A couple more things...
As I've mentioned, my interaction with moriarty is limited to the above public chat (and seeing him PM spam a few more times weeks or months later), but I googled a bit. Let me share my $0.02.
http://tedjonesweb.blogspot.com/2014/01/bitplasticcom-scam-bitplastic-bitcoin.htmlAs soon as I saw those testimonial videos I knew they were from Fiverr.
I also notice that
moriarty has posted a supposed extortion email on the forum just now. I'm pretty sure it's a fake email. Let me explain how I think this works.
Basically with regular scammers they get outed and leave, come back with a new nick, IP, OTC registration...
With long-con scammers like
Lemon (who had a
supposed bitcoin exchange coming up, UK limited companies and a bunch of domains), it's harder to just leave everything behind, or should I say less efficient. Are you kidding? Those are some good domain names. As long as he keeps posting 'evidence' it's just confusion and more potential people believing his side and sending coins to those services.
But trying to delay the inevitable to scam more coins isn't the only thing at play here. If you'll read the chatlog above from #bitcoin-otc that I posted in my previous reply, it should be clear to anyone with reason that he likes to troll (much like
SupaDupaJenkins or FuckingFaggot). Even after it will become obvious to EVERYONE that he's a scammer, he'll keep on doing it for a while longer just to annoy people who know he's a scammer and screw with anyone who gives it even 1% chance that he may be legitimate. With all the coin he has stolen he can afford to play games. Games he likes - such as trolling the fuck out of a community. Remember how Lemon kept saying he couldn't repay the bitcoins because he was in hospital with salmon poisoning? That later turned into 'heart issues'? And then posting some hospital photo as evidence? And saying he was just about to send the coins and was just waiting for his client to sync? It's the same shit all over again, with all of these long con scammers.
One more thing
Lemon and
Bitscotty (equipment seized by Durham police very recently) also used to do is refund coins or deliver something every now and then. Fake Fiverr testimonial videos are nice, but there's nothing better than the real thing. Like ripping off 5 people, having 2 complain publicly and have 1 say they received the item. Don't fall for this old technique. Or the one where he simply says that he has thousands of satisfied clients. When someone has thousands of satisfied clients, there's actual evidence to back it up, not just the scammer making this claim.
Based on reading the accusations as well as the text on his own websites, it's kind of obvious that moriarty isn't his real name, he doesn't have a PhD and the Bitcoin Network - or whatever its name is - is more like a Bitcoin Blackhole Network.
And moriarty = a
sociopath.
