MyBitcoin was probably a scam - and if it was, here's who's responsible

[wolftaur]

This isn't even a huge deal, does anyone here think it would be too much to ask for Bruce to release the public encryption key for his Wallet so we can all see that he was refunded all the money he lost from Mybitcoin.com, seems simple enough right?

So why wont he do it?

Unfortunately that wouldn't even accomplish anything. I have something like a hundred bitcoin addresses that have transactions associated with them... If you suspected me of such wrongdoing I could just hand out 50 of the addresses for you to look for in the block chain. It'd be pretty damn hard to link in the other fifty especially if I had told you I had fifty... And, hell. I told you I have two hundred. Maybe I have many, many more...

Or I could just go look at the block chain, try to find some reasonably idle addresses with transactions that suit my claim, and give you those addresses. Odds are even if the owner was in this forum... I mean, seriously, are you gonna recognize the address you got one block generation from six months ago? Or the temporary address you used with Mt.Gox three months ago?

It's _POSSIBLE_ that if he gave out such information it could be used to uncover something incriminating, but it's not nearly as simple as it might seem at first. Especially since all he has to do is ... Well, give you every address but the one he got his share of the coins sent to, if he is behind it. And even if he is behind it, there's probably more than one wallet.dat involved now...

[wolftaur]

I have been impressed with the ability of our little collective to track down and piece together pieces of the mybitcoin.com puzzle.  I don't claim that I have anything profound to add, but just in case it may be helpful in the future, I am presenting an email thread I had with Bruce Wagner regarding mybitcoin.com.

I cut out the actual text because it's a good wall of images and I'm hesitant to duplicate it immediately below the original just to add two lines of response.

I'm not going to consider this proof that Bruce is involved even though it raises an absolute ton of red flags about whether there really was collusion between the two entities.

I am going to say that I can see a good lawyer making this stick as a willful negligence case. Especially because at this point I find the notion of Bruce keeping the more than 25,000 coins he claimed he lost in there after hearing these warnings from you and others (there were many flying around around then, as you may recall) stored in mybitcoin if he's going to "address it" to be ... well, if Bruce is smart enough to log into a forum I can't believe he's too dimwitted to take his coins out just to be on the safe side especially if he's going to actually "address it" on his show and make the sponsor with 25,000 of his coins look bad.

After all, mybitcoin was a sponsor, so Bruce had a financial motive to sweep any evidence of wrongdoing on their part under the rug even if he wasn't involved... and if nothing else I think this email chain means that at minimum that's what Bruce was doing. Sweep, sweep, sweep. Yes, please give me my ad fees now.

[rainingbitcoins]

What con artist would still be using an identity that could easily tie back to such prior events? 

The kind who uses that simple fact over and over for an excuse as to why he couldn't possibly be scamming.

Bernie Madoff never used a fake name, either. Guess he was on the up and up as well.

[d.james]

Hi Angus, you forgot to cover up this one here

[hugolp]

Strange how mybitcoin.com just went offline.

404 Not Found

The server can not find the requested page:

    50.61.240.200/proxy/errors/404/ (port 80)

Please forward this error screen to 50.61.240.200's WebMaster.

404 error page shows it is hosted at Arvixe

<h1>404 Not Found</h1>
<p>The server can not find the requested page:</p>
  <blockquote>
    50.61.240.200/proxy/errors/404/ (port 80)
  </blockquote>
<p>
    Please forward this error screen to 50.61.240.200's
    <a href="mailto:servers@arvixe.com?subject=Error message [404] 404 Not Found for 50.61.240.200/proxy/errors/404/ port 80 on Tuesday, 30-Aug-2011 22:00:07 PDT">

    WebMaster</a>.
</p>
<hr />

Wait, I've seen that somewhere...
Of course, this is where OnlyOneTv is hosted!

Whois Server Version 2.0
Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be registered
with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net
for detailed information.

   Domain Name: ONLYONETV.COM
   Registrar: ENOM, INC.
   Whois Server: whois.enom.com
   Referral URL: http://www.enom.com
   Name Server: NS1.RAVEN.ARVIXE.COM
   Name Server: NS2.RAVEN.ARVIXE.COM
   Status: clientTransferProhibited
   Updated Date: 15-aug-2011
   Creation Date: 15-sep-2010
   Expiration Date: 15-sep-2012

Bruce, you are a magnet to unfortunate coincidences.

It's no "unfortunate coincidence" 50.61.240.200 is the IP address for onlyonetv.com

ping onlyonetv.com
PING onlyonetv.com (50.61.240.200) 56(84) bytes of data.

Strangely enough, when you try and curl mybitcoin.com NOW, you get a blank response. 

Thats probably because the guys behind the MyBitcoin fraud read the forums (probably post under different nicks) and know that the trick to incriminate Bruce Wagner for the MyBitcoin fraud has failed: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=40417.msg492861#msg492861

[lettucebee]

Hi Angus, you forgot to cover up this one here

Uh, I meant to do that.

[Nagle]

Going back to the Bruce Wagner / Bold Funding case, here's what the court had to say:

C. In the course of trade or commerce in Cook County,Illinois, in 2004, Defendant Bold Funding and Defendant Bruce Wagner engaged in the following deceptive acts in violation of the Consumer Fraud Act:

(i) As part of a fraudulent plan or scheme, the Defendants falsely represented, or directed others to falsely represent, that Defendant Bold Funding would locate and secure private funding, for a fee, for homeowners in foreclosure; when in fact, Defendant Bold Funding did not intend to provide such services and did not provide such services. This activity is a violation of paragraph 505/2 of the Consumer Fraud Act [8 ] 5 ILCS 505/2J.

(ii) The Defendants falsely represented, or directed others to falsely represent, that Defendant Bold Funding had failed to secure private funding for homeowners on only one (1) or two (2) previous occasions; when in fact, Defendant Bold Funding had not secured private funding for most, if not all, of its customers. This misrepresentation is a violation of paragraph 50512 of the Consumer Fraud Act ISI5 LCS 505/2J.

(iii) The Defendants falsely represented, or directed others to falsely represen, that Defendant Bold Funding was a private real estate investors' group; when in fact, Defendant Bold Funding did not invest, directly or indirectly, in real estate. This misrepresentation is a violation of paragraph 50512 of the Consumer Fraud Act [815 LCS s0s/2|.

(iv) The Defendants falsely represented, or directed others to falsely represent, that Defendant Bold Funding had been a member of the Better Business Bureau for twelve (12) years; when in fact, Defendant Bold Funding joined the Better Business Bureau for the first time in 2004. This misrepresentation is a violation of paragraph 505/2 of the Consumer Fraud Act [815 ILCS 505/2J.

(v) The Defendants falsely represented, or directed others to falsely represent, that Defendant Bold Funding had staff attorneys who assisted homeowners in foreclosure; when in fact, Defendant Bold Funding did not have any attorneys on staff who assisted homeowners in foreclosure. This misrepresentation is a violation of paragraph 50512 of the Consumer Fraud Act [815 ILCS 505/2J.

(vi) The Defendants falsely represented, or directed others to falsely represent, that Defendant Bold Funding had helped homeowner save their homes for the past twelve (12) years; when in fact, Defendant Bold Funding did not save homes from foreclosure and Defendant Bold Funding had only existed since 2004. This misrepresentation is a violation of paragraph 505/2 of the Consumer Fraud Act [8]5 ILCS 505/2J.

(vii) The Defendants falsely represented, or directed others to falsely represent, that Defendant Bold Funding had seventy-four (74) regional offices; when in fact, Defendant Bold Funding maintained and staffed only one (1) office. This misrepresentation is a violation of paragraphs 0sl2 of the Consumer Fraud Act [815 ILCS 505/2J.

There's no question about it.  He's a crook.  No amount of explanation or spin control will help.

(Thanks to whomever OCRd the original document.  Now we have the full text.)

[lettucebee]

Utterly damning! Good work people.  Now I just want Bruce to go away. I hope these documents and threads are translated into spanish and any advertisers on Bruce's show are educated on why they shouldn't be.

[BitcoinPorn]

I would like the final twist of all this is Bruce Wagner is in fact Atlas.   Some may remember they were on a podcast at the same time before, but it was a silhouette I think.

Amazingly sad stuff, faith in Bitcoin drops not based on the technology at all, but the user base, it is sad.  What sucks more is I don't know how much could have been done to prevent being scammed in such a huge way.

[wolftaur]

Amazingly sad stuff, faith in Bitcoin drops not based on the technology at all, but the user base, it is sad.  What sucks more is I don't know how much could have been done to prevent being scammed in such a huge way.

Honestly, someone should have been digging into Bruce's past the instant he endorsed a site that says "Hey, your coins are safe in MY wallet but not in yours" ... The fact that Bruce is a repeat criminal with the sole life goal of stealing as much as he can from others was there to find, all we had to do was look.

It might be worth setting up some form of verification service so that any bitcoin business in the future has to _PROVE_ a valid address to be on a trusted list. Sure, someone can scam even if you know who they are and where they live, but...

As Bruce can already tell you, when your victims know where you live you can be hauled into court.

[MoonShadow]

Utterly damning!

Why?  Because he posted the legal opinion of a lawyer put to paper?  Or because you trust that he is honest while Bruce is not?  Have you people learned nothing?  Just because someone says so, doesn't mean that it's so.  This is no more true with Bruce than anything that Nagle, or myself for that matter, might post on this forum.  It's not damning, it's not even supported with a reference. 

Just because someone on this forum hasn't been yet shown to be a liar, doesn't imply that they deserve your trust.

[wolftaur]

Utterly damning!

Why?  Because he posted the legal opinion of a lawyer put to paper?  Or because you trust that he is honest while Bruce is not?  Have you people learned nothing?  Just because someone says so, doesn't mean that it's so.  This is no more true with Bruce than anything that Nagle, or myself for that matter, might post on this forum.  It's not damning, it's not even supported with a reference. 

Read the document. He posted what the judge put to paper, not some plaintiff lawyer put to paper.

That was the conclusion of the judge after seeing all evidence presented, including Bruce's statements.

[MoonShadow]

The judge is a lawyer.  You presume that the judge was correct and impartial.  I'm trying to point out that isn't something that should be assumed.  The judge is, more likely, acting under the color of law.  Real estate lawyers don't like it when new guys muscle into their turf, particularly when they find some way to do it without jumping through the legal hoops (i.e. licensing) that they have erected to prevent it.  Lawyers stick together, and don't like it when their brothers are upset.  I've seen this crap in action personally, and I am inclined to give BW the benefit of the doubt based upon the plausibility of his explaination on the events.  Sure, he couldn't produce a single person who had been aided, most likely because his contract with any investors required confidentiality.  Something that the lawyers filing suit would have well known, considering that many (most?) of such land contract investors are persons with an excess of cash reserves who need discrete investment vehicles.  Said more plainly, particularly considering the locale, any investors that BW had would most likely had shady forms of income, and needed a means of washing the dirt of that cash.  Land contracts are infamous for such things, because the mortgage company being paid off does not have any incentive to report suspicious events, the homeowner gets another chance at the American Dream (tm) and even if the investor ends up in prison, no prosecutor is going to go after the house, because they want to keep their jobs. (if they aren't elected, they work for someone who is, and evicting law abiding citizens from their home because they rent from a scumbag is bad press).  And most of the time, civil forfiture laws can't realisticly even take the land contract, because they probably belong to some out of state corporation and not the scumbag in question; funtionally making the seizure of the asset (the contract, not the home) an out of state legal action.  Something that prosecutors aren't likely to do, because they don't like to work hard for small odds of success any more than anyone else does.

And if you had a confidentiality agreement like that with someone like that, would you risk breaking it by actually inviting a homeowner to testify on your behalf?  It's not like the homeowner agreed to keep quiet, and the lawyers are certain to ask the homeowner about the investor.

[wolftaur]

Ok, well, if Bruce didn't do anything wrong, he can show us his license, right? He was, after all, required by the law to have a license. Without the license he couldn't have executed those investment contracts, so if he really was helping people, he has a license and can prove to us he has the license.

Of course, without the license he actually can't legally do what he claimed to be able to do for homeowners. So what it boils down to is you can claim all you want that we can't trust a judge, and we have to assume that Bruce's lawyer wouldn't appeal if the judge was wrong, and that Bruce just somehow "accidentally" took money and more money and more money from more and more incoming clients, until he was "overloaded"... I mean, seriously, this isn't like typing in a few numbers. This isn't something that "creeps up on you." Unless maybe you get hit by a car and are in the hospital, but that's not what Bruce claimed.

So, if he's on the up-and-up, have him produce his license or proof that he had one.

[MoonShadow]

Ok, well, if Bruce didn't do anything wrong, he can show us his license, right? He was, after all, required by the law to have a license. Without the license he couldn't have executed those investment contracts, so if he really was helping people, he has a license and can prove to us he has the license.

That's a false logic.  A license is required to perform real estate contracts, legal contractors are presumed to honest, thus any contract that lacks the written permission of the state must be dishonest.  Sorry, but a license doesn't mean your honest and the lack of one doesn't mean your dishonest.  In this case, it means your stupid, but malice still isn't the most likely cause of this breakdown.

Of course, without the license he actually can't legally do what he claimed to be able to do for homeowners.

Actually, he could.  That's the 'loophole' in a land contract, performed properly.  Still a good idea to use a licensed real estate lawyer to handle the details, but land contracts are legal for anyone in any state.  As I noted before, a land contract is simply a rent to own lease agreement wherein the object being rented is one's own house bought in a short sale prior to forclosure, instead of a tv or a computer from Renta-center.  It is, essentially, a long term lease agreement.  Real estate lawyers can't really make such contracts illegal.  BW's failure was accepting a deposit from potential clients.  If cash wasn't involved, the dogs wouldn't have had anything to hit him with.  If he had shelled out the fees that licensed agents expect, they would have left him alone.

So what it boils down to is you can claim all you want that we can't trust a judge,

I'm saying you can't trust anyone.  Saying that some judge is trustworthy, because he is a judge, is an appeal to authority, a logical fallacy. 

and we have to assume that Bruce's lawyer wouldn't appeal if the judge was wrong,

Bruce was broke, remember?  What would he have paid his lawyer with?  They don't work for free, justice belongs to the highest bidder, sometimes. 

and that Bruce just somehow "accidentally" took money and more money and more money from more and more incoming clients, until he was "overloaded"... I mean, seriously, this isn't like typing in a few numbers. This isn't something that "creeps up on you." Unless maybe you get hit by a car and are in the hospital, but that's not what Bruce claimed.

I'll admit, that part does sound a bit fishy, coming from Bruce himself. 

So, if he's on the up-and-up, have him produce his license or proof that he had one.

Again, a license doesn't imply honesty.

[wolftaur]

That's a false logic.  A license is required to perform real estate contracts, legal contractors are presumed to honest, thus any contract that lacks the written permission of the state must be dishonest.  Sorry, but a license doesn't mean your honest and the lack of one doesn't mean your dishonest.  In this case, it means your stupid, but malice still isn't the most likely cause of this breakdown.

No, a license doesn't mean someone is honest. However, states can still require them for virtually anything. My neighbor's driver's license doesn't mean he's a good driver, and we have his totaled car parked in front of his house as proof. He still can be tossed in jail or fined if he drives without one. The guy who fixed the electrical wiring for the same neighbor is a pretty damn good electrician but he got 30 days in jail for working on electrical wiring without a license.

Of course, without the license he actually can't legally do what he claimed to be able to do for homeowners.

Actually, he could.  That's the 'loophole' in a land contract, performed properly.  Still a good idea to use a licensed real estate lawyer to handle the details, but land contracts are legal for anyone in any state.  As I noted before, a land contract is simply a rent to own lease agreement wherein the object being rented is one's own house bought in a short sale prior to forclosure, instead of a tv or a computer from Renta-center.  It is, essentially, a long term lease agreement.  Real estate lawyers can't really make such contracts illegal.  BW's failure was accepting a deposit from potential clients.  If cash wasn't involved, the dogs wouldn't have had anything to hit him with.  If he had shelled out the fees that licensed agents expect, they would have left him alone.

The state can require a licensed realtor be the broker of any transfer of property ownership. You can argue all you want that it's unfair for the state to require that but the reality is (and I checked) the Illinois county clerks won't accept a transfer of owner for a deed that doesn't have a valid real estate license associated. As such, Bruce's investors could not have bought the house in a short sale. Bruce had no realtor's license. An external realtor would have had to have been required, but by your own argument, if one was involved, the coalition gets their cut and Bruce wouldn't have been in trouble.

Bruce was broke, remember?  What would he have paid his lawyer with?  They don't work for free, justice belongs to the highest bidder, sometimes. 

So the over $100,000 that was listed from just the clients represented in this suit just magically evaporated into thin air when the plaintiffs got representation?

I'll expand on this a little more, actually. If Bruce just got overwhelmed, as he claims, then there were people who got helped, whos fees he was entitled to keep. Let's be extremely conservative, and say he helped 1 in 10 clients. Surely that would cover his operating costs, like the rent on his office space -- many people were paying $3,000 or so as a fee, after all. So why not just refund everyone he dropped the ball on? He obviously didn't, because that's a long-ass list of names in the court papers...

and that Bruce just somehow "accidentally" took money and more money and more money from more and more incoming clients, until he was "overloaded"... I mean, seriously, this isn't like typing in a few numbers. This isn't something that "creeps up on you." Unless maybe you get hit by a car and are in the hospital, but that's not what Bruce claimed.

I'll admit, that part does sound a bit fishy, coming from Bruce himself. 

Honestly, it was specifically that part that had me convinced the whole thing was indeed a fraud. It isn't as if I don't understand that "plea bargaining because of the circumstantial evidence really sucking for my chances" applies to civil trials as well, for starters. Some companies really do settle out of court not because they're guilty but because the costs of proving innocence are higher than what they're being prodded for. Lawsuit-as-extortion is practically a whole fucking industry at this point.

But this is an industry I actually have experience with: I worked for a realtor for five years, and I worked for a debt management company for three years. So that's five years dealing with nothing but property and three years dealing with nothing but people struggling with debt. In both places, of course, we deal with "Ok, well, a home is being sold to an investor on a short sale with a pre-existing lease contract which covers the payment of rent and balance of equity, plus redistributed interest, at which point the current owner gets the home back" stuff when it arises.

In every legitimate case I've seen of this type of business the business goes out of their way to have a list of interested investors at any given time. They don't go seek an investor when they get a client's $2,000 fee, they have a bunch lined up at any given time. If the list gets too short they stop taking customers until they've gotten more investors. Bruce obviously wasn't doing it this way, but it should be pretty obvious to anyone who, well, Bruce's exact words, "We were taught by someone in Michigan who was very successful at it" that you need the investors first. Investors will say what sorts of amounts they'll cover, on what sorts of repayment schedules. For example, you might be willing to cover $50,000 as a maximum, and you want full payment within 10 years, and you want $15,000 as profit over that time. The short sale specialists will keep investors sorted by financial parameters. Any home coming in they look for a match. You don't take someone's money and then go look for investors. You don't take someone's money when you have no investors.

So Bruce says, "What happened though... in short is.... We were a victum of our own success.  At the same time that we had just begun a radio advertising campaign... mortgage foreclosures hit an all time high." Well, the fees for his "successes" should have paid the office rent and everyone he took as a client despite not having time to do any work on them should have been returned.

"Of course, we needed to charge a deposit in order to pay for the weeks worth of processing paperwork that was needed in order to deterine their deed, their mortgages, determine their equity, get appraisals on the property." WEEKS? That right there is a complete load of crap. The last place I worked got people home equity lines of credit all the time. It never took more than a couple of calendar days to get everything the mortgage broker we used demanded. And let me tell you, starting in mid-2007, they did demand everything as far as the paperwork goes. For HELOCs, we had one employee doing them, and he was getting all that stuff done for about eight to ten customers a day at our peak. The realtor I worked for for five years never needed more than a few days either, and it wasn't like she spent all day on it.

And finally, there's this gem: "We had every single applicant sign a contract -- and with their signature notorized -- stating that they understood clearly that there was no guarantee that we would be able to match them with a suitable investor." I called up my last boss when I first saw that. Chatted with him a few minutes about this. His response was, "Wait, you mean they expected the fee up front, instead of after the investor agreed?!?!" He's been handling people drowning in debt for 15 years and he had never heard of a legitimate company doing it that way.

[mikegogulski]

I am inclined to give BW the benefit of the doubt based upon the plausibility of his explaination on the events.

MoonShadow, I can appreciate the tack you take here, both in common-sense terms and because I'm a balls-out anarchist. No, neither the judge or prosecutor's words ought to be taken at face value. No, having state permission isn't necessarily the mark of a fair dealer.

I believe, though, that if you look at the documentation uncovered, there are really only a small number of possibilities:

1: The Bold Funding allegations were completely true;
2: The Bold Funding allegations were partly true and partly untrue; or
3: The Bold Funding allegations were completely untrue.

This, I believe, leads to:

A: Bruce did a lot of fraud; or
B: Bruce (believed he) was being railroaded by the system.

This has to be held up against the numerous publicly-posted online complaints by people claiming to have been scammed by Bold Funding, the fact that Bruce and Ed left the jurisdiction and the fact that Bruce didn't appeal the (default!) judgment. His statements on the matter do not even approach a plausible explanation.

None of this adds up to any kind of "honest mistake" or "victims of our own success" defense. And that's even before some interested goons take a trip to the Cook County court's records office to bring more of the case file online, and before some interested goons visit the NY Supreme Court's offices in Manhattan for more detail on the $514k Post v. Wagner fraud/assault lawsuit pending there. I'll bet you a Bitcoin that that stuff makes for interesting reading material indeed.

Set alongside Bruce's blatant lies in denial of his posting the "three-pronged attack" in selecting "boys" for sex in Thailand and his self-serving sockpuppetry shilling for himself as an escort, my own judgment is very clear: I want nothing to do with the guy, and recommend he be shunned.

[esse83]

Why is this thread listed under marketplace? I found it by a mistake. That moderator scares me on so many levels.

[BitcoinPorn]

Why is this thread listed under marketplace? I found it by a mistake. That moderator scares me on so many levels.

There are alternatives https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=40270.msg493140#msg493140

[greyhawk]

That moderator scares me on so many levels.

I think he's hilarious. The other day a marijuana dealer came in here and I was starting to string him along inquiring about terracotta pots, when that moderator popped in actually believing I was trying to score some weed.