Topic: EXPOSING PHENIXCOIN: The hype and possible scam - page 10. (Read 18265 times)
Great article, with real facts.
Interesting.
I agree on a few points but I played around on the exchange when there was playmoney and that worked well and made criptsy look like a google docs exchange.
They showed their stuff on the Bitcoin conference, Coindesk got it covered, etc. If it is a scam, it's the best in crypto history. If it's not, well, who's the idiot.
I agree on a few points but I played around on the exchange when there was playmoney and that worked well and made criptsy look like a google docs exchange.
They showed their stuff on the Bitcoin conference, Coindesk got it covered, etc. If it is a scam, it's the best in crypto history. If it's not, well, who's the idiot.
On the exchange, play money is a bit easier to handle than real coins with value. Also, many great scams got great publicity, which is why they were great scams
UPDATE: After I exposed Phenixcoin in the official thread, it seems the developers are finally taking my advice and will be cutting the block reward too. Yesterday their stance on this was:
"Don't get me wrong i understand why everyone is pissed. But we did what we seen we needed to do and now its done."
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2852139
But after my big post they all of a sudden chagned their mind: "We understand your concerns, your voice is heard loud and clear. Our upcoming release will reduce the reward by half."
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2856301
"Don't get me wrong i understand why everyone is pissed. But we did what we seen we needed to do and now its done."
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2852139
But after my big post they all of a sudden chagned their mind: "We understand your concerns, your voice is heard loud and clear. Our upcoming release will reduce the reward by half."
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2856301
Thats a small step towards restoring confidence.
Thanks for the great post. You may have forced them to do the right thing.
Don't listen to him. I like a well explained point by point argument with a source over a "duh, these coins are all scams." argument.
Nicely written. thank you.
Nicely written. thank you.
In related news, water discovered to be wet. There is a group, don't know if spontaneous or organized that will launch new coins every week and hype the hell out of it (changing avatars, posting how great the coins is, coin on Gox in 2 weeks etc.). You can recognize them by the same format they use in their announcement thread. If you get in on the insta-mine great, if not save your power or use it on more established coins.
PS: You will also notice the massive pre-mine compared to "coins generated per day", but since the cap is high they will tell you it's only x% of total coins. They will also tell you it's for bounties and shit but only about 10-20% will actually be used for that purpose. If that...
PS: You will also notice the massive pre-mine compared to "coins generated per day", but since the cap is high they will tell you it's only x% of total coins. They will also tell you it's for bounties and shit but only about 10-20% will actually be used for that purpose. If that...
4. The constant hyping of new releases.
Through the life time of the coin, there has been a lot of hype surrounding projects the developers are working on. To date nothing has been officially released except for an escrow service that is no longer useful because all coins are traded on Cryptsy.
The two big projects that have been talked about most is an exchange and a casino. The developers have been talking about, and hyping up these a long time. Here is a quick summary of all the hyping that has been going on. When it is condensed like this it becomes pretty obvious what kind of pumping the team has been doing. And remember today two months after this started nothing has still been released.
-It was first mentioned back on May 22nd that they were looking for a "full professional casino software". https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2231959
-On May 25th the developers say: "We are working on that (casino).. will be available soon."
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2265945
-On June 1st developers say: "There will be a announcement later today." (Nothing more happens for the next 5 days.)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2339629
-On June 6th, the hype really takes off with these quotes from the developers:
"When we open what we have been working on, which should be tomorrow, the audience will grow quickly.."
"We have 3 new releases for PXC with in the next 7-10 days, starting tomorrow."
"lol... you might want to think about buying now.. before we launch these things.. "
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2391022
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2391317
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2391330
-Also on June 6th the developers release info about the casino and include a picture of a Video Poker game and a video of a blackjack game: http://youtu.be/eg8QdH-Inqw
Again stating: "Gaming system to be released for beta next week some time"
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2391717
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2391963
-After all this hyping price of PXC gets a nice bump on the exchanges, but nothing else happenes and the developers are not heard from until June 12th when it seems everything about the casino has been forgotten. It is now time to start hyping the exchange: "We are currently finishing up our exchange system. This was moved to the front of the line for a multitude of reasons." So it appears the casino which was days away a week ago is now moved to the back of the line...
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2447385
-On June 16th we hear from the developers again with another vague hype statement:
"watch the next couple of weeks and see what happens.. We have barley even started... Wink"
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2489202
-On June 19th we get to learn that all the programming on the exchange is done, just some tweaking left: "all the programming is done.. just tweaking.."
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2516389
-A week goes by without any news, then the developers post this June 27th, again very vague and not anything we have yet to see:
"Well I just finished transaction system.. Smiley"
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2591774
-On July 9th it seems a beta of the exchange has been released. The developers also makes a bold statement: "We want to dominate the exchange market in the next 3 months." Now one month later and still no real exchange having been released this seems somewhat unlikely.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2693642
After this there is no more news about the casino or the exchange. Now UNOCS takes over which I will cover in the next chapter.
If you look back at these statements and know that nothing ever was released and you still do not realize that this is pure hype and pump I do not know what to tell you. There has to be no doubt that the developers were not honest making these statements knowing what we know today. There is no excuse for building things up like this and not delivering months after they were "days away" from releasing everything.
5. UNOCS, the hype and failures
Even the hype of UNOCS was hyped. In the beginning of July we learned that a big press release would be released July 11th. The big news was that the three coins Feather, Phenix and Worldcoin would join together and make some big waves.
The website unocs.com was also released featuring a big timer counting down to some time around July 21st. I say some time because as it turned out this was the first big failure. The timer was defect and counted down to a different time depending on which time-zone you lived in. Pretty embarrassing start to this great UNOCS alliance.
Anyways, the timer finally hit zero for all time-zones, but instead of a big release the users were met with the following message:
"Due to concerns from several emails, we have taken steps to protect the system.
To allow for Cloudflare DNS changes to propagate, we have pushed the launch time back by 24hrs.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused."
This is clearly a lie, unless you actually believe several people was concerned about DDOS attack on something no one had a clue about what was. Another clear hint that this was a lie is obviously that nothing has still been released to this date. So here they ask us to trust someone who blatantly lies to us with all our coins, not very promising.
The timer hits zero again, this time users get a message where the developers asks for 3 more days to finish the project. Pretty much confirming that the previous statement was indeed a lie.
After some more time passes by the 3 day limit is also removed and the message is now that it will be released when it is done. It is now almost two weeks since it should have been released, but nothing has still been released.
The user ohiwastedmylif discoveres some problems with the UNOCS website itself:
-It gets stuck on infinite loading loops 24/7
-Looks like a seventh grader made it
-Has insecure directories
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2787811
The user dego then points out another lie, namely that the "highly skilled developer team" is only one person.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2788242
From here it just gets worse. It seems the developers have forgotten to secure the directories of the website allowing everyone easy access to a lot of stuff including passwords, personal information and credit card numbers. Luckily because the site is still not open all this information is just placeholders and made up stuff, but it surly does not inspire trust.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2795254
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2798146
To sum it up:
-UNOCS was hyped to the moon.
-Three deadlines (all very hyped with countdowns etc.) were missed.
-The website itself had tons of issues including the security of private information.
-It seems whoever is working on this does not have a clue what they are doing.
All in all seems like everything else relating to Phenixcoin with the end result being the same, a lot of hype and nothing released.
6. The block time rip-off.
This is the drop that made me totally give up on this coin. It is just so bad and goes against the fundamental properties of money. What happened is that the developers decided that 80% more coins should be released each day. In economics this is called a positive supply shock and leads to price falling.
The coin was released along with the rules of the coin. Everyone expects these rules to be followed by everyone and base their investments on them. All of a sudden the developers, without warning and without consulting the community decides to alter the rules. Not only that, they alter them in a way that screws over all the holders of the coin.
An important property of money is that you can predictably value goods and services in it. To do this you need to have a clue about how much of the money is in circulation at any given time. If you do not, the system breaks down. So not only does it screw over all coin holders it also makes the coin pretty much unusable as there is no way to tell what the developers will do next.
The trust in the coin has been broken, and can never be gained back. How can you trust these guys any time in the future if they just randomly changes the rules. Next time they might say, because of the great work the developers have put into the UNOCS bridge, the next update will give 5PXC from each mined block directly to the developers.
I have seen some defenders say that there will still be the same amount of coins in total generated over the next 100 years. That might be somewhat true, but that argument really is the same as saying: "It doesn't matter if the inflation the next 20 years is 20% per year instead of 4%, if the following 80 years have 0% inflation because in the end the same amount of money will be created." Hope everyone sees the problem with this and realize that the developers have already broken the rules of the coin so there is no guarantee that they will not do it again.
There is no reasonable explanation for why the developers would do this (and they are refusing to give any as well). The logical solution would have been to lower the block reward to match the shorter block time so the same amount of coin is generated in the same amount of time, but for some reason this was not done, and now it is too late. The only reason I can think of is that this will somehow benefit the developers in some way.
Here is a theory: They could have sold off the 1 million premined coins during all the hype they created and are now looking for a way to buy them back cheap. This way they would make a lot of money while no one would notice what they have done.
I'll leave it up to the objective reader to decide if these guys might be able to do something like that and if you want to trust these guys with any of your hard earned money...
UPDATE: After I exposed Phenixcoin in the official thread, it seems the developers are finally taking my advice and will be cutting the block reward too. Yesterday their stance on this was:
"Don't get me wrong i understand why everyone is pissed. But we did what we seen we needed to do and now its done."
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2852139
But after my big post they all of a sudden chagned their mind: "We understand your concerns, your voice is heard loud and clear. Our upcoming release will reduce the reward by half."
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2856301
As I originally posted it is too late to go back now. The damage is already done and the developers have shown their hand. They can not be trusted and will make random changes to the rules of the coin. This is what you all should be concerned about. Anyone trying to make an informed decision to invest in this coin could at any time get screwed.
Phenixcoin has no predictability and the developers will do whatever they want at any time. Either the developers are so stupid they do not understand the mistake they made or they are outright scamming. Either way it does not inspire trust to invest with them. Actually this fits pretty good into my speculation. They might have been able to buy back the premine during the last dump and are now ready to start a new pump cycle. Just watch...
7. Developer has bad history
This chapter has been added August 8th 2013 as I received a PM from someone giving me additional information showing that the developer of PXC and UNOCS is not as "highly skilled" as he says he is, and that the pattern of lies, bad coding and broken promises is not something new.
Confirmation that the developer of PXC, Michael (iamatrix), is the same user as Mike69 at the gfy.com (NSFW) forums:
"Here is my MSN : michael at iamatrix dot com"
http://gfy.com/showpost.php?p=9584980&postcount=8
Now the fun begins as we can look into the history of this Mike69 user.
First hit on google for "mike69 gfy" is a thread titled:
Mike69 biggest ripoff programmer - GFY Webmaster Board
http://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=966290
Now to be fair it is a pretty long thread with some people supporting Mike. However, all this just sounds way too familiar to me. It is pretty much the same story as what has been exposed in my OP. Lots of promises, delays and broken time limits, fancy screenshots, but no working product, bad coding, more promises that everything is almost done etc.
When you start looking at more threads about this user, you find more of the same:
Mike69... What the Fuck??
http://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=838181
Another example of him not delivering:
So I bought some content from LexiLexxx and Mike69!
http://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=539601
Not gonna quote this one, but it is another example of Mike not delivering on his promises and making up excuses. (Should probably warn about it being NSFW
)
One more
MIKE69.........When are you going to give me my money?
http://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=591820
There is also a ton of threads around where people ask for Mike69 to get in touch with them. If I am going to speculate it is probably because he has gone MIA after starting some project for them.
Anyone seen Mike69?
http://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=406460
Mike69 Please CONTACT Me ASAP!
http://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=588373
Looking for Mike69
http://www.justblowme.com/showthread.php/10486-Looking-for-Mike69
Mike69
http://www.justblowme.com/showthread.php/13452-Mike69
Finally an interesting thread from his (former) wife. Not going to judge, read it yourself
What happened to the post on Mike69?
http://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=146958
Through the life time of the coin, there has been a lot of hype surrounding projects the developers are working on. To date nothing has been officially released except for an escrow service that is no longer useful because all coins are traded on Cryptsy.
The two big projects that have been talked about most is an exchange and a casino. The developers have been talking about, and hyping up these a long time. Here is a quick summary of all the hyping that has been going on. When it is condensed like this it becomes pretty obvious what kind of pumping the team has been doing. And remember today two months after this started nothing has still been released.
-It was first mentioned back on May 22nd that they were looking for a "full professional casino software". https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2231959
-On May 25th the developers say: "We are working on that (casino).. will be available soon."
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2265945
-On June 1st developers say: "There will be a announcement later today." (Nothing more happens for the next 5 days.)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2339629
-On June 6th, the hype really takes off with these quotes from the developers:
"When we open what we have been working on, which should be tomorrow, the audience will grow quickly.."
"We have 3 new releases for PXC with in the next 7-10 days, starting tomorrow."
"lol... you might want to think about buying now.. before we launch these things.. "
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2391022
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2391317
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2391330
-Also on June 6th the developers release info about the casino and include a picture of a Video Poker game and a video of a blackjack game: http://youtu.be/eg8QdH-Inqw
Again stating: "Gaming system to be released for beta next week some time"
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2391717
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2391963
-After all this hyping price of PXC gets a nice bump on the exchanges, but nothing else happenes and the developers are not heard from until June 12th when it seems everything about the casino has been forgotten. It is now time to start hyping the exchange: "We are currently finishing up our exchange system. This was moved to the front of the line for a multitude of reasons." So it appears the casino which was days away a week ago is now moved to the back of the line...
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2447385
-On June 16th we hear from the developers again with another vague hype statement:
"watch the next couple of weeks and see what happens.. We have barley even started... Wink"
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2489202
-On June 19th we get to learn that all the programming on the exchange is done, just some tweaking left: "all the programming is done.. just tweaking.."
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2516389
-A week goes by without any news, then the developers post this June 27th, again very vague and not anything we have yet to see:
"Well I just finished transaction system.. Smiley"
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2591774
-On July 9th it seems a beta of the exchange has been released. The developers also makes a bold statement: "We want to dominate the exchange market in the next 3 months." Now one month later and still no real exchange having been released this seems somewhat unlikely.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2693642
After this there is no more news about the casino or the exchange. Now UNOCS takes over which I will cover in the next chapter.
If you look back at these statements and know that nothing ever was released and you still do not realize that this is pure hype and pump I do not know what to tell you. There has to be no doubt that the developers were not honest making these statements knowing what we know today. There is no excuse for building things up like this and not delivering months after they were "days away" from releasing everything.
5. UNOCS, the hype and failures
Even the hype of UNOCS was hyped. In the beginning of July we learned that a big press release would be released July 11th. The big news was that the three coins Feather, Phenix and Worldcoin would join together and make some big waves.
The website unocs.com was also released featuring a big timer counting down to some time around July 21st. I say some time because as it turned out this was the first big failure. The timer was defect and counted down to a different time depending on which time-zone you lived in. Pretty embarrassing start to this great UNOCS alliance.
Anyways, the timer finally hit zero for all time-zones, but instead of a big release the users were met with the following message:
"Due to concerns from several emails, we have taken steps to protect the system.
To allow for Cloudflare DNS changes to propagate, we have pushed the launch time back by 24hrs.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused."
This is clearly a lie, unless you actually believe several people was concerned about DDOS attack on something no one had a clue about what was. Another clear hint that this was a lie is obviously that nothing has still been released to this date. So here they ask us to trust someone who blatantly lies to us with all our coins, not very promising.
The timer hits zero again, this time users get a message where the developers asks for 3 more days to finish the project. Pretty much confirming that the previous statement was indeed a lie.
After some more time passes by the 3 day limit is also removed and the message is now that it will be released when it is done. It is now almost two weeks since it should have been released, but nothing has still been released.
The user ohiwastedmylif discoveres some problems with the UNOCS website itself:
-It gets stuck on infinite loading loops 24/7
-Looks like a seventh grader made it
-Has insecure directories
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2787811
The user dego then points out another lie, namely that the "highly skilled developer team" is only one person.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2788242
From here it just gets worse. It seems the developers have forgotten to secure the directories of the website allowing everyone easy access to a lot of stuff including passwords, personal information and credit card numbers. Luckily because the site is still not open all this information is just placeholders and made up stuff, but it surly does not inspire trust.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2795254
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2798146
To sum it up:
-UNOCS was hyped to the moon.
-Three deadlines (all very hyped with countdowns etc.) were missed.
-The website itself had tons of issues including the security of private information.
-It seems whoever is working on this does not have a clue what they are doing.
All in all seems like everything else relating to Phenixcoin with the end result being the same, a lot of hype and nothing released.
6. The block time rip-off.
This is the drop that made me totally give up on this coin. It is just so bad and goes against the fundamental properties of money. What happened is that the developers decided that 80% more coins should be released each day. In economics this is called a positive supply shock and leads to price falling.
The coin was released along with the rules of the coin. Everyone expects these rules to be followed by everyone and base their investments on them. All of a sudden the developers, without warning and without consulting the community decides to alter the rules. Not only that, they alter them in a way that screws over all the holders of the coin.
An important property of money is that you can predictably value goods and services in it. To do this you need to have a clue about how much of the money is in circulation at any given time. If you do not, the system breaks down. So not only does it screw over all coin holders it also makes the coin pretty much unusable as there is no way to tell what the developers will do next.
The trust in the coin has been broken, and can never be gained back. How can you trust these guys any time in the future if they just randomly changes the rules. Next time they might say, because of the great work the developers have put into the UNOCS bridge, the next update will give 5PXC from each mined block directly to the developers.
I have seen some defenders say that there will still be the same amount of coins in total generated over the next 100 years. That might be somewhat true, but that argument really is the same as saying: "It doesn't matter if the inflation the next 20 years is 20% per year instead of 4%, if the following 80 years have 0% inflation because in the end the same amount of money will be created." Hope everyone sees the problem with this and realize that the developers have already broken the rules of the coin so there is no guarantee that they will not do it again.
There is no reasonable explanation for why the developers would do this (and they are refusing to give any as well). The logical solution would have been to lower the block reward to match the shorter block time so the same amount of coin is generated in the same amount of time, but for some reason this was not done, and now it is too late. The only reason I can think of is that this will somehow benefit the developers in some way.
Here is a theory: They could have sold off the 1 million premined coins during all the hype they created and are now looking for a way to buy them back cheap. This way they would make a lot of money while no one would notice what they have done.
I'll leave it up to the objective reader to decide if these guys might be able to do something like that and if you want to trust these guys with any of your hard earned money...
UPDATE: After I exposed Phenixcoin in the official thread, it seems the developers are finally taking my advice and will be cutting the block reward too. Yesterday their stance on this was:
"Don't get me wrong i understand why everyone is pissed. But we did what we seen we needed to do and now its done."
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2852139
But after my big post they all of a sudden chagned their mind: "We understand your concerns, your voice is heard loud and clear. Our upcoming release will reduce the reward by half."
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2856301
As I originally posted it is too late to go back now. The damage is already done and the developers have shown their hand. They can not be trusted and will make random changes to the rules of the coin. This is what you all should be concerned about. Anyone trying to make an informed decision to invest in this coin could at any time get screwed.
Phenixcoin has no predictability and the developers will do whatever they want at any time. Either the developers are so stupid they do not understand the mistake they made or they are outright scamming. Either way it does not inspire trust to invest with them. Actually this fits pretty good into my speculation. They might have been able to buy back the premine during the last dump and are now ready to start a new pump cycle. Just watch...
7. Developer has bad history
This chapter has been added August 8th 2013 as I received a PM from someone giving me additional information showing that the developer of PXC and UNOCS is not as "highly skilled" as he says he is, and that the pattern of lies, bad coding and broken promises is not something new.
Confirmation that the developer of PXC, Michael (iamatrix), is the same user as Mike69 at the gfy.com (NSFW) forums:
"Here is my MSN : michael at iamatrix dot com"
http://gfy.com/showpost.php?p=9584980&postcount=8
Now the fun begins as we can look into the history of this Mike69 user.
First hit on google for "mike69 gfy" is a thread titled:
Mike69 biggest ripoff programmer - GFY Webmaster Board
http://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=966290
Quote
I decided to write this thread finally after MANY attempts of getting hole of Mike69 to finish the project paid for. I understand that I should have looked into his reputation before dealing with him, but I was brand new to this business and very excited to see the outcome of the program.
About 1 1/2 years ago I was looking into purchasing a custom webcam program to be made COMPLETELY from scratch. After many detailed discussions on what the program would feature, and how he would also keep it up to date and add features for low prices he quoted us 10k. He agreed that the program would be fully functional with a admin area also. We decided to do a half now and pay the remainder when the program was finished. He said the whole project would take about 3-4 months max.
From the start Mike seemed like a genuine nice guy, and I thought he actually cared about the outcome of this project, and the quality of his work. He bragged about how he used to work for adult.com as the main programmer and how he is the best in the business, and how adult.com ripped him off so he decided to do his own freelance work. I was a newbie to this business and very naive so I believed him, not to mention he had his wife Tina backing him up the whole time.
We sent the first half (5k) to him provided him with everything he needed, dedicated server etc. For the next 2 months Mike went on about how he was working 12-16 hour days on our program, and had it almost finished. He showed me some basic screen shots of his progress along the way, it looked decent to me at the time, but I really didn't know anything about programming. His wife kept calling me everyday looking for more money (even though we sent the first 50%), she said that without the remainder he would have to take other work to pay the bills. We were very reluctant at first but she kept calling and making up excuses, so we paid of the 5k balance before the program was finished (one of the worse business mistakes I ever made).
Now the real horror story begins. Once the money was sent it was almost impossible to get a hold of him or his wife Tina (the past 4 months they had been calling every day looking for more money). I decided to show a friend of mine who is a mainstream php programmer everything he did for us so far. Within 10 minutes of my friend taking a look at the script, he said "you were ripped off", Mike sold us a non functional program he created in 1998. My friend told me that the code was so bad and old, that there was no point of even trying to fix it. I wrote Tina, and Mike about it (because they wouldn't pickup my calls) saying I was going to show everyone on GFY how you ripped me off. He contacted me within 5 minutes, and said he would re do the program and finish the admin area. I decided to give him another chance because really I had no other choice (it wasn't like these scam artist are going to refund our money). Months went by and nothing! He doesn't respond to my ICQ messages, or pickup my calls. I know they started a cam site called camgirlscorner (dot) com, and is working on a payment processor.
I know a lot of you are already aware of what a scumbag Mike69 is, and how I made a lot of obvious mistakes trusting these people, but I hope it might save a few people from getting scammed in the future.
About 1 1/2 years ago I was looking into purchasing a custom webcam program to be made COMPLETELY from scratch. After many detailed discussions on what the program would feature, and how he would also keep it up to date and add features for low prices he quoted us 10k. He agreed that the program would be fully functional with a admin area also. We decided to do a half now and pay the remainder when the program was finished. He said the whole project would take about 3-4 months max.
From the start Mike seemed like a genuine nice guy, and I thought he actually cared about the outcome of this project, and the quality of his work. He bragged about how he used to work for adult.com as the main programmer and how he is the best in the business, and how adult.com ripped him off so he decided to do his own freelance work. I was a newbie to this business and very naive so I believed him, not to mention he had his wife Tina backing him up the whole time.
We sent the first half (5k) to him provided him with everything he needed, dedicated server etc. For the next 2 months Mike went on about how he was working 12-16 hour days on our program, and had it almost finished. He showed me some basic screen shots of his progress along the way, it looked decent to me at the time, but I really didn't know anything about programming. His wife kept calling me everyday looking for more money (even though we sent the first 50%), she said that without the remainder he would have to take other work to pay the bills. We were very reluctant at first but she kept calling and making up excuses, so we paid of the 5k balance before the program was finished (one of the worse business mistakes I ever made).
Now the real horror story begins. Once the money was sent it was almost impossible to get a hold of him or his wife Tina (the past 4 months they had been calling every day looking for more money). I decided to show a friend of mine who is a mainstream php programmer everything he did for us so far. Within 10 minutes of my friend taking a look at the script, he said "you were ripped off", Mike sold us a non functional program he created in 1998. My friend told me that the code was so bad and old, that there was no point of even trying to fix it. I wrote Tina, and Mike about it (because they wouldn't pickup my calls) saying I was going to show everyone on GFY how you ripped me off. He contacted me within 5 minutes, and said he would re do the program and finish the admin area. I decided to give him another chance because really I had no other choice (it wasn't like these scam artist are going to refund our money). Months went by and nothing! He doesn't respond to my ICQ messages, or pickup my calls. I know they started a cam site called camgirlscorner (dot) com, and is working on a payment processor.
I know a lot of you are already aware of what a scumbag Mike69 is, and how I made a lot of obvious mistakes trusting these people, but I hope it might save a few people from getting scammed in the future.
Now to be fair it is a pretty long thread with some people supporting Mike. However, all this just sounds way too familiar to me. It is pretty much the same story as what has been exposed in my OP. Lots of promises, delays and broken time limits, fancy screenshots, but no working product, bad coding, more promises that everything is almost done etc.
When you start looking at more threads about this user, you find more of the same:
Mike69... What the Fuck??
http://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=838181
Quote
It's been well over five months since I hired you as a developer for my project. Two months ago I even doubled the agreed upon amount paid to you. Since then you've given me virtually nothing but excuses. Now you're ignoring me completely.
Another example of him not delivering:
So I bought some content from LexiLexxx and Mike69!
http://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=539601
Not gonna quote this one, but it is another example of Mike not delivering on his promises and making up excuses. (Should probably warn about it being NSFW
)One more
MIKE69.........When are you going to give me my money?
http://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=591820
There is also a ton of threads around where people ask for Mike69 to get in touch with them. If I am going to speculate it is probably because he has gone MIA after starting some project for them.
Anyone seen Mike69?
http://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=406460
Mike69 Please CONTACT Me ASAP!
http://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=588373
Looking for Mike69
http://www.justblowme.com/showthread.php/10486-Looking-for-Mike69
Mike69
http://www.justblowme.com/showthread.php/13452-Mike69
Finally an interesting thread from his (former) wife. Not going to judge, read it yourself
What happened to the post on Mike69?
http://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=146958
This post was originally posted in the official Phenixcoin thread yesterday, but due to several requests about making it a new thread I will now do that.
I am going to make a long post here where I present facts about why I think Phenixcoin might be the biggest scam coin to date. I am aware that some people here will call me a troll and try to rip me for doing this. Yesterday nawazish1 let me know that he knows a lot more about this coin than I do, but after this post he might realize he is wrong. So let me start by giving some background.
I was a long time holder of Phenixcoin up until yesterday. I was actually one of the first people who mined this coin and I have been holding about 15.000 coins from the start. You can find me posting in this thread from May 21st, and most of my posts have been very positive while adding some advice and constructive criticism along the way.
Like most others in this thread I have been very excited about all the stuff the developers have been talking about and I have been waiting patiently for the releases of the casino, the exchange and of UNOCS. What happened yesterday is however totally unacceptable for any coin and goes against everything a coin is supposed to be. I am very angry about this and that is the reason why I am spending a lot of my time to make this post about everything that is wrong with the coin.
Table of contents
1. The premine
2. YaCoinYeah scandal
3. The poker room
4. The constant hyping of new releases
5. UNOCS, the hype and failures
6. The block time rip-off
7. Developer has bad history
1. The premine
1 million coins were premined of this coin. Everyone can see that on the fist page of the thread. This is not necessarily a problem and I was personally supporting the premine as an important part to build and support the coin. This was however on the condition that the developers would be open and 100% transparent about what the coins would be used for.
It was recommended that they post in the OP and on their webpage that there was in fact a premine. As you can all see this never happened, and it just goes to show they are trying to hide the premine instead of being open about it.
They were also told that it would be a good idea to put the premined coins in escrow with someone trusted so we all knew they would not use them for personal gain. This would have killed all the noise about the premine being a scam. Obviously the developers ignored this as well.
The developers have claimed that the premine would be used to fund poker freerolls, including a 25000 weekly freeroll. No such freerolls have ever run, and the excuse being made is that the poker room is not working properly. The developers make no response when it is suggested that maybe they should do other giveaways instead if they are struggling so much with the poker room.
No one really have any idea what the premine is being used for as there is no transparency. For all we know it might have been given away to friends of the developers or to themselves. See my next chapter for what 1% of it was used for.
All we have to go on is what the developers say in post #754. They say they have: "Sent coins to people to give away, covered some people losses on bad trades, sent pool owners coins to give away for promotion." Obviously nothing is documented and we just have to take their word on it.
It is easy to see that the premine situation has at best been handeled badly, at worst it is as many have speculated a scam. An honest premine would have been clearly stated on the website along with a ledger of what it has been spent on. Instead the developers have tried as best they could to hide the facts. Not good.
References:
Developers explain what they have used premine for (post #754):
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2265448
Suggestion to have information about premine on website and to put coins in escrow. Both ignored by developers:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2222004
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2221876
2. YaCoinYeah scandal
The YaCoinYeah scandal is somewhat tied to the premine as it raised questions about what the premine was being used for and the transparency of it.
YaCoinYeah was running the first google doc exchange for Phenixcoin. He started it himself and then asked the developers for a donation. He received 10.000PXC (1% of the premine) equal to $500 at the time. A lot of people felt this was way too much for this simple task. Most google docs exchanges was at this time run without getting paid for it.
When YaCoinYeah later begged for even more donations it created a lot of drama and the price of PXC fell a lot. It has later turned out that YaCoinYeah might be a scammer and he has negative trust here on the forum. Read from page 38 in the thread or see links below for more info.
References:
Confirmation of the 10k donation: https://bitcointalk.org/index.phptopic=211165.msg2265448#msg2265448
Nice little summary: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2269173
Critics being censored: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2265159
YaCoinYeah's profile: https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/yacoinyeah-116781
3. The poker room
The poker room was released along with the coin. At first it looks very impressive, however it really does not work. I already mentioned the 25.000 freeroll not running because of problems with the poker room. There is also a lot of problems reported throughout the thread from users.
I also have a problem with the fact that the developers seem to create an impression that they are the ones who have created the poker room. When someone asked if they were coding on the poker product themselves they ignored this question when replying to the post (see references). I bet that if you ask most of the Phenixcoin supporters they believe the creators of the coin also created the poker room.
The fact is that the poker room is open source software that the developers have just changed the logos and backgrounds of. That is probably also why they are not able to fix any of the problems the users are having. They just have to hope someone else fixes it for them.
The open source software is called Cubeia Poker. I can not find anywhere here on the forum or on the poker site where the developers give any credit to Cubeia Poker. Kinda shady if you ask me.
References:
Developers are asked if they are coding the poker software themselves, ignores the question:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2231959
Picture proving they are using Cubeia Poker:
http://s22.postimg.org/eb0cntws1/phxpoker.jpg
I am going to make a long post here where I present facts about why I think Phenixcoin might be the biggest scam coin to date. I am aware that some people here will call me a troll and try to rip me for doing this. Yesterday nawazish1 let me know that he knows a lot more about this coin than I do, but after this post he might realize he is wrong. So let me start by giving some background.
I was a long time holder of Phenixcoin up until yesterday. I was actually one of the first people who mined this coin and I have been holding about 15.000 coins from the start. You can find me posting in this thread from May 21st, and most of my posts have been very positive while adding some advice and constructive criticism along the way.
Like most others in this thread I have been very excited about all the stuff the developers have been talking about and I have been waiting patiently for the releases of the casino, the exchange and of UNOCS. What happened yesterday is however totally unacceptable for any coin and goes against everything a coin is supposed to be. I am very angry about this and that is the reason why I am spending a lot of my time to make this post about everything that is wrong with the coin.
Table of contents
1. The premine
2. YaCoinYeah scandal
3. The poker room
4. The constant hyping of new releases
5. UNOCS, the hype and failures
6. The block time rip-off
7. Developer has bad history
1. The premine
1 million coins were premined of this coin. Everyone can see that on the fist page of the thread. This is not necessarily a problem and I was personally supporting the premine as an important part to build and support the coin. This was however on the condition that the developers would be open and 100% transparent about what the coins would be used for.
It was recommended that they post in the OP and on their webpage that there was in fact a premine. As you can all see this never happened, and it just goes to show they are trying to hide the premine instead of being open about it.
They were also told that it would be a good idea to put the premined coins in escrow with someone trusted so we all knew they would not use them for personal gain. This would have killed all the noise about the premine being a scam. Obviously the developers ignored this as well.
The developers have claimed that the premine would be used to fund poker freerolls, including a 25000 weekly freeroll. No such freerolls have ever run, and the excuse being made is that the poker room is not working properly. The developers make no response when it is suggested that maybe they should do other giveaways instead if they are struggling so much with the poker room.
No one really have any idea what the premine is being used for as there is no transparency. For all we know it might have been given away to friends of the developers or to themselves. See my next chapter for what 1% of it was used for.
All we have to go on is what the developers say in post #754. They say they have: "Sent coins to people to give away, covered some people losses on bad trades, sent pool owners coins to give away for promotion." Obviously nothing is documented and we just have to take their word on it.
It is easy to see that the premine situation has at best been handeled badly, at worst it is as many have speculated a scam. An honest premine would have been clearly stated on the website along with a ledger of what it has been spent on. Instead the developers have tried as best they could to hide the facts. Not good.
References:
Developers explain what they have used premine for (post #754):
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2265448
Suggestion to have information about premine on website and to put coins in escrow. Both ignored by developers:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2222004
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2221876
2. YaCoinYeah scandal
The YaCoinYeah scandal is somewhat tied to the premine as it raised questions about what the premine was being used for and the transparency of it.
YaCoinYeah was running the first google doc exchange for Phenixcoin. He started it himself and then asked the developers for a donation. He received 10.000PXC (1% of the premine) equal to $500 at the time. A lot of people felt this was way too much for this simple task. Most google docs exchanges was at this time run without getting paid for it.
When YaCoinYeah later begged for even more donations it created a lot of drama and the price of PXC fell a lot. It has later turned out that YaCoinYeah might be a scammer and he has negative trust here on the forum. Read from page 38 in the thread or see links below for more info.
References:
Confirmation of the 10k donation: https://bitcointalk.org/index.phptopic=211165.msg2265448#msg2265448
Nice little summary: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2269173
Critics being censored: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2265159
YaCoinYeah's profile: https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/yacoinyeah-116781
3. The poker room
The poker room was released along with the coin. At first it looks very impressive, however it really does not work. I already mentioned the 25.000 freeroll not running because of problems with the poker room. There is also a lot of problems reported throughout the thread from users.
I also have a problem with the fact that the developers seem to create an impression that they are the ones who have created the poker room. When someone asked if they were coding on the poker product themselves they ignored this question when replying to the post (see references). I bet that if you ask most of the Phenixcoin supporters they believe the creators of the coin also created the poker room.
The fact is that the poker room is open source software that the developers have just changed the logos and backgrounds of. That is probably also why they are not able to fix any of the problems the users are having. They just have to hope someone else fixes it for them.
The open source software is called Cubeia Poker. I can not find anywhere here on the forum or on the poker site where the developers give any credit to Cubeia Poker. Kinda shady if you ask me.
References:
Developers are asked if they are coding the poker software themselves, ignores the question:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2231959
Picture proving they are using Cubeia Poker:
http://s22.postimg.org/eb0cntws1/phxpoker.jpg
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