Have recently bought and sold some hardware on Craigslist and have encountered a rather clever scam that left me cold.
Had a 3 hour conversation with a guy who sounded just like myself when I started: enthusiastic, optimistic about getting better equipment, knowledgeable but looking for guidance from someone more experienced.
Nervous, he asked if the machine could be pointed at his account to see the stability. In the end, we agreed that an escrow deposit would be made and a pickup time for the equipment established. "Sure," was the reply.
The latest sales norm on Ebay seems to be that if you buy a machine, you now own it so the seller will immediately point it at your pool until it ships.
So, when asked if the equipment could be left running overnight since he was making a deposit, and after spending 3-4 hours in multiple conversations, and back and forth over 20 emails, the answer again was, "Sure, no problem."
Next day, no escrow, no answer to E-mail or text, no pickup, and 8 hours of mining time lost to another scammer.
It may seem obvious in hindsight and I have a strict, "4 hours for 10x the deposit" policy. Be careful out there in BTC-land. There are a lot of really great, smart, helpful people. And due to the nature of what we are doing it's bringing out the dregs of society in full force as well.
Happy mining!
Out of curiosity how much hashing power are you talking about? I guess if he does this to multiple people it would pay off, unless he got you for a lot of hash power.
