Yep, its all fun n games till the FTC gets a phone call...

[zorke]

This is a routine action by the FTC for "mail/online order company took money and didn't deliver".  It has nothing to do with Bitcoin.  The FTC does this regularly to sleazy mail and online order companies, which is why, when you order stuff online, it almost always shows up, even from little businesses with no reputation.

It has a lot to do with Bitcoin from the perspective of a regulator.  BFL was advertised heavily and promoted on this forum and the advertising income was most likely never reported, at one point the Bitcoin Foundation (Gavin) said he believe the problems with BFL were just technical issues (I almost ordered when he said that in early 2013), and it appears BFL operates Bitcoinmining.com and made that video which is linked from bitcoin.org. 

I would say that Gavin likely did not know the extent that BFL was mining pre-ordered devices, as it was reported by BFL they were having technical issues developing the machines when in reality they were making a lot of money from the machines being built.

AFAIK theymos files taxes on behalf of the forum and I would assume he would pay taxes on behalf of the forum for any ad revenue received

It is hard to say who knew what at the Foundation but it is their job to know as they say their mission is to promote Bitcoin.  They received numerous complaints that is for sure. 

As for the money collected by the forum for the ads hopefully some of those funds can be recovered and used to repay some of the victims.  I have seen all kinds of discussion about collecting revenue from ads but I have never seen any discussion of cashing in those Bitcoins to pay the taxes.  Someone has to pay those agencies that are shutting down BFL so the people who run the forum should pay their fair share instead of pushing the costs off on others.

This thread talks about the taxes paid by the forum for tax year 2013.

I don't follow your argument that the forum should have to repay the victims of BFL's fraud. The forum was not a party to any of the sales of miners nor did it have anything to do with any decision making at BFL. There is a disclosure under the ads under the first post of every thread that says the companies are not endorsed by the forum.

I would personally doubt that anyone at TBF was conspiring with anyone at BFL. They would have little way to get any information that was not already public as they are not a regulator.

[1714751932]

1714751932

[1714751932]

1714751932

[1714751932]

1714751932

[1714751932]

1714751932

[headswim]

You have all these complaints from Bitcoin users so expect more BitLicense-type proposals.

QFT. Wrong direction for Bitcoin.

[HELP.org]

I don't follow your argument that the forum should have to repay the victims of BFL's fraud. The forum was not a party to any of the sales of miners nor did it have anything to do with any decision making at BFL. There is a disclosure under the ads under the first post of every thread that says the companies are not endorsed by the forum.

I would personally doubt that anyone at TBF was conspiring with anyone at BFL. They would have little way to get any information that was not already public as they are not a regulator.

it was obvious to anyone who followed this matter that the forum admins knew about what BFL was doing.  The so-called "disclosure" was put in later after many, many complaints and such a disclosure is meaningless anyway.  It is laughable that someone would think such a disclosure would release them from liability and it is a common practice among scammers.  You can look on Craigslist and see the prostitutes put all kinds of "disclosures" and "waivers."  Do you think they won't get arrested because of the "disclosures"?  Those disclosures would more likely be used to show the forum knew what was going on. 

The posts selling the BFL ads and the complaints were all publically posted so there is not much trouble to link this site to the losses.  Even if the FTC does not do it I would advise anyone who experienced losses to talk to a lawyer about suing this forum.  In my State, NJ, the consumer protection would allow suing for 3 times the losses if the case would fall under the consumer protection law and if the forum is liable.  This was so wildly known with hundreds of threads, videos, etc. there is simply no argument that Bitcoin experts didn't know.

As for the posts about taxes there is not much there except a vague posting about filing taxes.  There is not even a business name or the jurisdiction where it was filed.  I don't think someone who ran BFL ads is credible and I would not believe it without seeing those things.

[tss]

great news :-)

[mrpark]

In the case of most clients, they collected thousands of dollars and kept it for months and months (Me being one of them).  I have no idea what they did with that money during them, perhaps they bought bitcoin miners from other companies, and were mining with those. Perhaps they were using that money to invest in other deals or having parties.  I don't know what they were doing with it, but luckily I got it back after a longggg time. They also put most people on the "45 day refund list", which when your day came, it was even more games after that. After I waited for 45 days, and my day finally came, they were willing to give me a refund for only 1 of my cards, and not the other.  After I started posting negative reviews on the forums, they send the wire for the other card. I hope the lawsuit goes through for this, because I have all the emails.  Another flag was when they couldn't keep track of what I actually paid for. There was never any intention to send me working cards in my opinion. Hello jail time, goodbye BFL.  I think Wire fraud and Mail fraud should get you many years in federal prison.

[HELP.org]

In the case of most clients, they collected thousands of dollars and kept it for months and months (Me being one of them).  I have no idea what they did with that money ...

I found some:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=104275.msg1172453#msg1172453

[00pmac00]

I don't follow your argument that the forum should have to repay the victims of BFL's fraud. The forum was not a party to any of the sales of miners nor did it have anything to do with any decision making at BFL. There is a disclosure under the ads under the first post of every thread that says the companies are not endorsed by the forum.

I would personally doubt that anyone at TBF was conspiring with anyone at BFL. They would have little way to get any information that was not already public as they are not a regulator.

it was obvious to anyone who followed this matter that the forum admins knew about what BFL was doing.  The so-called "disclosure" was put in later after many, many complaints and such a disclosure is meaningless anyway.  It is laughable that someone would think such a disclosure would release them from liability and it is a common practice among scammers.  You can look on Craigslist and see the prostitutes put all kinds of "disclosures" and "waivers."  Do you think they won't get arrested because of the "disclosures"?  Those disclosures would more likely be used to show the forum knew what was going on. 

The posts selling the BFL ads and the complaints were all publically posted so there is not much trouble to link this site to the losses.  Even if the FTC does not do it I would advise anyone who experienced losses to talk to a lawyer about suing this forum.  In my State, NJ, the consumer protection would allow suing for 3 times the losses if the case would fall under the consumer protection law and if the forum is liable.  This was so wildly known with hundreds of threads, videos, etc. there is simply no argument that Bitcoin experts didn't know.

As for the posts about taxes there is not much there except a vague posting about filing taxes.  There is not even a business name or the jurisdiction where it was filed.  I don't think someone who ran BFL ads is credible and I would not believe it without seeing those things.

...just quoting so you can't delete it. Recommending people to sue the forum 

[HELP.org]

...just quoting so you can't delete it. Recommending people to sue the forum 

So you say we should all go along with scamming newcomers?  Is that why you are here?  The forum operators should give back the money and if they do not they should be prosecuted and sued like BFL and the other people who got caught on this forum: 

http://www.sec.gov/News/PressRelease/Detail/PressRelease/1370539730583#.VCMTvOl0ypo
http://www.sec.gov/News/PressRelease/Detail/PressRelease/1370541972520#.VCMT3ul0ypo

A new forum run by new people can easily be set up.

[Gleb Gamow]

This is a routine action by the FTC for "mail/online order company took money and didn't deliver".  It has nothing to do with Bitcoin.  The FTC does this regularly to sleazy mail and online order companies, which is why, when you order stuff online, it almost always shows up, even from little businesses with no reputation.

It has a lot to do with Bitcoin from the perspective of a regulator.  BFL was advertised heavily and promoted on this forum and the advertising income was most likely never reported, at one point the Bitcoin Foundation (Gavin) said he believe the problems with BFL were just technical issues (I almost ordered when he said that in early 2013), and it appears BFL operates Bitcoinmining.com and made that video which is linked from bitcoin.org. 

#ASKFTC #BFL #BUTTERFLYLABS #BITCOINSCAMMERS

http://www.bitcoinmining.com/bitcoin-mining-hardware/ ---> http://www.bitcoinx.com/ ---> http://www.butterflylabs.com/ (and versa vica)

[Gleb Gamow]

In the case of most clients, they collected thousands of dollars and kept it for months and months (Me being one of them).  I have no idea what they did with that money during them, perhaps they bought bitcoin miners from other companies, and were mining with those. Perhaps they were using that money to invest in other deals or having parties.  I don't know what they were doing with it, but luckily I got it back after a longggg time. They also put most people on the "45 day refund list", which when your day came, it was even more games after that. After I waited for 45 days, and my day finally came, they were willing to give me a refund for only 1 of my cards, and not the other.  After I started posting negative reviews on the forums, they send the wire for the other card. I hope the lawsuit goes through for this, because I have all the emails.  Another flag was when they couldn't keep track of what I actually paid for. There was never any intention to send me working cards in my opinion. Hello jail time, goodbye BFL.  I think Wire fraud and Mail fraud should get you many years in federal prison.

I'm surprised that the hash rate on EMC hasn't dropped at all.

You don't expect to have their farm in their offices and registered under the same company name right? But I hope someone will tip FTC about EMC!

Enter HashTrade, not to mention NimbusMining, Netsolus, LiquidBits and Coinware.


Sonny Vleisides' personal site, and not BFL's: https://web.archive.org/web/20130625050854/http://sonofodi.weebly.com/

According to https://www.blocktrail.com/address/1Hq2t6dJcxqZjGda919p4c4tmopNRLciAJ, Sonny Vleisides' bitcoin wallet address - 1Hq2t6dJcxqZjGda919p4c4tmopNRLciAJ - used to garner sales for bitcoin miner chips didn't pay any mining fees as shown below:



Yet, with one of my old wallets I doled out 0.0035 BTC for the privilege of sending a lot less fewer bitcoins...



The following is all four transactions for the 1Hq2t6dJcxqZjGda919p4c4tmopNRLciAJ address used by Sonny Vleisides for the supposed sale of bitcoin mining ASIC chips - https://blockchain.info/address/1Hq2t6dJcxqZjGda919p4c4tmopNRLciAJ




All the bitcoins that flowed to 1Hq2t6dJcxqZjGda919p4c4tmopNRLciAJ (BFL's or Sonny Vleisides' personal account) went to 1QAHVyRzkmD4j1pU5W89htZ3c6D6E7iWDs shown above, including the scant amount - 0.01001691 BTC - from 17HSPT3bhYE1rhrwAhi8k6GCGGXRdQimY7 and the 59.9273 BTC from 1DiPE4TnBczmPVoy53tffrd1iNPq87B3PB, the latter seen here: https://blockchain.info/tx/827063279c43c50c3f4c690dbf491071386d80068115f48d0beee7e80b4c7f2f.

Revisiting the 1QAHVyRzkmD4j1pU5W89htZ3c6D6E7iWDs bitcoin wallet address, the following image depicts 0 BTC tx fees paid when HashTrade supposedly paid BFL via BitPay that infamous million-dollar down payment for their multi-million dollar order of Monarchs as the press release reveals here: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/10/prweb11283333.htm.

BF Labs, Inc. Processes $1 Million Bitcoin Merchant Transaction for Institutional Bitcoin Mining Hardware Purchase

Butterfly Labs Announces $1 Million Down-Payment on Multi-Million Dollar Order for Next Generation Bitcoin Mining Hardware. Deposit will help enable production of innovative 28nm Monarch card.

<the following image gleaned from https://blockchain.info/tx/1b6ea350c094071412df1f801651263fd65ffa0b89ad6c8626ceeca8755f50bc>



According to the press release, the $1M USD that HashTrade supposedly paid BFL stemming from 1QAHVyRzkmD4j1pU5W89htZ3c6D6E7iWDs was paid to BitPay's wallet address 16fus1FKurpDmPtEZLGbg7vRYtH2TEFbYf.

ONLY 16 hours later, that same $1M USD equaling 5,562.354 BTC had 437.646 BTC added to it, and a new wallet - 1EXDF4fvjRozJ96TjF4SPN7rbTx2ik6Dsd - was created to store 6,000 BTC that has been untouched to this very day, as seen here: https://blockchain.info/tx/ff0fb375a2375b2b9ee7e8daa5759085d8fe8cd85280a97b1dfbb14005f36153, and further illustrated with...



Again, nary a tx fee was paid to the miners, proof with the following:



Note the confirmation time: Only ~11 minutes to get the tx confirmed with nary a fee. I say that's an impossibility for HashTrade to transfer a million dollars worth of BTC to BFL via BitPay if they do indeed maintain the 1QAHVyRzkmD4j1pU5W89htZ3c6D6E7iWDs bitcoin wallet address, of which I'm 100% confident they DO NOT!

BFL/Sonny Vleisides owns the 1QAHVyRzkmD4j1pU5W89htZ3c6D6E7iWDs bitcoin wallet address, as well as the 1EXDF4fvjRozJ96TjF4SPN7rbTx2ik6Dsd BWA, for all the bitcoins that make up the 437.646 BTC to round the wallet up to 6,000 BTC also stemmed from BFL.

BitPay may very well control the 16fus1FKurpDmPtEZLGbg7vRYtH2TEFbYf BWA used to funnel the infamous $1M USD from supposedly HashTrade to BFL, but, again, I contend that said funds were redirected back to BFL's control via parameters they set on their BitPay account.

The only thing that puzzles me now is how if BitPay was used as the payment service provider for the $1M USD transaction, why were no tx fees accrued?

To recap...

Sonny Vleisides owned the 1Hq2t6dJcxqZjGda919p4c4tmopNRLciAJ BWA.

Thousands of transactions from BFL ended up going to 1QAHVyRzkmD4j1pU5W89htZ3c6D6E7iWDs.

1QAHVyRzkmD4j1pU5W89htZ3c6D6E7iWDs was claimed to be owned by HashTrade to pay the $1M USD down payment for BFL Monarchs.

The $1M USD payment from 1QAHVyRzkmD4j1pU5W89htZ3c6D6E7iWDs plus other transactions stemming from BFL totally 6,000 BTC went to the 1EXDF4fvjRozJ96TjF4SPN7rbTx2ik6Dsd BWA after one hop, supposedly BitPay's BWA 16fus1FKurpDmPtEZLGbg7vRYtH2TEFbYf.

http://www.hashtrade.com/about.html

CoinWare and HashTrade have received substantial venture capital investment from the Jacobson Brothers, in order to help establish these emerging businesses, ensure that they have a strong foundation and secure all the capital equipment necessary to deliver the data processing services that the different business models require.

The Jacobson brothers own the Canadian Bitcoin Embassy and the Miami Bitcoin Embassy, both entities that the Bitcoin Development Fund donated 25 BTC to, of which they, too, have yet to liquidate as seen here: https://blockchain.info/address/1LAT5Zzf12cZqDy86ee2mcWhNZpk9DLf1D. Furthermore, I can easily show other BFL moneys flowing to this very address, not to mention from pools closely aligned with BFL.

All that said, which Bitcoin-themed periodical is going to be the first to publish this revelation? And, why haven't nary a one uncovered any of this before?

~Bruno Kucinskas

[theskeletonboi]

I actually think this is good, they shut it down because so many people spent their money on Butterfly labs and they never got their products, that and all the specs they were old were lies! Cool to see the US government actually is seeing Bitcoins as very good official currency, in which money and service laws apply! 

[00pmac00]

...just quoting so you can't delete it. Recommending people to sue the forum  

So you say we should all go along with scamming newcomers?  Is that why you are here?  The forum operators should give back the money and if they do not they should be prosecuted and sued like BFL and the other people who got caught on this forum:  

http://www.sec.gov/News/PressRelease/Detail/PressRelease/1370539730583#.VCMTvOl0ypo
http://www.sec.gov/News/PressRelease/Detail/PressRelease/1370541972520#.VCMT3ul0ypo

A new forum run by new people can easily be set up.

Recommend suing the forum, is like saying you should sue the other companies for supporting a site that happens to have advertised a company that went belly up, the owner of BFL may be a con/thief or whatever you want to call them, but he was obviously paying the bills for advertising. The forum is just interested in advertising revenue, and has a clear comment that you should basically do your research before buying from anyone. Everyone who doesn't do their research, is a little foolish IMHO. If they got scammed this is extremely unfortunate, and I wish no Ill will to anyone and their hard earned cash, but come on. its easy to find review sites for just about anything these days.

As far as new comers, they can make a decision on their own who to buy equipment from based on feedback, and there was/is plenty of feedback to support the notion NOT to buy BFL and others here and the WWW, and the a place like (as example only) Bitmain and their record for on time delivery quality control, should maybe be considered above BFL. I haven't looked at the rating guide dogie or someone has regarding the manufacturers, but likely BFL isn't high on the list (I could be wrong, if I am I would question that then).

I might also add, that the comment that the site does not endorse blah blah, not be a disclaimer, but some pretty straight forward advice. Saying some people are crooks (read between the lines basically). Regardless of "when" the comment was added, it was still added, and likely hindsight was 20/20, and they realised after the fact they should put this little tidbit there. It is a good idea in any case to have it there, since this game does have it's fair share of dishonest people (Which is extremely unfortunate).

[Keyser Soze]

is sonny's probation still active, as this case will definetly be another strike against his name

IIRC it was originally set to expire back in Sept 2013, but was extended for 2 more years.

[00pmac00]

In the case of most clients, they collected thousands of dollars and kept it for months and months (Me being one of them).  I have no idea what they did with that money during them, perhaps they bought bitcoin miners from other companies, and were mining with those. Perhaps they were using that money to invest in other deals or having parties.  I don't know what they were doing with it, but luckily I got it back after a longggg time. They also put most people on the "45 day refund list", which when your day came, it was even more games after that. After I waited for 45 days, and my day finally came, they were willing to give me a refund for only 1 of my cards, and not the other.  After I started posting negative reviews on the forums, they send the wire for the other card. I hope the lawsuit goes through for this, because I have all the emails.  Another flag was when they couldn't keep track of what I actually paid for. There was never any intention to send me working cards in my opinion. Hello jail time, goodbye BFL.  I think Wire fraud and Mail fraud should get you many years in federal prison.

I'm surprised that the hash rate on EMC hasn't dropped at all.

You don't expect to have their farm in their offices and registered under the same company name right? But I hope someone will tip FTC about EMC!

Enter HashTrade, not to mention NimbusMining, Netsolus, LiquidBits and Coinware.

http://s16.postimg.org/smfbkb9ut/BFL_Chip_Sales.jpg
Sonny Vleisides' personal site, and not BFL's: https://web.archive.org/web/20130625050854/http://sonofodi.weebly.com/

According to https://www.blocktrail.com/address/1Hq2t6dJcxqZjGda919p4c4tmopNRLciAJ, Sonny Vleisides' bitcoin wallet address - 1Hq2t6dJcxqZjGda919p4c4tmopNRLciAJ - used to garner sales for bitcoin miner chips didn't pay any mining fees as shown below:

http://s9.postimg.org/4bixaoadr/sonny_chip_sale_wallet.jpg

Yet, with one of my old wallets I doled out 0.0035 BTC for the privilege of sending a lot less fewer bitcoins...

http://s2.postimg.org/3swksoju1/my_fees.jpg

The following is all four transactions for the 1Hq2t6dJcxqZjGda919p4c4tmopNRLciAJ address used by Sonny Vleisides for the supposed sale of bitcoin mining ASIC chips - https://blockchain.info/address/1Hq2t6dJcxqZjGda919p4c4tmopNRLciAJ

https://c4.staticflickr.com/4/3876/15283090026_7a2da40d39_b.jpg
https://c4.staticflickr.com/4/3914/15328900075_48e9749615_b.jpg

All the bitcoins that flowed to 1Hq2t6dJcxqZjGda919p4c4tmopNRLciAJ (BFL's or Sonny Vleisides' personal account) went to 1QAHVyRzkmD4j1pU5W89htZ3c6D6E7iWDs shown above, including the scant amount - 0.01001691 BTC - from 17HSPT3bhYE1rhrwAhi8k6GCGGXRdQimY7 and the 59.9273 BTC from 1DiPE4TnBczmPVoy53tffrd1iNPq87B3PB, the latter seen here: https://blockchain.info/tx/827063279c43c50c3f4c690dbf491071386d80068115f48d0beee7e80b4c7f2f.

Revisiting the 1QAHVyRzkmD4j1pU5W89htZ3c6D6E7iWDs bitcoin wallet address, the following image depicts 0 BTC tx fees paid when HashTrade supposedly paid BFL via BitPay that infamous million-dollar down payment for their multi-million dollar order of Monarchs as the press release reveals here: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/10/prweb11283333.htm.

BF Labs, Inc. Processes $1 Million Bitcoin Merchant Transaction for Institutional Bitcoin Mining Hardware Purchase

Butterfly Labs Announces $1 Million Down-Payment on Multi-Million Dollar Order for Next Generation Bitcoin Mining Hardware. Deposit will help enable production of innovative 28nm Monarch card.

<the following image gleaned from https://blockchain.info/tx/1b6ea350c094071412df1f801651263fd65ffa0b89ad6c8626ceeca8755f50bc>

https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5576/15329065265_77561a2683_b.jpg

According to the press release, the $1M USD that HashTrade supposedly paid BFL stemming from 1QAHVyRzkmD4j1pU5W89htZ3c6D6E7iWDs was paid to BitPay's wallet address 16fus1FKurpDmPtEZLGbg7vRYtH2TEFbYf.

ONLY 16 hours later, that same $1M USD equaling 5,562.354 BTC had 437.646 BTC added to it, and a new wallet - 1EXDF4fvjRozJ96TjF4SPN7rbTx2ik6Dsd - was created to store 6,000 BTC that has been untouched to this very day, as seen here: https://blockchain.info/tx/ff0fb375a2375b2b9ee7e8daa5759085d8fe8cd85280a97b1dfbb14005f36153, and further illustrated with...

https://c4.staticflickr.com/4/3897/15326689271_5776c04c80_b.jpg

Again, nary a tx fee was paid to the miners, proof with the following:

https://c4.staticflickr.com/4/3898/15142862698_bf9e98119c_b.jpg

Note the confirmation time: Only ~11 minutes to get the tx confirmed with nary a fee. I say that's an impossibility for HashTrade to transfer a million dollars worth of BTC to BFL via BitPay if they do indeed maintain the 1QAHVyRzkmD4j1pU5W89htZ3c6D6E7iWDs bitcoin wallet address, of which I'm 100% confident they DO NOT!

BFL/Sonny Vleisides owns the 1QAHVyRzkmD4j1pU5W89htZ3c6D6E7iWDs bitcoin wallet address, as well as the 1EXDF4fvjRozJ96TjF4SPN7rbTx2ik6Dsd BWA, for all the bitcoins that make up the 437.646 BTC to round the wallet up to 6,000 BTC also stemmed from BFL.

BitPay may very well control the 16fus1FKurpDmPtEZLGbg7vRYtH2TEFbYf BWA used to funnel the infamous $1M USD from supposedly HashTrade to BFL, but, again, I contend that said funds were redirected back to BFL's control via parameters they set on their BitPay account.

The only thing that puzzles me now is how if BitPay was used as the payment service provider for the $1M USD transaction, why were no tx fees accrued?

To recap...

Sonny Vleisides owned the 1Hq2t6dJcxqZjGda919p4c4tmopNRLciAJ BWA.

Thousands of transactions from BFL ended up going to 1QAHVyRzkmD4j1pU5W89htZ3c6D6E7iWDs.

1QAHVyRzkmD4j1pU5W89htZ3c6D6E7iWDs was claimed to be owned by HashTrade to pay the $1M USD down payment for BFL Monarchs.

The $1M USD payment from 1QAHVyRzkmD4j1pU5W89htZ3c6D6E7iWDs plus other transactions stemming from BFL totally 6,000 BTC went to the 1EXDF4fvjRozJ96TjF4SPN7rbTx2ik6Dsd BWA after one hop, supposedly BitPay's BWA 16fus1FKurpDmPtEZLGbg7vRYtH2TEFbYf.

http://www.hashtrade.com/about.html

CoinWare and HashTrade have received substantial venture capital investment from the Jacobson Brothers, in order to help establish these emerging businesses, ensure that they have a strong foundation and secure all the capital equipment necessary to deliver the data processing services that the different business models require.

The Jacobson brothers own the Canadian Bitcoin Embassy and the Miami Bitcoin Embassy, both entities that the Bitcoin Development Fund donated 25 BTC to, of which they, too, have yet to liquidate as seen here: https://blockchain.info/address/1LAT5Zzf12cZqDy86ee2mcWhNZpk9DLf1D. Furthermore, I can easily show other BFL moneys flowing to this very address, not to mention from pools closely aligned with BFL.

All that said, which Bitcoin-themed periodical is going to be the first to publish this revelation? And, why haven't nary a one uncovered any of this before?

~Bruno Kucinskas

Holy cow man, there is so much information, I'm not sure if you are defending them by saying they did pay someone a million dollars to get stuff done, or are saying they moved stuff around a lot or what the bottom line is here. WoW you have a lot of info here,, curious as to how you keep track of it all. Interesting read non the less. (Not sure how to add spoilers here, if there is a way, feel free to let me know to save reposting all the picture in full)

[HELP.org]

...just quoting so you can't delete it. Recommending people to sue the forum  

So you say we should all go along with scamming newcomers?  Is that why you are here?  The forum operators should give back the money and if they do not they should be prosecuted and sued like BFL and the other people who got caught on this forum:  

http://www.sec.gov/News/PressRelease/Detail/PressRelease/1370539730583#.VCMTvOl0ypo
http://www.sec.gov/News/PressRelease/Detail/PressRelease/1370541972520#.VCMT3ul0ypo

A new forum run by new people can easily be set up.

Recommend suing the forum, is like saying you should sue the other companies for supporting a site that happens to have advertised a company that went belly up, the owner of BFL may be a con/thief or whatever you want to call them, but he was obviously paying the bills for advertising. The forum is just interested in advertising revenue, and has a clear comment that you should basically do your research before buying from anyone. Everyone who doesn't do their research, is a little foolish IMHO. If they got scammed this is extremely unfortunate, and I wish no Ill will to anyone and their hard earned cash, but come on. its easy to find review sites for just about anything these days.

As far as new comers, they can make a decision on their own who to buy equipment from based on feedback, and there was/is plenty of feedback to support the notion NOT to buy BFL and others here and the WWW, and the a place like (as example only) Bitmain and their record for on time delivery quality control, should maybe be considered above BFL. I haven't looked at the rating guide dogie or someone has regarding the manufacturers, but likely BFL isn't high on the list (I could be wrong, if I am I would question that then).

I might also add, that the comment that the site does not endorse blah blah, not be a disclaimer, but some pretty straight forward advice. Saying some people are crooks (read between the lines basically). Regardless of "when" the comment was added, it was still added, and likely hindsight was 20/20, and they realised after the fact they should put this little tidbit there. It is a good idea in any case to have it there, since this game does have it's fair share of dishonest people (Which is extremely unfortunate).

No, there is a huge difference between just running ads and running ads when you know people will be defrauded.  Any reasonable person would have known what was going on.  I certainly knew and I haven been complaining since early 2013 and so did the people running this site.  This site received thousands and thousands of complaints, it wasn't something they had no idea about as so they put up that disclaimer thing.  The disclaimer is worthless in a case like that and since it was put up after the complaints it would be seen more as an admission of guilt and it certainly won't limit any liability. 

Beyond the legal liability the people running this site should return the money for the good of Bitcoin  because they are damaging Bitcoin's reputation by acting in an irresponsible manner.  Everybody knows the money was stolen and they overpaid for ads on here for the purpose of scamming people.  As the link I provided shows they were outbidding other people and spending thousands per week on ads here.  This is money stolen from newcomers who were trying to get involved in Bitcoin and they fell into a trap set by the people who run Bitcointalk.  Yes, you can blame the people for being stupid with their money but that is not a license to go around ripping people off.

[Gleb Gamow]

^^^Milly and I had our run-ins, but I have to admit the above makes sense. Thanks, Milly, for your insight.

[ANTIcentralized]

...just quoting so you can't delete it. Recommending people to sue the forum  

So you say we should all go along with scamming newcomers?  Is that why you are here?  The forum operators should give back the money and if they do not they should be prosecuted and sued like BFL and the other people who got caught on this forum:  

http://www.sec.gov/News/PressRelease/Detail/PressRelease/1370539730583#.VCMTvOl0ypo
http://www.sec.gov/News/PressRelease/Detail/PressRelease/1370541972520#.VCMT3ul0ypo

A new forum run by new people can easily be set up.

Recommend suing the forum, is like saying you should sue the other companies for supporting a site that happens to have advertised a company that went belly up, the owner of BFL may be a con/thief or whatever you want to call them, but he was obviously paying the bills for advertising. The forum is just interested in advertising revenue, and has a clear comment that you should basically do your research before buying from anyone. Everyone who doesn't do their research, is a little foolish IMHO. If they got scammed this is extremely unfortunate, and I wish no Ill will to anyone and their hard earned cash, but come on. its easy to find review sites for just about anything these days.

As far as new comers, they can make a decision on their own who to buy equipment from based on feedback, and there was/is plenty of feedback to support the notion NOT to buy BFL and others here and the WWW, and the a place like (as example only) Bitmain and their record for on time delivery quality control, should maybe be considered above BFL. I haven't looked at the rating guide dogie or someone has regarding the manufacturers, but likely BFL isn't high on the list (I could be wrong, if I am I would question that then).

I might also add, that the comment that the site does not endorse blah blah, not be a disclaimer, but some pretty straight forward advice. Saying some people are crooks (read between the lines basically). Regardless of "when" the comment was added, it was still added, and likely hindsight was 20/20, and they realised after the fact they should put this little tidbit there. It is a good idea in any case to have it there, since this game does have it's fair share of dishonest people (Which is extremely unfortunate).

No, there is a huge difference between just running ads and running ads when you know people will be defrauded.  Any reasonable person would have known what was going on.  I certainly knew and I haven been complaining since early 2013 and so did the people running this site.  This site received thousands and thousands of complaints, it wasn't something they had no idea about as so they put up that disclaimer thing.  The disclaimer is worthless in a case like that and since it was put up after the complaints it would be seen more as an admission of guilt and it certainly won't limit any liability. 

Beyond the legal liability the people running this site should return the money for the good of Bitcoin  because they are damaging Bitcoin's reputation by acting in an irresponsible manner.  Everybody knows the money was stolen and they overpaid for ads on here for the purpose of scamming people.  As the link I provided shows they were outbidding other people and spending thousands per week on ads here.  This is money stolen from newcomers who were trying to get involved in Bitcoin and they fell into a trap set by the people who run Bitcointalk.  Yes, you can blame the people for being stupid with their money but that is not a license to go around ripping people off.

If any reasonable person would know that customers are getting defrauded then running their ads will not change anything as a reasonable person would look at the ads and know they would get defrauded if they did business with them.

Publishers have a very high standard that needs to be reached before the publisher declines to run an ad. The publisher should make it clear that the banner is in fact an advertisement and any person looking at it should know that it is nothing more then an advertisement. If the site did censor these ads (or other ads when there is only an elevated chance of fraud) then they would be essentially endorsing any other ad that they run and the forum is not able to investigate the advertisers to this degree

[51percemt]

...just quoting so you can't delete it. Recommending people to sue the forum  

So you say we should all go along with scamming newcomers?  Is that why you are here?  The forum operators should give back the money and if they do not they should be prosecuted and sued like BFL and the other people who got caught on this forum:  

http://www.sec.gov/News/PressRelease/Detail/PressRelease/1370539730583#.VCMTvOl0ypo
http://www.sec.gov/News/PressRelease/Detail/PressRelease/1370541972520#.VCMT3ul0ypo

A new forum run by new people can easily be set up.

Recommend suing the forum, is like saying you should sue the other companies for supporting a site that happens to have advertised a company that went belly up, the owner of BFL may be a con/thief or whatever you want to call them, but he was obviously paying the bills for advertising. The forum is just interested in advertising revenue, and has a clear comment that you should basically do your research before buying from anyone. Everyone who doesn't do their research, is a little foolish IMHO. If they got scammed this is extremely unfortunate, and I wish no Ill will to anyone and their hard earned cash, but come on. its easy to find review sites for just about anything these days.

As far as new comers, they can make a decision on their own who to buy equipment from based on feedback, and there was/is plenty of feedback to support the notion NOT to buy BFL and others here and the WWW, and the a place like (as example only) Bitmain and their record for on time delivery quality control, should maybe be considered above BFL. I haven't looked at the rating guide dogie or someone has regarding the manufacturers, but likely BFL isn't high on the list (I could be wrong, if I am I would question that then).

I might also add, that the comment that the site does not endorse blah blah, not be a disclaimer, but some pretty straight forward advice. Saying some people are crooks (read between the lines basically). Regardless of "when" the comment was added, it was still added, and likely hindsight was 20/20, and they realised after the fact they should put this little tidbit there. It is a good idea in any case to have it there, since this game does have it's fair share of dishonest people (Which is extremely unfortunate).

I agree. The forum's job is not to make sure that it's users do not get scammed. It is not a newspapers job (which the forum can be compared to) to make sure that an advertiser is complying with the law to the "t". 

[elvizzzzzzz]

RE: suing the forum

Hmmm  .... and from this day on any newcomer can rely on every promise advertised as true and valid?

I do not think so. That logic is the same as attempting to prove a negative. It will not work. That said,
at some point the forum has to refuse advertising. If they continue to accept copy when a criminal
prosecution is in progress, then maybe there is a chance of successfully suing for return of some of the
money stolen, but not otherwise imho.

What part of caveat emptor do these newcomers not understand?

[HELP.org]

The apologists have chimed in.  It is funny how all these people scream of corruption and lies from the traditional banking system but when it happens in a Bitcoin forum we here the same old familiar excuses.  Nobody said it was the forum's job to police things outside their control, the issue is conspiring with people when you know they are breaking the law.  A reasonable newcomer is not the same thing as a reasonable person who has significant knowledge of the issues.   The last three posts were hyperbole and they try to divert attention from the actual issue.

The people running the forum had enough knowledge to know the ads they were running were fraudulent and they continued to run the ads in the face a huge backlash.  The forum finally put up that disclaimer and kept running the ads after they had even more information about the situation and worked closely with the people involved.  In a  situation like that the site may very well be liable.  There is also the issues of promoting other things like inputs.io which was known by the site to be fake bank loaning out the funds which, of course, were eventually lost.

The theory that it is alright to scam newcomers because they should have known better is not going to go over well with most people, including the people on this forum.  That is evidenced by the thousands of complaints received by regulators about BFL, pirateat40, Mt. Gox, and on and on.  It seems Bitcoiners are like most other people and they want regulators to step in when things go wrong. 

If people lost due to answering ads here they very well may have a claim.  If the people who run this forum were concerned about Bitcoin they would voluntarily start refunding the money to the people that got ripped off.  They knew all along what was going to happen.