[SCAM] Phoenix Technologies - bitcoinminingcenter disappeared completely

[descarte]

bitcoinminingcenter.com was registered in april and they did a lot of groundwork like doing a professional PR release, ecommerce site, had a real tech support by the name of "Xiao" with what looked like a legit Hong Kong address. They were suppose to ship batch 1 on mid nov but on mid-nov, they said that they had a delay of power supplies and would ship only end of nov or early dec. On 29 Nov 2013, after scamming tonnes of bitcoins from the public, they disappeared completely from the world. The value of bitcoin was much lower then. It would have been worth a lot more today. It was looking like they planned this scam right in the beginning when they registered the domain name in april 2013.

I am helping to collate all the resources available to help to make the investigation easier. If you are a victim, pls write all your grievances here to make life easier for investigation. Don't let the scammer get away. We don't need these people around.

Related discusssion threads:

http://virtualmining.com/cloud-mining-center-hits-50-capacity/
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=312912.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=308670.0
http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/17388/phoenix-technologies-can-they-be-trusted-their-prices-seem-way-too-low-compare
http://coincafe.net/2013/08/17/phoenix-technologies-announces-production-of-bitcoin-mining-hardware/
http://whois.domaintools.com/bitcoinminingcenter.com
http://bitcoinscammers.com/bitcoinminingcenter-com/
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1o45cc/scam_do_not_deal_with_phoenix_technologies/

I've made a report to the hong kong police on 9 Dec 2013. I am not a hongkonger and I was told I was not eligible to make a complain. Can anyone from hong kong help?

I have given this url to the police for them to keep track of the progress of the thread.

-----------------
Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for the complaint/information passed to the Hong Kong Police
Force by e-mail on 2013-12-09.

On the basis of the information provided, there is insufficient detail for
the Hong Kong Police Force to take action. We may be able to assist if you
could provide full details of the matter, your residental address in Hong
Kong, bank account number and branch address in Hong Kong. We cannot take
appropriate action in the absence of your further information.

Regards,

Criminal Records Bureau
Hong Kong Police Force

*** This e-mail message (together with any attachments) is for the
designated recipient only. It may contain information that is privileged.
If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any
use, retention, disclosure, copying, printing, forwarding or dissemination
of the message is strictly prohibited. If you have received the message in
error, please erase all copies of the message (including attachments) from
your system and notify the sender immediately. ***

[delta11965]

You have to be more persistant than that this is what I got last night its the 4th email and now the case is rolling but contact everyone and Coinbase knew about this and still processed transactions after the fact:

 Your  report to Hong Kong Police on 2013-12-04 via internet was referred
    to Kwun Tong Police District for enquiry under police reference LM (319)
    in KE KT 73/14 Pt. 29 (319/13)FC.

    It  is  learnt  from  your email that you had been deceived. In order to
    facilitate  our  investigation, I would be grateful if you would furnish
    us the following detail :

    (a)      Sequence of event including details of the purchase order which
    include date/time, goods and the full address of the website you made
    the purchase order
    (b)      content of the correspondence between you and Phoenix
    Technologies
    (c)      your business relationship with Phoenix Technologies before
    this incident
    (d)      any proof of payment
    (e)      total loss suffered

    Please  reply  as  soon  as possible so that Hong Kong Police could take
    follow up action promptly.

    Best Regards,

    Woman Detective Sergeant CHAN Mei Yuk
    District Intelligence Squad
    Kwun Tong Police District
    Hong Kong Police

[delta11965]

You have to be more persistant than that this is what I got last night its the 4th email and now the case is rolling but contact everyone and Coinbase knew about this and still processed transactions after the fact:

 Your  report to Hong Kong Police on 2013-12-04 via internet was referred
    to Kwun Tong Police District for enquiry under police reference LM (319)
    in KE KT 73/14 Pt. 29 (319/13)FC.

    It  is  learnt  from  your email that you had been deceived. In order to
    facilitate  our  investigation, I would be grateful if you would furnish
    us the following detail :

    (a)      Sequence of event including details of the purchase order which
    include date/time, goods and the full address of the website you made
    the purchase order
    (b)      content of the correspondence between you and Phoenix
    Technologies
    (c)      your business relationship with Phoenix Technologies before
    this incident
    (d)      any proof of payment
    (e)      total loss suffered

    Please  reply  as  soon  as possible so that Hong Kong Police could take
    follow up action promptly.

    Best Regards,

    Woman Detective Sergeant CHAN Mei Yuk
    District Intelligence Squad
    Kwun Tong Police District
    Hong Kong Police

Contact all news companies, FBI has a site to file I've done that to just gottta get it going, great job posting this too.

[Pcpoet]

I filed my report on Dec. 5, 2013 to Hong Kong Police but they didn't take action.  So I have to be persistent and tell how serious I was.  I filed to every companies that I can such as Federal Trade Commission, FBI, reportfraudsonline.com, etc.

This is what I received from Hong Kong Police at the beginning:

 Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for the complaint/information passed to the Hong Kong Police
Force by e-mail on 2013-12-05.

On the basis of the information provided, there is insufficient detail for
the Hong Kong Police Force to take action. We may be able to assist if you
could provide the transaction record, including bank account number and
branch address in Hong Kong. We cannot take appropriate action in the
absence of your further information.

Regards,

Criminal Records Bureau
Hong Kong Police Force

Finally later on Dec. 9, 2013 the Hong Kong police take action.

Your report to Hong Kong Police on 2013-12-09 via internet was referred
 to Kwun Tong Police District for enquiry under police reference LM (319)
 in KE KT 73/14 Pt. 29 (319/13)FC.

 It is learnt from your email that you had been deceived. In order to
 facilitate our investigation, I would be grateful if you would furnish
 us the following detail :

 (a) Sequence of event including details of the purchase order which
 include date/time, goods and the full address of the website you made
 the purchase order
 (b) content of the correspondence between you and Phoenix
 Technologies
 (c) your business relationship with Phoenix Technologies before
 this incident
 (d) any proof of payment
 (e) total loss suffered

 Please reply as soon as possible so that Hong Kong Police could take
 follow up action promptly.

 Best Regards,

 Woman Detective Sergeant CHAN Mei Yuk
 District Intelligence Squad
 Kwun Tong Police District
 Hong Kong Police

[delta11965]

I'm all for putting together some BTC to have someone go over there or some investigator or something like that.

[SamuraiBuddha]

Hey guys, glad I can finally post!  I "purchased" an X1 model from bitcoinminingcenter.com, Phoenix Technologies, on 11/13/13 through Coinbase transaction.  I have an email trail between myself and Xiao consisting of over 30 messages.  I have received this response from Coinbase:

"unfortunately they did not register any identifying information with us because they never bought or sold Bitcoin on our website. I can tell you that they funneled most of their Bitcoin offsite through the address '16hhF6FhbZiAcv6fyrXatnTqi1wFvzWtyt'."  (If you trace this address through the blockchain, you will see this douche made off with >940 BTC, 2.33 of which were mine!).

bitcoinminingcenter.com was hosted at this IP address 67.215.66.132
IP Information
Country Code:   US
Country Code3:   USA
Country Name:   us United States
City:   San Francisco
Postal Code:   94107
Area Code:   415
Dma Code:   807
Metro Code:   807
Continent Code:   NA
Latitude:   37°76'97" North
Longitude:   122°39'33" West

So, I am thinking there may be some options for US prosecution as well?  I am hoping at least...

[delta11965]

Hey guys, glad I can finally post!  I "purchased" an X1 model from bitcoinminingcenter.com, Phoenix Technologies, on 11/13/13 through Coinbase transaction.  I have an email trail between myself and Xiao consisting of over 30 messages.  I have received this response from Coinbase:

"unfortunately they did not register any identifying information with us because they never bought or sold Bitcoin on our website. I can tell you that they funneled most of their Bitcoin offsite through the address '16hhF6FhbZiAcv6fyrXatnTqi1wFvzWtyt'."  (If you trace this address through the blockchain, you will see this douche made off with >940 BTC, 2.33 of which were mine!).

bitcoinminingcenter.com was hosted at this IP address 67.215.66.132
IP Information
Country Code:   US
Country Code3:   USA
Country Name:   us United States
City:   San Francisco
Postal Code:   94107
Area Code:   415
Dma Code:   807
Metro Code:   807
Continent Code:   NA
Latitude:   37°76'97" North
Longitude:   122°39'33" West

So, I am thinking there may be some options for US prosecution as well?  I am hoping at least...

And that chick on the phone was trying to sell me another one last night! They will get caught its just a matter of time but I'd rather have them get caught now. We have a lot of info together already the only thing we have to do is either get a agency on them or hire an investigator and someone that can follow the blockchain to whoever touched a cent.
I asked coinbase about 5 times about bitcoinminingcenter and if they were in good standing because some post a week or 2 prior said that coinbase banned them yet still allowed them to process payments?? then all of the sudden after 3 weeks with no response from CB I get 3 reponses in ten minutes to tell me that they cant help and didn't know, basically a big pile of BS just like coinbase is! wouldn't supprise me a bit if we find out they were getting kickbacks.

[SamuraiBuddha]

Btw, forgot to post this on the last one:  852-2150-5757 is their Hong Kong phone number, could be a "burner", could be a land line...

[Ramhound]

And that chick on the phone was trying to sell me another one last night! They will get caught its just a matter of time but I'd rather have them get caught now. We have a lot of info together already the only thing we have to do is either get a agency on them or hire an investigator and someone that can follow the blockchain to whoever touched a cent.
I asked coinbase about 5 times about bitcoinminingcenter and if they were in good standing because some post a week or 2 prior said that coinbase banned them yet still allowed them to process payments?? then all of the sudden after 3 weeks with no response from CB I get 3 reponses in ten minutes to tell me that they cant help and didn't know, basically a big pile of BS just like coinbase is! wouldn't supprise me a bit if we find out they were getting kickbacks.

You can't expect Coinbase to be aware of every dishonest person.

Even if they knew about the person, its not like they can reverse the transaction, only disable the account locking the wallet ( which doesn't really solve anything ).

Some lessons in life require a loss in order to learn.

[btctalks123]

Well to help the investigation I'm posting some pics of transaction. Have emails but most people have emails to them too.
https://i.imgur.com/aElgs2g.pnghttps://i.imgur.com/MtvTdS6.png

[descarte]

If you are the hong kong police, you should come in and see this.

pls post some email conversation if any...

[luhuang_hit]

I'm a victim. What happened in progress?
Wish the fraud die in a accident！

[PeterVenter]

I'm a victim. What happened in progress?
Wish the fraud die in a accident！

I second that!