{ANNOUNCEMENT} WBX Exchange Frozen

[Andre Jensen (World Bitcoin Exchange)]

Dear Clients,

We would like to apologize to all our clients for the lack of customer support provided over the past weeks, as of 14th February we have been faced with another banking institution issue, which includes the following;

We've had an account suspension issue with our Commonwealth processing account and are unable to execute EFT AUD withdrawals while the account is suspended. We will leave the exchange in its 'frozen' state until we are able to re-commence operations.

We've had an issue or two in the past with other banking institutions in Australia so we understand the tension this causes for customers and ourselves. However we've always managed to correct them.

We thank you for your support and appreciate your patience as we work through this.

WBX Team

[1714929384]

1714929384

[Seal]

Hi Andre, any update on this?

[Bigpiggy01]

Andre,

What's going on with all this?

[cryptoxchange]

Hi Andre,

Just seeing how you are going. The banking issues, were they to do with charge backs?

IE Someone hacks someones bank account, sends across X amount of Dollars, it goes into the exchange.

The hacker then buys BTC, withdraws them, next the exchange bank account holder gets a letter saying to repay X amount of Dollars due to a non authorised transaction.

Is this the issues you are facing Andre? then the bank will not deal with you again because of the "Risk".

It seems to me that this would be the issue is, damn scammers depositing money via hacked bank accounts, then charge backs causing you these problems.

We have also had our fair share of this also, and have had to put in tighter measures and protection, people do not understand the difficult and challenges of running an exchange, when you have people constantly out trying to rip you off with these hacked bank account deposits.

This is why our banking system requires information from the client, because of these issues and risks.

Good luck, and I hope everything is ok for you, feel free to contact us any time. I would suspect, the same group who also got away with the same with us, only for a small amount before our fraud detection kicked in and prevented the rest.

Regards

Crypto X Change

[Raoul Duke]

Hi Andre,

Just seeing how you are going. The banking issues, were they to do with charge backs?

IE Someone hacks someones bank account, sends across X amount of Dollars, it goes into the exchange.

The hacker then buys BTC, withdraws them, next the exchange bank account holder gets a letter saying to repay X amount of Dollars due to a non authorised transaction.

Is this the issues you are facing Andre? then the bank will not deal with you again because of the "Risk".

It seems to me that this would be the issue is, damn scammers depositing money via hacked bank accounts, then charge backs causing you these problems.

We have also had our fair share of this also, and have had to put in tighter measures and protection, people do not understand the difficult and challenges of running an exchange, when you have people constantly out trying to rip you off with these hacked bank account deposits.

This is why our banking system requires information from the client, because of these issues and risks.

Good luck, and I hope everything is ok for you, feel free to contact us any time. I would suspect, the same group who also got away with the same with us, only for a small amount before our fraud detection kicked in and prevented the rest.

Regards

Crypto X Change

Thanks for clearing that up.
It's exactly what I've suspected was the cause of all the exchanges' problems with banks but so far no exchange ever admitted it.

People should realise that banks close exchange accounts mostly because of what you described, not because of Bitcoin.

[cryptoxchange]

Hi PSY,

Yes, this is the reason why.

See the criminals, affecting all of us Exchanges, do not give a F*ck about the BTC community, exchanges etc.

It's pure profit, and that's all they're out to do, and they are destroying good business's in their doings.

We are lucky to have the fraud prevention etc, but this is also why it does require client information etc, and KYC, AML and everything to operate properly which people do not understand.

Our loss was tiny, however if our protection systems had not been in place, the loss would have been huge. This is why the underlying banking system structure for all exchanges are so important.

Thanks

Crypto X Change

[bitcowok]

Well, almost 2 weeks and not a single status update.

Andre, would it be too much to ask for a daily (weekly even!) update? It really would be appreciated, by all of us who are hitting refresh on the news page twice a day or more.

For anyone that's interested, I've left a voice message, and emailed. I'll reply here with any details if Andre responds at all.

[Bigpiggy01]

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Andre several people, myself included, I know very well are starting to get rather ticked off about this lack of communication. Further silence on this subject is not exactly helping you to settle this amicably or get the exchange back into operation. As I know you've actively been offered help in getting things back on track from several members of the community.
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[PatrickHarnett]

It's a shame my brother changed jobs as I think he was working in the same town and would have been very good at getting answers (but he now elsewhere in Australia).

I've been very supportive of this exchange since it's inception and done a lot of trading, but was in the process of extracting my funds for legal fees on a case I'm taking and have around AUD3000 in limbo land.  That's enough for me to jump on a plane and fly to Aus and accept a cheque or an atm withdrawal in person.

Not good enough Andre.

[MPOE-PR]

Further silence on this subject is not exactly helping you to settle this amicably or get the exchange back into operation

Maybe he's in jail...

[Seal]

I'm in the same situation as most of you too. I've emailed on various occasions, no reply... Even offered any assistance, no response.

I too have been supportive of WBX and have been pretty actively trading recently so have a lot of AUD in my account which I'm waiting on a refund for. Next step??

Given that his company is listed with an official ABN, it shouldn't be too difficult to track him down. I think at this stage he's obviously lost interest in serving WBX customers.

[PatrickHarnett]

I sent an email to the site developer and actually got a response.  I'm not sure what is going on, but they don't appear to be gone yet.  I'm still hopeful they'll be back, but it would help if they posted a public update.

[payb.tc]

It's a shame my brother changed jobs as I think he was working in the same town and would have been very good at getting answers (but he now elsewhere in Australia).

I've been very supportive of this exchange since it's inception and done a lot of trading, but was in the process of extracting my funds for legal fees on a case I'm taking and have around AUD3000 in limbo land.  That's enough for me to jump on a plane and fly to Aus and accept a cheque or an atm withdrawal in person.

Not good enough Andre.

in comparison, i'm about 45 minutes drive away and have $497 in limbo... definitely worth the drive if i thought i could get it paid in person, but i very much doubt that andre's going to be able to do that.

[sonba]

Taking into account hat Andre is not answering a single e-mail I'm considering taking some legal action here. Unfortunately, I'm not from Australia but I know some people down under so I guess I'll either file it with the police there or with a regional lawyer. If anyone of you is interested in joining or already filed something please give me a shout. I know that in my jurisdiction it helps if there are several people who have been scammed vs. only a single person.

[payb.tc]

are several people who have been scammed vs. only a single person.

if you're looking for the 'scammer', try ANZ.

[sonba]

are several people who have been scammed vs. only a single person.

if you're looking for the 'scammer', try ANZ.

ANZ will not reveal any data of it's clients nor confirm that accounts have been frozen due to fraud investigations without the consent of the owner of the account. I tried that, already Probably they would be more willing to share information with the local law enforcement agencies.

[dooglus]

if you're looking for the 'scammer', try ANZ.

ANZ will not reveal any data of it's clients nor confirm that accounts have been frozen due to fraud investigations without the consent of the owner of the account. I tried that, already Probably they would be more willing to share information with the local law enforcement agencies.

I think the point payb.tc was making was that ANZ is the scammer, not Andre.

The last I heard from Andre was on March 6th, when he wrote:

"i will be announcing a statement with in the next 7days on the site and forums".

[Seal]

I just received an email from Andre: WBX will be shutting down. 

[sonba]

As an update:

Dear Clients,

Effective immediately World Bitcoin Exchange (WBX) will be shutting down trading / deposits and returning all client funds.
Due to increasing fraudulent transactions on our accounts, WBX can not operate in it's current capacity. Combined with multiple bank account closures, we have deemed the best course of action is to halt trading.

Sincerely,

Andre Jensen

It's a pitty as I liked wbx, but if it means that everybody receives the his money back then that's good news

[paulzag]

The problem is that Andre stayed silent most days since before 14 February.

There should have been a daily "nothing new to report" or "I can't say anything more while the lawyers are looking it over".

In today's announcement there is no timeline for the return of clients' funds.