What do you guys think of BitEnsure? Interest Bearing Wallets

[geofflosophy]

I've been scammed before, but I guess I just like paying with fire. Coindesk did a story today and it was enough for me to invest: http://www.coindesk.com/looking-inside-bitensure-bitcoin-savings-account-or-ponzi-scheme/

Are you kidding, you actually put money in these guys? Couldn't you wait a minute to see if it was legit or not. Coindesk even put poss ponzi in the TITLE. Mate look at the post above you, get your money out now.

Coindesk interviewed their founder and that was good enough for me. You have to have sources that you trust, and right now Coindesk is my #1.

My coins are locked in for 30 days, so hopefully at the end of that I won't regret the decision, but right now I can't get them out. For what it's worth, I also have coins in Coinlenders, but TradeFortress offers a lower return than these guys. Better liquidity and obviously more trust within the community, but if these guys are to be believed as to being who they say they are, it should not be surprising that they can offer significantly better returns.

I'll admit that it is fishy that they offered such high rates initially, though crypto-currencies do offer significantly better returns for smart money than the mature markets of ForEx, and given the reaction here it is not surprising that they lowered the rates...

Will report back.

So... after all of this evidence and Coindesk looking into it too (since it looks like they've been had as well)... do you have anything to "report back"?  Have you asked these guys what's up?  Curious to what they'd say to all of this.

Hope you've gotten (or get) your coin back.

The lack of journalistic integrity at Coindesk is pretty disappointing, I must say.

I am going to wait out my month and see if I can get my coins back, if I try to withdraw them early they take the promised interest as a fee instead. Will report back then. I'm honestly a little afraid to ask them what's up in case they are playing a long con; don't want to spook them.

I'm clearly a little too trusting, but with that said it is a little surprising to me that so many people are willing to scam like that and risk getting caught when they can just provide a service that offers value and make money legitimately. Personally I'm just way too afraid of jail to try anything like that.

[odolvlobo]

The image of said, "David DV" is a stock photo. Just one example can be found on http://dailyheal.com/meditation-news/using-meditation-and-yoga-to-combat-office-burnout/

The new image of John Jones is also a stock photo. An example can be found here: http://www.thedailymuse.com/career/how-to-manage-people-who-know-more-than-you/

[mechs]

The image of said, "David DV" is a stock photo. Just one example can be found on http://dailyheal.com/meditation-news/using-meditation-and-yoga-to-combat-office-burnout/

The new image of John Jones is also a stock photo. An example can be found here: http://www.thedailymuse.com/career/how-to-manage-people-who-know-more-than-you/

The worse part, it is like he is not even putting much effort into it.  Couldn't he take a few minutes to lift a photo from Linked in?  Pretty lazy scammer.

Coindesk has lost all journalistic integrity in my book.  I tried to leave a comment on the article with a link here and some proof this is a scam and they did not approve the comment.  I am starting to wonder if Coindesk it participating in this scam themselves.  Seriously, noone even knew about them until coindesk wrote the article which is what gave this blatant scam an air of legitimacy.  If they did even 5 minutes of basic research, they would have found all the blaring scam evidence we have.  This is below the par of a Junior High School newspaper.  I am not sure whether the journalist and editor are Incompetent, Lazy or Dishonest. Those really are the only 3 options or some combination thereof.

Pathetic

[odolvlobo]

The image of said, "David DV" is a stock photo. Just one example can be found on http://dailyheal.com/meditation-news/using-meditation-and-yoga-to-combat-office-burnout/

The new image of John Jones is also a stock photo. An example can be found here: http://www.thedailymuse.com/career/how-to-manage-people-who-know-more-than-you/

The worse part, it is like he is not even putting much effort into it.  Couldn't he take a few minutes to lift a photo from Linked in?  Pretty lazy scammer.

Furthermore, the photos at the foot of the metaneural page are actually from a company named Envato Pty Ltd, based in Australia.

Finally, I want to point out that their explanation about how your coins are guaranteed and they aren't doing fractional banking makes no sense. They are flat out lying in that coindesk article.

[jedunnigan]

Honestly, I think these guys are just very amateur, incredibly lost, and obviously not well read (40% interest in the midst of a ponzi scheme trial, rofl). I think they have good intentions, but just flat out suck at their PR and presentation (google images for stock photos is nothing new). I doubt they'll achieve the 40% (or even 17%) they expect, but I'll be following this out of sheer curiousity.

Lying about your team and using stock photos to build fake identities is not done with good intentions, sorry mate.

[zeroblock]

The image of said, "David DV" is a stock photo. Just one example can be found on http://dailyheal.com/meditation-news/using-meditation-and-yoga-to-combat-office-burnout/

The new image of John Jones is also a stock photo. An example can be found here: http://www.thedailymuse.com/career/how-to-manage-people-who-know-more-than-you/

The worse part, it is like he is not even putting much effort into it.  Couldn't he take a few minutes to lift a photo from Linked in?  Pretty lazy scammer.

Coindesk has lost all journalistic integrity in my book.  I tried to leave a comment on the article with a link here and some proof this is a scam and they did not approve the comment.  I am starting to wonder if Coindesk it participating in this scam themselves.  Seriously, noone even knew about them until coindesk wrote the article which is what gave this blatant scam an air of legitimacy.  If they did even 5 minutes of basic research, they would have found all the blaring scam evidence we have.  This is below the par of a Junior High School newspaper.  I am not sure whether the journalist and editor are Incompetent, Lazy or Dishonest. Those really are the only 3 options or some combination thereof.

Pathetic

Its not like WSJ has better fact checking.  Coindesk doesn't perform DD either.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323997004578644491403250124.html?mod=WSJ_article_MoreIn_Tech

[n4ru]

Honestly, I think these guys are just very amateur, incredibly lost, and obviously not well read (40% interest in the midst of a ponzi scheme trial, rofl). I think they have good intentions, but just flat out suck at their PR and presentation (google images for stock photos is nothing new). I doubt they'll achieve the 40% (or even 17%) they expect, but I'll be following this out of sheer curiousity.

Lying about your team and using stock photos to build fake identities is not done with good intentions, sorry mate.

It's attributed to laziness no doubt. I don't see it anymore though, it get removed?

[jedunnigan]

Yea, they wised up. I was gonna scrape the contents for storage but I figured google would for us: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaneural.com%2Fabout.html

[DumbFruit]

This was the post mechs was referencing.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=268416.0

Mr. Bitensure has gotten really quiet all the sudden.. But I guess he's got a ton of stuff to fix on his site.

To be fair, there are some things he could do to at least prove he's attempting this craziness in good faith;

1.) He could put the funds that he supposedly has stashed away to ensure his customers' accounts in a third party escrow. Like maybe btcrow or something.
2.) He could reveal his identity. Not fool proof, obviously pirateat40 was willy-nilly about his identity and he was still a scammer. Still, it would lend to his credibility.
3.) He could partner with a reputable person/company, particularly one that has real assets.
4.) He could actually make some sort of effort to prove someone exists there. It's hard to believe no one that works for metaneural or bitensure or bitcoinhaze wants to show their face. Total anonymity is ok if you don't need trust for your business to function.
(But guess what you need, Mr. Bitensure? hint: trust)

Even if he did all that, he wouldn't get a bitcoin from me. Those returns are just unattainable with any serious amount of money over any serious amount of time, but at least I'd feel he's just naive, not evil.

ps.
I'm glad there's a record of the site like it was. I was kicking myself for not making a copy, and was thinking everyone would think I was just crazy in the future haha.

[MPOE-PR]

Hmm...  I'm going to say SCAM until proven otherwise.

Exactly.

The value of bitcoin relies on the circulation and trust of bitcoins, the more people uses, the more places accepts bitcoin, the more value they are.
My question is how do you make it by only saving them in the wallet?

This is uniquely stupid.

On one hand, Bitcoin is indefinitely divisible. Saving any qty of them does not make the rest any less apt to circulate.

On the other hand, more exposure just brings in more idiots that then are bringing in more scammers to fleece them, which slowly pushes Bitcoin towards being as stupid and useless as the general population (for which I take you personally as a very convenient illustrative example).

The worse part, it is like he is not even putting much effort into it.  Couldn't he take a few minutes to lift a photo from Linked in?  Pretty lazy scammer.

You mean like the BTC Garden people do with their blogfull of lifted pics?

Coindesk has lost all journalistic integrity in my book.

They never had any. Journalistic integrity is something earned, not presumed. Coindesk is a lulz affair, they tried to buy some relevance by buying a few people a coupla rounds of beer in London and dubbing this adventure "the first conference". That's good enough right there: if they had any integrity, intellectual or even merely journalistic, they'd have done their research with regards to which scammers held the previous "first London conference".

[001sonkit]

if you are looking for someless scammy thing to invest. Just Dice's rate is actually quiteicompetitive too! Like 160% per year

[mechs]

if you are looking for someless scammy thing to invest. Just Dice's rate is actually quiteicompetitive too! Like 160% per year

How do you get 160%? I get 1/3rd of that, still pretty good though no guarantees.  A whale can wipe out profits in a minute as happened before. Plus commission going up as is investment dilution.

[geofflosophy]

if you are looking for someless scammy thing to invest. Just Dice's rate is actually quiteicompetitive too! Like 160% per year

How do you get 160%? I get 1/3rd of that, still pretty good though no guarantees.  A whale can wipe out profits in a minute as happened before. Plus commission going up as is investment dilution.

Which is it? if it's ony 1/3rd of that, Coinlenders is a better bet.

[geofflosophy]

BitEnsure has shut down due to the negative reception from all of us according to the posting on their homepage. I've emailed them my withdrawal address, will update if/when I receive my coins back.

[DumbFruit]

Mission accomplished.

I hope you get your bitcoins back...

[odolvlobo]

Well the Metaneural site is still running, so they are still trying to scam somebody.

[DumbFruit]

I guess it depends on how pessimistic you are, but I don't think Metaneural was a scam. At least not to begin with.

There's no way to really know for sure.

[Nagle]

BitEnsure has shut down due to the negative reception from all of us according to the posting on their homepage.

It was a Ponzi scheme. It had to go bust. That's arithmetic. When you see insanely high yields, you know it's a scam.

I've emailed them my withdrawal address, will update if/when I receive my coins back.

Good luck.  I hope nobody had too much money in this.

[jedunnigan]

I guess it depends on how pessimistic you are, but I don't think Metaneural was a scam. At least not to begin with.

There's no way to really know for sure.

Someone said this earlier, so I will repeat the gist of my first post: hiding your identity and building an entirely fabricated team as a front to your operation is hugely suspicious. I can think of very few legitimate use cases for this (e.g. the country you host from does not allow for these types of businesses, etc...) and even then it is questionable. In this case he(she) is clearly a US-based resident and the only way an operation like this could justify this behavior is if they were trying to bypass current AML laws, which in the context of Bitcoin would be show stopper. Fly by night operations don't last here in the US. And to think a US-based bank would service their needs. LOL

The fact that it has is closed down is yet another indicator--pessimism has nothing to do with it. Metaneural hasn't been tainted the same way BitEnsure was. They would close that down too if it got bad press in major publications/relevant forums.

[geofflosophy]

So they replied this morning: "Please allow a couple days for the transfer to go through as we must wait for a withdrawal from our investment account. You will be notified when the transaction has occurred." Will update when they send.