AntiSCAM: Steemians Unite to Expose Bitcoin Fraudsters in New York, from a new Steemian

in #introduceyourself8 years ago (edited)

Fellow Steemians, I hope you'll unite with me to expose a group of bitcoin scammers using localbitcoin in New York.

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Recently I was robbed for 15k cash from a localbitcoin.com scam. I had been dying to make a post about it, but the group of scammers were dumb enough to contact me again. There was potential of me getting my money back by having the police do a sting operation.

I'm a sailor so I had two phones, When the first scammer contacted me i called him from the phone I had planned on keeping the bitcoin on. I can't risk sailing and my bitcoin going overboard!.

Usually if I were to do a transaction this large in cash I would bring my Father who is 6, foot 7 and an absolute monster. Unfortunately the day before was my Mom's last day of chemo therapy. She was weak and he could not come. So I went alone.

I begged the police to let me give them cash to use during the sting operation but long story short they could not. All they could do is set up the sting and grab as many people involved and bring them in for questioning. Ultimately the police didn't have enough to make an arrest because with the sting since they didn't use any money no crime was actually committed. I was basically told there is a 99% chance i'll never get the money back.

Here are the pictures from the text messages the left side is scammer A and right side is B.

Scammer AScammer B
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Here are some signs that the BTC dealers youíre talking with could be scammers: - Both people contacted you via SMS

  • They sent you a photo of their BTC balance both times on Blockchain.info
  • Both images were the same dimensions
  • BTC amounts were similar
  • They people contacted me from VoIP phones in New York
  • You can try baiting him into clicking a grabify link to get his ipÖ see if he is smart enough to not click
  • Both removed the exif data from the wallet images they sent me.
  • They Both claim to be a group that do multiple trades a day.
  • They say you will meet with one of their salesmen.
  • Both groups used the same address for a meet 15381 cross island pwky whitestone NY 11357

A list of addresses the second scammer proposed as meeting spots, so if anyone else gets text messages from a 929 number with these addresses beware.

152-59 10th Ave, Whitestone, NY
Bada Story 161-23 crocheron ave

Link to the images of wallets they sent me http://imgur.com/a/NkABU

Image of the original scammer on Pizza Chef's security cameras the cameras outside were conveniently pointed away.
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As mentioned earlier if anyone wishes to donate STEEM I will be holding 100% of it. I don't blame crypto for this; Im very thankful for all the help I've received so far. I just hope that by sharing what happened to me, all of you can avoid this happening to you. Any donations are welcome, and will bring me further into crypto and Steem..

BTC: 12yMrA942sb2JdjRxFL9eBwUk5o3PmfB8G
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Litecoin: LbgYvNMV8iMzKU15aD7kr1PviefDxCn5TF
ETH: 0xe21daac4ccef806b51c011872f167cedcaf2f7ba
STRAT: SaBsZgagL3q49CKekNo6C1ReD3gtz1aynr
Zcoin: a6AB2XMPp9QJjuipHd1gxc6kGDjhLEENXm
Dash: XhvoNvzkvUoJr57LK74zDCc8pG9ZNt8x9z

Thanks,
The Hulk!

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Thanks for writing this, so others can learn from.
I am really sorry this happened to you.... :(

No problem I never want this to happen to someone else!

this how we know good people am very grateful to hear this form you

I don't get it. If you want to trade on localbitcoins for cash then you have to:

  1. Check the reputation of the seller
  2. Once he has the money he will release the bitcoins and you will see the phrase which guarantees that the money is on your account
  3. Money will be checked at a table not in a bathroom

Also why don't you just pay the price the buyer states in the advertisment. You are exchanging far too many messages. Usually it takes a friendly "Hi, lets trade.." Ok, let's meet there. "

I think you made a trade outside of localbitcoins which is a no-go.
Was that your first trade? And then for 15000 dollar, are you nuts?
Edit: sorry for the "nuts" , I mean naive.

It wasn't my first trade, but since i had an ad up they contacted me via text message and claimed to not have accounts. And yes i was newer at the time but, smaller trades went well. Not with them with other peoople.

In the future, in regards to large bitcoin purchases...I would probably recommend Bitcoin ATMS's. If the purchase is around 10k - 20k , a lot of the bitcoin atm owners are cool with you just picking up the phone and contacting them. Check out my podcast...I talk about how to avoid the leeches, snakes, and rats. I give some good tips on what not to do. Lord knows I've been through it all.

Localbitcoins warns about that all over the place. Only accept trade throught the official channel. Don't change terms of trade. Check for reputation. To trade with people who do not have accounts is not the way to do it.
In my opinion you should not receive any reward for your posting. Edit: It looks like you are a scammer. Low reputation, no postings, and manyof your commenters have almost no reputation as well. You are putting LBC in a wrong light because you made all mistakes one can do.

When I finally got to the End. . .i noticed ..that a lot of addresses were placed. ..and yes...a little funny..but hey..get your Voice across and Welcome to steem where Being is Truth and only The Truth will Be Seen

@shla-rafia following you Broski

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Nice post Shla. I was thinking the same thing. Lot's of red flags and mistakes made on this one. Tough lesson to learn at $15K. Buyer's beware...

Yes, I don't know what to think about it. Let's continue.

This post has received a 8.06 % upvote from @booster thanks to @thehulk.

Sorry to hear that and thanks for sharing.
One can never be too carefull... :-/

hey friend i m new in steemit whould you help to follow i will follow you back

sure

Hye @Hulk, this story is a reminder to everyone that there are bad people out there that have silver tongues and could charm thre tits off a cow ! Dont get milked ! I agree that this whole sale was unusual and i would never buy such an important some in this manner , when you are confronted with a total stranger with no visible means of identifying his real rep and credibility!! I am sure you will never repeat a similar scenario again !! bad luck !

good is good and bad is bad, I know you both and <3

Christ what a hit, sorry man. That's extremely heavy.

Thanks for the post and the warning. Don't be discouraged by people that don't want you to ask for help if you need it. THAT is what crypto-space is about (being able to do what you want, when you want, how you want -- mostly unregulated). I have friends and family that use that service often and this will be shared with them as well and it is surely worth more than my newbie 2cents. I will make a donation soon. Thanks again.

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this post by itself looks feels like a scam too ... asking for money come on !!!

I can assure you I was scammed for 15k, went up again on no sleep to sit and wait for it to possibly be the same guy while inside a cop car, I did throw donation links up. as i mentioned any steem i will keep here. Many know me around here and were there on discord after it happened. I can promise i am no scammer.

Please I am not questioning your being scammed What I say is that when you enter the market it is your OWN decision for such a reason assume the risks so you don't end up asking for money that is all.

This is open platform. People can do whatever they want to do. I'm the first to donate to people that I feel I can help -- that is my decision. I mean, I prefer people don't tell other people what to do and obviously, you like to tell people what to do or what risk should mean to them -- so let's just all do whatever we EACH want to do as INDIVIDUALS. If you want to help -- help -- if not, don't -- if you want to discourage, do that -- if I want to ignore your input or discouragement, I will. See, everyone's happy. Thanks for the warning @thehulk: your post may have saved ME and others from being SCAMMED and that is worth MORE than my current new 2cents here on Steemit (expect my donation).

Thanks Avva!

It isn't a scam. This post that is.

IF you lost 15k , who can blame, a lot of us know him and know the suffering inflicted by this.....upvoted, he is exposing the bad guys

no prob with exposing .... still the issue here is asking for help i.e. money .... when you play the market you gamble and do not, i say NEVER place all your eggs in one basket otherwise you end up crying like this post begging for help ..you play you risk ...EOS ...

I have no idea what is going on with EOS, not in that league to play it .....but I don't have a problem personally with exposing scammers and such, a lot of us are friends with him and want to help. Just sad so many are around, like damn piranhas...anyways Hulk, Good Luck <3

Sad story. That bathroom stuff tho...lol