Topic: An open letter to Paul Vernon aka "Big Vern" - Cryptsy (Read 412 times)

tl;dr don't keep more than you can afford to lose on an exchange because if you don't own the private keys you don't own the coins

The story itself turned out to be very sad. But it's interesting to read life stories and how influential people are adressed. Many have lost their money in cryptocurrency.

If you have some informations about Paul Vernon,  just contact [email protected]

You can keep us informed or share your information with us if you want, I've been scammed too.

See you

Cryptsy had some red flags before its closure, I remember some people saying on this forum that there was something wrong. I feel sad for you, I think you've been not alone with a situation like this. I have a friend who had 50 ETH on Cryptsy, I know it wasn't that much (200 or 300$, don't remember exactly), but that's all he had in cryptos. These 50ETH are now 40k$, so yeah, he's a bit frustrated too.

Sadly Cryptsy closed a bit too early, if this happened now, the situation wouldn't be the same.

Do you want to come back in cryptocurrencies with your 10k$ ? I know it's not worth the 98btc you had but maybe you could be able to recover a small portion of what you had

Hopefully you invested well after that

there are other ways to get you btc back, try contractors, private investigators, etc etc

Various cryptsy clients who have profited of this last big high are using their money for hunting

the Law let them go, the Law let let them flee, the Law helped them steal it

happy hunting

Does anyone know if he has a warrant out for his arrest or if anyone has placed fraud charges against him as I think I have found him through social media? - Lives in Dalian China with his asian children.

The following people are associated with his new social media account:

Manoli Haralambakis
Travis Joel Stoertebecker
Tim Shunta
Daniel Long

I'm pretty sure there's no law enforcement cooperation on the line US-China, so as long he has a clean record in China and is there legally, he's not going to get extradited.

The difficult part for him would be to get a right to permanent residency, otherwise he would have to travel from country to country. He could of course bribe his way to citizenship, but you need to know the right people for that, and there's a greater chance for him to end up dead in a ditch and having "his" bitcoins stolen. White American on the run with huge amount of bitcoins on him is a wet dream of every crook.

well i dont think i would want to steal 16k btc... someone who got his btc taken is not going to forget about it. 

also is it possible for a US citizen just to vanish to china forever when they have just stolen that much money from clients?

As I have read he was surely behind Bitebi9.com.
So IMO he kept a big amount in BTC, because he needs it for business...

If it is true he took 16000 btc then I am pretty sure such a scammer will never get away with it long term.

Yes, also lost a big amount of BTC on Cryptsy... not fun at all 

I've used Cryptsy in the past as well, there was nothing fun by seeing the coins just non-transferable when Vern ran.

Yes that was my value in alt and also in BTC, part of it.

About the calculation, truly I don't know how they calculated...

Damn, that's a touching story. I feel for you OP, I was no stranger to Cryptsy, back in the days it was the most popular and trusted exchange. Luckily, gave up on trading before the exit scam.

I don't get one thing - you're saying that you were holding WDC + later other altcoins, and then you're referring to your 98 bitcoins that were stolen from you. Is this the value (in btc) of your alts at that time?


How was this figure derived? Did they just liquidate all that was left of Cryptsy and divided the proceedings to creditors proportionally, or is this calculated at BTC/USD rate at the time?

sad to read your story. hope you have some luck and big vern give you some coins back. wish you best luck!

//Sorry if I'm off-topic, didn't know where to post it//

Dear Mr Paul Vernon, dear "Big Vern",

I hope you will read and understand my words, my story, and  that you will hear the desperate cries from many people losing their money on Cryptsy.

I’ll try to be as short as possible, but the story is long, sorry for that.

Today I received my so long waited check of 10,387.93 $, representing my loss of 98 BTC on Cryptsy.
Yes 10,387.93$ for 98 BTC valuable to nearly 750,000$  today, and even much more this past december 2017.

So, let me introduce myself :

I’m a man from the middle class, not rich, not poor, but not a cent on my side, so nearly poor in fact.
I’m not really well graduated, just abandonned college after 2 years, when I realized that something with this society didn't match with my philosophy.
I dont’ want to be full part of this system, I just think by myself and try to do things right as I can and fair as it should be.

Each months I’ve worked, all my salary is just enough to pay my bills and food, I’m not a « big » consummer and my incomes wouldn't allow me to be so.
My life is just full of shit jobs.
Each end of the month my bank account is in the red; yes, money is a problem for me even if I live in a very modest way, times are hard.

In 2013, I’ve discovered crypto-currencies, I was just fed-up with this economic/bank system, and I was looking for something alternative and fair, something with more equity, something matching with my philosophy.
At that time, I worked in a rental car business as an employee, not at a high hierarchic level, not at a middle one, but just at the lowest you could have, I was washing cars all day long.
Conditions were harsh and gloomy: Working alone in a dark enclosed carpark, with not much daylight, nowhere to sit or rest except in my own old overmiled car, (which cost me a lot). Even in summer it’s windy and cold, all day long hands in cold water, clothes wet, even worse in winter when it’s 14°F (-10 °c),  when water turns to ice, that was my daily sick life.

I had managed to spare 500€, ready to invest in crypto, because I had spent and sacrified hours of sleep, learning about this fascinating subject and alternative thing that crypto is. Eventually I found my crypto, it was called Worldcoin (WDC), I bought it in june 2013.

Yes, these times were very hard, just sleeping 3hours per night, to get up every morning tired and having to wash those fucking cars again and again, but this time my tunnel wasn’t so dark and I could see a light shining soon for me, this time I did know why I woke up every morning, because I was confident in my modest investment, in my futur, in my fate and that all this life of shit will soon end !

Every morning, I woke up seing my investment turning into, 750€, 1 000€, 1 500€, 2 000€, 3 000€, 5 000€, 10 000€, 50 000€ !
"Yes that time it will be my turn, I will soon be able to buy a new car for sure, maybe buying a house, stop working in this tunnel of shit !".
Then comes December 2013 when BTC hit nearly 1 150$, my 500€ WDC investment turned into 110 000€ worth, for me who had never had more than 4 digits on my bank account, yes 110 000€ !!!

But as a dreaming newbie in crypto, I didn't cash out. I quit my job, I decided not to sell but to keep on holding, I cashed out just enough to live 2/3 months.  Then, as everybody knows BTC went down brutally, so I decided to sell my WDC and invest in other cryptos.
I still had faith in crypto, in my futur, my investments, fruits of hard investigations during those nights ...

But after 2/3 months reality was back, and it was time to work again. A bit disillusioned, I was unemployed for more 2 or 3 months, then I found a job in the building industry - Yes guys... Some of you sure know how hard a work is in the lowest construction positions, but at least, I had a job !

For months, I kept sleeping only 3-4 hours a night, spending my time to investigate on new crypto technologies innovations and investments, but I ended by quitting because my job was really gruelling, so I put all my investments in a long term strategy, mainly on NXT and BTCD,  spending all my supposed days off keeping on investigating on cryptos, then I discovered Cryptsy.
I was still passionate by the crypto world revolution and of course, by my investments -we all need money !

Then, 2 years passed, still living like a cockroach. And came November 2015, when Cryptsy went offline without explanation.

My 98 BTC worth, disappeared in a minute with all my hopes ...

Keeping my cryptos on the exchange, was my big mistake !

Months after that, we could read everywhere that Paul Vernon, CEO of Cryptsy, fled away to China with  at least 13 000 BTC + 3 000 BTC in LTC worth, near 8,200,000 $ value, but I was also informed that there was a way to recover the loss via a class action lawsuit, so I decided to join it.

Then time passed and in December 2017 the BTC hit 20,000$ and I'm still thinking about my 98 BTC that were stolen, valuable to near 2,000,000 $! (my new car, my home, my new life...)

And today I received my 10,387.93$ check in compensation of my 98 BTC stolen ...
What the hell can I buy with 10,000$ ? Nothing...

So now I'm back to my shitty crappy job, broken, still in my old car... Yes, I know it could be worse.

This is the end of the story.

Paul, I guess you are smart enough to not have cashed out all of the 16,000 BTC, but still have let's say half of it, so say 8,000 BTC, worth today near 60,000,000$.

What you did was not just stealing money from people's accounts, it was far worse than that: You just went away with people's dreams, people's hopes, people's plans for a better life, and you left behind you thousands of broken existences, broken families, depressions and maybe even suicides (I truly hope not!).

But do you think about all the people who had just dreamt to use their benefits to spread and share happiness with their family and friends?
Can you imagine the everyday heavyweight on their shoulders, feeling guilty of losing such an amount of money and failing ?
Can you imagine this weight to get even bigger if one day BTC hits 100,000$ or 1,000,000$ ?

Can you imagine all the consequences of your act ?

I remember the time "Big Vern", used to post nice and friendly messages in trollbox and social media, I still can't believe this is the same "Big Vern" that fled away with people's dream...

Yet, I do believe that you could do something now, something fair and right for all of us, like returning half of the money you stole.