Our competitor is trying to destroy us

[vikoheftjeri]

We have a Bitcoin exchange service running on Telegram bot. Our service has been getting quite a growth in usage and a lot of people have been relying on us to buy Bitcoins.

See our launch post here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5164062

Today something unexpected happened, we got a 'SCAM' label on Telegram. Here is what happened:

Two days back (19th September) I got a secret change from someone('Frank') saying that our bot will get a scam label. I thought he was another scammer like usual, I mostly ignored but replied to him saying that our service is legitimate.

https://i.ibb.co/3RJnndq/Screenshot-2019-09-21-at-2-08-15-PM.png

(He deleted some of the messages before I took the screenshot)

Conversation as I remember:

Frank: Your bot will get a scam label.
Me: whos this?
Me: what?
Frank: Like this - shows a pic of a scam label -
Me: No we won't, our bot is legit.
Me: Its not a scam bot
Frank: I know yours is not a scam
Me: then what is the problem?
Frank: Someone paid me to do it
- ... something more -
Me: do it
Frank: ok

2 days later

This time I took screenshots faster before he could delete the messages.

https://i.ibb.co/SdzN296/Screenshot-2019-09-21-at-2-09-49-PM.png

I had contacted Telegram support but haven't received any response from them yet.

Any suggestion on what we can do about this would be really helpful!

PS: We never scammed anyone on our service, our only goal is to allow people to exchange bitcoins privately. That was the reason we built it on Telegram, to bypass the regulations. and make the P2P process much simpler than Localbitcoins.  

UPDATE: We got our scam label removed, thanks for all the help. For anyone facing a similar issue, you just need to message @botsupport, they did some kind of verification and all good now

The attacker created a lot of accounts to report spam on our bot, this raised the flag on Telegram.

[Jating]

Here is what I understand from the FAQ:

https://telegram.org/faq_spam

Q: What do I do now?
If this happened to you for the first time (and you are not an industrial scale spammer), most likely your account will be limited for a few days or so. Please wait and consider that people want a peaceful time using our messenger.

Repeated offences will result in longer periods of being blocked. If you keep writing unwanted messages to strangers, you may lose the ability to do so forever.

Q: I read all of the above, and I‘m certain that I didn’t break any rules!
If you are sure that the limit was wrongfully applied to your account, please contact our @SpamBot.

Please forgive us for the inconvenience — even the best systems, algorithms and well-trained people can make mistakes sometimes.

So I guess the best thing you can is contact @SpamBot and put as much detail as possible and explain what happen. Tell them that someone competitor (according to you) has sabotage your account and you didn't violate any rules. Goodluck!!!

You have to wait though, as they explain they aren't bots, might take days before you will get the final decision from them.

[Steamtyme]

I don't see anything on this forum that shows you or the bot have been labelled a scammer. That tells me this is solely a telegram issue, and I have no idea how scam tags or accusations work there, didn't even know they existed. What you should work on doing to add legitimacy to your project on this forum is be active. Bring in information, be open and clear about how things are working.

As it is your [ANN] looks sketchy and lacks detail; just an observation. I suggest an overhaul this will assist how your project is viewed by the public, that in itself helps dispel fears of a scam.

I suggest moving this to "Service Discussion' as it's a discussion about telegram/your service.

[AB de Royse777]

PS: We never scammed anyone on our service, our only goal is to allow people to exchange bitcoins privately. That was the reason we built it on Telegram, to bypass the regulations. and make the P2P process much simpler than Localbitcoins.  

Not vouching or saying anything about your service but this is what happen when you depend too much on a platform that is not own by you. Do you have any other social media presence? Do you have any email list? How are you going to update your clients about the status of the channel.

I see you already have a site which is good. Instead of depending on telegram or third party service why not develop an app for yourself and market it.

[vikoheftjeri]

Here is what I understand from the FAQ:

https://telegram.org/faq_spam

Q: What do I do now?
If this happened to you for the first time (and you are not an industrial scale spammer), most likely your account will be limited for a few days or so. Please wait and consider that people want a peaceful time using our messenger.

Repeated offences will result in longer periods of being blocked. If you keep writing unwanted messages to strangers, you may lose the ability to do so forever.

Q: I read all of the above, and I‘m certain that I didn’t break any rules!
If you are sure that the limit was wrongfully applied to your account, please contact our @SpamBot.

Please forgive us for the inconvenience — even the best systems, algorithms and well-trained people can make mistakes sometimes.

So I guess the best thing you can is contact @SpamBot and put as much detail as possible and explain what happen. Tell them that someone competitor (according to you) has sabotage your account and you didn't violate any rules. Goodluck!!!

You have to wait though, as they explain they aren't bots, might take days before you will get the final decision from them.

looks like @spambot is only for accounts that get blocked due to spamming(not bots reported for spam). Will try anyway, thanks for the info.

[vikoheftjeri]

I don't see anything on this forum that shows you or the bot have been labelled a scammer. That tells me this is solely a telegram issue, and I have no idea how scam tags or accusations work there, didn't even know they existed. What you should work on doing to add legitimacy to your project on this forum is be active. Bring in information, be open and clear about how things are working.

As it is your [ANN] looks sketchy and lacks detail; just an observation. I suggest an overhaul this will assist how your project is viewed by the public, that in itself helps dispel fears of a scam.

I suggest moving this to "Service Discussion' as it's a discussion about telegram/your service.

This is in regards to our service on Telegram.

I do agree, our presence here is close to zero - hope to change this soon . Right now, it is only me and my friend doing the development fulltime.

Edit: (trying to figure out how I can move this post!)

[vikoheftjeri]

PS: We never scammed anyone on our service, our only goal is to allow people to exchange bitcoins privately. That was the reason we built it on Telegram, to bypass the regulations. and make the P2P process much simpler than Localbitcoins.  

Not vouching or saying anything about your service but this is what happen when you depend too much on a platform that is not own by you. Do you have any other social media presence? Do you have any email list? How are you going to update your clients about the status of the channel.

I see you already have a site which is good. Instead of depending on telegram or third party service why not develop an app for yourself and market it.

I understand the reasoning of depending too much on Telegram. But initially considering security and privacy aspects of Telegram, we thought it was the best option to provide and private way for people to exchange BTC (localbitcoins & others gets frequently blocked and recently they also stopped cash deals!).

Otherwise, if we had to do a website or app we would have to comply with KYC etc. The P2P process as a bot is actually simpler and faster than using localbitcoins.com.

[AB de Royse777]

(localbitcoins & others gets frequently blocked and recently they also stopped cash deals!).

Don't you think in your case it gone worse?
Localbitcoins at-least have their own control to their project files and data but in your case the control was in TG's hand since you are using their platform. Your entire application is blocked now.

The P2P process as a bot is actually simpler and faster than using localbitcoins.com.

Everything has it's pros and cons. Execution depends on the priority.

I hope you find a solution.

Good luck.

[1Referee]

I understand the reasoning of depending too much on Telegram. But initially considering security and privacy aspects of Telegram, we thought it was the best option to provide and private way for people to exchange BTC (localbitcoins & others gets frequently blocked and recently they also stopped cash deals!).

Telegram is a honeypot for governments, just like any other social media platform is. In that regard, the privacy aspect you seem to have liked is very relative.

The act (i.e. being an unlicensed money transmitter) is illegal on its own, and actually pretty dangerous as well if you put so much faith in a social media platform. I personally don't care about what people do, but if there is one thing governments are actively fighting against, then it's entities facilitating trades in this manner. It's like playing Russian roulette. It either goes well or horribly bad.

[jhenfelipe]

No one here can do anything about it, so just be patient and wait for Telegram support to respond.

If it's okay with you, could you share here how the SCAM label looks like? And may I ask how did you confirm that you have that label?  This is something new to me as I've never heard someone with the same experience before.

PS. Tbh, I personally don't think Telegram is a good platform to do an exchange, especially with a bot.

[hugeblack]

I don't know how things happen in Telegram but generally in all social media, the more you have real users, the more you follow the rules of service, the fewer reports you have, the more difficult it is to lock/ban your account.
Even new apps/bots will not be blocked/banned if you get one report (I think those sites have protection against exploitation.)

I hope that you review the terms of service of Telegram, it seems that your application violates one of them.

[vikoheftjeri]

No one here can do anything about it, so just be patient and wait for Telegram support to respond.

If it's okay with you, could you share here how the SCAM label looks like? And may I ask how did you confirm that you have that label?  This is something new to me as I've never heard someone with the same experience before.

PS. Tbh, I personally don't think Telegram is a good platform to do an exchange, especially with a bot.

Scam label looks like this:
https://imgur.com/a/VaMJ1Sb

Some of the exchange bots on Telegram within Russia do volumes of over 1000 BTC a week! We are kind of late in the game.

[Kyraishi]

If your service is not a scam, and your telegram account has never taken money or other items away from a person, your tag will be removed quite easily. Even if chats are deleted on both ends, the scam tag will still come out if people have reported you enough, and telegram will personally go through your olds, I believe.

It's nothing big for you to worry about - a lot of reputable accounts have been spam reported, and the telegram scam service is still very new, pretty sure if you get scam reported 5+ times, telegram automatically gives you the scam tag, and you need to contact their bot, or their support. Fairly easy to clear up.

Good luck with support mate, it should be pretty simple.

[Potato Chips]

a lot of reputable accounts have been spam reported, and the telegram scam service is still very new, pretty sure if you get scam reported 5+ times, telegram automatically gives you the scam tag, and you need to contact their bot, or their support. Fairly easy to clear up.

Then they shouldn't label it as "scam" right away if it automatically appears after X amount of reports since it can be abused. They even said the scam label is used for suspicious accounts which is not right as suspicious doesn't necessarily mean scam.

UPDATE: We got our scam label removed, thanks for all the help. For anyone facing a similar issue, you just need to message @botsupport, they did some kind of verification and all good now

What kind of information was asked in the verification?

[vikoheftjeri]

What kind of information was asked in the verification?

There was no response after I sent them the message, it was automatically removed the next day.