Livecoin.net Scam

[Slow death]

The OP has created a flag against Livecoin:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;flag=308

Please support my flag

Support

[izooomrud]

Hi guys! I have some news from livecoin support.
They wrote that in my posts I lie about them and thus violate the terms of the user agreement! And so I have to delete all my messages so that I can get my money back! Is this normal, and should a decent exchange behave like this? o_o
I have a feeling that they are constantly coming up with new rules that I break!
If I lie to everyone, then why has their representative not yet appeared here and announced this?
And I will tell you why they are not here! They can say nothing in their defense, except for their stupid rules, from which everyone is shocked. They can’t say anything about their fault in losing Mona. They understand that they have no excuses, but they have enough impudence to continue to intimidate and accuse me!

If a Livecoin representative comes here and proves that I am really guilty of something and that I am a liar, then I will not demand a refund and will delete everything I wrote!

Trash continues...

[Quickseller]

Hi guys! I have some news from livecoin support.
They wrote that in my posts I lie about them and thus violate the terms of the user agreement! And so I have to delete all my messages so that I can get my money back! Is this normal, and should a decent exchange behave like this? o_o

Even if you were lying, this would not be an acceptable reason for them to withhold your money. No, it is not normal for a business to act this way.

[malevolent]

Why aren't they responding? Livecoin has been online on bitcointalk and he has probably seen his this thread as it was linked to in his own topic.

I'm supporting the flag (for now).

[Hhampuz]

Why aren't they responding? Livecoin has been online on bitcointalk and he has probably seen his this thread as it was linked to in his own topic.

I'm supporting the flag (for now).

I think they have a policy of not discussing anything like this here at bitcointalk. Just like they state in their thread that they won't respond to any questions as they only post updates.

I have sent them a PM about this though and we'll see.

[Quickseller]

Why aren't they responding? Livecoin has been online on bitcointalk and he has probably seen his this thread as it was linked to in his own topic.

I'm supporting the flag (for now).

I think they have a policy of not discussing anything like this here at bitcointalk. Just like they state in their thread that they won't respond to any questions as they only post updates.

It seems their strategy is to ignore accusations, and allow their supporters to ignore and distract from evidence of theft, and scamming.

[izooomrud]

Why aren't they responding? Livecoin has been online on bitcointalk and he has probably seen his this thread as it was linked to in his own topic.

I'm supporting the flag (for now).

I think they have a policy of not discussing anything like this here at bitcointalk. Just like they state in their thread that they won't respond to any questions as they only post updates.

I have sent them a PM about this though and we'll see.

they can answer if they have something to say
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2359799.0

If they start answering here, everyone will realize that they have lost the coins of their users, and many will begin to demand a return, but they do not want to do that. Until the last moment, I did not publish a full post about the whole problem until I was threatened in my emails.
They frighten me with the loss of all funds so let them now have a loss

[leonair]

I'm supporting izoomrud to his accusations but more proof of conversations must be shown, @izoomrud please don't be scared to fight what you think is right. Based on what I've seen, it seems that they can always change their user agreement anytime. I don't see any point on what they've said that you must not disclose anything about them, if they are fair enough and doing the right thing then why?

Negative feedback that cause commotion and has been solve will be a good thing to their exchange but dodging their responsibility to respond clearly is a pure negligence.

It's much better for LiveCoin to explain their side also and stop ignoring.

[izooomrud]

I'm supporting izoomrud to his accusations but more proof of conversations must be shown, @izoomrud please don't be scared to fight what you think is right. Based on what I've seen, it seems that they can always change their user agreement anytime. I don't see any point on what they've said that you must not disclose anything about them, if they are fair enough and doing the right thing then why?

Negative feedback that cause commotion and has been solve will be a good thing to their exchange but dodging their responsibility to respond clearly is a pure negligence.

It's much better for LiveCoin to explain their side also and stop ignoring.

I need to wait for their final statement that they will not return anything to me, or their answer here. This is necessary so that they could not lie, because they are inadequate in correspondence with me, they constantly threaten me that they will take everything away, without giving concrete evidence of violations, only offenses.

although, okay, as long as I can show something, there is only a chronology of the messages he sent, there is no sense in translating messages without replies, I will do it later

[LiveCoin]

Communication and relationship between client and Exchange is regulated by User agreement, which every user accepts at registration. There is no way to register without accepting the user agreement. However, rarely, some clients ignore and flagrantly breach the User agreement.

For the first time of violation of rules, we just warn client, but in case of repeatedly violations, account may be blocked for verification and further investigation. But, even in this case, we allow to withdraw all funds after the removing of false information and consequences caused by this publication. In some cases, verification may be required by the security team.

This is exactly what happened to the said client. This client created a ticket with a demand to enable withdrawal of MONA for his account, what is absolutely impossible because of the attack on the MONA network and public refusal of the developers to bear responsibility for that. We replied to the client with the explanation regarding MONA asset, but he decided to start spreading false allegations, publicly accusing the Exchange of fraud, and thus misleading the other clients.

The client is clearly provoking a conflict, ignoring all suggested options of settlement. Earlier this client said that all information, violating the user agreement had been removed, but the investigation found out that, on the contrary, there is much more such information now. All further discussions of this issue will be held solely with the client and only after eliminating all negative effects.

[suchmoon]

The client is clearly provoking a conflict, ignoring all suggested options of settlement. Earlier this client said that all information, violating the user agreement had been removed, but the investigation found out that, on the contrary, there is much more such information now. All further discussions of this issue will be held solely with the client and only after eliminating all negative effects.

You have no right to keep the funds regardless of what "information" the customer published. You can terminate your service to the customer if they violated the user agreement but you need to return their money.

[malevolent]

"Negative effects"?

Your Personal Text says "LiveCoin - is a modern stock exchange".

You guys aren't acting like professionals but like roadside parsley sellers.

[Quickseller]

Both Hhampuz and pandukelana2712 (who is wearing a LiveCoin signature) both are opposing the flag.

It appears that signature campaign that pays both these members has benefits beyond the advertising.

[squatter]

Communication and relationship between client and Exchange is regulated by User agreement, which every user accepts at registration. There is no way to register without accepting the user agreement. However, rarely, some clients ignore and flagrantly breach the User agreement.

The client is clearly provoking a conflict, ignoring all suggested options of settlement. Earlier this client said that all information, violating the user agreement had been removed, but the investigation found out that, on the contrary, there is much more such information now. All further discussions of this issue will be held solely with the client and only after eliminating all negative effects.

FYI, it's customary to pay the customer his money before expecting negative public complaints to be removed. He's using this as leverage to get what is rightfully his. I see nothing wrong with that.

Do you seriously think you can hide behind your terms as a pretense to rob your customers in open sight? Merely stating that you will steal customer funds for breach of terms -- terms which you can and have changed suddenly and without notice -- is not legal justification to do so. The actual damages arising from that alleged breach are not equal to whatever you decide to steal from your customers. I don't know who your legal counsel is, but your actions would not be legally justifiable in any respectable court of law.

I recommend you tread carefully here.

[bones261]

This is exactly what happened to the said client. This client created a ticket with a demand to enable withdrawal of MONA for his account, what is absolutely impossible because of the attack on the MONA network and public refusal of the developers to bear responsibility for that. We replied to the client with the explanation regarding MONA asset, but he decided to start spreading false allegations, publicly accusing the Exchange of fraud, and thus misleading the other clients.

     This seems highly irregular on how your exchange is handling the 51% attack on MonaCoin over a year ago. I realize that you tried to get the Monacoin developers to compensate your exchange for the loss incurred by double spends/invalidated coinbase coins; however it is abundantly clear that they are not going to compensate anybody. I really do not see how this is the development team's fault, any way. All POW coins are vulnerable to a 51% attack, although some coins have a more robust network of miners, so a 51% attack is not feasible.
   I read your term of services, and to handle such situations, you give two possibilities. One was to go after the development team. However, Monacoin was not an ICO and it it did not start out with a premine. Therefore, even if they were responsible, I do not see how they would have the deep pockets required to compensate exchanges/pools/individuals for an act done by a malicious miner. Your second option was to socialize the loss. However, the fact that your exchange continued to allow people to trade this coin probably has made implementing this option a nightmare. I find the fact that your exchange did not disable the trading on this coin when you disabled the wallet highly irregular.
  I realize that the 51% attack was not your fault either. However, now you are in a situation where you are holding your client's Monacoins hostage. Your exchange should have disabled trading and socialized the loss, rather than let this mess get even more complicated after a whole year.

Edit:Supporting this flag. Livecoin should have implemented the second remedy, that I have bolded, in a timely manner.

The Service do not bear responsibility for losses incurred by vulnerability or any kind of failure of software (nodes, wallets) used by the third parties, or glitch in the software (nodes, wallets), provided by the third parties, as well as failure of blockchains or any other technical problems specific of Cryptocurrencies traded at the Platform. The Service is not liable for damages due to late report from cryptocurrency developers or representatives (or no report at all) of any issues with cryptocurrency including all sorts of forks, node technical issues or any other issues potentially resulting in fund losses. In this case there are two options of compensation for losses. The priority option - the Service is making all efforts to enforce this option – is to induce cryptocurrency developers or representatives to compensate for the losses. The other option is to write-off relevant amounts from the Customers’ accounts in proportion to their deposited amounts of this particular cryptocurrency at the Platform.

 

[malevolent]

There is also an option of staying away from shitcoins but that means saying no to easy money to be made from listing announcements and listing fees.

[xtraelv]

Communication and relationship between client and Exchange is regulated by User agreement, which every user accepts at registration. There is no way to register without accepting the user agreement. However, rarely, some clients ignore and flagrantly breach the User agreement.

For the first time of violation of rules, we just warn client, but in case of repeatedly violations, account may be blocked for verification and further investigation. But, even in this case, we allow to withdraw all funds after the removing of false information and consequences caused by this publication. In some cases, verification may be required by the security team.

This is exactly what happened to the said client. This client created a ticket with a demand to enable withdrawal of MONA for his account, what is absolutely impossible because of the attack on the MONA network and public refusal of the developers to bear responsibility for that. We replied to the client with the explanation regarding MONA asset, but he decided to start spreading false allegations, publicly accusing the Exchange of fraud, and thus misleading the other clients.

The client is clearly provoking a conflict, ignoring all suggested options of settlement. Earlier this client said that all information, violating the user agreement had been removed, but the investigation found out that, on the contrary, there is much more such information now. All further discussions of this issue will be held solely with the client and only after eliminating all negative effects.

You can write anything in your user agreement. It doesn't necessarily make it legal or ethical. You could write "customers who write bad things about us get executed". It would not be legal and would not absolve you of legal consequences. It would also not be ethical and would have community condemnation. Whether something is a lie is sometimes subjective.

[izooomrud]

Communication and relationship between client and Exchange is regulated by User agreement, which every user accepts at registration. There is no way to register without accepting the user agreement. However, rarely, some clients ignore and flagrantly breach the User agreement.

For the first time of violation of rules, we just warn client, but in case of repeatedly violations, account may be blocked for verification and further investigation. But, even in this case, we allow to withdraw all funds after the removing of false information and consequences caused by this publication. In some cases, verification may be required by the security team.

This is exactly what happened to the said client. This client created a ticket with a demand to enable withdrawal of MONA for his account, what is absolutely impossible because of the attack on the MONA network and public refusal of the developers to bear responsibility for that. We replied to the client with the explanation regarding MONA asset, but he decided to start spreading false allegations, publicly accusing the Exchange of fraud, and thus misleading the other clients.

The client is clearly provoking a conflict, ignoring all suggested options of settlement. Earlier this client said that all information, violating the user agreement had been removed, but the investigation found out that, on the contrary, there is much more such information now. All further discussions of this issue will be held solely with the client and only after eliminating all negative effects.

Ok, you won, I was just a fool for writing this and I am sorry!
You thought it would be like this, right?! Do I really see this, or am I dreaming?

I brought all the evidence of their guilt in losing money when attacking Mona’s network (you can read about this in my first post). What is wrong with this world?
Could you tell us right here that you are not to blame for this and bring the evidence, as I did so before!
This problem was related to the poor security of your exchange, and not due to the vulnerability of the Mona code, as it happened with Monero! Since you call me a liar, I demand you to present some proof of your innocence and my guilt immediately!
What is going on here?!
Can you please explain to us how there is no fault of yours in everything that happened, even though I have clear evidence that supports the opposite?
All professional exchanges constantly evaluate the state of coin networks. They created a “trust rating” and require certain amount of “proofs” based on that rating. Why your exchange requires different amount of “proofs” for BTC and SHIFT? Because they have different safety network and processing powers. More processing power means higher reliability.
Why no other exchanges have similar problems? Why do they all continue to work with this coin?
Why no other exchanges had any problems with Monero, even though there were problems with a code vulnerability that Mona did not have?

Any coin is at risk for an “attack 51%”, therefore the exchange must monitor the network status continuously! You are responsible to keep our money safe; otherwise why do we even need to use your services if you are constantly losing your customers’ funds?


Now, I would like to talk about how you are treating me.

For the first time of violation of rules, we just warn client, but in case of repeatedly violations, account may be blocked for verification and further investigation.

I have not received a single warning! My account was blocked immediately after I published my first post on this forum and a post on bestchange.ru! Why do you even try to lie publicly? You should understand that I will prove your lies by showing the screenshots of our communication, so why are you doing this?! Now I believe, I have a right to post the screenshots to expose your lies.

letters sent to livecoin

letters received from livecoin

What is the reason for blocking my account? I would like to know if there is any specific violation.


Hello. Your account is suspended for violations of the user agreement.


I would like to withdraw all my money


Or wait until my account is unlocked. I am open to alternative suggestions.


Return all my funds and continue your investigation!


Are you planning to continue dialogue with me? Why are you treating your customer like this?


If you are continuing in this manner, you will lose more, I will make sure of that.


You must solve this issue if your reputation is important to you.


Hello. As stated above, we are checking your account for violations of the user agreement. Usually it takes several days to complete all necessary checks, after that users can withdraw their funds and we close the account. Later, there is no possibility of cooperation between us and this user. In case the customer keeps violating the user agreement, it can take longer to make all necessary checks. Moreover, in case of multiple violations or obvious abuse, we can make a decision to permanently block the account according to the user agreement.
- You must solve this issue if your reputation is important to you.
We would like to bring to your attention that any threats are violations of the user agreement that you signed before registering your account. We recommend you reviewing it.


Looks like you are afraid of something, since you consider a request from your customer as a threat. Of course, you did not forget to count this as another embellished “violation” of mine. Would you be kind enough to tell me what I have violated? I would be happy to terminate our business right now, please return all my funds!


Let’s do this: you would simply return all my coins from the account and this issue will be considered resolved. In that case, I would not even care why you blocked my account in the first place and whether it was done lawfully or not. I would withdraw all my complains.


All violations have been resolved, withdraw my funds



Do not ignore me and just explain which specific information and from which sources I must delete to fix my mistake. I would like this to be over


Hello. We checked all information posted by you. The violations were not eliminated, and you are continuing to maliciously violate the user agreement. You have accepted the user agreement rules before registration, therefore you agreed to all sections of this agreement. You will find out what are your violations if you would read it again. In this agreement you will find information regarding losses due to the third partys’ software vulnerability and a late notice (or lack of such) to our services by the developers or representatives cryptocurrency regarding issues with that particular cryptocurrency.
- Please do not ignore my question.
You wrote to us on the weekend and we are not ignoring your question. Further communication may exist only when all the violations will be eliminated completely.


I read the user agreement again and it looks like I have not violated any rules. I deleted all posted screenshots of my communication with the customer service and now I do not understand what else I should do. It reminds me of a day care, as you are playing charades with me: “guess what….”. If you are ready for a productive dialogue, please tell me specific violations and I will fix them. Overall, it seems to me that you just stole my money and will never give it back to me


In any case, even if you will steal all my money from me, I won’t leave it alone. I will make sure that you lose 10, 100 and 1000 more times than stole from me. This is not a threat and cannot be considered as such, this is my defense. I will wait another week and will report to the police. I realize that this process is not fast, and they won’t catch you. However, in this situation, it will perfectly suit me if ROSKOMNADZOR will block your website in Russia. Of course, if you are not just bunch of thieves and are ready for further productive communication, I remind you that I am still open to listen to your specific demands.


Hello. The issue began when you started denying obvious evidence. You have registered on this exchange and agreed to our rules. Afterwards, you began spreading unreliable information regarding our exchange. You have threatened us and accused this exchange publicly by spreading falsified information. Please inform us when all violations are solved, only then we would review your request regarding your account.


This is an unexpected turn. What exact information is not credible, huh? At least try to refute one piece of information right here, if you are afraid to go publicly. I would like to point out, my well-respected conversation partner, that you can put any bullshit in your rules. For example, “the user must spread his shit all over himself and take a selfie while holding a sign “I am an idiot”, prior to enter you exchange.” This does not mean I must follow this nonsense. You must work by the laws of Russian Federation not your “creations”, since you are working on the territory of this country. I am trying to follow all the appropriate sections of the user agreement, but you can’t make me silent by your lawlessness and stealing my money. Everything that I ever wrote anywhere has zero fiction or misinformation but complete truth. I never exaggerated or lied about anything. Therefore, once more, I DEMAND you to point out to which specific section of the user agreement I violated and let me know where and when it was done. Right now, I am giving you an opportunity to let me know what exactly I need to delete so you can give me MY MONEY back. This complaint will be closed without further claims and investigations and your reputation, which was soiled rightfully, will be recovered.


For the most part all your posts have unreliable and false information, which violates the user agreement. Everything written by you must be deleted. You cannot edit or make any changes to your post. You told us before that you’ve deleted your posts, however, upon further inspection we discovered that it was not true. There were more posts published by you. It looks like you are intentionally ignoring our requests and make the process of solving this issue more difficult. Also, before registering your account you have accepted all the sections of the user agreement, not only ones you like. If you disliked some of the sections of this agreement, you should have not signed it and use our services. Currently your account is suspended for further investigation. However, in case of malicious violations of any sections of the user agreement we can decide to block your account permanently. At this time, we have discovered multiple violations on several social media. All these violations must be resolved. If anyone quoted your posts, those quotes must be deleted as well. In case there is no way for you to delete those posts; you must seek help from the customer service support. If we were to find out that you are misleading our customer service representatives again, upon further investigation, your account will be deleted without any chance to recover it.


I would like to make sure if all funds will be returned to me, including MONA coins.


- Most of your messages contain noncredible and falsified information which violates the user agreement.
Wow! This is a lie! Just out of curiosity, which section of the agreement prohibits people from telling lies, even though I never lied. So, which one?!
- You mentioned before that you have deleted messages, however, upon further investigation we found out that it is not true. There were even more messages. So, you purposefully ignoring our requests and make the solution of this issue more difficult.
Stop lying and distorting the facts!
1. I have said that I deleted all the quotes by the customer service. Specifically: “All violations are resolved, withdraw all my funds”
2. What kind of f….g “requests”? You never requested me to do anything. You continued to keep silence and ignore my demands, therefore delaying resolution of this issue. If you are going to say right now: “we asked you not to violate our rules”, I will answer this – “this is a kinder garden”. Only now you are asking me to delete everything I ever wrote.
-Currently your account has been suspended for investigation. However, in case of malicious violations of the user agreement we can decide to permanently block your account.
Stop trying to scare me. Do something already .

The client is clearly provoking a conflict, ignoring all suggested options of settlement.

Now you are saying that I am the one who is provoking a conflict! Please, raise your eyes and look at the picture above! Look how many inquires I sent to you and there was no feedback from you regarding the reasons why my account was blocked. You blocked it without any explanation and ignored all of my following questions for over a week! I had to guess myself that the main reason was published messages between me and your customer service. I deleted them all and told you about it! Only on July 2nd I finally received some information from you that false accusations are the reason of blocking my account!

Honestly, it took me a while to get that information from them. Just listen to what they said to me the first time regarding the reason why blocking my account: “Before registering, you accepted the terms of the user agreement, which means you agreed with the points specified in it. If you read it again, you will see exactly what the violations are.” It is unbelievable, instead of giving me a simple explanation why they did it, they told me to look it up in their rules! Can you imagine this?! Over a week I had no idea why my account was blocked; I was so stressed out and worried that I lost all my money, but they just expect me to look up the reason in their rules! After all that they have guts to tell that it is me who provokes a conflict!

Are you surprised, guys? I warned you before that they are incompetent, and I am also shocked by the way they are communicating with their customers. Why should I delete all my posts, if I haven't lied about anything? Moreover, everything I said is supported by the evidence! So, let's assume that I'm lying (which of course is not true), then based on which section of the rules I am not allowed to do so?! And if there is no such section, then why the hell they blocked my account?!

Please support my flag it is very important!

[TECSHARE]

Communication and relationship between client and Exchange is regulated by User agreement, which every user accepts at registration. There is no way to register without accepting the user agreement. However, rarely, some clients ignore and flagrantly breach the User agreement.

For the first time of violation of rules, we just warn client, but in case of repeatedly violations, account may be blocked for verification and further investigation. But, even in this case, we allow to withdraw all funds after the removing of false information and consequences caused by this publication. In some cases, verification may be required by the security team.

This is exactly what happened to the said client. This client created a ticket with a demand to enable withdrawal of MONA for his account, what is absolutely impossible because of the attack on the MONA network and public refusal of the developers to bear responsibility for that. We replied to the client with the explanation regarding MONA asset, but he decided to start spreading false allegations, publicly accusing the Exchange of fraud, and thus misleading the other clients.

The client is clearly provoking a conflict, ignoring all suggested options of settlement. Earlier this client said that all information, violating the user agreement had been removed, but the investigation found out that, on the contrary, there is much more such information now. All further discussions of this issue will be held solely with the client and only after eliminating all negative effects.

I have been involved in managing altcoin projects before. I know exactly the game you are playing here as I have had it perpetrated on the project I was involved in multiple times, usually by exchanges that failed not long after. You most likely didn't devote enough resources to running enough nodes to secure your own transactions on this network like every reliable and competent exchange does. As a result an event that is a known possibility on pretty much every cryptocoin combined with your own negligence and or misunderstanding (real or feigned) resulted in your exchange suffering losses. You probably don't have any kind of reserves or contingency plan set aside for these purposes, so rather than taking responsibility and correcting your own internal policy and security measures you attempt to blame the development team because they are an easy target and most people don't know enough about the technical aspects to know any better. Temporary freezing of funds in order to do a roll back of some sorts on illegitimate trades is one thing. This is something else based in punitive and fraudulent actions.

The only way I see Livecoin reclaiming their reputation is as follows:

1. Release the frozen funds. If you don't have them either buy them on the open market or issue a secondary internal token exchangeable for the asset that can be traded on the open market, slowly destroying the tokens over time as you buy them back. Of course if you are locking a users account you should be releasing their actual funds, not an internal token as that has no value to some one who can not use the exchange. Acceptance of the secondary token should be voluntary. I would consider a time delay for redemption or an immediate 1:1 token issue to be an acceptable compromise which allows the exchange to make all of the users whole.

2. Stop locking people's funds for posting in violation of your TOS. People not engaged in fraudulent activity themselves should be able to withdraw their funds at any time. Sure you can put this in your TOS. I doubt it is legal but that really depends on your jurisdiction of incorporation. Regardless of your legal right to do so or not, once people hear about this inclusion to your terms of service, your exchange will be over. No one is going to trust an exchange where posting to social media about their problems with it gets their funds frozen. You are just giving yourself enough rope to hang yourselves with using this policy.

You know what really gives people confidence in an exchange? Seeing how they react to situations like this. Do they make the userbase whole or do they just point fingers in every direction but their own? Right now Livecoin is looking like a big fat fail to me, but there is still time to make an opportunity out of this situation. Do the right thing and set up a restitution plan. Even if it needs to happen over time your user base will respect you for it, and it will grow. They understand problems are to be expected in this industry. What they will not tolerate is the exchange making the user base bear all of the cost of its own mistakes.

[CVD]

The client is clearly provoking a conflict, ignoring all suggested options of settlement. Earlier this client said that all information, violating the user agreement had been removed, but the investigation found out that, on the contrary, there is much more such information now. All further discussions of this issue will be held solely with the client and only after eliminating all negative effects.

You have no right to keep the funds regardless of what "information" the customer published. You can terminate your service to the customer if they violated the user agreement but you need to return their money.

What an interesting person you are. What is it, double standards? How did you determine who should do what? There are rules, they are everywhere. They are on the stock exchange, in our offline life (a set of laws) and they are on the forum. If I registered on the forum, then I agree with the rules. If I violated - I think they will punish me in some way, maybe they will ban me, lower the trust or do something else.
So why the forum can have rules   https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=703657.0#post_rules  and the stock exchange does not? And if we take into account that the wording of the forum rules is sometimes so blurry that it covers almost all possible scenarios, the forum rules can be read as "If necessary, we will do what we want."
23. When deciding if a user has broken the rules, the staff have the right to follow their interpretation of the rules.
If the agreement with the exchange does not mean anything, then what about the forum rules?

I think the rules are needed, they must be observed - chaos will be without rules.