What I experienced since the past two days now

[michellee]

That's why we must be able to maintain privacy well and not talk about Bitcoin ownership carelessly. With increasingly strict government regulations on crypto, it makes us have to be more careful with everyone around us. People close to us and we trust them may turn around and will no longer be with us.

We can tell about crypto but not the secrets we have because that is our privacy. We have to keep it safe, including not saying we have Bitcoin. We cannot blame the government because they want to maintain control of everything in their hands.

By remaining careful when storing Bitcoin, we will be safe and not encounter problems. We also have to be able to protect ourselves, and it is not easy to say anything about our privacy. Everyone has their own goals, and we can't blame them. The important thing is that we do not violate existing regulations.

[Z-tight]

Many people are going to hate me for this but I don't blame the law for going after mixers and privacy featured wallets in crypto space, if you believe that you are clean it is only to yourself, the other users might not, you really can't tell who to trust or not.

Cash is also used to commit crime, and fraudsters have been stealing from people and covering their traces long before BTC became a thing. Do you go about telling people how much you have in your bank account, the same way i should have the right to keep my BTC holdings private and not have it linked to my real identity. There is nothing wrong in using BTC privately and nothing can make me think otherwise, and surely not this story you just told.

[Kelward]

In this era of internet, trust has become a scarce commodity, because online activities are not done physically, so there's no way of knowing what your friends are really doing while holding their smart phones or staring at their computers, what you know is what they tell you. So we should really be careful how we trust people that we call our friends because they could have skeletons in their cupboards that we're not aware of, like the friend in the OP.

Personally I'm very careful about the people that I discuss my Bitcoin investment with, because I've heard the story where a guy told his friends about the value of Bitcoin that he had, that same day armed robbers visited him, they probably forced him to give them his seed phrase, I don't know.

[sokani]

I know it's hard to trust someone and people do a lot of fraudulent activities online, but don't you think you're being too hasty in your conclusion? Your neighbour is alleged to have defrauded some foreigners, he hasn't been convicted yet. It could be that he received funds from an address linked to a fraudster. I'm just saying and you can't rule out such possibility.

Many people are going to hate me for this but I don't blame the law for going after mixers and privacy featured wallets in crypto space, if you believe that you are clean it is only to yourself, the other users might not, you really can't tell who to trust or not.

I don't think mixers are not entirely bad. People use it because they want to enhance their privacy and to stay anonymous. Just as we are using cryptocurrency so are bad actors also using it, does that make us criminals?

[Sandra_hakeem]

When it comes to money, many people reveal a completely different side.

off topic: That's the reason why lending out cash to people these days is a work of faith.

To cut this story short, it turned out that my trusted neigboir whom I have few times vouched for to be a bitcoin investor is a online scammer who collect Bitcoin from his victims, until he was bursted 2 days ago, it was around 5am in the morning when the raid happened in our compound, I couldn't say anything about this since there is no concrete information about what he did yet until later.

He's been into that for as long as he realized he could use his cellphone to convince gullible people to sending their coins.. where exactly is the problem then? Who am I to blame for the lost coin, the scammer or the witless fellow behind every wallet?..
If you haven't realized how daft some people can be, now lemme tell you; I saw an intriguing post on Twitter. The dude be complaining about how he's missed the arrangement of a few words in his seed phrase, of a wallet that contains atleast $10k worth of crypto. He decided to drop the seed phrase in (his own arrangement) asking that People helped him.

[Abu-Naim]

You should have know by now that there is not trust in anything cryptocurrency or online transactions, even Bitcoin, some people are there just to spoil Bitcoin reputation and name For their own selfish interest, I am not surprised because I have seen so many people who created crypto trading plugs and exchanges they used to scam people and mostly they scam trusted users and close friends which is very bad.

Not all Bitcoin investors are real investors, some are just hiding and pretending to be Bitcoin real investors, even if they are close to you, it doesn't mean they are clean, many good people want privacy and mixers to prevail but I wonder how when bad people are taking advantage of these features to steal from others.

Some investors are just here for quick money, if they don’t make it quick, they end up going into scams just to make it quick. Mixers are not bad, but at the same time they are bad because that’s where scammers use to be untraceable if they scam people their bitcoins.
If you are clean, you can just buy from trusted p2p and save them in your wallet, no need of moving them to mixers.

[Asuspawer09]

I mean pretty much most of the scammers and hackers are just like normal investors or people, you wouldn't really going to know if they are hackers or scammers since they not going to tell you about that, it's not like they are people that is not getting out of there houses, these people obviously blend in on other people and investors, probably even here right now there are probably a lot of scammers and hackers here we just doesn't know about it. I mean it wasn't like it is your fault for trusting him, the way I see it is you just trusted him since you think his a great Bitcoin investor which turned out to be wrong, I mean you have your experience on him and that turns out to be great that is why you vouched about him.

You could probably get involved there since you have a lot of conversations I suppose, and most of your conversations are probably about Bitcoin and investing as well, like you said you're the one who told him to store it on a hardware wallet. I guess the trick here is just to be anonymous and just not trust anyone because you just don't know it, I mean if you're actually sure about it that his not some kind of a scammer, I don't really recommend trusting anyone that you don't really know, I mean even though if it is your friend already don't fully trust them like getting or putting money on them.

[GideonGono]

It is really hard to trust anyone one no matter if it is online or in real life.
And yes there are people who would use crypto or Bitcoin to scam because of its anonymity or being decentralized, but that doesn't mean that everyone is a scammer just like in mixer not everyone who use it is using it for money laundering, there are others who just like to keep their identity or crypto hidden, it will all depends on how we use it.

[Dr.Bitcoin_Strange]

You are not at fault in any way; perhaps you never had the idea that he was a scammer. Incidents like this teach us not to trust anyone, especially with our investments. I hope you have not discussed your portfolio with him. In situations like this, the victim may want to victimize others who are his friends because he wouldn't want to be the one to go down alone. If perhaps the law in your country is not so friendly with Bitcoin and this kind of incident happened like this, the victim can choose to implicate you because he doesn't want to go down alone. People cannot just be trusted unless they're your biological siblings. Scammers will only want you to know their true identity if you are in the same game with them. 

[nakamura12]

You shouldn't just trust someone so easily that's why other people say that you should verify first before you trust them. As your story goes, you are lucky that your neighbor didn't include you as one of his accomplice and may have been go down with him. As you have said your neighbor really want to support mixers and even want you to use even though there's no reason why you should use it which means he has a plan or something like that since he wants to support mixers. As you might have known, there are mixers that have been taken by FBI for a reason which can support money laundering by using mixers.

[The Cryptovator]

You inspired your neighbour to invest in Bitcoin, but instead of investing, he has been scamming people. It's true that those who know about both of you and that you were too closed would point to you as well. But actually, this isn't your mistake. When you are teaching something to others, it isn't necessary; they must be trusted. Because you can't estimate how trusted a person is, your neighbour would be trusted for some other sector or reason. But he came out as a scammer on crypto. There will always be some scammers, and that's how scammers are born. But we should keep adapting Bitcoin anyway. We can't find a trusted person. This is an unexpected scenario.

[darkangel11]

Let me give you some brotherly advice; Don't ever open up publicly about your involvement with cryptocurrencies because it can backfire on a lot of occasions, and besides, it is not safe at all.

You trusted the guy who was a scammer, you have been discussing Bitcoin and other stuff with him and he probably knew you were an investor and had cryptocurrencies. What if he was also a serious criminal who would do anything for money? He could rob you at gunpoint or even harm you only to get access to your funds because he knew you had them.

So, it is much better that you keep these things private and don't let anyone know about these things even if it's someone very close to you because you can't trust anyone in this world these days as you said.

Now that scammer is getting grilled by the police and he'll say anything to get out of there, even if it means implicating other people. He'll say OP was the brains behind the operation and told him about bitcoin and how to use it to launder money. It's best to keep things to yourself. I wouldn't even tell that to the police because they could be corrupt. They could search your place and steal computer hadrware thinking they can get whatever you have stored in there. Many people will see a bag of money with arms and legs when they see you talking about owning bitcoin.

[examplens]

I was so shocked because I don't look at him like this, I was still planning to go to a nearby secondary school with this neigbour of mine and teach students about bitcoin, I have already talked to their principal and he said he will give me a date when I can come.

Honestly, I consider the majority of those who go to schools or organize seminars, or even online schools to educate beginners about Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies to be scammers at some point. I heard parts of such stories a couple of times and was appalled at how superficially everything is presented.
I guess you learned your lesson and that just because you know something more about the whole thing doesn't mean you should go somewhere and preach about it. You had a scammer right beside you without knowing it.
Otherwise, not everyone with a wallet and some satoshis in it is an investor.

[serjent05]

In this era of internet, trust has become a scarce commodity, because online activities are not done physically, so there's no way of knowing what your friends are really doing while holding their smart phones or staring at their computers, what you know is what they tell you. So we should really be careful how we trust people that we call our friends because they could have skeletons in their cupboards that we're not aware of, like the friend in the OP.

True that, not only people we meet online, even a close friend can betray us when it comes to money matters.  So it is very important to keep our financial capabilities hidden so that we can avoid people who have ill intention and greedy for money.

About @OP's story, I do not think that mixers have something to do with his scammer friend.  Good and bad people use mixers and other privacy services.  Good people have their own reason in using such a service and those bad people have their own reason too.  I do not think it is correct to generalize the mixer users as people hiding bad things.

@OP your friend will scam people since it is his nature so it does not matter whether the mixing service is available or not, your friend will still scam people.

[Maslate]

In this era of internet, trust has become a scarce commodity, because online activities are not done physically, so there's no way of knowing what your friends are really doing while holding their smart phones or staring at their computers, what you know is what they tell you. So we should really be careful how we trust people that we call our friends because they could have skeletons in their cupboards that we're not aware of, like the friend in the OP.

Personally I'm very careful about the people that I discuss my Bitcoin investment with, because I've heard the story where a guy told his friends about the value of Bitcoin that he had, that same day armed robbers visited him, they probably forced him to give them his seed phrase, I don't know.

The more this era gets more digital, the more we should be careful not to trust anyone easily. People can be deceiving with their looks and intentions, so if you are weak and quite ignorant as well, you will definitely fall on their traps. But if they have seen your smart and wise, then it will be hard for them to realize their goals.

Most especially when bitcoin is the topmost concern. People can act as if they’re interested and want to learn all about bitcoin as much as they can, but what we don’t know is that it’s already part of their plan, gaining our trust so we won’t play hard to get whenever they will put their plans into action.

[Stable090]

To cut this story short, it turned out that my trusted neigboir whom I have few times vouched for to be a bitcoin investor is a online scammer who collect Bitcoin from his victims, until he was bursted 2 days ago, it was around 5am in the morning when the raid happened in our compound, I couldn't say anything about this since there is no concrete information about what he did yet until later.

The person is just your neighbor and you shouldn’t just trust him like that, I will tell you that if you ask most scammers what they are into, then they will tell you they are into bitcoin, but they are scammers, people like this are the once that makes people to think that bitcoin is only used for bad activities, don’t just believe people when they tell you they are trader’s or they are bitcoin investors, some of them are scammer.

I was so shocked because I don't look at him like this, I was still planning to go to a nearby secondary school with this neigbour of mine and teach students about bitcoin, I have already talked to their principal and he said he will give me a date when I can come.

I feel bad about this, but you shouldn’t be discouraged. Since your neighbor is no longer available, you should just go one to one to teach the children about bitcoin after the principal has given you a date to come. Don’t allow your neighbor being a scammer to discourage you from impacting the children.

[mirakal]

It is really hard to trust anyone one no matter if it is online or in real life.
And yes there are people who would use crypto or Bitcoin to scam because of its anonymity or being decentralized, but that doesn't mean that everyone is a scammer just like in mixer not everyone who use it is using it for money laundering, there are others who just like to keep their identity or crypto hidden, it will all depends on how we use it.

Trust is a big word that depicts a deeper meaning. That does not mean that because you like the person, you have to give your trust right away. That’s probably the mistake of majority since they all come to trust quickly those new people around just because they are nice and they share the same opinions and ideas with you.

When it comes to money, trust should be given last. That is to protect yourself from being scammed and steal all your money, and to avoid those bad guys coming into your life so they won’t have chances to deceive and mess up with your hard-earned money.

[kryptqnick]

Ouch, that's a very unfortunate story. It's good you didn't bring that person to school to talk about Bitcoin. We can't know everything about our neighbours, and people posing as Bitcoin investors can, unfortunately, sometimes be scammers.
It's good that he got caught, and I hope some action will be taken to punish him for stealing from others and, ideally, to compensate the victims.
I don't know about mixers, but I'm just indifferent to them. I've never used them, and I don't know people who used them, so it just doesn't affect my bubble.

[Z-tight]

As you might have known, there are mixers that have been taken by FBI for a reason which can support money laundering by using mixers.

The U.S government make it seem like it is just a fight against money laundering, but i think they are also attacking BTC and its fungibility through all of this. Some of you think people should not use mixers if they do not have something to hide, but that is not true, everyone deserves privacy if they want it. The government is attacking BTC's privacy solutions because they want to know what everyone is doing with their coins anytime they move it.

[Ryu_Ar1]

At least you come to know that in the same conditions no one can really be trusted even if its friends or family because each head can be different in terms of intentions and what we think is the right person and a good person can have a bigger secret that we don't want others to know so we can't fully trust people, especially for financial and bitcoin issues because things like what you have encountered can happen .

In addition its still fortunate that you are also not used as an accomplice by your neighbor because if that happens you could also be carried away now .We need to realize that for now when talking about bitcoin, everyone who is in bitcoin will definitely race to get as many assets as possible and not a few people do it in a dirty way where fraud or hackers are launched to benefit and it could be that it is also around us even our closest people because we do not know the secrets that others hide .