Topic: Bestchange keeps scammer exchangers and probably collaborates with them - page 3. (Read 719 times)

Calling B. S. on their statement and am going to put their Exchange on my own black list.  Wondering if they are going to avoid answering the questions again, as this is what it feels like reading their responses.  They earned good money from me so far but this stops here.

Origin of funds obviously is not Blockchain information.  And even that could be personal.

Let me explain my situation.  I have funds coming from Monero to Bitcoin through Bisq trades, and I obviously do not know where that money has been previously before arriving in my Bitcoin Wallet nor do I even care.  I do not own some of my Bisq seeds any more.  If I send my Bitcoin to Fixed Float and they see I received some Bitcoin that moved through 'blocklisted' addresses three transactions prior to mine, how is it fair that I get my funds seized?  How do I prove origin of funds?

Most of my Bitcoin, even I have no idea where they came from any more.  They are just there, legally obtained but ask me to prove the origin and I have no idea where to start.  Because they have been through too much history.  Do I deserve my funds to be taken away from me?

Like yes, we will seize your funds if our friends say your address is bad.  Who decides my address is bad and how?  Is it not just very easy to use this reason to seize a few dozen thousands just because someone told us it comes from bad origin?

As I stated in my other answer.  Seizing for 'bad origins' is mostly used to legally selectively scam customers.

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Regards,
PrivacyG

Do you actually block the address with someone's statement or verify some other information? It is also important to be 100% sure whether the complainant's funds have actually been stolen or not. I don't know how easy it is to analyze someone's transection so finely and I have no idea how high quality tools you use. It will be really interesting if you discuss in detail, so that crypto users can also be careful.

I don't know what origin of funds exactly means, but I am sure it includes some kind of customer personal information.
If this is so easy, can you also prove origin of all coins you own as a business, I am sure it's much easier for you to do this?
Can you please tell us what magical tools are you using that proves some coins are coming from hacks and stolen funds??

So is this customer limitless_777 also being refunded to other address or not?

So all it takes to seize my funds is someone who victimizes and declares my address is owned by a criminal?

If I get my funds seized and I do not want to submit proof of origin of my funds.  What happens with the funds, do I get a refund?

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Regards,
PrivacyG

We work all over the world, based in the Seychelles.

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We analyze transactions to addresses that are in our blocklist. In this blocklist, we add addresses that are transmitted by our partners (other exchanges and services) who are aware of the facts of fraud and theft, as well as from victims who come to us with a statement that their funds were stolen.

[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

after you block suspicious funds, what do you do with them?
Do you keep it for yourself, return it to the same address where it came from or something else?


why can't I find any information about your company on your website?
Are you a legally registered exchanger or just use the possible loophole that limitless_777 mentioned here?

Keep in mind I wrote all of this before Fixed Float replied.

I am not defending Fixed Float in any way and am strongly against the practice of selectively scamming clients by seizing funds for suspicion of money laundering.  Let us call it for what it is, seizing for this reason is most of the time used as a legal excuse for selective scamming.

On the other hand, if their Terms of Service mentions this then it is the customer's fault.

Interestingly, I moved tons of funds through some of these Exchanges and Fixed Float had the chance of freezing significant amounts from me before.  I successfully completed a few hundred transactions with them, using multiple identities.  They did not selectively scam me, although they had multiple chances.

I remember Fixed Float never had KYC or AML specified in their Terms.  Otherwise I am sure I would have not used it at all.

But truth is, most of these Exchanges have Anti Money Laundering procedures of some sort even if they are not mentioned and many of them seize your funds using the 'prohibited use' part of their Terms.  I have yet to see an Exchange mentioning they are NOT going to seize suspicious funds.

If they did specify an AML policy in their Terms, then I am stupid myself for missing that part and trusting them with significant amounts.  If they did not, then scam (AML excused seizing) it is in my opinion.  But this is Fixed Float with the evil, not Best Change.

I find it weird these two Fixed Float reviews were posted the same day.  Maybe they started seizing funds more often recently, and only now we are starting to find out.  Anyway.  I think Best Change should place a warning on the Fixed Float page about them selectively seizing funds but if they delete Fixed Float from their website, then Best Change can also close their business as it is very true AML and KYC is almost everywhere nowadays.  But I can not go from here to blaming and accusing Best Change for intentionally keeping and collaborating with scam Exchanges.

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Are you actively working with Blockchain Analysis companies to analyze each and every transaction coming through your wallets?  How do you they work so quickly to give a final answer within a matter of minutes as to whether or not a transaction is related to crime?

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Regards,
PrivacyG

We would like to clarify the situation with the accusations against us.

The "Terms of service" page in section 6 states that the service is prohibited from being used for any illegal purposes, and also, if fraudulent or stolen funds are sent to our addresses, the funds may be frozen until the source and legality of the funds are known. Freezing of funds is possible only if we have proof that the funds sent to our address were received as a result of fraud or theft.

Each case is considered individually. We rely only on the availability of reliable information from reputable services that are responsible for providing correct and up-to-date data, having strong evidence that can also be provided to an independent third party to participate in resolving the incident.

Regarding your screenshot, where two reviews are displayed, where we allegedly froze user funds for no reason - we all have evidence that user funds were obtained fraudulently. We never block our clients' funds without having a reason to do so. In both cases, an inspection was carried out both on our part and on the part of the monitoring to which we provided all the evidence for each of the incidents. In addition, we repeat once again that we never request the personal data of our customers, in order not to affect their anonymity, we only request information about the origin of funds, which is easy to provide



We are as loyal as possible to our customers, however, if there is information about specific crimes and the processing of orders related to these transactions, our service may be recognized as an accomplice in a crime and, as a result, be closed.

By placing an order on our website, they agreed to the rules of our service, which include a clause prohibiting the use of our service for any illegal purposes.

Not trying to defending them or anything, especially since I'm not benefited from anything or related by any degree to them or even tried their platform once, which --I think-- is why my opinion leads leans to a more neutral side, but isn't saying them a scammer just because they failed to mention that an exchange required KYC is a tad bit overstatement?

I mean, sure, yeah, they get some money from users using their platform, and for that they ought to do at least certain degree of DD toward the exchanges they list on their platform, but ultimately it is also the users duty to perform their own DD. And it's not that difficult to get info if this exchange requires KYC or that exchange don't. Their FAQs usually covered this, or a simple reading of reviews from several sites

Don't get me wrong, I do love my anonymity. That's why the first thing I look for before signing up into a new exchange --not that I use a lot-- is their KYC and limitations for non verified users.

You might also want to edit this sentence and add a word "some",


In many countries that tries to regulate crypto --more to control them, actually, but they choose a good political term-- an exchange needs to comply to their fintech regulations, where one of them mostly includes a compliance to KYC/AML. So yeah, they do have an "authority", they're kinda required by the country's rule. And again, let's say an exchange in R country called EB --these names is obscured by intention-- requested you for  KYC although that's not required by their country and, thus, they're not authorized to ask for it. How's that bestexchange's fault? You're kinda the one agreeing to it, EB is the one that asked you for it, but Bestexchange didn't force you to.

Edit: realizing I used a wrong word that I'm trying to say

Well now you know. For a Russian exchanger it's pretty easy to stay anonymous and run it's business. And almost all exchangers at Bestchange are Russian. All of them are gray. I mean, did you see any legal info of at least one of them on their websites? You won't find it if you try. So why do anonymous people demand ID photos, selfies and videos from users? Why do anonymous people block funds? This is unacceptable and unfair. They can't treat customers like that.


I agree with most crypto users, I stay anonymous too. I'm just saying a normal centralized exchanger at least is a legit company and provides it's legal info. So it has a right to ask for KYC, review transactions and block funds. I don't like it and wouldn't use an exchanger like that but what it does is legitimate and fair. And if it's users like to pass KYC it's their decision. But in case of a gray exchanger it's different. Because it runs it's business anonymously so can't ask for KYC.

I do not have any idea how Russian economy works. In a normal state you will need KYC and company registered if you want to run an online business that needs to accept payment and also to send money. The transactions have to be via the authorized bank or you will be convicted for money laundering.

This is one of the many reason most of the crypto users like to stay anonymous. Who give a sh*t to some centralized agency to determine what you should and should not do.

OMG. You don't know how does it work in Russia. And these exchangers are Russian. Have you heard about darks? Have you heard about merchants registered to other person's name you can buy? Have you heard about Qiwi payment system? You can register there using darks and have a merchant (providing only physical person's passport number). Also you can have Qiwi virtual card and receive money from clients to this card. And almost all exchangers that provide exchanges from bank cards accept funds to Qiwi virtual cards.

I wouldn't call it "sucks". Some anonymous guy demands your documents otherwise he keeps your money. Do you call this "sucks"? Really? I call it scam. Because these exchangers don't work legally. They are anonymous and work illegally but in the same time they demand docs from you and they freeze your money. They aren't police or any other authority to do this. So, if they can demand your docs, send me your docs too. I'm anonymous too, just like them. And I want to have your docs to sell somewhere (I mean, KYC, I want to know, who you are  ).


Why do they put KYC icons near exchangers who deal with bank cards and don't put KYC icons near crypto exchangers? Could it be because crypto is way easier to "freeze" (I mean steal)?

I don't think so, and even if they wanted to keep everything perfect it would be impossible to make everyone happy in crazy world we live today, including kyc regulations.
They probably have financial benefit and percentage earning from listing all exchanges on their website, but they said in public that they can't guarantee anything, so there is always a risk using this exchanges.
I think you still have a chance to provide some documents (one way or another) and send them to this exchange, yes I know this sucks.

To receive and send money you will need a merchant account and to get a merchant account you will need to be fully KYCed. In most cases (I have not seen any merchant yet) merchant requires company information to open an account with them.

It's only possible when dealing with cash in person which is of course inconvenient considering the time we are in. No one is okay with cash in hand.

I wonder if it is even possible to provide this type of exchanger service without registering a company (of any kind, even if it was offshore).
for every fiat exchange, a bank is required. can the whole business be done as a physical person (no company) and do banks tolerate such things?

They don't update it because they don't want to. I know people who use Bestchange for years without knowing if there is only a green number showing good reviews it doesn't mean there aren't bad ones, you just don't see it. Many people believe if only the number of good reviews is shown so there aren't any other. The update of the review system isn't difficult to implement. It's a few database queries and can take 30 mins maximum to develop.


I think the same, exchangers must publicly show they use third party.
But even in this case an exchanger can't demand your personal data and can't freeze your coins. In this case an exchanger should give you contacts of that third party and that third party must be a legal company with an authority to check documents and freeze coins. I mean, anyway an exchanger can't freeze you funds by itself. And now some of them freeze your funds despite their third party didn't freeze anything. Sometimes they do it "just in case" because their third party exchanger may freeze coins received from you a few days later. At least this is the reason they give you. I read about it on other forum.

I wouldn't blame everything on BestChange, but I wrote about their terrible review system multiple times and I demanded improvement and update.
It's interesting that not long ago before you created this topic I asked BestChange about this KYC icons and if they can guarantee that exchange won't ask for verification, they replied NO, they can't guarantee that information is correct.
If exchange is using third party exchange they need to publicly show this and say they can freeze your coins at any time, otherwise I wouldn't use this exchange at all.

I totally agree with you, and I would rather use exchanges from list provided by kycnot.me website.
I heard nice things about eXch (they don't use any third party, and they claim to have their own reserves of coins and can prove that), but I never used it so I can't claim how good or bad it is.

You speak my mind. Unfortunately the majority of people don't pay attention to this and don't think about how unfair it is when someone who is anonymous asks you for your documents.


Many people don't understand this. They think if Binance said there is such thing as "dirty" bitcoin this is so. But Binance isn't some kind of bitcoin god and it doesn't determine what we should concider our bitcoins to be.

From what I've seen in similar cases, many of those exchangers don't own any funds. They use third parties (such as Binance) to process transactions, and if that third party freezes funds, they do the same. The use of third parties isn't explained on their website, they pretend to have their own funds.

I'm okay with fully registered exchanges that require full KYC. I'm also okay with completely anonymous exchanges that don't ask anything.
What's not okay, is anonymous exchanges that ask for personal documents. They can easily use it for identity theft, and you have no idea who they are.

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Also: there is no such thing as "dirty" Bitcoin. See [Blacklist] of unreliable, 'taint proclaiming' Bitcoin services / exchanges: