypal payment from the scammer, the email said I was eligible for seller protection, but then after the charge back no word from paypal on seller protection, I even asked them about the seller protection and have got now replay, it has been more than a day and no word from paypal, seller protection seems to be an scam.

QFT

Also, does anyone know how I can stop PayPal taking the charge back from my debit card? I withdrew money from the account before the charge back claim was made and subsequently I have a "negative" balance. I expect PayPal to find a way of taking that money from my bank but would obviously prefer that not to happen.

It is so incredibly easy for eBay/PayPal to detect auctions with "bitcoin" in the title/description and have them automatically removed, the only reason they are not doing this is to disrupt the bitcoin economy. I didn't even realise bitcoins were forbidden to be sold on eBay until this fiasco.

I don't like some of the comments in this thread ("greedy people getting scammed, oh dear" etc..) - that does nothing but make the bitcoin community look weak in front of one of our major rivals. PayPal is actively pursuing bitcoin because it realises the massive potential of bitcoin. We must stick together and stop this sh1thole of a company.

[mazmorbid]

I would like add that the buyers "the-mullet09" and "jabgasm" both had their emails end in "@tiscali.co.uk" and both replied exactly the same when I (btcmania) sent the first payment of 0.01 btc "I acknowledge receipt of bitcoin +0.01" I showed my wife and said this looks a little strange .. 1 day later both users open an unauthorized claim with Paypoop .. They (Paypal) sent me a nice little reminder "We determined that you did not meet the eligibility requirements for the PayPal Seller Protection Policy, and you are therefore being charged for this reversed transaction. We've returned the funds to the PayPal account holder, and your account will be debited for the amount of this transaction." Pricks ..

Also, does anyone know how I can stop PayPal taking the charge back from my debit card? I withdrew money from the account before the charge back claim was made and subsequently I have a "negative" balance. I expect PayPal to find a way of taking that money from my bank but would obviously prefer that not to happen.

Yep they will just take it from your bank, have had it happen to me in the past, they will send a little note to the scammer "we were successful in retrieving the funds from that sucker you stole bitcoins off" ..

[CurbsideProphet]

You can still use Paypal (but not via Ebay) to sell Bitcoins safely.  If you are a seller, tell the buyer to send the funds as a gift.  They will have no recourse against you.  Of course, this just shifts the risk to the buyer but if you can get a buyer willing to do so, Paypal is perfectly safe to use for a BTC seller. 

In a world of anonymity, someone has to bear the risk.  Just make sure it's not you. 

[gigabytecoin]

YOUR MONEY IS GONE.

Have you ever heard of a deal that was TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE?!?

I saw you guys selling your Bitcoins on eBay and warned you a few weeks ago too...

You were selling BTC for 50% higher than MtGox asking price to some people... how could you not immediately tell that they were going to turn around and run with your products?!?

Selling a commodity or a currency for a 50% markup SCREAMS of "too good to be true".

Obviously the buyers knew what bitcoins were and knew their real value, otherwise they wouldn't be buying them through eBay.

Get a brain!

[gigabytecoin]

You can still use Paypal (but not via Ebay) to sell Bitcoins safely.  If you are a seller, tell the buyer to send the funds as a gift.  They will have no recourse against you.  Of course, this just shifts the risk to the buyer but if you can get a buyer willing to do so, Paypal is perfectly safe to use for a BTC seller. 

In a world of anonymity, someone has to bear the risk.  Just make sure it's not you. 

No, PayPal is not perfectly safe to use for a BTC seller.

A buyer can get a reversal on a payment (even if it is sent as a GIFT) simply by calling their credit card company, saying their credit card was stolen before that purchase was made, and filing a charge-back.

[Shinobi]

Exactly. Both sides are scammers.

hey, I would like to buy 50-100 BTC via Paypal from you, seems like you are a trustworthy seller. I'll pay 40 USD per BTC. 

ITT: greedy people getting scammed by other greedy people

[sergio]

The big scammers here are ebay and paypal.

The fraud by the same scammer continues.

Both Ebay and Paypal were reported by me several times 2 days ago and also yesterday,  and this guy "jabgasrm" continues to scam sellers today he just scammed someone else today july 4.

ebay Item number:   130538720794
seller: daniello76 which is a seller with a perfect rating of 100% with 32 positive feedbacks.

how can the Law or any police officer that is reading this allow the same guy to continue scamming others after scampal, and ebay have been fully made aware of the situation and not do anything about.

He has already stolen over $1000 dollars from many sellers.

[sergio]

Hard to believe but paypal and ebay are not doing anything to stop this scammer, on another forum I just learned another seller got burned today July 6.
I have reported this crook to ebay and paypal and they keep screwing sellers, with the lie that the account was compromised and in was an unauthorized transaction, which is bs on paypals part, there are fully aware of the situation and the scam contijues.

Check out this thread
http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=26369.0

Do Not use paypal, I tried warning everyone about this scammer, and the scammer continues to scam with the help of paypal.

[Man From The Future]

proof of shipping could be provided through block explorer and email correspondence.  whether or not paypal would actually do anything about that is another story.

But if he told paypal his account was hacked just to steal btc, that's fraud and you could always report him to http://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx and then send him some nice threatening messages.

I got ripped off by this guy who sold me some pirated, completely fake microsoft software.  ($800 worth ) 

after not responding to 10-20 emails, he responded to the one where I gave him an ultimatum and let him know I was contacting local law enforcement.  of course, he was in my general area so that helped.  he promptly sent me $800 via paypal and asked me to return his bogus software just to make me lol.

Ship a pendrive with a wallet.dat on it. Then you have seller-protection?