[CLOSED] ★ VESCUDERO's Risk-free Weekly Term deposits at 1.5% ★

[JoelKatz]

weekly interest only comes from new investment.  

Unless you can prove this, you should not use such statements.

He can, and he did. No other conceivable substantial source is known and this has been true of every similar claim in the past. You don't have to rule out every inconceivable alternative to have proven something. Proof doesn't require omniscience, just reasonable certainty.

In context, it's clear that "only" doesn't rule out the possibility that some miniscule amount occasionally comes from some other source. "Only" can mean the only substantial factor or effect. For example, "Don't argue, you'll only make him mad" doesn't mean that you won't also cause air to vibrate.

Although I appreciate the fact that you are trying to warn people, you should say: 'I think this is a ponzi' or 'I strongly believe this is a ponzi' or 'If this is not a ponzi, I will give you all my money*', but not 'This is a ponzi'

There is no difference. When a person makes a claim, they are stating that they believe that claim is true. We understand that people are neither perfect nor omniscient.

If I say "Your wife is cheating on you", every rational person who understands the English language knows that I mean that I have reason to believe their wife is cheating on them. You would not conclude that it must be the case that she is in fact cheating on you. Nor would you believe that I was stating that logical proposition just to bring it up for discussion. The most natural interpretation of "Your wife is cheating on you" is that the speaker has reasons that he believes justify believing that your wife is cheating on you. "I think your wife is cheating on you" says precisely the same thing, just more weakly.

There is absolutely no reason he should weaken his warning. In fact, if he could think of any way to make it stronger, he should do that.

[nrd525]

Avast (anti-virus) says malware on the personal website (could be a false positive, though they are pretty rare, I cannot tell ).  What is up with that?  Could be an infected advertisement, or hack?

High rate of interest.  Steady high rate of interest.  No business model.

[Fortega]

If I say "Your wife is cheating on you", every rational person who understands the English language knows that I mean that I have reason to believe their wife is cheating on them.

Maybe it's a language issue (as I'm not native English speaking), but I would never say "Your wife is cheating on you", unless:
- I had sex with your wife.
OR
- I have seen (prove of) someone else having sex with your wife
OR
- someone I really trust told me "His wife is cheating on him".

[P4man]

Unless you can prove this, you should not use such statements.

You cant prove a ponzi. Claiming something is a ponzi is claiming there is no profit generator. How do you prove a negative? The burden of proof lays with whoever says its not a ponzi, primarily of course with the person taking in the deposits,  since that person is claiming there is a profit generator that can produce 1.5% per week. If he cant prove or at the very least feasibly explain  that profit generator, it has to be assumed a ponzi.

To use a Rumsfeld:  absence of evidence is evidence for a ponzi.

To use another "boutade" (*); Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Being able to consistently produce 1.5% profits per week at no risk is certainly an extraordinary claim.

(*) No idea what the correct english word is here for an overused expression.

[Mosrite]

PONZI ALERT

[0xz[.]]

Please, I would like that from now you pay me interest to this address:

    14JSnBTpAdhT8QVUaeDanp3HgmkKdoGDDa

Thanks
Greetings



Hola:
Por favor Victor. Te agradecería que a partir de ahora me pagues los intereses a esta dirección:

     14JSnBTpAdhT8QVUaeDanp3HgmkKdoGDDa

Un saludo

[BadBitcoin (James Sutton)]

weekly interest only comes from new investment.  

Unless you can prove this, you should not use such statements.

He can, and he did. No other conceivable substantial source is known and this has been true of every similar claim in the past. You don't have to rule out every inconceivable alternative to have proven something. Proof doesn't require omniscience, just reasonable certainty.

In context, it's clear that "only" doesn't rule out the possibility that some miniscule amount occasionally comes from some other source. "Only" can mean the only substantial factor or effect. For example, "Don't argue, you'll only make him mad" doesn't mean that you won't also cause air to vibrate.

Although I appreciate the fact that you are trying to warn people, you should say: 'I think this is a ponzi' or 'I strongly believe this is a ponzi' or 'If this is not a ponzi, I will give you all my money*', but not 'This is a ponzi'

There is no difference. When a person makes a claim, they are stating that they believe that claim is true. We understand that people are neither perfect nor omniscient.

If I say "Your wife is cheating on you", every rational person who understands the English language knows that I mean that I have reason to believe their wife is cheating on them. You would not conclude that it must be the case that she is in fact cheating on you. Nor would you believe that I was stating that logical proposition just to bring it up for discussion. The most natural interpretation of "Your wife is cheating on you" is that the speaker has reasons that he believes justify believing that your wife is cheating on you. "I think your wife is cheating on you" says precisely the same thing, just more weakly.

There is absolutely no reason he should weaken his warning. In fact, if he could think of any way to make it stronger, he should do that.

I don't understand, why do you guys care what other people do with their money? I love investing in ponzi's, great returns, just spread your risk and you are fine, its like gambling, don't play with what you can't afford to lose, simple as that.

[memvola]

I don't understand, why do you guys care what other people do with their money? I love investing in ponzi's, great returns, just spread your risk and you are fine, its like gambling, don't play with what you can't afford to lose, simple as that.

The concern is, naive people will be suckered into them, lose a lot of money, which will give Bitcoin a bad name. I'm not convinced that it's true though, especially after pirate. Another reason could be a potential chain collapse of legitimate looking businesses because of these investments. Yesterday I met a person who has lost money to pirate while trying to buy coins cash-in-the-mail, apparently the seller was keeping his stash in pirate. If I were convinced that these are Ponzi schemes, I'd say they are stealing money away from legitimate investments that have real potential to grow Bitcoin. So yes, I think there are enough reasons to care, if you suspect it's a scam.

[JoelKatz]

I don't understand, why do you guys care what other people do with their money? I love investing in ponzi's, great returns, just spread your risk and you are fine, its like gambling, don't play with what you can't afford to lose, simple as that.

Fraud is not at all like gambling. If you love investing in Ponzis, then you love paying people to steal things and give them to you.

[Gavin Andresen]

Fraud is telling people lies to get them to do something or making promises you know you can't keep.

In my humble opinion, promising people "Risk-free" returns is fraud. Even US Treasury Bills are not "risk free."

[VEscudero]

I would like to clarify the concept of my risk-free operation at least a little bit to avoid some confusion.

As any other business, my operation has some implicit risks, risks that I am willing to take in order for me to get higher although variable returns, in exchange for paying out fixed interest rates to my investors. Perhaps, instead of risk-free deposit it might be better described as a guaranteed one.

I am always trying to keep my deposit manageable in terms of size and amount of time I can devote to my investors. The primary reason to put a limit in my deposit is to maintain an adequate balance between the time I can devote to my investors and the time I can devote myself to make good investment decisions and make lending operations to keep my business profitable.

Current weekly interest rate could be and will be adjusted accordingly to this criteria.

[JoelKatz]

As any other business, my operation has some implicit risks, risks that I am willing to take in order for me to get higher although variable returns, in exchange for paying out fixed interest rates to my investors. Perhaps, instead of risk-free deposit it might be better described as a guaranteed one.

In other words, you take all the risk but keep only a sliver of the profits. If you have the money to guarantee deposits, why wouldn't you just use the guarantee money instead of paying usurious interest rates? It would be like somebody having $50,000 in a safe while they carry $50,000 on their credit cards. There are two possibilities:

1) You are lying about this, in which case nobody should trust you with their money because you are a liar.

2) You are telling the truth about this, in which case nobody should trust you with their money because your financials decisions are idiotic.

[VEscudero]

Please, I would like that from now you pay me interest to this address:

    14JSnBTpAdhT8QVUaeDanp3HgmkKdoGDDa

Thanks
Greetings

PM sent.

For security reasons, once a return address has been setup I don't allow changes. Otherwise if a hacker gains access to your bitcointalk account she/he could just ask me to send all your coins from the deposit to an address under her/his control.

Fortunately, there are still some easy ways to get this done safely so with a little more effort we can work it out.

EDIT: Return address has been changed after getting through several security checks.

[Gladamas]

Please, I would like that from now you pay me interest to this address:

    14JSnBTpAdhT8QVUaeDanp3HgmkKdoGDDa

Thanks
Greetings

PM sent.

For security reasons, once a return address has been setup I don't allow changes. Otherwise if a hacker gains access to your bitcointalk account she/he could just ask me to send all your coins from the deposit to an address under her/his control.

Fortunately, there are still some easy ways to get this done safely so with a little more effort we can work it out.

EDIT: Return address has been changed after getting through several security checks.

I assume you had them sign a message with their old payment address?

[VEscudero]

I assume you had them sign a message with their old payment address?

There are several methods, sign with old payment address, pgp signed message from members that already sent me their withdrawal address signed at the time of their first deposit, withdraw funds to old return address and then resend to the deposit address, ...

In that case at hand, it was much easier than that because I already knew '0xz[.]' even before he decided to invest in my deposit.

I knew him from the Spanish group in Facebook 'Bitcoin España', google+, also we met each other in the 1st Bitcon Party hold in Spain and because I have sold him several hundreds BTCs (nearly 1K) in exchange for cash. I simply contacted him through another channel and ask him to phone me to the number I gave him long time ago.

I guess this is another way of applying the KYC rules (a.k.a 'Know Your Customer')

[zyk]

I think they're scams, too. It is impossible to get risk-free 1.5% weekly interest, I don't care how good you are at "playing the market" or "choosing who to lend to."

Not really impossible.. it's just very difficult to do so consistently for more than a few months. I've witnessed first hand much higher rates of return for a 6 month period (then they crashed).

Of course if vescudero stops and returns the funds as soon as his arbitrage opportunity disappears, or his trading strategy stops working, assuming the last batch of losses himself, then this can work well for him as a reputation-building exercise. If he expects to do this indefinitely... then it'll probably end up as a ponzi, especially if he tries to cover any losses with more deposits.


So far I've received interest for 3 weeks,  am quite happy with this and think that it's legit. But caution is always advisable.

I have seen this line of thinking before.  It is important to understand there is no underlying business unit here - weekly interest only comes from new investment. 

Veescudero's "arbitrage opportunity" is a myth - think about it guys - there is only 1 exchange of any size.

Come on Lord Micon, keep poker face and don´t loose all your phantasies. Sometimes others got a better hand !

Am with you when asking for the iron broom, but for unfounded accusations there should be guillotines in reserve as well.

Cause a business escapes your perception, doesn´t mean there is none.

Please stick to your sharpness , your trustworthyness is needed.

Thanks Zyk

[bitcoinBull]

Hello investors,

I provide risk-free deposits guaranteed to payout at 1.5% weekly interest rate, no compounding. The deposits will be used for lending out to other borrowers, investing in short term opportunities and investing in other bitcoin projects. All my depositor's funds are 100% guaranteed and will not lose any funds due to any defaults.

[Micon]

Fraud is telling people lies to get them to do something or making promises you know you can't keep.

In my humble opinion, promising people "Risk-free" returns is fraud. Even US Treasury Bills are not "risk free."

don't take Gavin's interest in these scams lightly.  This is the lead Bitcoin programmer posting here.  This means that he feels extremely strongly about how detrimental these scams are for the system he devotes a large % of his life to help further.

Do not invest in these scams.  Not even if you think you can get in, then get out before the bust - in any result you are hurting bitcoin.

[Puppet]

vescudero, will you accept an escrowed bet about your default in the next 6 months?

[zyk]

I accept the bet , if we use Victor as escrow

Don't mess with bitcoin.

Cheers Zyk