Topic: Choose: Walk The Plank or Keelhaul - page 4. (Read 20494 times)

It's actually expected behavior around which such schemes are built.

Yeah, I doubt that anyone was directly paid to say anything.  No evidence of that.

But consider: when one is invested in a Ponzi, one has an incentive for it to succeed as long as possible--for you to make some money off of it yourself.  If one had thousands of coins with the Pirate, you wouldn't say a word against him until your principal is back in your wallet.  In fact, you would probably say how brilliant and reliable he was--especially if you had doubts about him.  I think this must have happened--not everyone is so stupid.

To be fair, most of the times I mentioned these things, I just wanted to see their reaction. IMO, most of them indeed fall under the category "conveniently ignorant" -- or at least I couldn't tell which it is.

Still, changing the reasoning doesn't make the actions any better.

Yeah, not many people stop to think about it but there is a sweet spot for scammers. Not too little and not too much and then you fall into a gap between the local police and the national enforcement levels.

This is the credited response.  Besides, please stop for a moment to consider whether you would even have a case against Pirate? Connecting the carbon-based life form to the screen name, to the person that scammed you is no easy feat. Besides, he's said from the get-go "past performance does not guarantee future results," and he joked about running a Ponzi scheme. https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.702432

In the grand scheme of things, this sort of scam is not an unusual event.  Hundreds happen every year, and most are probably larger. This scam happens with any currency with irreversible transactions.  http://fc12.ifca.ai/pre-proceedings/paper_27.pdf

Interesting article, btw.  I believe most of the pro-Pirate people on this forum have been recently cynically promoting him in hopes that they have a seat when the music stops.  For those people, I hope you all fall on your asses.

Lots of people get away with it, and I would bet Pirate does.

Maged, do you have the posts by copumkin where he claimed to know pirate?

Really? Claiming to know Pirate's identity when you actually don't to convince other people that it's safer to invest in Pirate really does sound like fraud to me. Another word for "fraudster" could easily be "scammer".

I have no opinions on BS&T, Pirateat40, or Vandroiy but....

10,000 BTC donated to a charity of the forums choosing would be great, especially if it's a Bitcoin related project (I'm not sure if these projects qualify).

Yeah, I'm through with this forum. There is no place for level-headed and informed commentary here. Enjoy the circlejerks and name-calling.

Worthy of a hard to explain to co-workers LOLZ!

Beep beep, this just in from #btcst:





All hands on deck!

Far too many people. Enough for you to have qualified for a scammer tag when this all collapsed and you proved not to actually know his identity. I've always figured that it was a joke, but given that nobody else has identified him at the time and the fact that you took it way too far, it seemed to be true enough. Thanks for coming forward with that.

Huh? I don't know about some people *cough* Vandroiy *cough*, but I don't see the people that support Pirate as being paid off or dishonest, just ignorant. Luckily, ignorance can be fixed and I'm glad to help. People who say they know Pirate (as of this moment, but maybe not after Vegas), however, are absolutely paid off, dishonest, or being misled, as I have just shown.

You are dishonest, but at least you admitted it before it was too late.

Sure thing!

1) An audit by a respected third party (or two).
2) A series of pictures of Pirate in poses defined by the community with a sign that says "I am Pirateat40, and I am personally currently responsible for X million dollars worth of bitcoins in debt". Sure, he could still hire an actor, but it'd be more expensive thanks to the legal liability that sign will at least appear to carry.

At the very least, as someone who isn't personally invested in the venture, those would be the absolute minimum requirements to shut me up, given the current size. My standards started extremely small, and have grown as the venture has grown, so I wouldn't call this unreasonable.

Actually, I totally would. I've consulted a lawyer in the past about my rights when it comes to speech and defamation/slander/libel. Unless the law where I live has changed recently (admittedly, that's quite possible), this is absolutely the case for me:


I have no problem risking getting sued when I truly believe that what I'm saying is right.

A bit of snark in my comment but the point is I have no emotional attachment to people who may be treating Pirate's operation as an actual investment. If a friend was going to put money in I'd say "Dude, it's a scam. That better be just be your beer money you are throwing away. Also, you're an idiot." If he was getting in on the ground floor as one of the first in and banking on being used as a marketing tool in exchange for nice profits, replace "Also, you're an idiot." with "you know better, man, that's cold".

Since this is not the case, I just give my viewpoint. I have no inside man on the operation so I can't say with absolute certainty what kind of risky venture it is: Ponzi, Money Laundering, Loan Sharking, Pass-through operation for some other scam entirely. Instead, I like many others will say don't put in money it would pain you to lose. It's like internet gambling, http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/03/us-poker-fraud-arrest-idUSBRE86200S20120703

IMO, the SEC would do a better job of breaking up more of these swindles if they had an emotional attachment to the people being suckered. Instead they filed away Madoff evidence and kept browsing porn sites.

I would point out you likely would not be sued for defamation.  At least not in the US.  Most people don't realize how (almost impossibly) difficult it is to win a defamation/slander suit in the SU.

The first amendment has (somehow despite the slow erosion of liberties) managed to keep the burden of proof very high.

Generally speaking (although statutes vary by state):

• The statement must be false.
• The defendant must know the statement is false or a reasonable person would determine the defendant should have known the statement is false.
• The plantiff must suffer a loss (one recognized by the court as compensatable damages) as a result of the statement.
• The plantiff must be able to quantify and prove the loss.

The burden is very high.  Plenty of people accuse other people of running Ponzi and don't get sued.   Hell some investment brokers accused Madoff of running a ponzi for YEARS before the ponzi broke.  Proving all four elements is extremely difficult even in the best circumstances.  It is possible that defamation actually occurred and yet it simply can't be proven.  I am not saying the plantiff's lawyer did a bad job, I am saing it simply not possible to prove defamation in all cases.  The Supreme Court ruled that while the high burden will allow unanswerable accusations to do otherwise would have a "chilling effect" on free speech.

Even then there are interesting carve outs like the Small Penis Rule.

Actually, I'd be willing to publicly state it was most likely a ponzi or some other shaky scheme. Free speech, use it, love it. That way I can point to my statements with very little sympathy for anyone whining about how he "stole" their money. Plenty of funds and people fed their clients into Madoff and that Texas guys schemes. Doesn't mean they are in the know or anything, but it is definitely not looking out for the best interests of client money. IMO, if it is indeed hollow it would be very foolish to join in at the invite everybody to invest stage.

assuming he goes to vegas .....

assuming he brings real ID ......(fake passports and drivers licences available everywhere thesedays )

even someone verifys they know him since childhood etc ........still doesnt mean he couldnt split with the

cash or even stay put  and say he was hacked and some keylogger cleaned him out so tough shit everyone

hopefully not though......

What exactly would that prove?  He is human?

I mean IF (and I don't have a horse in this race one way or another) this is a scam we are talking about a million dollar scam and probably a pro.  For a couple grand (a rounding error on the fraud) one could get birth cert, driver's license, and passport in the name Earl Scrooge McPirateDuck Jr.  For a couple grand more you could get a complete back history with matching records for schools, prior employment, credit cards, and all the social media sites to create an entire convincing backstory.  Seeing someone in person on a 1,000 BTC loan has some value.  It is all about risk/cost vs reward.  When the reward is millions of dollars unless you plan on hiring a investigating firm and spending tens of thousands of your own dollars any sel-help "due diligence" is going to come up short.

Now pirate may be running a legit operation (I don't know/care) but if so then what is keeping the "investors" from losing money is simply blind luck not any skill or due diligence.   


I think people are assuming the kind of due diligence that reduces the risk on a 100 BTC has any value in a potential multi million dollar scam.  It doesn't.  Hell you could get a DNA sample from "pirate" only to learn later that the "pirate" you met was simply some actor who lives in Vegas who was paid $10K to play a role for the day.

Once again before someone says proof this, or you can't prove that ... I DON'T GIVE A FLYING CRAP IF PIRATE IS A SCAMMER OR THE BEST BUSINESSMAN THAT BITCOIN HAS EVER SEEN.  It doesn't matter.   The reality is IF this is a scam/ponzi/fraud the victims are playing against someone way out of their league.   Like peewee soccer vs. world cup champs.

So, I'm assuming that anyone concerned with his identity will be meeting him in Vegas, yes?

ಠ_ಠ. In other news, McMaged suspects you (yes, you!) of secretly being a pedophile who tortures children for fun. Prove him wrong!

But seriously, did you really just say that? I'm the one who was "claiming to have slept with his sister", but that was a long-running joke and who the hell thought that was anything but humor? He's openly admitted (on IRC at least) that he doesn't even have a sister. Please tell me: who has actually, seriously claimed to have met him? The paranoia here borders on a full-fledged witch hunt, wherein you (and many others) see anyone who criticizes the weak arguments you have against him as being paid off by him or dishonest. That is ridiculous. If he admitted to me he was a Ponzi, or I had serious doubts about his honesty, I would not be lending him money. I may be stupid for trusting him, but I'm not dishonest, and I don't see why you'd assume his other lenders are either.

Now, step back a moment. Consider the evidence you have against him. Yes, his claimed returns are unrealistic. Yes, it "looks like a Ponzi", and it may well be one (I've openly admitted this in all my "rebuttals" of people's weak arguments against him). Now consider what it would take to convince you otherwise. If this were anywhere but a pseudonymous internet, would you go around telling people it was a Ponzi? No, of course not, because you'd probably get sued for defamation/slander/libel (whichever one is relevant to the particular flavor you're going for), and you'd actually have to do this face-to-face, which takes something more than an internet tough-guy persona. Now, because this is a forum and everyone loves to be opinionated, right, and rides the highest horse in town ("I'm doing it for the good of Bitcoin itself! No cognitive dissonance here at all!"), anyone remotely associated with him is out to screw everyone else?

Get a grip, all of you.

Exactly this. I've been saying this for a long time: nobody actually knows who Pirate is. There are many people who say that they've met him/slept with his sister and claim that it's trivial to identify him, but I highly suspect that they were either lying for their own purposes, were paid off by Pirate, or misled by Pirate - potentially a professional conman - with fraudulent documents, or a combination of all three (i.e. they were willing to say they met him after they saw the documents and Pirate paid them to make it sound like they know Pirate more than they really do).

Absolutely no dox have been posted for public scrutiny at any time. Additionally, the fact that he avoids using MtGox tells me that he's not actually Level 3 verified as he claims to be.