Topic: {ANNOUNCEMENT} WBX Exchange Frozen - page 22. (Read 45349 times)

Sorry for the cheap shot at my kiwi cousins... I went to primary school in Christchurch one autumn/winter. I held a financial services authority once too - for raising film funds.

Yes the legal framework in Oz is quite good. So you'd think Andre would man up and start talking rather than risk the legal ramifications of anybody calling the authorities.

Sadly I suspect it will come to criminal and civil proceedings as Andre is burying his head in the sand and ducking everyone.

Although I was a Kiwi working in Australia for a while, I commuted to Melbourne.  I also held a Financial Services Licence, but that was for trading electricity rather than a shonky deal.  ASIC was interesting to deal with, but on the whole the legal framework was pretty sensible.

One of the services on the web is their scam alert https://www.moneysmart.gov.au/scams

Not sure, but it does look like there could be criminal and civil proceedings here.

I think the Orange NSW address you are thinking of is for CryptoXChange's legal registered office address.

The ABN looks like it predates the move to Qld.

The absence of Annual Return filings reinforces a view that the company was deregistered automatically for not lodging annual returns.

However the company was not up-to-date with ASIC paperwork before it started the exchange. Strike 1 to piercing the corporate veil (and thus making Andre personally liable).

ASIC also regulates the provision of financial services in Australia. They love to go after shonky Queensland-based Kiwi get-rich-quick peddlers. And a company called "High Net Worth Property Pty Ltd" sounds like the perfect target. ASIC has powers to ban a director from working in the financial services industry, ban the holding of more directorships, or just ruin a director's reputation.

ASIC can also pierce the corporate veil and go after the director personally.

Those entries all look pretty dull.  I thought he was in Orange (inland NSW).  I have some contacts in QLD.

ABN is registered in Victoria: http://www.abr.business.gov.au/SearchByAbn.aspx?abn=61131700779

WBX lists address as Gold Coast, Qld: https://www.worldbitcoinexchange.com/?page=help


Andre's linked in profile states he is in the Brisbane area: http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=67791024&authType=name&authToken=oL4o&locale=en_US&pvs=pp&trk=ppro_viewmore

Hmmm ...

Looks like an address changed in January 2009. Did he just forget to update his ABN, or is it something more sinister?

He probably didn't de-register the company, ASIC probably deregistered it for not filling annual returns.

Furthermore, bank account payments to and from WBX are in Andre's name not the company. So again he's personally liable.

Still, not really a good sign that he deregisters his company without informing anyone... to me it still smells like scam. But I hope I will be proven wrong.

As a note, the supposed company was de-registered in December (4th).  That is actually useful as it means rather than hiding behind a limited liability company structure, the actions have taken place by Andre as an individual and he is personally liable.

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@ Andre,

Shutting down is all very well and dandy but people deserve to know exactly when they are going to be receiving their funds.

Just clamming up about things isn't exactly helping your position on this. As I know several people are more than contemplating legal action. And judging by the way you've been handling this to date I doubt that most people here put much faith if any into anything you say when you aren't being specific.

You've deregistered the company supposedly running the exchange and who knows what else has been going on without you informing your clients.

IMO Andre is just as big a scammer as ANZ in this case as he's spent well over a month trying to cover up their wrongdoing by ponzing around with CLIENT funds etc. Using other peoples deposits to cash others out etc.


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yeah i'd much prefer this

You may want to consider offering, though only as an option, to let people withdraw their fiat currency balances in Bitcoins. You can use the rate from another exchange or you can fix the week's average rate. This is probably easier for you to do than mailing people checks, especially from closed accounts. And at least offering it will reassure people that they'll be getting their money back.

Thanks for providing that information.  For those with coins, that at least makes it easier (although I would have thought most coins would have been shifted long before now).

Any information of the dollar balances?  I have half tied up in pending withdrawal status and half waiting to move.

I also notice there is not announcement here or on the site's News page to match Andre's numerous copy & paste emails of today.

It seems like he sent the same reply to every email in the support queue.

I have been holding the WBX Bitcoins in an offsite account, for safekeeping.  They're all accounted for, and are available to withdraw right now for users with BTC balances.  I transfer them back to the WBX wallet as and when they're needed.

The server emails me when it's short of Bitcoins, so if there's ever a delay with your BTC withdrawal, it's because the server wallet was emptied and is waiting for me to transfer more in from the offsite wallet.

This is something I was doing for Andre rather than leaving them on the WBX server, in an attempt to prevent a Linode style theft.

A+

The problem is that Andre stayed silent most days since before 14 February.

There should have been a daily "nothing new to report" or "I can't say anything more while the lawyers are looking it over".

In today's announcement there is no timeline for the return of clients' funds.

As an update:


It's a pitty as I liked wbx, but if it means that everybody receives the his money back then that's good news

I just received an email from Andre: WBX will be shutting down. 

I think the point payb.tc was making was that ANZ is the scammer, not Andre.

The last I heard from Andre was on March 6th, when he wrote:

"i will be announcing a statement with in the next 7days on the site and forums".

ANZ will not reveal any data of it's clients nor confirm that accounts have been frozen due to fraud investigations without the consent of the owner of the account. I tried that, already Probably they would be more willing to share information with the local law enforcement agencies.