Incompetence, malfeasance, and fraud. Oh My!

[tvbcof]

I'm not totally trying to rub salt in any wounds because hubris is a bitch, but...

The guy did name his service 'MYbitcoin.com' so from his perspective, there is an element of truth in advertising.  A cursory glance at things indicates to me that the best bet at people being made whole is if the guy is a Bitcoin enthusiast trying to make a point to people about the importance of watching one's ass.

I am throughly enjoying the rough raw frontier that is Bitcoin.   Bitcoin strikes me as a very sharp knife.  Very useful in some situations which I anticipate as possible on the horizon, but something to handle with a _lot_ of care in the mean time.

There is a genuine silver lining in all of this IMHO.  If Bitcoin goes anywhere, whoever it was that made the comment that we are all early adopters at this point is probably right.  The good part of all of the hassles is that everyone who is currently involved will, by necessity, be learning a fair amount about such things as:

  * the mechanics and properties of BTC
  * computer security
  * human nature
  * markets

etc, etc, etc. and thus will be much better prepared to have a positive impact in facilitating wider adoption...or formulating our own implementations of scams as the case may be.

In the here and now, a bunch of early entrepreneurships are establishing a fairly strong and hopefully fairly accurate picture of themselves.  It's at least a mixed blessing, in my mind, that there are situations which provide some contrast.

[1713490942]

1713490942

[genjix]

The cool thing for me, is that by and large, the economy is mostly legit and people are honest. There have been some major dumb mistakes, but that's mostly due to bumbling incompetence rather than outright dishonesty.

My guess is that the mybitcoin guy simply fucked up (was cracked) and disappeared.

[Bitcoin Swami]

The cool thing for me, is that by and large, the economy is mostly legit and people are honest. There have been some major dumb mistakes, but that's mostly due to bumbling incompetence rather than outright dishonesty.

My guess is that the mybitcoin guy simply fucked up (was cracked) and disappeared.

People don't spend $2000 to open an anonymous LLC in a tax haven to conduct legitimate business.

People only do that to commit tax fraud, and now, bitcoin fraud.

A WHOIS lookup takes 2 seconds. Even without the WHOIS information I already knew it was a scam from their business model.

+1 agreed.

[evoorhees]

People don't spend $2000 to open an anonymous LLC in a tax haven to conduct legitimate business.

People only do that to commit tax fraud, and now, bitcoin fraud.

A WHOIS lookup takes 2 seconds. Even without the WHOIS information I already knew it was a scam from their business model.

+1 agreed.

-1 disagreed. Many people open accounts outside the US, because the US tries to interfere with and steal from their legitimate business. Now, perhaps MyBitcoin is a total catastrophe, and perhaps the owner was ill-intentioned all along, but please don't vilify honest people who simply don't want the tyrannical US Gov't interfering with them.

[Bitcoin Swami]

People don't spend $2000 to open an anonymous LLC in a tax haven to conduct legitimate business.

People only do that to commit tax fraud, and now, bitcoin fraud.

A WHOIS lookup takes 2 seconds. Even without the WHOIS information I already knew it was a scam from their business model.

+1 agreed.

-1 disagreed. Many people open accounts outside the US, because the US tries to interfere with and steal from their legitimate business. Now, perhaps MyBitcoin is a total catastrophe, and perhaps the owner was ill-intentioned all along, but please don't vilify honest people who simply don't want the tyrannical US Gov't interfering with them.

Good point.

[kiba]

If mybitcoin.com is a scam, it is one hell of a sophisticated scam.

Screwup is a hell lot more likely.

[Smalleyster]

Sophisticated Screwup?

[ball4thegame]

why in the world can't mybitcoin.com release some sort of statement?! ANY SORT OF STATEMENT!?!?!?!

[Smalleyster]

why in the world can't mybitcoin.com release some sort of statement?! ANY SORT OF STATEMENT!?!?!?!

Probably run by the same folks who pull Dwolla's strings?

[lettucebee]

Democracy means you get to vote against the laws that you don't like, it does not mean you can disregard those laws at your personal discretion.

You can disregard immoral unethical laws.  You know that the vast majority of Americans were against the bank bailouts, but congress did it anyway?  And that the vast majority of Americans are against the illegal wars, but congress does it anyway?

You have no voice in The System except as a milk cow from which they extract your substance.  Come on, man!  Grow some cajones and don't cooperate with an immoral system.

[kiba]

Democracy means you get to vote against the laws that you don't like, it does not mean you can disregard those laws at your personal discretion.

You can disregard immoral unethical laws.  You know that the vast majority of Americans were against the bank bailouts, but congress did it anyway?  And that the vast majority of Americans are against the illegal wars, but congress does it anyway?

You have no voice in The System except as a milk cow from which they extract your substance.  Come on, man!  Grow some cajones and don't cooperate with an immoral system.

What if the population choose an unethical and evil action? You could vote against it but half of the population already choose to do EVIL!

Democracy doesn't fix things, just give voice to a larger population of people, who may or may not choose wisely.

[tvbcof]

The cool thing for me, is that by and large, the economy is mostly legit and people are honest. There have been some major dumb mistakes, but that's mostly due to bumbling incompetence rather than outright dishonesty.

Agree strongly, and find it heartening.

My guess is that the mybitcoin guy simply fucked up (was cracked) and disappeared.

Would not rule it out, but I doubt it.

[error]

Do we really need YET ANOTHER duplicate thread on the same topic?

[geek-trader]

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor

[iamzill]

You can disregard immoral unethical laws.  You know that the vast majority of Americans were against the bank bailouts, but congress did it anyway?  And that the vast majority of Americans are against the illegal wars, but congress does it anyway?

People are welcome to participate in civil disobedience. It's a perfectly valid way to challenge the laws.

If someone was using a Nevis LLC for tax protest then they have bear all the consequences, for example random strangers on the internet calling them out for income tax fraud, because that's part of civil disobedience.

You have no voice in The System except as a milk cow from which they extract your substance.  Come on, man!  Grow some cajones and don't cooperate with an immoral system.

Rest assured I have the cajones to go against the system. The rest of my family don't, and they rely on me to put food on the table.

Between 200 million Americans evading taxes, and 200 million American voting for a constitutional amendment repelling the income tax, which one do you think will change the system?

[Meatpile]

People don't spend $2000 to open an anonymous LLC in a tax haven to conduct legitimate business.

People only do that to commit tax fraud, and now, bitcoin fraud.

A WHOIS lookup takes 2 seconds. Even without the WHOIS information I already knew it was a scam from their business model.

+1 agreed.

-1 disagreed. Many people open accounts outside the US, because the US tries to interfere with and steal from their legitimate business. Now, perhaps MyBitcoin is a total catastrophe, and perhaps the owner was ill-intentioned all along, but please don't vilify honest people who simply don't want the tyrannical US Gov't interfering with them.

I strongly disagree with the US' current citizenship-based tax policies and income tax in general. I try to change these laws by speaking out against them, writing to my congressmen, and voting against statist politicians. However, until those laws are repelled, I am obligated to pay my share of the taxes as a citizen of United States, regardless of how much I may disagree with the tax regimen.

For those people who really do earn a legitimate amount of their income overseas and feel they are getting unfairly taxed based on their citizenship, they always have the option of denouncing their citizenship: http://travel.state.gov/law/citizenship/citizenship_776.html

Democracy means you get to vote against the laws that you don't like, it does not mean you can disregard those laws at your personal discretion.

So what exactly do you disagree with? The amount you are paying? Or the fact that alot of it is for offensive military operations?  In Canada we pay more percentage but it is not used as evilly as I am aware. Move up north.

[error]

Between 200 million Americans evading taxes, and 200 million American voting for a constitutional amendment repelling the income tax, which one do you think will change the system?

The former. In most states, people don't get to vote on U.S. constitutional amendments.

[iamzill]

People don't spend $2000 to open an anonymous LLC in a tax haven to conduct legitimate business.

People only do that to commit tax fraud, and now, bitcoin fraud.

A WHOIS lookup takes 2 seconds. Even without the WHOIS information I already knew it was a scam from their business model.

+1 agreed.

-1 disagreed. Many people open accounts outside the US, because the US tries to interfere with and steal from their legitimate business. Now, perhaps MyBitcoin is a total catastrophe, and perhaps the owner was ill-intentioned all along, but please don't vilify honest people who simply don't want the tyrannical US Gov't interfering with them.

I strongly disagree with the US' current citizenship-based tax policies and income tax in general. I try to change these laws by speaking out against them, writing to my congressmen, and voting against statist politicians. However, until those laws are repelled, I am obligated to pay my share of the taxes as a citizen of United States, regardless of how much I may disagree with the tax regimen.

For those people who really do earn a legitimate amount of their income overseas and feel they are getting unfairly taxed based on their citizenship, they always have the option of denouncing their citizenship: http://travel.state.gov/law/citizenship/citizenship_776.html

Democracy means you get to vote against the laws that you don't like, it does not mean you can disregard those laws at your personal discretion.

So what exactly do you disagree with? The amount you are paying? Or the fact that alot of it is for offensive military operations?  In Canada we pay more percentage but it is not used as evilly as I am aware. Move up north.

I already mentioned it twice in the post you quoted, but I'll say it again: collecting tax based on citizenship is wrong. It's just plain wrong for a country to tax someone who have never set foot on its soil.

IMHO taxes should only be used to fund defense and infrastructures and nothing else. Fighting 3 wars on the other side of the world is not defense as far as I am concerned.

[tvbcof]

Do we really need YET ANOTHER duplicate thread on the same topic?

What 'same topic'?  Seems like the thread has diverged in several directions already.

As the OP, I can say that I had hoped that the thread would expand into a kind of general conversation about the types of endeavors that would pop up and the necessity for people to be careful than thoughtful about them.

But the OP has on a limited amount of control over the direction of a thread in the best of cases.  They tend to expand into areas of immediate interest it seems, and one of the things I noticed in the intro material is that this forum is defined to be relatively less controlled than a lot of others.

[iamzill]

Between 200 million Americans evading taxes, and 200 million American voting for a constitutional amendment repelling the income tax, which one do you think will change the system?

The former. In most states, people don't get to vote on U.S. constitutional amendments.

People vote for congressmen and senators who will vote for constitutional amendments. That's pretty much how representative democracy work.