Scam Warning: WoodCollector

[MrTeal]

If I were Blazedout I would by taking the BTC to an expert appraiser to determine if it is pink ivory. $14k is definitely worth suing someone over, especially if it's a relatively simple case of fraud that only peripherally involves Bitcoin.

I was the guy woodcollecter was going to hire to build the Tor hidden service. Woodcollector told me in a PM he always uses Tor and is "anonymous", so I assume getting his real identity may be somewhat difficult.

Could be. I'd hope he would have gotten more information on the guy before ponying over $14k, but who knows.

According to the trust WC sent blazedout419, he shipped the piece to him and blazedout419 paid him after it was received. Since he got what he thought he paid for there was no reason to withhold payment.

Yeah, I'm not really questioning that. He obviously trusted the guy. This is a bit of a special case though, it's not a $14,000 lot of mining hardware whose value is easily verified. A "custom, one-of-a-kind" piece of art like this has its value inexorably linked to the creator. It's the difference between a piece worth $14k and a piece worth $140. This guy is a Michelangelo selling $300,000 pieces to businesses to put into their offices; before I fork over a huge sum of cash (though still a bargain given the caliber of the artist) for an original work you could bet I'd want to at least make sure the guy's a real artist and not some mutated turtle.

[1715677626]

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[1715677626]

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[jonald_fyookball]

@bitspill...that was just an example URL posted by nubbins
to show that YouTube gives you a URL upon STARTING
THE UPLOAD....Which WC photoshopped out apparently.
the fact that nubbins removed the example is irrelevant.

only relevant point is: where is WC's vid?  

[Quickseller]

If I were Blazedout I would by taking the BTC to an expert appraiser to determine if it is pink ivory. $14k is definitely worth suing someone over, especially if it's a relatively simple case of fraud that only peripherally involves Bitcoin.

I was the guy woodcollecter was going to hire to build the Tor hidden service. Woodcollector told me in a PM he always uses Tor and is "anonymous", so I assume getting his real identity may be somewhat difficult.

Could be. I'd hope he would have gotten more information on the guy before ponying over $14k, but who knows.

According to the trust WC sent blazedout419, he shipped the piece to him and blazedout419 paid him after it was received. Since he got what he thought he paid for there was no reason to withhold payment.

Yeah, I'm not really questioning that. He obviously trusted the guy. This is a bit of a special case though, it's not a $14,000 lot of mining hardware whose value is easily verified. A "custom, one-of-a-kind" piece of art like this has its value inexorably linked to the creator. It's the difference between a piece worth $14k and a piece worth $140. This guy is a Michelangelo selling $300,000 pieces to businesses to put into their offices; before I fork over a huge sum of cash (though still a bargain given the caliber of the artist) for an original work you could bet I'd want to at least make sure the guy's a real artist and not some mutated turtle.

Well the thing is that he didn't really have any reason not to trust him. WC was a very mysterious person at first (more so then he is now). From what I can tell from WC's post history is that blazedout419 approached him for a 1 BTC piece at first and after they did that deal blazed purchased the $18k piece. I have no idea what representations that WC made to blazed however I kind of get the impression that he didn't really promise very much except to spend a lot of time on it (IIRC WC did say that the pieces that he sells here use a cheaper wood then he usually uses).

To be fair to blazed, I would say that what he purchased probably would be worth nearly as much as he paid for it to a true bitcoin enthusiast because of it's bitcoin theme. The same is true for WC's other work as well. I somewhat doubt that the demand was so high for WC's work because it was "hand made/carved", the demand was there because of it's bitcoin theme. I would say that WC would probably not be able to sell his work for 10% of what he was selling it for if he was able to hypothetically prove he actually does hand carve everything but everything that he made was 100% unrelated to bitcoin.

[bitspill]

@bitspill...that was just an example URL posted by nubbins

Ah, yes, my bad. Guess I wasn't reading closely enough.

[smoothie]

Wow in the last 2 days this many negative feedback should say something as not all of us are "competitors" of his and are neutral parties with no skin in the game:




nubbins 11: -0 / +6(6)   2015-01-21   0.00000000   Reference   
Confirmed scammer and art thief. Misrepresents machine-cut work as being hand-carved so he can charge exorbitant prices. Steals art from real artists and uses it without attribution.

e1ghtSpace 0: -0 / +0(0)   2015-01-23   0.00000000      
Sells cheap laser engraved pieces of wood as though they are hand carved. Apparently uploading "proof" in a video on youtube but the URL is not visible. He will probably say his internet cut out in a few hours and he lost all of his upload progress.


fluffypony 3: -0 / +3(3)   2015-01-23   0.00000000   Reference   
Everyone is entitled to make a profit in their business. It's even ok to make a fat profit, I don't care. But at 3400% it's a scam.

Mitchełł 17: -0 / +12(12)   2015-01-23   0.00000000      
Sells cheap laser engraved wood coins as "hand carved" ones.

smoothie 16: -0 / +9(9)   2015-01-23   0.00000000   Reference   
Misrepresented himself as creating original artwork/designs and instead uses clip art off the internet. Refuses to return $200 deposit of user LaserViking despite having misrepresented himself as creating original artwork. Once LazerViking caught wind of this WCollector refused to refund deposit and went on an immature rant of cussing and insulting. Very immature. Has still failed to provide irrefutable evidence that his work is not created with a laser engraver after having several dozen requests for him to provide such evidence. Is selling overpriced artwork that is advertised as original and hand-carved when it is not.

Tomatocage 63: -0 / +31(31)   2015-01-23   0.00000000      
Fraud. Peddling cheap laser engraved pieces if wood, advertising them as "hand carved"

Sakarias-Corporation 0: -0 / +1(1)   2015-01-23   0.00000000      
i've been making my own Pipes by hand for some years now and its clear that these Creations are Fake. Laser cut.

LazerViking 0: -0 / +1(1)   2015-01-23   1.00000000      
This guy stole my money. I commissioned a wood bitcoin from him and down paid 1 BTC. 3 days later, when the truth came out that all of his pieces are designs taken off straight off the internet, I requested a refund. He refused to give my 1 BTC back. The guy is misrepresenting his pieces as original works of art. He asks the customer all sorts of questions about who they are as a person and what makes them tick and how they want piece designed, and says that he will give them a "sketch" of the their description along with what he envisions. But his designs are literally copied right off the internet, down to every little detail. It is a fraud. DO NOT GIVE THIS MAN ANY MONEY.

qwk 8: -0 / +5(5)   2015-01-21   0.00000000   
Reference   without further evidence I'll regard his works as NOT hand-carved. I consider his claims scam.

danielpbarron -4: -1 / +0(0)   2015-01-20   0.00000000   
Reference   His response to nubbins` fraud accusation seems dodgy.

BigBitz 22: -0 / +11(11)   2015-01-20   0.00000000      
I do not believe he is physically hand crafting these pieces. I am willing to be proved wrong if he posts a video of him performing the carving.

Good now we have a convenient list for when its time for slices of that shit sandwich to be handed out.

Lol buddy you sound really butthurt on so many levels.

Please, enlighten me about what in this situation I have to be butthurt about? I have almost no involvement with any of the parties here. In fact I was a satisfied customer of Nubbins... tell me exactly what I have at stake here please. You sound fearful. Fearful that you may have made a mistake.

Your language of choice says a lot. What do I have to fear?

Being wrong? Please... Lol

Waiting for irrefutable evidence of WC's claims.

It was I who first asked him about his work in early dec 2014 where he so eloquently wanted to take the discussion of his work being compared to laser engraving off of the forum.

See here:

From what I gather from the photos you posted above it seems to me (from what I can see) that your piece looks more like this https://i.imgur.com/CoDNGQm.jpg than this https://i.imgur.com/CoDNGQm.jpg

If I am not mistaken it does look a bit flat from the pictures. Could you elaborate to me how it is not like the first link I pasted above?

Lasers also have the ability to go at different depths. I would imagine other more specialized lasers have the ability to move the laser in a 3-dimensional space to carve out an image like the second link you provided above.

All one would need to do is provide the 3dimensional vector image to the system and it would do something as complex as the second link.

Then again that last part I am just guessing as I have not used a 3d laser (if it exists).

Shoot me a PM smoothie, i will go more into detail for you, or do you maybe have skype? I dont want to clutter up the thread with a pages full of talk about the difference between laser engraving and carving. On skype we could have conversation, you could teach me some things i dont know about laser engraving, and i can teach you about the process and results of carving.

People who are butthurt tend to use certain types of language, and yes it appears you are given your language. "Shit sandwich" lol

I've not followed too closely but wasn't there another incident about leaving trust where you got all defensive and didn't get support from people you thought you were entitled?

Even if his claims are true about "hand carved" the guy lied and misrepresented himself in doing original/ custom artwork. Then to use that excuse to steal a customers deposit because the customer was not aware the work was not original. That incident in itself makes the guy a scammer.

See here for evidence:

This was lost in the hard drive crash, but luckily I took a screenshot.

Here's a "master wood carver" who makes ten million dollars a year, calling his detractors fags:

For references to his implication he created origin/custom work see here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=930649.msg10233004#msg10233004
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=930649.msg10232954#msg10232954
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=930649.msg10232822#msg10232822
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=930649.msg10232857#msg10232857
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=930649.msg10232885#msg10232885

[smoothie]

@TECSHARE read this:

Hi guys, It seems i have been able to find the answer to all my other problems through Bitcoin and its community so here goes another attempt.

I am looking to have a laser engraver engineered that does not suffer from the "straight line" problem.

The straight line problem can be better understood by watching this video

Buying and off the shelf laser engraver means i could only engrave things that are round which have a perfectly straight line to write on, So something like a vase which has curves cannot be engraved as the laser is out of focus on any part of the vase that is not on the focus line.

I would be willing to offer a negotiable fee or bounty to anyone who could solve this engineering problem. You would not need to build the actual machine. Just provide engineering documents and a parts list so i could build it DIY style.

Thanks

 

 

i'm still waiting for the video from WC. 

[EyesWideOpen]

@TECSHARE read this:

Hi guys, It seems i have been able to find the answer to all my other problems through Bitcoin and its community so here goes another attempt.

I am looking to have a laser engraver engineered that does not suffer from the "straight line" problem.

The straight line problem can be better understood by watching this video

Buying and off the shelf laser engraver means i could only engrave things that are round which have a perfectly straight line to write on, So something like a vase which has curves cannot be engraved as the laser is out of focus on any part of the vase that is not on the focus line.

I would be willing to offer a negotiable fee or bounty to anyone who could solve this engineering problem. You would not need to build the actual machine. Just provide engineering documents and a parts list so i could build it DIY style.

Thanks

 

 

i'm still waiting for the video from WC. 

The quote above shows WoodCollector uses laser engravers.

This collection of quotes by LazerViking shows WoodCollector lied about his sketching.

There was also another quote where he falsely claimed the lion stock image was provided by his customer after being caught. When the customer denied it, WoodCollector accused the customer of trying to blackmail him.

His claims about the $12,600 pink wood and the great difficulty to obtain it has also been proven to be false. Fluffypony even linked a site where the wood can be obtained for less than $50.

Then there are stories about crafting designs for Hollywood actors, owning three multimillion dollar businesses, selling $300k designs, able to rain hell on people who try to cross him, etc.

Considering all this, and since no one knows what he looks like, what is stopping this scam artist from hiring a real expert carver to masquerade as himself? The unbelievable excuse of taking two days to upload a video, camera running out of battery and all the fake indignation might just be ploys to buy time to find and hire someone. He spent the entire day today using his sock (TeraHasher), so he clearly depends on this forum for work. With the kind of margin he's getting here, spending a few thousand dollars to establish a fake credibility is a great investment.

Someone should post a link of his design that he sold to Blazeout for $14k on a woodworkers forum to elicit feedback from real professionals.

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

@TECSHARE read this:

Hi guys, It seems i have been able to find the answer to all my other problems through Bitcoin and its community so here goes another attempt.

I am looking to have a laser engraver engineered that does not suffer from the "straight line" problem.

The straight line problem can be better understood by watching this video

Buying and off the shelf laser engraver means i could only engrave things that are round which have a perfectly straight line to write on, So something like a vase which has curves cannot be engraved as the laser is out of focus on any part of the vase that is not on the focus line.

I would be willing to offer a negotiable fee or bounty to anyone who could solve this engineering problem. You would not need to build the actual machine. Just provide engineering documents and a parts list so i could build it DIY style.

Thanks

 

 

i'm still waiting for the video from WC. 

The quote above shows WoodCollector uses laser engravers.

This collection of quotes by LazerViking shows WoodCollector lied about his sketching.

There was also another quote where he falsely claimed the lion stock image was provided by his customer after being caught. When the customer denied it, WoodCollector accused the customer of trying to blackmail him.

His claims about the $12,600 pink wood and the great difficulty to obtain it has also been proven to be false. Fluffypony even linked a site where the wood can be obtained for less than $50.

Then there are stories about crafting designs for Hollywood actors, owning three multimillion dollar businesses, selling $300k designs, able to rain hell on people who try to cross him, etc.

Considering all this, and since no one knows what he looks like, what is stopping this scam artist from hiring a real expert carver to masquerade as himself? The unbelievable excuse of taking two days to upload a video, camera running out of battery and all the fake indignation might just be ploys to buy time to find and hire someone. He spent the entire day today using his sock (TeraHasher), so he clearly depends on this forum for work. With the kind of margin he's getting here, spending a few thousand dollars to establish a fake credibility is a great investment.

Someone should post a link of his design that he sold to Blazeout for $14k on a woodworkers forum to elicit feedback from real professionals.

Wait...WHAT?!?

[bitspill]

sold to Blazeout for $14k

Wait...WHAT?!?

Yep. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=864472.msg9588621#msg9588621

[alani123]

He must also be pretty bad a video rendering. I mean, 5000 minutes? What was he uploading? An 8k .RAW?

[cshelswell]

I'm not sure there ever was to be a video. Never did think his work was very good, nobody ever makes bad cuts on wood then say he wanted it to look unfinished. A master carver would never never leave those poor cuts

[alani123]

Well, tbh the prices seemed a bit suspicious. He took advantage of the entire forum fr a while since no one experienced enough had noticed him. His work seemed interesting and unique to most people at start.

[MrTeal]

Well the thing is that he didn't really have any reason not to trust him. WC was a very mysterious person at first (more so then he is now). From what I can tell from WC's post history is that blazedout419 approached him for a 1 BTC piece at first and after they did that deal blazed purchased the $18k piece. I have no idea what representations that WC made to blazed however I kind of get the impression that he didn't really promise very much except to spend a lot of time on it (IIRC WC did say that the pieces that he sells here use a cheaper wood then he usually uses).

To be fair to blazed, I would say that what he purchased probably would be worth nearly as much as he paid for it to a true bitcoin enthusiast because of it's bitcoin theme. The same is true for WC's other work as well. I somewhat doubt that the demand was so high for WC's work because it was "hand made/carved", the demand was there because of it's bitcoin theme. I would say that WC would probably not be able to sell his work for 10% of what he was selling it for if he was able to hypothetically prove he actually does hand carve everything but everything that he made was 100% unrelated to bitcoin.

Yeah, I'm also a little surprised at how BTC1 ballooned into BTC40. It makes me wonder if that's the price that he actually paid, or whether that's *ahem* appraised value. Regardless of what caused the value of the piece to be so high though, I just find it incredulous that such a well regarded member would pay $14k for a commissioned piece of art without knowing who the artist is. Unfortunately I'm constantly surprised by the things people do here, so it won't take me long to pick my jaw up off the floor if Blazedout has no idea who the guy is.

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

sold to Blazeout for $14k

Wait...WHAT?!?

Yep. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=864472.msg9588621#msg9588621

"You are very gullible. For $14,000 I can fix that..."

[bitspill]

I just find it incredulous that such a well regarded member would pay $14k for a commissioned piece of art without knowing who the artist is.

From my understanding the piece was shipped to Blazed then after his approval the payment was sent. So he knew what he was getting and was satisfied with the price.


This whole thing sort of makes me think of Best Buy selling Gold HDMI cables for a high markup claiming it produces a better picture and audio quality than a standard HDMI cable even though that is entirely false. Some people are willing to pay the markup and others know better. It doesn't necessarily mean Best Buy is scamming their customers, even though they could get the same quality from Amazon on a cheaper cable.

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

I just find it incredulous that such a well regarded member would pay $14k for a commissioned piece of art without knowing who the artist is.

From my understanding the piece was shipped to Blazed then after his approval the payment was sent. So he knew what he was getting and was satisfied with the price.


This whole thing sort of makes me think of Best Buy selling Gold HDMI cables for a high markup claiming it produces a better picture and audio quality than a standard HDMI cable even though that is entirely false. Some people are willing to pay the markup and others know better. It doesn't necessarily mean Best Buy is scamming their customers, even though they could get the same quality from Amazon on a cheaper cable.

Your analogy doesn't do this situation justice. What is the mark-up on those cables? Are they made by retarded half-monkeys?

[bitspill]

I just find it incredulous that such a well regarded member would pay $14k for a commissioned piece of art without knowing who the artist is.

From my understanding the piece was shipped to Blazed then after his approval the payment was sent. So he knew what he was getting and was satisfied with the price.


This whole thing sort of makes me think of Best Buy selling Gold HDMI cables for a high markup claiming it produces a better picture and audio quality than a standard HDMI cable even though that is entirely false. Some people are willing to pay the markup and others know better. It doesn't necessarily mean Best Buy is scamming their customers, even though they could get the same quality from Amazon on a cheaper cable.

Your analogy doesn't do this situation justice. What is the mark-up on those cables? Are they made by retarded half-monkeys?

Best-Buy 6.6' $1495.99 (Don't worry, free shipping)
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/audioquest-diamond-6-6-high-speed-hdmi-cable-dark-gray-blue/2383319.p?id=1218325919542&skuId=2383319

Amazon 100' $59.69 (Free shipping)
http://www.amazon.com/Twisted-Veins-Adapter-Supports-Ethernet/dp/B00FX8Q3NM/ref=sr_1_3?s=audio-video-accessories&ie=UTF8&qid=1422085256&sr=1-3&keywords=100ft

You could buy 25 of those cables, or 2500 feet of cabling with $3.74 left over

That's 378.79 times more cabling for the same price.

So taking WoodCollectors $14,000 work, divide it by 378.79 and you get $36.96.

$40 for that piece of wood run off a laser engraver by Paul Revere for instance wouldn't be a bad deal.

WoodCollector = Best Buy
Paul Rever = Amazon


(This was an extreme case, for illustration purposes)

[MrTeal]

I just find it incredulous that such a well regarded member would pay $14k for a commissioned piece of art without knowing who the artist is.

From my understanding the piece was shipped to Blazed then after his approval the payment was sent. So he knew what he was getting and was satisfied with the price.


This whole thing sort of makes me think of Best Buy selling Gold HDMI cables for a high markup claiming it produces a better picture and audio quality than a standard HDMI cable even though that is entirely false. Some people are willing to pay the markup and others know better. It doesn't necessarily mean Best Buy is scamming their customers, even though they could get the same quality from Amazon on a cheaper cable.

Best Buy is scamming their customers when they sell them an $80 HDMI cable (with protection plan for only $25 more) telling them it gives them better picture or audio quality. That the sales guy doesn't get charged with it is irrelevant.

Regardless, the analogy is not a great one. A better one would be that you bought a 1.5m power cable for your receiver for the low low price of $10,800. They're cryo-treated, hand made and are constructed from the highest purity monocrystalline silver.
When you get it, your amp turns on and you pay the man his money. Later on it turns out that they aren't hand made, they aren't cryo-treated, and it might actually just be a cable salvaged from an old PC with the end chopped off and a new fancy yellow end screwed on.

Did you get scammed? Your amp is still getting power. It's probably working exactly as well as it would with the fancy cable that you paid five figures for. What's the big deal?

[bitspill]

a 1.5m power cable for your receiver

Now that sounds like a guy talking out of his ass.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_crystal
Wikipedia claims that technology isn't even practical yet for distances greater than between components on an IC chip. Although that was cited as 2009, but thecableco.com has copyright 2011 so I doubt they developed that technology within 2 years and don't know how to update a copyright automatically.

[smoothie]

Well, tbh the prices seemed a bit suspicious. He took advantage of the entire forum fr a while since no one experienced enough had noticed him. His work seemed interesting and unique to most people at start.

False. In early Dec 2014 I approached him about his work looking much like laser engraved. He opted to talk off the forum which I never got around to.

I work with a laser engraver and have had time to play around with wood pieces and different vector art both my own and others that are copied.

Looks mighty similar in nature to the work I can create on my end. Not to say I am a pro at all but the similarities in depth and how precise his designs were showed me he was using more than just "hand carving".