Hello guys,
I’d like to bring your attention on
UbiatarPlay, a project that, in my opinion, despite the fact they actually have an app, it’s a scam, I’m gonna explain why.
Everything began after the ICO and bounty program finished, we’re talking about end of May 2018, when they started mentioning the the bounty thread that the rewards would have been reduced (after they added like 2 extra months for the same reward), I personally contacted one of the founder, Francesco Raco (
https://www.linkedin.com/in/francesco-raco-6b4070150/) and he told me he didn’t know anything about these messages on the forum:
We will reduce the bounty for any campaign and we will run a new campaign after the ICO end.
I'm sorry and why is that?! Why do you decide to reduce the rewards just a few days before the campaign ends? I don't think this is correct at all towards all the people who spent their time. Especially because you already decided to make this campaign several weeks longer so the final result for us is more work for less reward? Are you serious?!You have read the disclaimer on the first page?
The disclaimer that says you can do pretty much whatever you want? Sure, so at this point why don't you decide to hive 1 token to each bounty hunter and that's all, you can, it's written there, no?
My question was: do you really think this is correct? Do you really think this is a way to show respect for those who worked for you for months? Would you be happy if you were in our sure?
You got millions from the ICO and you decide to save money on the bounty hunters who worked for the double of the time because this campaign was already supposed to originally ends several weeks ago.
Just write it clear that you do it because 1) you can, it's written in the disclaimer of course; 2) because the people behind this project care only about the money and not the people who publicized their product for months and months. Thanks.
This is a good bounty compare to many other project, Ubiatar was very generous to give airdrop and bounty. Make another campaign it will give a great opportunity to many other users to join this project! 1 Milion airdrop plus another million tokens for bitcointalk, you should be happy instead of complain.
After I asked few more info to Francesco Raco, on Telegram, without any reason he stopped answering me and blocked me.
In the meantime the ICO ended and they raised several millions, especially thanks to their “win-win commitment”, that has been their best idea to sell the token. You can read their PDF
here because after the ICO that file disappeared from their website, and in the WP they never mention it.
Among all this they delayed the bounty distribution for months, they keep saying that the old bounty manager made a lot of mistakes so they are manually checking every single bounty hunter.
After their check they began distributing the 5% of what they promised. Yes, you read it correctly, FIVE %. Of course people started complaining since the got like $100 for 3 months of work, then Ubiatar made a Telegram announcement:
An update on the bounty issue:
- the current token distributions are related to: TELEGRAM and SIGNATURE & AVATAR campaigns.
- the other campaigns are under verification and their distributions have still to start.
- any data that has been published about the UbiatarPlay bounty program is fundamentally flawed.
- any personal consideration about the total of the rewards distributed has to wait until the end of all the bounty operations.
*** All inquires about personal situations have to be addressed to:
bounty@ubiatarplay.io. ***
This chat is for general inqueries and constructive criticisms expressed with proper language.
Any personal request has to be addressed to the relevant support email.
*** After two admonitions any offender will be removed from the chat. ***
We remind you that:
The bounty program data, originally sent to us, had many problems, inconsistent data and a lot of fake claims.
We had a team working on the verifications of the claims that added up the verified totals and computed the shares of each bounty for each partecipant.
Due to the high complexity of this calculations and the huge amount of partecipants , each final individual share may differ from what each one expected.
Useless to say that after the announcement they began banning literally hundreds and hundreds of users who were complaining.
People were also asking to see the new spreadsheet since they never published it, hiding themselves behind some “privacy reasons”, I personally asked explanation, this is Francesco Raco’s answer:
- Can you please explain what are these “privacy reasons”?
Every single bounty on earth has public spreadsheet, you are the only ones that don’t want to publish it, so who’s wrong? Only you or all the others?
- Dear Alex, for privacy reasons we can not publish data . Thank you
- How is it possible anyway that you have the personal data of the bounty hunters without the KYC?
- thanks for the advice but you have no responsibility in our company.
the chat is made to talk about the project and the ubiatarplay initiatives.
we are handling the emails concerning the bounty disputes.
with a large community this is normal.
now I beg you to be patient and you will also be given an answer.
do not continue to be insistent.
thank you
They also start lying about the number of bounty hunters who took part at the bounty:
Following the numerous requests sent to the email:
bounty@ubiatarplay.io, we would like to point out that users who worked for the UbiatarPlay bounty program are almost 12,000.
Our team is checking the work done one by one and only at the end of this procedure we can proceed with the total payment of the amount due.
Thank you
UbiatarPlay Sa
So you are saying you have received almost 12,000 email?! Please, do you really think we're this stupid?
Without the Telegram bounty these are the numbers of the other campaigns:
- Translation: 75 users (accepted: 12)
- Signature: 265 users (accepted: 185)
- Blog and articles: 564 users (accepted: 180)
- Facebook: 632 users (accepted: 588)
- Twitter: 421 users (accepted: 376)
Total: 1957 users (accepted: 1341)I highly doubt that all the people who took part in the Telegram campaign have sent an email, they will get 1-2 tokens maximum...
Some people also ask to be revoked from their website, and also have all their data deleted, and incredibly Ubiatar refuse to do it:
User: Any admin here right now? I did ask weeks ago to delete my account and it has not happened yet. I would like to have my data deleted.
Ubiatar: For now we can't delate your account but you can log out frm our App
User: Excuse me, are you kidding me? You can't delete data in your database? I'm so glad I did not invest, this is ridiculous.
Ubiatar: We not use you data for other things
User: Your reply sounds like -> you go to a storage facility and demand your stored goods back and they won't give them back saying, "We will no use them" <- I want my account deleted, and I don't want an explanation why you won't do it. It sounds like it's not a given that you're not doing anything with them, for me, this is mandatory and not a positive on your side. That is the same way your project handled the Airdrop
All these problems of course are reported on BTCtalk as well, so some forum user begins to ask clarification even if they’re not bounty hunters nor investors:
User: Can you help confirming what's on your ann thread? In short, people accused that your claim of checking 12,000 participants could not be valid as your bounty participants according to your spreadsheet is barely a quarter of it.Ubiatar: Please send email to:
bounty@ubiatarplay.io. This is the official chat for taking about the amazing app and project of Ubiatarplay. All of you willbe assisted by Ubiatarplay team from Monday ro Friday from 8.00 a. M. To 20.00 p. m. Thank you
User: Well, I'm not part of any bounty of yours. My question is solely to see how serious your project is or how close is it to a scam (at least for the case of your bounty payment), as you didn't attend to any of those and it begin to be kinda evasive.
I believe, as I'm not part of your campaign and didn't have any business on the payment, my question can be considered as a question for your project. Thus, asked and should be answered hereUbiatar: Dear Miiike, we are pleased to inform you about our project. First of all we invite you to read the white paper. Thank you the website is: ubiatarplay.io
User: I'm sorry, I don't get how reading your wp can help me better understand about what your answer will be ("will be" as you are yet to answer the question). Not that I mind reading your entire WP, but first I think I need to know before I spent several minutes, is there an info about my question on your wp?Ubiatar: Dear Miiike, I am sorry, but I don' t understand what you would like to know. If you would like information about bounty program, please write an email to:
bounty@ubiatarplay.io, if you need information about the UbiatarPlay Project , please write an email to
info@ubiatarplay.io, if the already published information for you are not enough. An entire team is available for answering and support the user. Thank you and please, help us in understanding clearly what is your question. Thank you
User: Well, in short, is it true that you have 12,000 bounty participants? And if you do, why does people think there were actually only a quarter (or eve one-sixth of it). I mean, at what bases does their "independent" calculation is different than yours, where does those other 8,000++ participants that they failed to count?Ubiatar: Dear Miiike, for bounty program all partecipants are assisted in writing to:
bounty@ubiatarplay.io. So please , we ask you to write to th email address mentioned, and you will be assisted in your questions . Thank you
User: Once again, I'm not a participant. I'm a passerby who might or might not be interested on your token, you can check your spreadsheet if you don't believe me (I heard the latest "version" is locked from public?). Up to this point I am yet to be benefitted from or having any importance of your ability to make peace with your bounty hunters. Up to this point, I am a spectator who like to see where this leads to, I am a spectator who like to learn from this issue.
If I'm going to buy your token and keep it for a long time, then it is a common belief that I better study how prospective your token is, and how possible is it to grow.
So far, I didn't see how your project is good, as your apk rating on google play is very bad, the reviews are filled with angered protests, and there are a little commotion on eidoo channel (as they used to facilitate you) that your project is scamming. Which leads me to this point.
I can conclude that the bad images and ratings are due to the angered bounty participants that is caused by a break on your initial agreement of payment, which leads me to ask for clarifications. The first thing I'm curious about is the truth behind the self-acclaimed 12,000 participants, as the number is rather large.
You see, if your statement that there are 12,000 participants (and presumably more than half of them are angered due to this broken agreement) this can be a very serious problem as they can stir a huge thing and erect a rather significant perspective toward your project (of course, they can as well as benefiting the project if they're happy, but I failed to see how they will be happy if their wish is not fulfilled).
Hence, the initial question, is it true or is it not true that you hosts 12,000 participants? As I am failed to see how can it be beneficial to buy and hold a token and hoping for its price to grow while you're against 12,000 angered people who come with their own influences.
If you're still failed to see how important this issue for me and other investors, kindly perceive it this way:
You might think that the needs of those bounty hunters participation ended as your ICO period closed, hence you can ignore them or giving a half-hearted response or the least bit of your attention, but their influence is actually not ended simply as you said (and when you said) it did. Mostly, they are already there before your project even started, they've establish themselves before you can even establish yours. They have medias and channels, they have reputations and followers, they have crowds. They have control on how people perceive you. I believe you are not too naive to think that none of the investors that participate on your ICO were not coming from their reference? That those investors come from your team's own effort? And they're very loyal to you because they like your project more than they love their influencer?
You might think that these bounty hunters can't affect much, they can't raise significant voices on real world or (probably) lawsuit as it is costly. But, it seems to me, you failed to see that you, I, and all of them are living on virtual world, on social and electronic media. And as you can see yourself, they've made quite a voice that causes your apk to fall.
If this continues without any solution, I can not see why they would mind to take steps that is exactly against their previous step of supporting you. I can't see why they would not post on bitcointalk and other forums, or on this channel, or publishing a new YouTube videos, or writing a new blog pages, about how bad your project is and how people should avoid you. Which ultimately, broke your project beyond repair as there were no people interested on buying a token that is reviewed as extremely bad and scamming.
I don't think I have to stress on how if your claim of 12,000 is true, then the problem will become more serious. 2,000 angered mass, with assumption that at least 100 of them are media influencer, is bad.
12,000?
Well, I am actually find it harder to think why this exact issue will not be a point to be considered by anyone that's already have or will buy your token. I failed to see why we should hold a token and think there will be future for its price if there are thousands of people that hold grudge and ready to dump whenever they can, or do any length to express their annoyance.
So, kindly help me, does the 12,000 bounty participants (again, presumably angry) is exaggerated or is it real number?Ubiatar: Dear Miiike, thank you for your message, but as I already told you, this is not a chat for bounty discussion or for talking about bounty program. This is the 2nd warning .
- you said you are interested in UbiatarPlay App and project and you are welcome in asking about it. The bounty program is not a part of the app and if you didn' t take part of it, this for you shouldn' t be relevant , if you really are interested in UbiatarPlay app and all the benefit and amazing service can give you.
- As already written you, you can send an email to:
bounty@ubiatarplay.io with your request and you will be assisted, otherwise this is not the right chanel.
For privacy reasons we can not publish any data and each position will be managed separately.
Thank you
In the meantime they remove the possibility to leave reviews and stars on the FB page since many people are giving 1 star saying they’re scammer.
On the Android store they start to rate their own app with 5 stars to compensate all the real 1 star reviews:
Now on Telegram Francesco Raco says that the bounty hunters to check aren’t 12,000 anymore, now they’re 20,000:
Francesco UbiatarPlay.io: There are over 20.000 users to control. I promised to you don t worry.
Of course people aren’t stupid and they investigate:
So, I decided to take a look at Ubiatar’s Telegram chat after I read that a user was chatting with their CEO, Francesco Raco, and he told him that now the bounty hunters’ request aren’t 12k, now they have increased to 20k!!
A quick recap:
- Before the bounty hunters are 12k
- Now they are 20k
- In the Telegram chat there are less than 13k subscribers
- In the old bounty spreadsheet there were less than 2k people.
So it’s easy to see that Ubiatar and their CEO are lying to everybody, probably they think to be very smart and have a very low consideration of other people’s intelligence…
After I took a look at their Telegram subscribers I found this:
Those of course are just a part of the screenshots, there literally are hundreds or even thousands of deleted accounts and other accounts with Southeast Asia names without profile picture. So what does it mean? It means that all those accounts are fake and have been bought in packages just to increase the number of the subscribers in the chat, so they are trying to show a lot of people interested in their project when clearly many of them are fake.
This project just gets worse day by day, SCAMMERS!!
The chat of course is basically dead, nobody writes because as soon as you ask something about the bounty or the exchange they ban you and delete all posts, but suddenly appear some very active and excited members, people who really like the app, ask a lot of question… It’s a bit suspicious, and after a short investigation we understand why: they are the very same Ubiatar social managers who keep changing name and profile picture and they impersonate new users, you can see several screenshots here:
-
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3109782.msg45290505#msg45290505-
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3109782.msg45748613#msg45748613-
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3109782.msg45906182#msg45906182People keep asking info for the exchange quotation, and this is the kind of answers they get, basically the exchange is useless in their opinion:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3109782.msg46437663#msg46437663And they keep with the fake profiles, here you can see that the user called “Enrico_support Ubiatarplay” asks several questions about Ubiatar’s features:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3109782.msg46952280#msg46952280And do you remember that at the beginning I mentioned the “Win-Win commitment”? Well, around mid October people ask info about that, and the chat administrators say they have no idea of what they are talking about, and they ban all people who ask about this, this is their announcement:
In this chat only comments regarding Ubiatar technology, market place, operational problems and any improvements to be implemented are allowed.
Everything about uac price, market dynamics is not allowed.
Beyond the first warning we will be forced to ban users who do not follow these rules.
thank you
Here other examples of how the Ubiatar managers threat the investors:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3109782.msg47199485#msg47199485At the end of October the news is that the deleted all the accounts of their social managers, so all the infos they gave to the users aren’t liked anymore to Ubiatar’s people.
Of course in the meantime I’ve been banned from their chat because I asked questions they didn’t like, so I found Francesco Raco in atoner Italian chat, asked him several questions in front of many other Italian users who knew what happened, and the only thing he said is that the fake users were marketing, so for them it’s perfectly legit to make people think the project is going well.
Here his message, in Italian:
Abbiamo pensato per animare un po’ la chat di scrivere noi stessi come fossimo utenti che stavano provando la app.
Quindi facevano domande e gli veniva data una risposta su come funzionava la app, quale fosse il modello di business e domande più pertinenti di quelle che venivano fatte solo dai Bounty che Hunter che volevano cashare prima di tutti i loro uac.
L idea era creare dei percorsi educativi per parlare della tecnologia e non sempre solo exchange, bounty e AirDrop.
Si chiama marketing e non mi pare sia una cosa così grave.
Non mi pare abbiano influenzato il mercato, falsato qualche meccanismo o commesso qualche reato.
So again, for them cheating the community is perfectly normal, it’s marketing, not scam.
In the meantime the number of users in their chat keeps plummeting: in July the had more than 15k users, in September 12,500, November 11k, so it’s clear that they bought packages of users and Telegram is slowly deleting them
People asking about the famous buyback:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3109782.msg49932068#msg49932068And they also send newsletter giving the impression they are pretty much ready to work with Amazon:
With the technology of telepresence offered by Ubiatar, in the close future you will see the object in real time, understand live as it works, as it appears inside the house and make sure it is the right purchase for your needs.
In this way Amazon would exploit its huge Market Place to provide an additional and innovative service, the on real time feedback at the service of all future consumers.
This service will increase Amazon sales and provide to customers, who lend themselves to make their purchase with Ubiatar, discounts or even the possibility of being remunerated. In fact, all those who will be available to offer this service will make an appointment with the future buyer, through the Ubiatar platform, and at the end of the experience will receive a prize from Amazon.
Science fiction? No, reality! Ubiatar's Team in fact, since last January, is working with Amazon to create this project together and making online shopping experience even more satisfying.
So of course people get excited, they ask for more info, and at the end Ubiatar admit they only had some appointments, that’s all:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3109782.msg49976656#msg49976656So before they declared that
“Ubiatar's Team in fact, since last January, is working with Amazon” and now they have nothing, only a picture in front of an empty desk.
This was the newsletter:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3109782.msg50060942#msg50060942But it’s on March 10 that we have an incredible (bad) news: all the companies that use Ubiatar’s services pay in fiat, not through their UAC token, so the token is absolutely useless:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3109782.msg50104598#msg50104598So now it’s clear that the ICO, that raised $12mln, was only an excuse to get some easy money and then forget about the tokens and the investors, because nobody uses that token, it has no real purpose.
And what’s the value of the token? During the ICO it was $2 each, now it’s basically 0, you can see there are 0 volumes in the 2 exchanges that quoted this useless token:
https://idex.market/eth/uachttps://www.coinlim.com/#/dashboardOther problems in the chat, one user asks how many active users they have and he gets banned and all messages deleted by Francesco Raco:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3109782.msg50638709#msg50638709And they keep buying fake accounts to increase the number of users, which keeps plummeting:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3109782.msg50665658#msg50665658People also ask why the social network are basically dead, they say it’s because they didn’t reach the hard cap ($30mln) and with only $12mln they can’t afford to pay other employees:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3109782.msg50729258#msg50729258--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
tl;dr- They based their whole ICO marketing on a win-win commitment (
link) that they now refuse to respect
- They paid bounty hunters 5% of what they promised
- They faked the number of bounty hunters (real number <2,000, they say more than 20,000, so it’s a 10x)
- They never published the revised spreadsheet hiding themselves behind some “privacy reasons and European Union laws” they never published
- Ubiatar people give 5 star evaluation to their own app on the store
- Nobody writes in the Telegram chat so the admins start impersonating new excited users, asking a lot of questions and saying they love the app, it’s all fake
- They send newsletters stating that “Ubiatar's Team in fact, since last January, is working with Amazon”, after they have to admit they simple had one appointment with them, no contracts, no relationships of any kind;
- It’s discovered that the companies that use Ubiatar’s services pay using fiat money, not the token, the token is completely useless and it was only an excuse to launch an ICO and get some easy money
For all the above reasons I think Ubiatar is a huge scam.
