mtgox.com has blocked my account with 45 000 USD in it!

[Bimmerhead]

Not that he is accountable to this thread in any way, but it would be helpful to Baron's standing here on the forum if he would respond to Jed's post saying that he (Jed) has been trying to contact Baron by phone without any luck.

[Bruce Wagner]

Have you noticed how scammers, almost universally, defend themselves.

Never denying anything.   Just saying, "You have no proof."

Been hearing that a lot....  no denials, just "Prove it."

[BCEmporium]

Waste of time to try to make a point with "bruce wanker". Think whatever you want. I don't mind for idiots and have no time to waste with them.
Now he speaks for his "imaginary audience"... delusions are a very sad mental disease. Go seek some medical help.

and as Vladimir said, taken your childish points, reply to you is childish either. So, take a hike!

As for never deny; I already said 3 or 4 times I'M NOT BARON, NOT MTGOX, NOT RELATED DIRECTLY IN ANYWAY TO THIS MATTER. Need glasses? Or can't even read?!

[Bimmerhead]

Have you noticed how scammers, almost universally, defend themselves.

Never denying anything.   Just saying, "You have no proof."

Been hearing that a lot....  no denials, just "Prove it."

Maybe.  On the other hand if someone with no legal standing falsely accused me of something like this I wouldn't dignify it with a denial either.  Certainly in this case the onus is on the accuser to provide the evidence.

BTW, who is the Third Baron you refer to?  I am a native English speaker, but it hasn't been obvious to me.

[kiba]

Vladimir, Bruce:

The call is for a democratically elected judge, not for a dictator or self-nominated judge.

Shadow,

Don't try to take things from where there're none to be taken. I'm totally unrelated to Baron. (And to mtgox and to those 9k and to the 45k btw)

No. This called for agreed upon judge, not a democratically elected judge. This is not a democracy, or a dictatorship, or whatever. This is anarchy.

Only the parties involved in the case get to choose.

[Garrett Burgwardt]

Vladimir, Bruce:

The call is for a democratically elected judge, not for a dictator or self-nominated judge.

Shadow,

Don't try to take things from where there're none to be taken. I'm totally unrelated to Baron. (And to mtgox and to those 9k and to the 45k btw)

No. This called for agreed upon judge, not a democratically elected judge. This is not a democracy, or a dictatorship, or whatever. This is anarchy.

Only the parties involved in the case get to choose.

Take a page from The Icelandic Commonwealth's legal system - 3 judges, one picked by the defendant and the accuser each, and one agreed upon between them.

[kiba]

1. Contact the exchange and attempt to settle this matter amicably or via an arbitrage. If it is successful end of story.

MtGox is trying to contact him by phone right?

[Bruce Wagner]

If I was in position of a person who is innocent

End of story.

[BitterTea]

No need for finding an authority, just pass the thing to the nearest police station together will all the money and let them deal with it.

Why do you hold this view? The "authorities" routinely temporarily or permanently take the assets of innocent people. Where is your recourse when the state wrongs you? You can appeal to the state, of course... 

Exchange: The guy is a scammer so I will keep his money.

We have no reason to believe that mtgox is going to keep Baron's $45,000, even if there is sufficient evidence that he is the scammer. I believe what is right would be to hold it for some period of time. If individuals can prove that they were scammed by Baron, they will get compensation. At the end of that period of time, the remainder goes back to Baron (with a cut to mtgox as you mentioned).

[BitterTea]

We have no reason to believe that mtgox is going to keep Baron's $45,000, even if there is sufficient evidence that he is the scammer. I believe what is right would be to hold it for some period of time. If individuals can prove that they were scammed by Baron, they will get compensation. At the end of that period of time, the remainder goes back to Baron (with a cut to mtgox as you mentioned).

We also have not reason to believe that what you said is the case either.

Please read more carefully. I did not say what is or is not, just what I believe.

[sturle]

The whole "wrongness" in all of this is for an owner of an exchange to act as CSI/judge/executioner, all-in-one.

Who are you talking about?  Mtgox has just locked the account while he (or someone else, I suspect the police is already involved) is investigating to identify the rightful owner and/or the thief of the funds in there.  The investigation is currently stalled because the claimed owner refuses to identify himself.  No one have been judged or executed so far.  Unless the claimed owner identifies himself, the funds will remain locked by the one neutral part who can (mtgox).  Possibly by order from the police or a judge.  Mtgox has been wise enough to say as little as possible about those matters.

[theymos]

This is all conjecture. Perhaps a third party arbitrator / mediator or adjudicator is called for here that both mt gox and baron agree to abide by if they make a decision.  For the sake of further conjecture this is the best way forward in a fair manner and is how things are done in an anarchic situation like this.

If the victim's account was compromised, then Baron did steal the 9,000 BTC. Any proof of account compromise will come from MtGox, though, so third-party arbitration wouldn't be helpful.

[BitterTea]

This is all conjecture. Perhaps a third party arbitrator / mediator or adjudicator is called for here that both mt gox and baron agree to abide by if they make a decision.  For the sake of further conjecture this is the best way forward in a fair manner and is how things are done in an anarchic situation like this.

If the victim's account was compromised, then Baron did steal the 9,000 BTC. Any proof of account compromise will come from MtGox, though, so third-party arbitration wouldn't be helpful.

It seems to me that there would be some difficulty in differentiation between the following scenarios (given sufficient intelligence and knowledge by the scammer):

• Baron is the scammer. He gained unauthorized access to the victim's account and withdrew the money.
• The "victim" is the scammer. He in fact agreed to a trade with Baron. He hid his identity (say, using Tor or perhaps a more targeted proxy) and over the course of three days, withdrew the 9000 BTC to Baron's address.
• Baron and "victim" are really the same person, and this is an attempt to undermine the largest exchanger, mtgox, and Bitcoin as a whole

[BCEmporium]

Some says "this ain't Democracy, this is Anarchy", then parallel rules applies. Creating or attempting to create an arbitration authority is a way to deal with it in a "Civilized" manner, if we go by the "parallel market rules" than somethings change, on such:

1) You don't go woohoo woohoo I was scammed. Because the regular answer will be a huge F followed by a Y. So "this things" never happen there.

Then the worse part, the exchanger, banker, "laundry service":

1) Operates in a fully «don't know/don't tell» policy. He doesn't know, and don't want to know, where the money came from and don't know, nor want to know, where it goes. Does his job and that's it, doesn't throw "private CSI parties".

If LR, which is a typical and probably the biggest "parallel market" bank on the World would be acting because customer A or B was scammed by customer C or D, they would be out of business long ago. Taken most of the "deposits" there are from scammers, as the "HYIP «Ponzi» investments", "PTC", "PTP" and so on...
Also this "don't know/don't tell" is part of the banker himself security. It's one of the hardest and more risky business in parallel markets, to be a "banker".
Now MtGox picked up a small scammer, if it proves to be so, but what if in the future he freezes 1 or 2 mil in assets from «Don Giovani» who sends his retarded cousin "Tony" to freeze MtGox in exchange?

I believe this is subject for another topic by now. A topic on the future of disputes and resolution and general purpose and rules around bitcoin. Don't you think?

[BCEmporium]

It seems to me that there would be some difficulty in differentiation between the following scenarios (given sufficient intelligence and knowledge by the scammer):

• Baron is the scammer. He gained unauthorized access to the victim's account and withdrew the money.
• The "victim" is the scammer. He in fact agreed to a trade with Baron. He hid his identity (say, using Tor or perhaps a more targeted proxy) and over the course of three days, withdrew the 9000 BTC to Baron's address.
• Baron and "victim" are really the same person, and this is an attempt to undermine the largest exchanger, mtgox, and Bitcoin as a whole

Agree to all the hypothesis. Thus someone already pointed out the claim was done on 9th January. Being so it aids the "victim" part, on the sense of justice.

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

Let's just wait for Mtgox to resolve this issue.

Making this thread 99 pages-long really doesn't help at all, nobody will read all of it anyway.
Useless speculation without having enough information to conclude anything is only making things more complicated for everyone.

[caveden]

Idea of community arbitration is a good thing. Find 3-5 1-3 senior members of the community, who did not post in this thread and agree to arbitrate. Get mtgox and baron to agree to comply with arbitrators decision. One message from mtgox to arbitrators with all the facts, one message from baron to them with all the facts, one message back from arbitrators with the decision. It could all be either public or private, depending on wishes of the arbitrators or other parties.

If I was an arbitrator, than based on facts I can remember from this thread, it would be along the lines of 9k$ (or whatever appears to be removed from victims account), back to the victim. 3k$ to mtgox for the trouble. The rest back to baron. Case closed.

+1

[caveden]

I was wondering about the similarity in the writing style between "BCEmporium" and "Baron"....

I don't think they are the same person.
BCEmporium has shown in another topic to be of the same nationality I am (Brazilian), and, as expected, I find it easy to understand what he writes, while Baron writing is very weird to me.

[BCEmporium]

I don't think they are the same person.
BCEmporium has shown in another topic to be of the same nationality I am (Brazilian), and, as expected, I find it easy to understand what he writes, while Baron writing is very weird to me.

Não sou brasileiro, sou português. 

[casascius]

If LR, which is a typical and probably the biggest "parallel market" bank on the World would be acting because customer A or B was scammed by customer C or D, they would be out of business long ago. Taken most of the "deposits" there are from scammers, as the "HYIP «Ponzi» investments", "PTC", "PTP" and so on...
Also this "don't know/don't tell" is part of the banker himself security. It's one of the hardest and more risky business in parallel markets, to be a "banker".
Now MtGox picked up a small scammer, if it proves to be so, but what if in the future he freezes 1 or 2 mil in assets from «Don Giovani» who sends his retarded cousin "Tony" to freeze MtGox in exchange?

part of the problem is if the way customer A scammed customer C was by hacking into customer C's LR account, that would make LR sort of the victim too and give them a bit of an extraordinary interest in the matter - seeing as how, for example, MtGox recently ate half the cost of someone's account being hacked.