btc-arbs.com - Update: dead HYIP, Refund progress: BTC-arbs still doing refunds

[Vilepickle]

You'd think with 10 employees that they'd have some better contact method

I am not sure if you are sarcastic. But you realize they don't actually have 10 employees, right? xD

I'd say like 5 "employees", tops.

Web "Developer"
Server guy who hasn't woken up yet after the 500 error cropped up
Adam as support
Guy who made the arbitrage script
Swiss banker contact

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[NLNico]

You'd think with 10 employees that they'd have some better contact method

I am not sure if you are sarcastic. But you realize they don't actually have 10 employees, right? xD

Be honest you did have some BTC there ?

No, honestly I never considered putting any satoshi in, since it looked as a ponzi to me since the beginning. But it's too tempting to reply every time when this topic pops up in my watchlist I have been calling this site ponzi many times but I think I mostly suggested fair arguments, so up to the rest to make up their own opinion.

Just the fact that everyone seems to agree that the 10 employees and the Geneve office is a blatant lie, but "still they are trustworthy with my money" amazes me. And that's only 1 reason to think they are a ponzi.

[nightengale]

So far btc-arbs has worked out better than my NEOBEE investment...    

If they come back up, I'm leaving my funds where they are. I knew all along that my coins could disappear at any time, so if the site comes back up it stands to reason they are committed to continuing this thing and withdrawal just doesn't make sense. If you're itching to get your coins out that badly after this, btc-arbs was probably not the right place to be putting your money to begin with.

[dreamlucky]

I haven't found an official Twitter account, email address, or Facebook page for them of any sort.  Their marketing seems to be limited to forums and press stories via other websites.  You'd think with 10 employees that they'd have some better contact method, but making money from arbitrage is probably more concerning to them.

Support tickets are nice, but it only applies when the site is up!

Yeah I agree would be nice if arbs had a twitter account. The Hostgator outage can be seen by following @hostgator. But again the outage timeline falls inline with the Hostgator outage exactly.

[jagemo]

So far btc-arbs has worked out better than my NEOBEE investment...    

If they come back up, I'm leaving my funds where they are. I knew all along that my coins could disappear at any time, so if the site comes back up it stands to reason they are committed to continuing this thing and withdrawal just doesn't make sense. If you're itching to get your coins out that badly after this, btc-arbs was probably not the right place to be putting your money to begin with.

2nd that...
If problems are solved and funds are there, it's only proof they are not scamming... If they are scamming, there will be nothing to withdraw, but if it is still there, i will leave it there ... Al 6 of my Bitcoins

[manort]

This is part of the problem with Bitcoin and one of the things we have to fix. Too many scams; too much uncertainty. I have a small investment on arbs and have been watching it grow with a gimlet eye. I was kind of thinking they would have a longer run than this, though. I agree with the commenters who say they'll leave BTC in if the site comes back. It won't prove they're honest, but if they are honest, this might encourage them to step up their game.

I'm curious about how much is at stake here. I'd ask everyone reading to post how much BTC or fiat they had sent. Please don't include any 'earnings,' only your principle investment.

Cheers, and luck to all of us.

[Vilepickle]

Bitcoin-trader.biz is the other arbitrage site and I'd say they are doing vastly better with PR than btc-arbs.  Arbitrage isn't a scam, it is real, it's just the players doing it that could be or could not be legitimate.  In the future I can see more arbitrage services popping up and the exchange prices will eventually get closer together more quickly.

That's why arbitrage requires very fast computers and Internet connections on Wall Street... there are a lot of people fighting for the arbitrage rate and the fastest computers get the transaction.  In Bitcoin this isn't so, you see the exchange rate way different on Bitstamp/BTC-E all the time.

[Bestinvest]

Bitcoin-trader.biz is the other arbitrage site and I'd say they are doing vastly better with PR than btc-arbs.  Arbitrage isn't a scam, it is real, it's just the players doing it that could be or could not be legitimate.  In the future I can see more arbitrage services popping up and the exchange prices will eventually get closer together more quickly.

That's why arbitrage requires very fast computers and Internet connections on Wall Street... there are a lot of people fighting for the arbitrage rate and the fastest computers get the transaction.  In Bitcoin this isn't so, you see the exchange rate way different on Bitstamp/BTC-E all the time.

I agree with you, bitcoin-trader.biz looks much more serious and organized and that is the reason I invested there some BTCs over a month ago. It is true they have lockout period for 120 days, but there was no single problem regarding deposits/withdrawal since November, when they started their business. They also have a mining pool where you can invest also.

If anyone want to try it out feel free to use my referral link: https://bitcoin-trader.biz/?ref=Duhsasekirom

[y80]

This is part of the problem with Bitcoin and one of the things we have to fix. Too many scams; too much uncertainty. I have a small investment on arbs and have been watching it grow with a gimlet eye. I was kind of thinking they would have a longer run than this, though. I agree with the commenters who say they'll leave BTC in if the site comes back. It won't prove they're honest, but if they are honest, this might encourage them to step up their game.

I'm curious about how much is at stake here. I'd ask everyone reading to post how much BTC or fiat they had sent. Please don't include any 'earnings,' only your principle investment.

Cheers, and luck to all of us.

Well I still don't see any change. I noticed the problem last night and it gradually became the 500 internal server error message. It hasn't changed since then and it's still giving the same error.

[vipgelsi]

Looks like this might be a scam after all hopefully you guys get your bitcoins back I did not put any in this site but I almost did. I did register a account but never funded. I  picked bitcoin-trader.biz and hopefully I won't get scamed there.

[sluppy]

You'd think with 10 employees that they'd have some better contact method

I am not sure if you are sarcastic. But you realize they don't actually have 10 employees, right? xD

I'd say like 5 "employees", tops.

Web "Developer"
Server guy who hasn't woken up yet after the 500 error cropped up
Adam as support
Guy who made the arbitrage script
Swiss banker contact

more like one guy in a basement.
or now tropical island with an umbrella drink.

[micers]

This is part of the problem with Bitcoin and one of the things we have to fix. Too many scams; too much uncertainty. I have a small investment on arbs and have been watching it grow with a gimlet eye. I was kind of thinking they would have a longer run than this, though. I agree with the commenters who say they'll leave BTC in if the site comes back. It won't prove they're honest, but if they are honest, this might encourage them to step up their game.

I'm curious about how much is at stake here. I'd ask everyone reading to post how much BTC or fiat they had sent. Please don't include any 'earnings,' only your principle investment.

Cheers, and luck to all of us.

Beginning of March I asked the admin for a ball park estimate of the total number of coins the site managed.  He said less than 5000.  I'm guessing that maybe that many were at stake.

I'm inclined to trust the intentions of the site owner; however, I am worried about the competence of the team running the site.

Hostgator did indeed start having trouble yesterday at the same time that btc-arbs.com started having issues.  Hostator *reports* that they have fixed nearly all their issues but the latency to their data center is still running around 250 ms from my location.

Meanwhile the 500 internal server error has cropped up.

I am also troubled by the fact that btc-arbs.com's staff is nowhere to be heard from... Effing update us.  You have our email addresses, do a bulk send and get some info out here.

[micers]

The IP which DNS returns for btc-arbs.com is 111.90.150.219.

http://ns.myip.ms/info/whois/111.90.150.219  <= Located in Malaysia???

Was being reported earlier as being located in a Hostgator data center in Utah.

IIRC btc-arbs.com's offices were supposedly in the EU somewhere.

The original problem yesterday was DNS issues.  Does anyone have an old IP address for btc-arbs.com?  Or can someone confirm they were at this same address a couple of days ago?

That web site is running OpenSSL 1.0.1e.  That version is subject to the Heartbleed vulnerability.

*A vulnerability in OpenSSL has been recently announced.  Specifically, the (1) TLS and (2) DTLS implementations in OpenSSL 1.0.1 before 1.0.1g do not properly handle Heartbeat Extension packets, which allows remote attackers to obtain sensitive information from process memory via crafted packets that trigger a buffer over-read, as demonstrated by reading private keys, related to d1_both.c and t1_lib.c, aka the Heartbleed bug.*

This ^^^^^^ has since been disproved.  The site is NOT vulnerable.
https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=btc-arbs.com

[RedGolpe]

http://ns.myip.ms/info/whois/111.90.150.219  <= Located in Malaysia???
Was being reported earlier as being located in a Hostgator data center in Utah.
IIRC btc-arbs.com's offices were supposedly in the EU somewhere.

The server was known to be in Malaysia since day one. The site claimed they have their office in Switzerland (which is NOT in the EU) but this has been repeatedly deemed unlikely.

[jgm_coin]

Here is some somewhat promising news from Google searching:

Can'tpaste the link from. Android but gGoogle it

[Avalaxy]

Here is some somewhat promising news from Google searching:

Can'tpaste the link from. Android but gGoogle it

Ehhh... what?

[micers]

http://ns.myip.ms/info/whois/111.90.150.219  <= Located in Malaysia???
Was being reported earlier as being located in a Hostgator data center in Utah.
IIRC btc-arbs.com's offices were supposedly in the EU somewhere.

The server was known to be in Malaysia since day one. The site claimed they have their office in Switzerland (which is NOT in the EU) but this has been repeatedly deemed unlikely.

Thank you for that.

Ah, good news.  That server is *NOT* vulnerable to the Heartbleed attack.
https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=btc-arbs.com

The version number reported is said to be vulnerable but if SSLLabs test shows it is not, it is not.

[crazyivan]

http://ns.myip.ms/info/whois/111.90.150.219  <= Located in Malaysia???
Was being reported earlier as being located in a Hostgator data center in Utah.
IIRC btc-arbs.com's offices were supposedly in the EU somewhere.

The server was known to be in Malaysia since day one. The site claimed they have their office in Switzerland (which is NOT in the EU) but this has been repeatedly deemed unlikely.

Thank you for that.

Ah, good news.  That server is *NOT* vulnerable to the Heartbleed attack.
https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=btc-arbs.com

Apparently the wrappers are preventing attacks from filtered addresses.  So that is good.  Still wish the owners were not so slow to get us some information.

What are you talking about?? Who cares about Heartbleed at this point. It is obvious they run with our BTC, wake up people.

[Cronos7]

I know they have some trouble days before for the heartbleed issue, and make security upgrade. In my case they took my money back into my account twice. At this point I really dont know if they are scam or not. I hope not. The server is there, and it is like they having so much software/configuration trouble for the two ticket I been able to read.

[airwalker2662]

Why is it so obvious to you? It must be great to live in your world where absolutely nothing can go wrong with servers or providers. That hardware lasts forever, power is always flowing, attacks never occur. I mean seriously it hasn't even been 24 hours. No communication sucks, but it has been that way since any of us invested.