Mybitcoin is a scam!

[PandaMiner]

I've gotten free bitcoins in my eWallet in their site.  It was surely weird, I know sometimes coins get lost "in the void" and I guess that they actually end up in other people's accounts.

I don't know where the funds came from, it just says P2P in the history.  It wasn't a lot, all together it was 0.26 btc.  I don't like ewallets, especially this site, because when it's down for maintenance, I'm at their mercy, and can't access MY coins until the site is back up. So I pulled out weeks ago.

[FreeBitcoins.org]

UPDATE: No response on the messaging system from my inquiry. Time to start an official investigation.

First I'll use the PO box and supposed name of the spokesperson for the site and see if I can't find any public records that might match.

This might end in me flying to West Indies, but we might find out the owner is dead. Does anyone else ever think of these things?

Please continue to update us on your findings.  Certainly seems like it's a one man operation and the owner is AWOL. 

I'm also waiting for a response about some missing bitcoins..a small amount, but I'd rather get them back than let them disappear into the void

[the founder]

Again, Flexcoin.com is Ponzi game. You'd better not join the game unless you're sure that you're the earlist one or the owner of the flexcoin is your fucking boy and will share with his profit with you after he runs to Mexico from U.S. where he claimed be. Or he is in Mexico now, who knows?

We're in Pennsylvania... not Mexico.....  you're saying we're a scam because we're paying the account holders interest from what we sell in Ads and Mining?   Last I heard that's not how a Ponzi scheme is run....  unless you have a creative definition of it..  We'd love to hear how someone that isn't educated enough on the  topic discuss it... we need good laughs....  the chances are you don't even have an invite (very few people do) for Flexcoin... so you are not educated enough on Flexcoin to make any assumptions.

Your statement at best is sophomoric...  and at worse it's just liable.   

"we need good laughs..." is not the words I want to hear coming from my banker.

I found it funny....     The end result is that I'm here and I respond to questions... 

[saqwe]

any news on mb being down? 

[Aggro]

Alright, I'll make it official. Mybitcoin is not a company to do business with. Avoid them at all costs.

Over a week ago my login credentials didn't work. Only at that time did I realize that mybitcoin has no way to recover passwords.  I found previous threads where people had trouble with mybitcoin (duh) and tried the email under whois (abuse@mybitcoin.com) which didn't work. I created a second account to send a message about my first account, but now, days later, still no response.

Please also avoid their banner ad company, Link2voip, also. Nothing against them, but maybe if Link2voip feels a little shun they will pressure mybitcoin to come clean.

Mybitcoin's behavior is a little confusing because they apparently were, at one time, a good service.  They have put a considerable effort into their site, they seem to have ambitions to expand as a bitcoin business, and their proprietor, Mr Williams, came forth and acted all CEOish during the recent Mt Gox debacle.

Unfortunately, new users are often being steered into their clutches. Bitcoinme.com pretty much tells new users to put their coins into Mybitcoin:


Check out a better image at:

http://bitcoinme.com/index.php/buy/

I have asked Bruce Wagner of bitcoinme.com to stop promoting them and he said he would, but we'll see. I am on a campaign to get the truth out about mybitcoin.  If they come clean I will be the first to announce it.  If you have any helpful information or have a similar story to tell I hope you will include it here.

Thanks for your attention.

I don't really think they are a scam, but their support can be slow and unresponsive sometimes. I can say however that link2voip is a reputable company. I used to have a hosted PBX with them for my business .

[lettucebee]

They take their depositors money.  Call them whatever you want.

[NothinG]

Seems mybitcoin.com isn't online.

[manifold]

Seems mybitcoin.com isn't online.

yes.. thats disturbing... I really should have stopped using them...

[manifold]

maybe... but I hope it goes online one last time.. so I can get my 1 BTC out of there...

[BioMike]

weekend, server crashes, company off for weekend, check back on Monday.

[BioMike]

Anybody any idea if this is a more reliable replacement?

http://www.bitcoinpayflow.com/

[iamzill]

Anybody any idea if this is a more reliable replacement?

http://www.bitcoinpayflow.com/

If you don't mind me asking, what's so unsatisfactory about the official client that you have to use a third party alternative?

I deposit my dollars at the bank because I have no choice. At least there's deposit insurance at the bank.

I would never let a third party hold my bitcoins, because:
1. There's no deposit insurance
2. There's no fraud protection
3. There's no accountability
4. There's no regulation
5. It's trivial to setup a "bitcoin bank", run it for a few weeks, and then run away with all the deposits. No paper work at all, just a few hundred lines of HTML and python. Don't even have to pay for any server and bandwidth (Amazon offers free small cloud instances).

[NothinG]

Anybody any idea if this is a more reliable replacement?

http://www.bitcoinpayflow.com/

If you don't mind me asking, what's so unsatisfactory about the official client that you have to use a third party alternative?

I deposit my dollars at the bank because I have no choice. At least there's deposit insurance at the bank.

I would never let a third party hold my bitcoins, because:
1. There's no deposit insurance
2. There's no fraud protection
3. There's no accountability
4. There's no regulation
5. It's trivial to setup a "bitcoin bank", run it for a few weeks, and then run away with all the deposits. No paper work at all, just a few hundred lines of HTML and python. Don't even have to pay for any server and bandwidth (Amazon offers free small cloud instances).

Although I can't speak for everyone, I'd believe the majority are not in possession of a VPS or the knowhow. Perhaps you could post a tutorial for newbies?

/this

[iamzill]

Although I can't speak for everyone, I'd believe the majority are not in possession of a VPS or the knowhow. Perhaps you could post a tutorial for newbies?

Ahhh, now I see what the problem is.

When I have more time I can write up a full tutorial, but for now I can give you two pointers:

The easy way: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Lazy_API
Not terribly secure, but still miles ahead of using a third party escrow service.

The proper way: sign up for Amazon EC2 and use their free tier service. There are plenty of good tutorials online on how to do this, but it's a little involved.
You'll end up with a fully pre-configured linux system. Next just download the official client and then apply the startup script from http://forum.bitcoin.org/?topic=965.0 and you're done.

[BioMike]

Although I can't speak for everyone, I'd believe the majority are not in possession of a VPS or the knowhow. Perhaps you could post a tutorial for newbies?

That, and I don't want to be bothered with all the details of the accounting. It is easier to get just a notification when the money is in.

[toddbethell]

1000btc frozen, lost or stolen by MyBitcoin?

By Todd Bethell

On 12 July 2011, 1000btc MtGox to MyBitcoin.
On 28 July 2011, 1000btc MyBitcoin to MtGox.

28 June 2011, payment notification was received. 8hrs later (the site was still up) visual verification was done in account history of the transaction and correct address.
48 hrs later still no coins.

This is where I need a block explorer expert.
21 minutes after MyBitcoin received the btc block explorer shows the coins from that wallet being split and transmitted hundreds of times all the way down to 1 Satoshi.
Question:
1.   Is this normal or a sign of fraud making it impossible to track?
2.   Are all wallets effectively used as ‘pool wallets’ for payouts?
3.   While I am not accusing MyBitcoin of theft, itn’t plosible that

Block 135867 (2011-07-12 07:06:54)   1000   Received: Address   •   1DeAkzL1MBriA37pHS46Nu1xcCzJ5sPupH
1000

Block 135870 (2011-07-12 07:27:05)   1000   Sent: Address   •   17e8zfFzVkKtx4ofdeoYHhdvu1cTKCpv2r
•   1NgjsaazumvjaR3WZuLqqKEed79RneQy2Q
0
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
MyBitcoin Payment Notification
MyBitcoin Robot [nobody@mybitcoin.com]
toddbethell@fastscanning.com
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Hello,

This is a payment notification from MyBitcoin.

You have sent Bitcoins!

Transaction Number: 245107
Transaction Date/Time: 2011-07-28 22:30:02
To: 18jsFKuKZ4w8mhdTYy9bZKKHmkZNSZrRUC
From: 19vKB489Lx1rxqS366f63mKDLXp6q3v3Ct
Amount: -1000.00
Payment Note: MtGox businessaccount1

Thank you.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG/MBC v1.0

iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJOMeLqAAoJEJ+5g06lAnqF2ZYH/0FYDSmSxQa4l8+Q50e+1qEN
r9D6GXVPo5A4jXzgjtXTs2Rj2WmbLnsm2I8vc+fQFvniUiZT3nSbixVAU9wPm0w6
cTD8gNvEe+P9aNttZqGxa9xnCOVkE4ypF+n4jEmE/e3H5yh6Ix0oCI50luIeQZir
e0/5sF7ZbWDWhNta9+A6yvWYEI7KLZK+zke8EbLmB3YIDZ+EpaegrT74H6s7fHRR
cSopmnyDXX1biS8Mao7GSoTgXuPOTaMRae+4SN4pL1aoRZahWX/SsLXDj2Skjc/4
jtLBq7RLb8x3wo23IiURyzKZJr1Cw75cTULdLcNoUZajewapxIqA9DhFJK8HlSk=
=EFK8
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Approximately 8hrs later the coins had not been credited to my MtGox account. MyBitcoin was still up. My account history showed the coins had been sent and the sent to address was verified correct.
Security Note: The instant before clicking the send button (perhaps when my mouse hovered over it) I notice a screen blink or something changed, but it was too late to avoid clicking the button.

Q1. Has my computer been compromised such that the send address was swapped at the last instant?
Q2. If this is so, how could the correct address be recorded in the MyBitcoin data base?
Q3. Is it coincidence that the MyBitcoin service has gone down for 48hrs with nary a peep from its owner? A person who was very proactive and vocal during the MtGox incident.
Q4. I’m hard pressed to think of a technical reason how or why a transaction confirmation bot would send confirmation of btc transmission before such a transmission had actually occurred. Let alone consciously programmed in this way. It would seem that the bot was part of the book keeping data base and not confirming actual transmission from a ‘hot’ wallet.
Q5. It seems that the way MyBitcoins was using the wallets of its members (pooling them as a matter of operational efficiency or draining them as a scam??) this makes it impossible to track coins or analyze if they are insolvent?
Q6. Was my 1000btc withdrawal lower to water level in his 'hot wallet' enough to show Tom was swimming without a suit? In other words, for whatever reason, he was operating insolvent?

I would not normally keep so many coins in an on-line wallet but this was in preparation for a business transaction that was delayed.

I am preparing a blog and forum post or lessons learned and recommendations going forward:

If anyone has further information please post it here and send to my email also, or give me a call.
Skype:  toddbethell
Email:  toddbethell@fastscanning.com
Cell:  1-949-394-5932

-----------------------------------------
Action taken:
Phone: +6499518329  (always busy)
Emailed: enquiries were sent to abuse@mybitcoin.com
It is well know that Tom… only replys to ‘in-mail’ on his site.

Tom Williams
Main Street
PO Box 556
Charlestown, Nevis, KN

[seeARMS @ Bit-Bank]

I'm working on a SCI for https://bit-bank.org - hopefully I'll have it up relatively soon.

[tsvekric]

Seems mybitcoin.com isn't online.

I don't know about the rest of you, but my original theory that something has happened to the owner (could be lying in a hospital for all we know) is looking more plausible.

Seems like your bitching and attacking other users was completely baseless.  After reading your posts in this thread I really wouldn't pay much attention to anything you post now due to some poor reading comprehension skills and general assholier-than-thou attitude.


Trust seems to be the biggest stumbling block for bitcoin is trust.  I would never put too many bitcoins in any one place due to everything we've seen from MtGox, mybitcoin, wallet trojans, etc etc.  We need some long established trusted financial corporation to get involved in bitcoin, and not trust website made by some random dude we know nothing about.

If thousands of bitcoins are lost due to this one website, the community should be up in arms and attempting to help.  I hope something is found out about the owner of this site.

[NothinG]

Seems mybitcoin.com isn't online.

I don't know about the rest of you, but my original theory that something has happened to the owner (could be lying in a hospital for all we know) is looking more plausible.

Seems like your bitching and attacking other users was completely baseless.  After reading your posts in this thread I really wouldn't pay much attention to anything you post now due to some poor reading comprehension skills and general assholier-than-thou attitude.


Trust seems to be the biggest stumbling block for bitcoin is trust.  I would never put too many bitcoins in any one place due to everything we've seen from MtGox, mybitcoin, wallet trojans, etc etc.  We need some long established trusted financial corporation to get involved in bitcoin, and not trust website made by some random dude we know nothing about.

If thousands of bitcoins are lost due to this one website, the community should be up in arms and attempting to help.  I hope something is found out about the owner of this site.

If you know of a country that has Legalized Bitcoins as a Currency, I'd agree with you.
Unfortunately, there isn't any well-known established Financial Corporations that will put Bitcoins before USD (or other local currency).

[Bitcoin Swami]

Wow amazing how the people warning about mybitcoin were harassed.