Bruce Wagner and the surrounding drama.

[rainingbitcoins]

That's interesting. I don't actually remember you at all, or ever having discussed anything with you. But if you think I am unreasonable, I guess I'll have to work on that.

Actually, you weren't the guy I was thinking of. I did argue with you for a couple pages in the politics forum, but I was thinking of someone else I argued with when I made that post. Sorry.

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[Rassah]

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What got him nailed was that he had been telling people he had successfully saved many homes, but he couldn't actually prove that: cover-your-ass contracts are not actually enforceable to protect the business owner when you can prove intent to defraud, and giving false information about what the business's success rates are is sufficient to prove intent to defraud.

Did he give false information, or no information at all?

[wolftaur]

Did he give false information, or no information at all?

False information, including having "review letters" from "other satisfied clients."

[Rassah]

That's interesting. I don't actually remember you at all, or ever having discussed anything with you. But if you think I am unreasonable, I guess I'll have to work on that.

Actually, you weren't the guy I was thinking of. I did argue with you for a couple pages in the politics forum, but I was thinking of someone else I argued with when I made that post. Sorry.

Heh, it's OK. I make that mistake too sometimes. It's even difficult to throw off the crappy association you have with someone's name in your mind even after you realize that you were thinking of someone else...

[Rassah]

Did he give false information, or no information at all?

False information, including having "review letters" from "other satisfied clients."

Wow, at the trial? Now I'm really curious. Do you know where I can find the transcript? I just completed my Law class, and it would be nice to put my new learnin' to the test

[FlipPro]

There are actually many businesses that sprung up right around the same time he did that ended up the same way.

To much paper work(since foreclosures skyrocketed), not enough investors (they were terrified and rightfully so), and then complete financial destruction (the great recession) that put the icing on the cake.
 
It was the perfect storm, and Bruce thought he could handle it all, but apparently was not able to. Regardless this is all in the past, and he's obviously not "wanted" like so many trolls try to make him seem. The guy has obviously made mistakes in the past, and he has owned up to them very graciously.

If you can't respect him for things he has done for the Bitcoin community, at-least respect him as a human being. The facts are out, and I think everyone can come up with their own viable conclusions.

I hope things get better for everyone's sake.

[rainingbitcoins]

If you can't respect him for things he has done for the Bitcoin community, at-least respect him as a human being.

A. I don't respect human beings who give advice to pedophiles on how to find discount virgin hookers.

B. The assessment of the courts was that this was a scam from the ground-up, that he never intended to help anyone. Additionally, he could not prove he helped a single person.

C. If you look at the court filings, he misrepresented his business in a number of ways (e.g. claiming to have 72 offices when he had exactly one office)

These aren't "mistakes in the past", these are scams in the past and he hasn't owned up to them. He's offered self-serving excuses and lies, and ignored all of the difficult questions.

[wolftaur]

Did he give false information, or no information at all?

False information, including having "review letters" from "other satisfied clients."

Wow, at the trial? Now I'm really curious. Do you know where I can find the transcript? I just completed my Law class, and it would be nice to put my new learnin' to the test

No, I'm sorry, I probably should have been more specific.

When marketing and talking to potential clients and trying to convince the clients to fork over what little money they had (remember, these were people being foreclosed on, and the fees were up to $3,000) he was lying, including about how long he'd been in business, and how many people he helped.

And if you've had some law class... Well, let me give you the exact example here with a hypothetical, but if you will pardon me for straying slightly... See, I am in a different field for the most part and I can give you a much better example if I stick in my field. Computer programming, basic electrical engineering, logic signaling, and so on.

Let's say you come to me and ask me if I can design a custom thermostat for your house. I say, sure I can! I'm the guy who designed all of the industrial thermostats Honeywell sells. But I also tell you that some houses with old furnaces can't be interfaced to modern microcontrollers. So you give me the $5,000 I ask for, and I've put in the contract that you are agreeing that your furnace might just not be designed for what you wanted, and so I keep the $5,000 if I can't do it.

If I come to you six weeks later and say, "I'm sorry, but now that I've looked over the schematics for your furnace, I know I wouldn't be able to make a thermostat that can do what you wanted." Because of the contract, you're out of luck.

Except I've never worked for Honeywell, either directly or as a contractor. Now, if you find that out, the contract I had you sign becomes a pretty worthless piece of paper: you can prove I didn't enter into the contract in good faith. As such I may find it very difficult to convince a judge to uphold that clause.

Now assume that after you didn't get your thermostat you find out I've been going around town for months taking money for custom heating/cooling control systems... and I have never built a single one, but I have taken the money up front for every single one, and in every case simply come back and said "Oh, I'm sorry, I tried but your system isn't capable." And I have told all of these people that I have many satisfied customers, when in fact I have never built a single device. Not only can you now demonstrate I entered all those contracts in bad faith, but by pattern of behavior, you can demonstrate that my intention was to take money and do nothing whatsoever. If I cannot give you the name of a single person I delivered a completed product to, I'm not going to win the court case.

[FlipPro]

If you can't respect him for things he has done for the Bitcoin community, at-least respect him as a human being.

A. I don't respect human beings who give advice to pedophiles on how to find discount virgin hookers.

B. The assessment of the courts was that this was a scam from the ground-up, that he never intended to help anyone. Additionally, he could not prove he helped a single person.

C. If you look at the court filings, he misrepresented his business in a number of ways (e.g. claiming to have 72 offices when he had exactly one office)

These aren't "mistakes in the past", these are scams in the past and he hasn't owned up to them. He's offered self-serving excuses and lies, and ignored all of the difficult questions.

I haven't dug deep enough to look at the court filings, I am only going by what I read from his recent post explaining Bold funding. You guys seem to have all the answers so I will leave at that.

I am in no way defending the guys past statements, I am just pointing out the tone of civil discourse needs to change. There are alot of good people who have nothing to do with this fiasco, who have been getting attacked viciously on all different fronts and it's not fair.

The entire Bitcoin community should not have to pay because Bruce said/did something stupid 5 years ago.

[Amused2death]

There is a thread on something awful forums with all the info including the transcripts and alot of back information in it, and I think someone compiled all the info into a megapost on buttcoin.org

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3413928

[The_Duke]

I haven't dug deep enough to look at the court filings, I am only going by what I read from his recent post explaining Bold funding. You guys seem to have all the answers so I will leave at that.

I am in no way defending the guys past statements, I am just pointing out the tone of civil discourse needs to change. There are alot of good people who have nothing to do with this fiasco, who have been getting attacked viciously on all different fronts and it's not fair.

The entire Bitcoin community should not have to pay because Bruce said/did something stupid 5 years ago.

And this coming from the guy who wanted all of us (so called) trolls to be banned an-masse from these forums, claiming that linking to shady shit on the internet was not part of free speech.
Ah well, still glad you saw the light!

[wolftaur]

I haven't dug deep enough to look at the court filings, I am only going by what I read from his recent post explaining Bold funding. You guys seem to have all the answers so I will leave at that.

I am in no way defending the guys past statements, I am just pointing out the tone of civil discourse needs to change. There are alot of good people who have nothing to do with this fiasco, who have been getting attacked viciously on all different fronts and it's not fair.

The entire Bitcoin community should not have to pay because Bruce said/did something stupid 5 years ago.

100% agreed. I have already seen comments about a bitcoin business proprietor being attacked and pointed out promptly in that thread that unless there's actual evidence of wrongdoing the guy's done nothing wrong. And as far as civil discourse... I'm trying to keep myself civil. I'd really much rather the whole thing be about the truth than petty insults and "Ha look how much damage got done." That serves nobody. The truth, however, serves everybody except the dishonest.

[FlipPro]

I haven't dug deep enough to look at the court filings, I am only going by what I read from his recent post explaining Bold funding. You guys seem to have all the answers so I will leave at that.

I am in no way defending the guys past statements, I am just pointing out the tone of civil discourse needs to change. There are alot of good people who have nothing to do with this fiasco, who have been getting attacked viciously on all different fronts and it's not fair.

The entire Bitcoin community should not have to pay because Bruce said/did something stupid 5 years ago.

And this coming from the guy who wanted all of us (so called) trolls to be banned an-masse from these forums, claiming that linking to shady shit on the internet was not part of free speech.
Ah well, still glad you saw the light!

I wanted anyone who was doing obvious trolling to be banned.

There were so many ways that this information could have been brought to light. Other than sending 200 goons to troll the hell out of the forum just so you could get us to listen?

EDIT:The write up at (buttcoin).org was a good start, if you guys would have built up on that, and brought it to a more serious venue, maybe this story would have gotten more traction from the serious people you folks were hoping to attract... But in typical SA fashion, you guys responded with the typical, "LETS BURN THIS FUCKER TO THE GROUND" attitude. That alone should have gotten EVERYONE banned regardless of how good the info was or not. I think that's what really turned people away from the story, even though many of the facts were actually good.

[wolftaur]

I wanted anyone who was doing obvious trolling to be banned.

There were so many ways that this information could have been brought to light. Other than sending 200 goons to troll the hell out of the forum just so you could get us to listen?

You know what would have been just fucking fantastic? If the people who wanted to discredit Bruce kept themselves to their own space and kept their mouths shut and just read stuff here and collected as much proof as they could, put it up into a nice presentation, put in as much sources for independent verification later as possible, and posted it in one bundle.

Not only would we have found out the truth about Bruce but we'd have nothing but respect and gratitude for the people who exposed him, as opposed to having to be glad we found out but disgusted by what a giant idiot-fest they had to make the process be.

[FlipPro]

I wanted anyone who was doing obvious trolling to be banned.

There were so many ways that this information could have been brought to light. Other than sending 200 goons to troll the hell out of the forum just so you could get us to listen?

You know what would have been just fucking fantastic? If the people who wanted to discredit Bruce kept themselves to their own space and kept their mouths shut and just read stuff here and collected as much proof as they could, put it up into a nice presentation, put in as much sources for independent verification later as possible, and posted it in one bundle.

Not only would we have found out the truth about Bruce but we'd have nothing but respect and gratitude for the people who exposed him, as opposed to having to be glad we found out but disgusted by what a giant idiot-fest they had to make the process be.

Don't pretend no one listens to them... They could have posted this on the front page their site, and it would have gone viral from there.

They violated forum rules to expose someone in a very vicious way,and in the process delegitimized their good posts. It seems like they had this info for months, and were just waiting for the perfect time to nail him.

Why not release this ages ago? Why wait now?

[Oldminer]

I wanted anyone who was doing obvious trolling to be banned.

There were so many ways that this information could have been brought to light. Other than sending 200 goons to troll the hell out of the forum just so you could get us to listen?

You know what would have been just fucking fantastic? If the people who wanted to discredit Bruce kept themselves to their own space and kept their mouths shut and just read stuff here and collected as much proof as they could, put it up into a nice presentation, put in as much sources for independent verification later as possible, and posted it in one bundle.

Not only would we have found out the truth about Bruce but we'd have nothing but respect and gratitude for the people who exposed him, as opposed to having to be glad we found out but disgusted by what a giant idiot-fest they had to make the process be.

Wow...what sort of fucking world do you live in 

[The_Duke]

I wanted anyone who was doing obvious trolling to be banned.

Yeah, only the people you were calling trolls were actually just telling the truth, which you were trying to get banned. But I understand you don't want it to be seen like that.
You do hopefully understand that on your own forum, the real truth would have probably never come out, because you wouldn't have given it a chance.

[wolftaur]

Why not release this ages ago? Why wait now?

Wait. Does this mean we have new suspects for who was really behind mybitcoin.com? 

[indio007]

Correction... They were telling selective truth. A wise man said the greatest lie is omission.

What was actual truth was conveniently mischaracterized and exaggerated.

[rainingbitcoins]

A wise man said the greatest lie is omission.

Right, like the way Bruce omits the answers to all of the difficult questions from his responses and then never comes back to the thread if people start asking them.