crypto-bridge.org KYC scam !

[Steamtyme]

Sorry I haven't kept up posting but I do have an update on my particular situation … but wait mini ranting on my progress and just a general issue I see. Honestly the more time I log in the cryptoshpere the more I hate the current market relationship with exchanges. Considering the heavy handed tactics that may well become the norm, I'm hoping more people look to remove 3rd parties from their trades. I try my damndest to buy or sell coins P2P. It's just fuckin tough.
-Most people don't want to because they are to lazy to verify who they are dealing with. I get it scams but you can dodge this shit with a small amount of effort usually.
-Don't care about being their own bank and still want someone holding their funds. Maybe without consent
-Want to use Credit Cards or link a bank account. Great first step but it this is also one of the reasons I will drive 4 hours once a month to keep connected with a near local community to try and facilitate buying.

So yes illegal no. They are complying with a law. This doesn't change the fact that they were not complying with these laws for years. Not to mention they only partially began complying with this a few months ago, in targeting US citizens with notice of the change. This made sense as the US seems to get cut off from services the rest of the world can use, due to their regulations. I've said it before I don't care they want to comply for the sake of operating this platform without hassle in the future.

What should happen regardless if they are so interested in being fully legal, and the EU is serious about their handling of non - complaint exchanges. The company and it's team should be brought up on charges and have their day in the system for their blatant disregard for those laws. It's convenient nothing like this will be discussed or ever see the light of day.

Either way I am fully done dealing with them as of this morning. Any further issues I have will be with Fractal.

There was an option for people to get their coins out of custody without verifying, sounds to good to be true. Well half. Essentially you had to trade the asset into bitshares, then using your same credentials log into another gateway - similar to cryptobridge, I think openledger was the one. I didn't get this far as when I checked the pairings, it became apparent you would take a 10-50% hit on the value of your coin go figure, must have been a market disruption or some event to overvalue BTS. (internal rage grumblings)
So I then proceeded to read Fractals terms and noticed they have a deletion policy inline with EU privacy laws and.... wait that can't be right... oh never mind. From this I said Fuck it, I don't know what other shady shit may come and I want my coins back where they belong. Not going to lie, had more than I should have there, got busy and caught with my pants down so to say.

So I know have all my coins. In my wallet.

The problem with Fractals little box mentality of an entire world providing documents that fit their requirements.... damn foreign continent tel.. I'm amazed how much it still pisses me off...
I sent everything they asked for, but oh no I don't receive door delivery mail. So none of my bills come addressed to my street address. Only US drivers licenses work, so mine with an address would have been no good, and it doesn't count based on their initial gathering. So lucky me it was property tax time a few weeks ago - never thought I'd be thankful for that. I clearly wrote on the receipt that mail goes to a P.O box, showed them the physical street address in the receipt description for what I paid taxes on. Wake up 8 hours later to being declined.
To their credit, I sent an email to support and pointed out they should learn to actually review the document and they would have noticed everything they need is there. 20 minutes and I was verified, 30 minutes had my coins. 40 minutes emailed their support requesting all my information be deleted in compliance with their policies.

I don't know how much it will scrub, I may never know how many back-ups of my beautiful mug looking like a rage bomb next to happy  dude on a passport. I am done though. There are many out there who might never get their coins. I heard suggestions like have your parents verify and shit, what a joke.

Forgot to add they booted me from the discord after I explained what I did and why in regards to verifying then requesting my documents be deleted. To be fair I did also tell everyone if you must do the same and then go trade anywhere else as their is no benefits to CB anymore. getting booted was actually kind of a bright spot today.

I will update a flag here. It is evident they are not acting in good faith. Was I made whole by the end, no. If there needs to be monetary damages attached it would be in the cents at this moment as I wasn't about to mess around and had to leave a few fractions of a coin there, due to issues with the withdrawal. And a fraction of their BTS that was used for fees previously.
The damage more centers around my privacy which I'll admit I wasn't always the best of protecting, but those were my mistakes. This was being forced to hand it over to a company not of my choosing, with no other option than to be financially harmed.

Edit: Here is the flag. I believe it is all covered feel free to let me know if I messed this up in any way. Hopefully I don't have to make many more of these in the future.

[o_e_l_e_o]

But wait , it's very likely that they "where able" to inform their clients but they chose not to

This is the point I'm making. Implementing KYC is not an overnight decision, especially if it has been passed down to them from some court or international regulation. They also mentioned in their press release that their KYC is outsourced to a third party. There would have been communication from some Europe regulator to the exchange, meetings at the exchange to discuss it, plans formulated to implement it, discussion and negotiation with their third party regarding logistics and price, ensuring their automatic systems could accurately detect a heterogeneous group of driver's licenses/passports/bills/tax forms/whatever from a wide variety of countries, ensuring their infrastructure could handle all the additional uploads, employing/training enough staff to deal with complaints/issues, and a myriad of other things. This doesn't all happen in 24 hours. Preparation for this will have been going on behind the scenes for at least a couple of weeks. They purposefully chose to keep users in the dark about this.

I don't know how much it will scrub, I may never know how many back-ups of my beautiful mug looking like a rage bomb next to happy  dude on a passport.

My understanding of the new EU data protection laws are that they contain a "right to be forgotten" clause, where a company must delete everything they hold on you at your request or face a hefty fine. I'm guessing, however, that there is also a clause that says they have to keep a minimum amount of data for x number of years when financial transactions are involved, though. Perhaps someone who lives in Europe could shed some more light.

Forgot to add they booted me from the discord after I explained what I did and why in regards to verifying then requesting my documents be deleted.

Ahh, yes. Silence anyone who criticizes you. Classic innocent-and-definitely-not-scammy behavior.

[mikeywith]

This was being forced to hand it over to a company not of my choosing, with no other option than to be financially harmed.

To me, those two words in bold are good enough to create a flag against them, I will not be convinced by any law backed facts that justify whatever those scammers did, and to make the discussion of this topic a little bit more convenient for everyone let's just assume that crypto-bridge have not broken a single law on planet earth, yet , that does not change the fact that they deserve to be flagged and I personally wouldn't touch them with a barge pole.

Here is the flag.

I am glad you took the time to think it over and to actually see how the process of their KYC goes, at first , you kind of opposed me in this and I was thinking that maybe I should remove the tag since you being their client should know better than I do, at this point I have no doubt that both the negative tag and the flag are well deserved.

The flag still appears as inactive, please request support in LoyceV's topic

[marlboroza]

Was KYC mandatory before october 1st? If yes then how were they able to operate if they are obligated to follow EU law? If no then when was it ? Unless AML laws were enforced on October first then I see no justification to what they did and how they did it.

[...]

If the exchange is located in EU zone, how were they able to operate for 2 years without compliance to EU AML laws and had no issue, i am sure EU law enforcement don't need 2 years to spot an exchange like this one, AML/KYC have been there long before 2017, unless the law in EU is optional and you can follow it whenever you feel like it

https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-may-still-bring-dirty-money-case-against-denmark-estonia/

if they are not obligated to follow EU laws then where did all this KYC shit come from??

The 5th Anti-Money Laundering Directive, which amends the 4th Anti-Money Laundering Directive was published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 19 June 2018. The Member States must transpose this Directive by 10 January 2020.

https://ec.europa.eu/info/policies/justice-and-fundamental-rights/criminal-justice/anti-money-laundering-and-counter-terrorist-financing_en

You see, one does not have to break the law of a certain country to be considered a scammer, if that is the case then we probably should hire an international lawyer for this section of the forum before calling anyone a scammer.

Quite different from topic.

To me, those two words in bold are good enough to create a flag against them, I will not be convinced by any law backed facts that justify whatever those scammers did, and to make the discussion of this topic a little bit more convenient for everyone let's just assume that crypto-bridge have not broken a single law on planet earth, yet , that does not change the fact that they deserve to be flagged and I personally wouldn't touch them with a barge pole.

if the above theory is incorrect, then I will keep my negative feedback and probably create a flag against them.

Many things remained unclear...I am still not sure what to think about whole situation except it was a dick move.

[Steamtyme]

I am glad you took the time to think it over and to actually see how the process of their KYC goes, at first , you kind of opposed me in this and I was thinking that maybe I should remove the tag since you being their client should know better than I do, at this point I have no doubt that both the negative tag and the flag are well deserved.

Sorry didn't mean for it to come off as opposing you, I actually hadn't even gone far enough to look for an account on the forum. I was doing my best to remain objective and not circle the wagons immediately, that's why I chose the route of service discussion. It gave me time to go through their discord, and attempt to reason with anyone there. It went no where and after sorting my business with them I could reflect and make a reasoned decision. Especially when it comes to Flags I want to make sure I don't jump the gun.

I noticed it's showing as active now. On the note of having my information deleted by Fractal. I received an email to say email this other address, we'll see how that goes.

[pedrog]

I sent everything they asked for, but oh no I don't receive door delivery mail. So none of my bills come addressed to my street address. Only US drivers licenses work, so mine with an address would have been no good, and it doesn't count based on their initial gathering. So lucky me it was property tax time a few weeks ago - never thought I'd be thankful for that. I clearly wrote on the receipt that mail goes to a P.O box, showed them the physical street address in the receipt description for what I paid taxes on. Wake up 8 hours later to being declined.

Are you a USA citizen?

If you got all your coins back what are you complaining about?

[Steamtyme]

Read the thread and figure it out, I have been quite clear about my grievances. No I am not a US or EU citizen.

[boltz]

What a turn out for crypto-bridge haha. Its sad to see exchanges trying to scam their users with something like this and I'm so glad that you have figured this out. The problems is that there are so many users who already made the KYC and don't know about this thread and the risk they're taking in completing it. It seems that in the last month exchanges are looking for ways to even exit the market or scam the investors, traders and holders. I have a feeling that a big exchange is planing this too.

[pedrog]

Read the thread and figure it out, I have been quite clear about my grievances. No I am not a US or EU citizen.

You haven't show any damages, if you got all your coins back you have nothing to complain about.

[Steamtyme]

You haven't show any damages, if you got all your coins back you have nothing to complain about.

You still haven't shown the ability to read.

If there needs to be monetary damages attached it would be in the cents at this moment as I wasn't about to mess around and had to leave a few fractions of a coin there, due to issues with the withdrawal. And a fraction of their BTS that was used for fees previously.
The damage more centers around my privacy which I'll admit I wasn't always the best of protecting, but those were my mistakes. This was being forced to hand it over to a company not of my choosing, with no other option than to be financially harmed.

Once again go back through the thread, follow my flag and my reasons are laid out. You don't like it feel free to oppose the flag. This isn't just about me, there are plenty of others who may not use Bitcointalk.org, who will be "damaged" much worse than myself.

[marlboroza]

You haven't show any damages, if you got all your coins back you have nothing to complain about.

You still haven't shown the ability to read.

What you have described here is something which might be true, however, I am not going to support flag because some random exchange which you trusted with money all of sudden start asking KYC because maybe their authorities told them to do so because something is maybe changed in law.

So what is important to support this flag - have you sent them your real ID's and they didn't allow you to withdraw you, have you sent them fake ID's and they didn't allow you to withdraw, maybe you withdraw, maybe you didn't, maybe you didn't have funds there, maybe you did everything and this is exit scam. I can't really say from your post and thread.

I have also heard that there is other way to withdraw money without doing KYC (someone posted in their thread IIRC)so if another option do exist where is damage? Have you tried to do it?

You don't like it feel free to oppose the flag.

Contract flags shouldn't be supported or opposed based on personal feelings.

This isn't just about me, there are plenty of others who may not use Bitcointalk.org, who will be "damaged" much worse than myself.

I hope you are wrong, but I have also read that someone went trough KYC and withdraw funds, who should we believe now?

[Steamtyme]

Okay so on mobile - don't expect a great explanation.

Withdrawal option that is available without KYC is converting all coins to BTS then accessing BTS using your same credentials through another gateway. Problem here as I outlined was that this resulted in a 10-50% loss due to the inflated BTS price depending on your trading pair. Which also forces you to trust another party. This is also not presented by the exchange itself this is a workaround with additional pitfalls to less tech savy individuals.

Making up possible reasons why an exchange chose to violate their written terms, is not an objective way to approach accusations. If this were the case and somehow the stroke of midnight brought the authorities to their door  forcing this action, they could share that. This is not the response they have given. So again, being forced to submit above and beyond normal levels of KYC for any and all use of the site violated their terms the way it rolled out. I did wait and work through my issue while exploring all options before creating a flag.

I again don't care if anyone supports this flag apart from myself. I don't give a shit if anyone believes I had coins on this exchange. You either believe me at face value or you don't. I believe all my posts on this matter in this thread, as well as the service discussion thread I started cover my experience so far. Since beginning this discussion it can be seen my case is not an outlier and that these actions are the stance of the exchange.

Everything that has been asked in these last few posts I have already covered. I only respond to make this clear, but am not a fan of repeating myself several times over. If there is a specific question one has that I have not answered feel free to ask

There will be differences on what people think is damaging. Some may see it as only possible if you were financially harmed, some may agree that stress and worry constitute damages, the same goes for privacy and being forced to submit documents to an entity outside my country with no option but to trust them.I have also tried to avoid speculating on their motives, while others have. This was to do my best to remain objective as i laid everything out.

So I say to everyone. Treat this flag and any others the same as all feedback and trust related issues. You agree, you aren't sure or don't care, or you oppose this flag.
I will update with Fracral's response to my deletion request.

"Feel free" is a figure of speech that there is no pressure or underlying requirements to act in one way or another. Not about "feelings"

[pedrog]

Bitcoin exchanges have been doing KYC since I can remember, (Bitstamp was my first exchange back in 2013).

If you believe an exchange can operate for long and with any meaningful volume without compliance you're naive and you shouldn't play this game.

BTW, if an exchange has an URL and someone profits from operating it, it's not really decentralize.

You look like an attention seeker.

They had to follow the law (which is a good thing long term), you provided the necessary documentation, you got your coins, move on.

Okay so on mobile - don't expect a great explanation.

Withdrawal option that is available without KYC is converting all coins to BTS then accessing BTS using your same credentials through another gateway. Problem here as I outlined was that this resulted in a 10-50% loss due to the inflated BTS price depending on your trading pair. Which also forces you to trust another party. This is also not presented by the exchange itself this is a workaround with additional pitfalls to less tech savy individuals.

Making up possible reasons why an exchange chose to violate their written terms, is not an objective way to approach accusations. If this were the case and somehow the stroke of midnight brought the authorities to their door  forcing this action, they could share that. This is not the response they have given. So again, being forced to submit above and beyond normal levels of KYC for any and all use of the site violated their terms the way it rolled out. I did wait and work through my issue while exploring all options before creating a flag.

I again don't care if anyone supports this flag apart from myself. I don't give a shit if anyone believes I had coins on this exchange. You either believe me at face value or you don't. I believe all my posts on this matter in this thread, as well as the service discussion thread I started cover my experience so far. Since beginning this discussion it can be seen my case is not an outlier and that these actions are the stance of the exchange.

Everything that has been asked in these last few posts I have already covered. I only respond to make this clear, but am not a fan of repeating myself several times over. If there is a specific question one has that I have not answered feel free to ask

There will be differences on what people think is damaging. Some may see it as only possible if you were financially harmed, some may agree that stress and worry constitute damages, the same goes for privacy and being forced to submit documents to an entity outside my country with no option but to trust them.I have also tried to avoid speculating on their motives, while others have. This was to do my best to remain objective as i laid everything out.

So I say to everyone. Treat this flag and any others the same as all feedback and trust related issues. You agree, you aren't sure or don't care, or you oppose this flag.
I will update with Fracral's response to my deletion request.

"Feel free" is a figure of speech that there is no pressure or underlying requirements to act in one way or another. Not about "feelings"

[Viper1]

My understanding of the new EU data protection laws are that they contain a "right to be forgotten" clause, where a company must delete everything they hold on you at your request or face a hefty fine. I'm guessing, however, that there is also a clause that says they have to keep a minimum amount of data for x number of years when financial transactions are involved, though. Perhaps someone who lives in Europe could shed some more light.

Yes, under GDPR, they can keep information for a certain number of years. And this is not just an EU thing. If you do anything with websites who's business is global, then most of them have implemented GDPR as well. Think Facebook, Google etc etc etc. So requesting they delete your data isn't good enough. You have a right to know all the data they have on you and they have to provide it to you. So you would need to clarify with them what they may or may not delete, how long they will hold the rest and I would even go so far as to ask for what purpose and what legal grounds they are holding that information. GDPR is clear as mud and many companies have implemented things but they have no idea if it's absolutely correct or not. Like a lot of laws, they're hoping there will eventually be some legal cases that clarify things as there are some aspects of GDPR that just don't make any sense and it's clear that the people that wrote it just don't even comprehend how the internet works.

[mikeywith]

If you believe an exchange can operate for long and with any meaningful volume without compliance you're naive and you shouldn't play this game.

Binance, KuCoin,Bitfinex,BitForex,BiBox,Hotbit etc,,,

These exchanges and many others , either have daily limits for withdrawal without KYC , allow only crypto (no bank transfer) deposit and withdrawal, and some don't require KYC at all, and the list goes on and on, and most importantly non of them allowed people to deposit funds and then "forced" them to either submit their documents or suffer a loss,  you obviously have no clue what you are talking about.

If you actually did read the topic you would understand that the issue is not  KYC per se, it's the way they went about it, now if you are done spamming the thread, you can go back to alts.  Thanks

[tsaroz]

The two times I've used crypto-bridge, both withdrawals were held and was solved only after starting a support ticket and waiting over 48 hours. I don't think crypto-bridge is actually a decentralized exchange.
Binance has no issues withdrawing under limit for non verified users while KUcoin is found to enforcing KYC for any users. There are many other exchanges that doesn't necessarily require KYC. So, it would be better to use an alternative and wait for if there's no other listing.

[Viper1]

If you believe an exchange can operate for long and with any meaningful volume without compliance you're naive and you shouldn't play this game.

Binance, KuCoin,Bitfinex,BitForex,BiBox,Hotbit etc,,,

These exchanges and many others , either have daily limits for withdrawal without KYC

Today. Every exchange started out not requiring KYC and then implemented it later. Others also had limits where you could withdraw up to a certain amount and if you wanted to do more, you needed KYC. From what I see, more and more governments are requiring it and they will not be able to avoid it. So, it's just a matter of time before all those ones either implement KYC or magically get hacked or something else happens and they end up shutting down.

[The_Voice]

The two times I've used crypto-bridge, both withdrawals were held and was solved only after starting a support ticket and waiting over 48 hours. I don't think crypto-bridge is actually a decentralized exchange.
Binance has no issues withdrawing under limit for non verified users while KUcoin is found to enforcing KYC for any users. There are many other exchanges that doesn't necessarily require KYC. So, it would be better to use an alternative and wait for if there's no other listing.

A true decentralized guide

does crypto-bridge fit this?

https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*29xcWkWD7SdXyvpCHbJNEQ.jpeg

[Viper1]

The two times I've used crypto-bridge, both withdrawals were held and was solved only after starting a support ticket and waiting over 48 hours.

I did one on the 30th. Had lots of issues getting it to work but finally figured out a way for it to go through. It disappeared completely and after waiting probably an hour, nothing had shown up anywhere either. The bitshares block explorerer showed everything I had done up to but not the withdraw. Sent in a support ticket and it was resolved within an hour, 2 at the absolute most. I don't really get this last minute KYC thing unless there's something else going on in the background, but given how quickly they fixed my issue and that I actually got my coins, I really can't see them purposely scamming people.

[joniboini]

Binance, KuCoin,Bitfinex,BitForex,BiBox,Hotbit etc,,,
These exchanges and many others , either have daily limits for withdrawal without KYC

Today. Every exchange started out not requiring KYC and then implemented it later.

Ehem.

If you actually did read the topic you would understand that the issue is not  KYC per se, it's the way they went about it, now if you are done spamming the thread, you can go back to alts.  Thanks

I don't really get this last minute KYC thing unless there's something else going on in the background, but given how quickly they fixed my issue and that I actually got my coins, I really can't see them purposely scamming people.

It still doesn't make sense for a business to screw their customers over and over again with last-minute KYC and no grace period. If I were you, I'd no longer use them. You're lucky your withdrawal gets processed quickly but I'm pretty sure there are others who need days or even weeks.