Scam Report: Projects

[bowen151]

The name and location fit although it could be a common name for the area I suppose?

[1714876377]

1714876377

[1714876377]

1714876377

[1714876377]

1714876377

[cshelswell]

I think I may have fallen for this one too Absolutely gutted 9.5 BTC for a KNC Jupiter. I thought i'd have a little look on here last night to find what had been a really good feedback rating had turned in to a pretty terrible one. He gave me a tracking number which has been stuck "waiting for dispatch overseas". I actually called Royal Mail and asked what was going on and they said it was getting send via boat (i'm in New Zealand). I'm now doubting anything's getting sent.

If anyone's trying to do something about this or I can help in anyway please let me know. I'll add my name to the google doc. I'm normally really sensible with stuff like this and would have insisted on escrow. Though thinking the ebay way I assumed the good feedback was ok. Guess I've learnt my lesson... the hard way.

[escrow.ms]

Updated

Username | Amount Scammed
ubettercall  | 4.5
mabipa125   | 3 BTC
Truman   |33 BTC
wachtwoord  |66.4 BTC
KCmining |20 BTC
gmoney1 | 6.1 BTC
semaster  |12 BTC
Chainsaw |201.7 BTC
gingpark |93 BTC
FlensGold |18 BTC
josg21   |15 BTC
1l1l11ll1l  |10 BTC
gudmunsn | 2.25 BTC
BiTCluE | 5 BTC
Pistachio : 13 BTC
BitcoinBrains : 6.5 BTC
cshelswell : 9.5 BTC
-----------------------------------------------
(Total 518.95 Bitcoins)
-----------------------------------------------

[realestone]

my god your saying this scumbag stole close to 400k dollars?

[1l1l11ll1l]

my god your saying this scumbag stole close to 400k dollars?

BTC was over $1200 when I sent it to him

[BCB]

Just digging through some PM

Hi BCB,
I do not know if this is something you can help with or something you would do, however I am looking for a loan of $400 in Amazon credit.
I wish to repay this in BTC @ Mtgox average rate within 5 weeks + obviously some agreed interest.
Is this something you could do for me?
I have outstanding loans at the moment with a few members of this forum and BTCJam. I have made 14 repayments on my BTCJam loans and never missed a repayment - also I have had many loans with members here and repaid in full again often early with no problems.
I do have quite a lot outstanding at the moment so I understand if this deems me a risk, however I would be willing to provide whatever you require if you were able to help with this.
I have a full time well paid job and my own business, unfortunately I have some cash flow issues at the moment due to me being a new business seller on ebay paypal are witholding funds for up to 21 days. I will be able to repay this loan out of my December "day job" salary just after Christmas. or possibly earlier depending on my cash flow situation with my ebay business.
Thank you for taking the time to read this and if you have any more questions please ask.

Kind Regards,
David // Projects

I'm not really a lender but I might be able to help

Have we traded before.

Where are you located

What is you day job

Thanks

Hi,
We have not traded before personally - I have traded with many people on this forum previously and never had a problem though.
I am located in the UK and wish to order some toys from Amazon US (They are not available in the UK yet) but if I wait until my next payday I will not get them for Xmas.
I am a sales manager 9-5 Monday/Friday of a retail store and like I said previously I have my own little business selling toys/jewellery online and at markets at the weekend.

Kind Regards,
David // Projects

This might be helpful in locating him.

[cshelswell]

my god your saying this scumbag stole close to 400k dollars?

It looks a lot like it. Shame how lessons always have to be learnt the hard way.

[BurtW]

http://metro.co.uk/2011/10/12/drug-user-david-williamson-jailed-after-calling-police-over-theft-of-his-own-cannabis-181981/

Is that Projects?

I did a fair amount of PP business with him and that is the name on his PP account...

If this goes to LE then I may have a couple of tidbits of info to add.  Let me know.

BUT the date on the article:  Wednesday 12 Oct 2011 1:07 pm indicates that even if that is him this all happened before we met him.

[stereotype]

my god your saying this scumbag stole close to 400k dollars?

It looks a lot like it. Shame how lessons always have to be learnt the hard way.

Thats the rub though, isnt it? Where was/is the point in this story, where you say, ''i should have noticed that, but now ive learnt"?

Here you have an individual with 100's of successful interactions involving many £$1000s over a relative long period of time. I dont think im alone in thinking Projects was making some sort of (legitimate!) living, out of the daily activity he created. And that activity was built up through earned trust. So the question is, and if we are to learn from it, where and when was the point we should or could have questioned a given interaction with Projects? I dont think its so obvious in this particular case, although some of the PM's im reading seem to follow a familiar theme of some other event getting in the way of a smooth transaction, which would normally ring alarm bells, but his earned reputation over came that.

Was this planned for, for over a year, or was this good-turned-bad? The former should have been picked up on, the later can only be known after the event.

Also, wish people wouldnt cheapen this with the word scam. Its receiving monies by deception, and unlike most buyer-beware scams, this really should be treated as a serious crime.

 


  

[wachtwoord]

Thats the rub though, isnt it? Where was/is the point in this story, where you say, ''i should have noticed that, but now ive learnt"?
  

I've stopped lending altogether. This was the final straw.

[lucky7slick]

Username | Amount Scammed
ubettercall  | 4.5
mabipa125   | 3 BTC
Truman   |33 BTC
wachtwoord  |66.4 BTC
KCmining |20 BTC
gmoney1 | 6.1 BTC
semaster  |12 BTC
Chainsaw |201.7 BTC
gingpark |93 BTC
FlensGold |18 BTC
josg21   |15 BTC
1l1l11ll1l  |10 BTC
gudmunsn | 2.25 BTC
BiTCluE | 5 BTC
Pistachio : 13 BTC
BitcoinBrains : 6.5 BTC
cshelswell : 9.5 BTC
-----------------------------------------------
(Total 518.95 Bitcoins)
-----------------------------------------------




Nightowlace, the global scam buster, what should we do about this one?

[Nightowlace]

Username | Amount Scammed
ubettercall  | 4.5
mabipa125   | 3 BTC
Truman   |33 BTC
wachtwoord  |66.4 BTC
KCmining |20 BTC
gmoney1 | 6.1 BTC
semaster  |12 BTC
Chainsaw |201.7 BTC
gingpark |93 BTC
FlensGold |18 BTC
josg21   |15 BTC
1l1l11ll1l  |10 BTC
gudmunsn | 2.25 BTC
BiTCluE | 5 BTC
Pistachio : 13 BTC
BitcoinBrains : 6.5 BTC
cshelswell : 9.5 BTC
-----------------------------------------------
(Total 518.95 Bitcoins)
-----------------------------------------------




Nightowlace, the global scam buster, what should we do about this one?

Chainsaw and I spoke on the phone today. I reached out to forum user aerobatic whom lives in the UK and is also a longtime customer of mine. He has told us to contact the Edinburgh PD directly (picking up phone cards to handle that). He said they take fraud very seriously in the UK and considering the amount would love to make front page news busting the guy who too half million dollars in Bitcoin.

So far we have his address, bank account info, real name, and phone numbers he has used. Pretty much all the same info we have on you that we are using to file charges against you. 

[cshelswell]

Hey I'd just like to say thanks to the fantastic people who are good in this bitcoin community for helping to sort this out and find the guy who has basically robbed a whole load of us. It's great to see people helping each other! If there's anything i can do that would help please let me know.

[ffssixtynine]

Skype is also good for international calls.

[Justin00]

grrr we need a site that somehow secretly takes bets on the outcome of these things....
my money is on 'zomg i got hacked... sorry guys'
it obviously doesn't work if everyone can see

[wachtwoord]

Whoever is in charge of gathering information can message me. I might have information of interest.

For a short period, I had business relations with Projects. He constantly came up with new reasons to get money from me until the point where he was in debt to me for $10k. I ended up recovering $7500 of it after we agreed on a haircut on the debt if he repaid me in weeks instead of 6months or whatever he proposed.

He is a lying piece of shit, and even after he paid me back 75% of the debt, weeks later he came back to ask for new loans and business arrangements. His main fairytale which he told me was: He had to bail out his brothers drug debt. I'm guessing there is no brother, that it was his own troubles he had to finance.

Wow, not implying you're responsible in any way or form: why didn't you leave him negative trust after?

[Nightowlace]

Whoever is in charge of gathering information can message me. I might have information of interest.

For a short period, I had business relations with Projects. He constantly came up with new reasons to get money from me until the point where he was in debt to me for $10k. I ended up recovering $7500 of it after we agreed on a haircut on the debt if he repaid me in weeks instead of 6months or whatever he proposed.

He is a lying piece of shit, and even after he paid me back 75% of the debt, weeks later he came back to ask for new loans and business arrangements. His main fairytale which he told me was: He had to bail out his brothers drug debt. I'm guessing there is no brother, that it was his own troubles he had to finance.

Please contact me via PM. Chainsaw and I will be contacting the local police next week.

[cryptocap]

Look at the "It's a trap" picture on this guy's facebook page (David Williamson from Edinburgh) posted on December 28th:
https://www.facebook.com/david.williamson.1610?fref=browse_search

I looked through the 12 people tagged in the pic, but couldn't find too much. This guy looks like and talks like the dirtbag that took us all.

[cryptocap]

Username | Amount Scammed
ubettercall  | 4.5
mabipa125   | 3 BTC
Truman   |33 BTC
wachtwoord  |66.4 BTC
KCmining |20 BTC
gmoney1 | 6.1 BTC
semaster  |12 BTC
Chainsaw |201.7 BTC
gingpark |93 BTC
FlensGold |18 BTC
josg21   |15 BTC
1l1l11ll1l  |10 BTC
gudmunsn | 2.25 BTC
BiTCluE | 5 BTC
Pistachio : 13 BTC
BitcoinBrains : 6.5 BTC
cshelswell : 9.5 BTC
-----------------------------------------------
(Total 518.95 Bitcoins)
-----------------------------------------------




Nightowlace, the global scam buster, what should we do about this one?

Chainsaw and I spoke on the phone today. I reached out to forum user aerobatic whom lives in the UK and is also a longtime customer of mine. He has told us to contact the Edinburgh PD directly (picking up phone cards to handle that). He said they take fraud very seriously in the UK and considering the amount would love to make front page news busting the guy who too half million dollars in Bitcoin.

So far we have his address, bank account info, real name, and phone numbers he has used. Pretty much all the same info we have on you that we are using to file charges against you. 

Add me: he took 3 btc from me with the promise to pay and never paid. I've been following this thread, just haven't posted til now.

[gmoney1]

Look at the "It's a trap" picture on this guy's facebook page (David Williamson from Edinburgh) posted on December 28th:
https://www.facebook.com/david.williamson.1610?fref=browse_search

I looked through the 12 people tagged in the pic, but couldn't find too much. This guy looks like and talks like the dirtbag that took us all.

If that is him, it looks like we have a genius criminal mastermind on our hands... he was in the news for calling the cops on himself:

http://metro.co.uk/2011/10/12/drug-user-david-williamson-jailed-after-calling-police-over-theft-of-his-own-cannabis-181981/ (same person in photo)

http://www.deadlinenews.co.uk/2011/08/31/cannabis-grower-goes-to-pot-as-he-reports-crop-stolen/ (same person in photo)

http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/spl/aberdeen/two-charged-over-drugs-haul-1.198301 (no picture on that one but the name, city and year of birth matches)

Update #1: that news article was posted as early as August 2011 and mentioned him going to jail for 10 months, but he registered an account here and began posting in February 2012.

Update #2: very strange how that FB profile is full of nothing but cannabis-related photos, but none of his posts here even mention it (there is some talk of Diablo 3 in the early posts), and that profile has not "liked" anything Bitcoin related... not too sure it's him.

Update #3: Just found a 2nd FB profile of "David John Williamson" (https://www.facebook.com/davidjohn.williamson.3) looks to also be his account based on the pictures. 2 more photos of him there, nothing found on Google Image reverse search and no GPS coordinates given in embedded EXIF data.

Can someone do a "catfish" and message some of his more active Facebook friends, get them on the phone to verify this is the guy we want?