Good thing I only blew 0.007BTC on this. Theymos should be IP banning IMO.
I have a VPN with 20 different IPs, it costs $6 a month. Look at the bottom of the forum, private internet access actually sponsors bitcointalk (the VPN i use).
So IP banning doesn't do shit.
Not everybody has a VPN. It would certianly make their lives a little harder.
Perhaps, but considering this edgecoin/nfd-coin scammer made $80,000 in the past few months, and is tech savvy, he probably has a VPN. I think any scammer worth his salt has a VPN.
He'll be back again, I'm quite sure. The scammer ran the Edgecoin scam starting March 27th.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=540017.0And he ran the NFD scam starting April 22nd.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=580537.0There's about four weeks between the two. Four weeks from his latest one is about a week from now. From now 'til the end of the month, I'd be on my guard.
Here's his MO:
- comes up with a tantalizing proposal.
- doesn't have anything against escrow, and may solicit an escrower behind the scenes. This lulls people into thinking direct send is ok because he doesn't have a bee in his bonnet about escrowing. So far, this profile fits a lot of other scammers (and, sadly, it also fits legitimate IPCOs)
-
This next one makes him somewhat unique in the world of scammers: The fellow actually works hard while running the scam! Not only is he responsive, but also (in the case of NFD) he spent a lot of time putting together a distribution list. As part of the
NFD revival project, I'm doing a comprehensive audit, check and correct of his disbursement list - and it's a huge task. The scammer may not have anticipated the workload he'd have to undertake when running the NFD scam, but he did step up to the plate: he did do the pre-allocation work.
This work ethic of his makes him more dangerous than the typical scammer. It lulls you, because you assume that if he's working hard while running the scam he's also working hard on the launch.
And here's how to protect yourself against him:
-
Don't invest directly! Use an escrow.-
Demand to see code snippets. You need to be an experienced programmer to tell the difference between a dev with a viable project and a vapourware scammer. Only an experienced programmer in the language of the project can read between the lines and judge if the project is do-able in the timeframe specified or if it's exciting fantasy.
If you're not an experienced programmer, don't send a satoshi unless you see code excerpts! To be extra careful,
you might want to run them by an experienced programmer to see if they're original or a copy-and-paste from some other project!
-
Ask technical questions politely and publicly, on the IPCO thread, and look hard for any glib or evasive answers.
If your question-post is deleted, run! And please, tell everyone!
