
Bitcoin expert scams a scammer, donates the money to charity - pseudolus
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/ben-perrin-bitcoin-1.5238225
======
mentos
Reminds me of a scam in a game called Ultima Online I saw where someone would
pretend to be an NPC and say 'I shall double thy gold if ye trust me' and if
you gave him 5 gold pieces he would give back 10. After a bunch of
transactions someone would inevitably attempt to give him 100,000 gold and
then he would stop working ha

~~~
panarky
Years ago when one Bitcoin was worth less than $20, individuals would run
doubling games on shared Google spreadsheets.

The operator would publish a Bitcoin address and the spreadsheet. Participants
would send whatever amount of Bitcoin they wanted to this address. The
operator would add deposits to the spreadsheet in the order received.

Starting from the top of the list, as soon as the total deposited was enough
to double the first deposit, the operator would send double the amount to that
participant.

Then when total deposits grew enough to double the second deposit, it was paid
out. This continued until there weren't enough new deposits to double the next
in line.

Could be illegal, but it's definitely not a scam because everyone could see
from the beginning that the pyramid must eventually collapse. Many of these
games were actually called "Ponzi" in the name of the spreadsheet.

Some of these games ran a surprisingly long time, months in some cases.

And in the games I played, the anonymous operator never pulled an exit scam.
They profited naturally when deposits eventually dried up and the remainder
was their reward.

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drwl
He scammed a scammer for $50, that's it?

~~~
joelx
I wonder if he committed a crime himself? Would this be prosecutable?

~~~
AstralStorm
Depends. In some places public prosecutor could take interest, but it's
unlikely for a single act.

------
overcast
I got scammed once, in the early days of the crypto craze. I was selling a
video card on Reddit, and the person sent me a forged btc escrow email. I was
naive enough not to pay attention while in a rush, and promptly shipped the
card. Days later, he messages me throwing it in my face how stupid I was, even
posted images of the card in his computer.

Probably thinking I was too stupid to follow up, I began the manhunt. He used
a lot of very similar aliases on Reddit, and the identical email around the
internet tied to publicly displayed IP addresses while scamming others.
Tracerouting those IPs all zeroed in on the same exact town. He also foolishly
used a real mailing address(his friends). The images he posted showed the
serial number of the card I had on file. During this time, he continued to
berate and taunt me from all of his aliases, even asking me tech support
questions on how to fix the undervolting mod I had done to the card. I
remained silent.

My favorite quote. "being a scammer dosen't make someone a bad person, it just
makes them smart for being able to outwit other people into handing over free
money. Thanks for all your help I really appreciate it. Fuck you, and have a
nice day. Next time you shouldn't throw your money around like it's a
boomerang causes it's not gonna come flying back to you every time something
dosen't go your way. i know my morals and taking money from people who have
nothing better to do with it than throw it around like it's nothing on the
internet dosen't seem like a crime to me."

At this point I was ready to board a plane and confront this punk.

Instead I compiled all of the information I could find on this dude, and
created a 20 page document of evidence. That's when I contacted the police in
his local hometown. It was met with a luke warm response, so I contacted the
local news station and explained everything to a reporter. A day or so went by
and I was contacted by a local officer that was friends of the reporter.

Fast forward a few days, the officer had visited the homes of both this kid,
and his friend. The kid emails me crying, WHY DID YOU SEND THE COPS, why would
you do this to me? Shortly after that I begin getting emails from his
'father', on how it's my fault that I didn't verify his age, and I'm forcing
his child without permission to trade money for a video card, and contributing
to video game addiction. How it's not their responsibility to pay for people
selling "stuffs to child" without parent's knowing. "Are you still trying to
finish trade with children?". On and on. So I press full charges with the
police.

End of the story, Mom gets involved, apologizes, and sends me the full amount
in Paypal + shipping and fees. Best part is I actually got WAY more than the
value of the card, because I had set the original MSRP as a starting point.
Done.

I wish you guys could read the entire email saga, and all of my documentation.
But hopefully that's enough to get the gist :)

~~~
oceanghost
If I may tell a "me too" story...

I used to run an IRC channel; it kept getting hacked. Every few days. None of
the folks in my channel could stop it, nor could the IRC admins. I had no idea
why this person was doing this or why he only seemed to attack us.

Someone knew someone at IBM security, he somehow got us the guys phone number
and called it. It turned out our hacker was a 16-year-old. We talked to his
father for a bit, and never heard from him again.

~~~
overcast
Awesome! Justice feels sweet doesn't it?

~~~
oceanghost
Humbling too. Being p0wn3d by a teenager.

------
parliament32
>"In this case, every 24 hours, they guaranteed me a doubling of my bitcoin,
and said that if I would just send them some bitcoin I could start seeing
returns."

Flashbacks of ISK doubling in Jita

~~~
tekno45
you send IT

*ISK

and i send double ISK no scam

------
mx91
Original: [https://www.btcsessions.ca/post/scamming-bitcoin-scammers-
fo...](https://www.btcsessions.ca/post/scamming-bitcoin-scammers-for-charity)

------
earenndil
> Police would not comment on the case, and they don't recommend trying the
> same response.

So--did they comment on it, or not?

~~~
EastSmith
They did not comment on the specific case, but they commented regarding
scamers in general.

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effingwewt
I wondered why this was in any way newsworthy when I found out it was a whole
$50...then I read that this dude was the 'marketing director of a btc firm'
and it all made sense. This is garbage PR bullshit.

------
vkou
Do people actually use BTC to buy food in Venezuela, or do they just claim to,
to beg for BTC donations?

~~~
paulgb
The last time I tried to look into this, it seems like there are generally
three things happening:

\- Venezuelans using Bitcoin mining as a way to arbitrage their subsidized
below-market electricity rates into money.

\- People suggesting Venezuela as a hypothetical case for a flight to
cryptocurrencies in a place undergoing hyperinflation.

\- Bitcoin boosters confusing the two (perhaps deliberately) and claiming on
thin evidence that Bitcoin use is widespread in Venezuela.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I haven't found anything to indicate
that real use of Bitcoin is widespread in Venezuela.

~~~
mhluongo
The Open Money Initiative [0] has done qualitative research to help pin this
down- from what I remember of talks they've given, the answer to real usage in
Venezuela is somewhere in between. Crypto has certainly been helpful for
capital flight, since smuggling eg gold outside the country is quite a bit
more difficult to get through customs than a private key seed.

[0] -
[https://www.openmoneyinitiative.org/](https://www.openmoneyinitiative.org/)

~~~
mhluongo
Some more details

[https://twitter.com/LorePach/status/1159459121722097666?s=19](https://twitter.com/LorePach/status/1159459121722097666?s=19)

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chovy
I wish I could have done that. I lost 33 btc.

~~~
coralreef
Well, you may as well tell us how you got scammed.

~~~
mfoy_
Probably forgot his password.

~~~
RosanaAnaDana
Worst.. Scam.. Ever.

------
mamon
Tangentialy related: allegedly, North Korea is behind attacks on Bitcoin
exchanges, trying to fund its nuclear weapons:
[https://www.newsbtc.com/2018/10/26/report-north-korean-
elite...](https://www.newsbtc.com/2018/10/26/report-north-korean-elite-behind-
scams-targeting-crypto-investors/)

~~~
dobleboble
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd0p96miSK8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd0p96miSK8)

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jawns
I highly doubt this was $50 of the scammer's own money.

More than likely, it was money he received by scamming some other victim.

