Topic: intersango bitcoin withdraw not possible? (no fiat involved) - page 3. (Read 10150 times)

Anyone who has lost money to these scum should Contact the City Of London Police and not the London Metropolitan Police.
The City of London Police deal with all financial and internet fraud and scams and they are very good at it they have jailed many market traders and fraudulent company directors both in the UK and abroad.

http://www.cityoflondon.police.uk/advice-and-support/fraud-and-economic-crime/Pages/Reporting-fraud.aspx

Thank you for your help PaperLess. It's rather professional. You are a person of details and very helpful to others.

The customized google search turns out empty page for me, is it inteded? That there is nothing?

I don't mind buying the report (less than 100 Chinese Yuan) but the problem is what action to take after having it. Even a visit to their office address is perhaps not necessary and should be skipped - you expect to see nothing and nobody there. The company is expected to have one person only, and he is expected to be in the U.S.

I don't even know which way to start to get these thing done - force liquidate the business. The procedure, cost and time etc etc.

Perhaps it make sense to start a small website 'intersango debt collect' to record the loses for the folks and as a basis of some action against Intersango? e.g. for people to file claims and make legal procedure to start.

Intersango Ltd. UK registered company with the name Intersango LTD (company number: 07683978) under the Companies Act 2006.
A Ltd is a Limited Liability company. Which means that the company is only liable up to their share value which can be as £100

Company address:
Intersango Ltd
3rd Floor 14 Hanover Street
London
England
W1S 1YH

Filed on 16-01-2014   First notification of strike-off action in London Gazette (Section 652)   £4.99   
Filed on 31-07-2013   Notice of striking-off action discontinued   £4.99
Filed on 21-06-2013   First notification of strike-off action in London Gazette (Section 652)   £4.99   
Filed on 23-09-2012   Annual Return   £4.99   
Filed on 30-06-2012   Annual Accounts

A "strike off action" means that they have not filled in their annual accounts.

A company report is available (£9.99) which will have these details from companies house here in the UK it says it has details of:
Turnover, Company Registration Number, Pre Tax Profit, Year Started, Issued Capital, Incorporation Date, Nominal Capital, Annual Return Date, Net Worth, Number of Employees, Net Assets, Director Information, Current Director Position, Past Director Position, Current Director Name, Past Director Name, Date of Appointment and Date of Registration.

Someone has been trying to get more information about the address that Intersago is registered at.
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/14_hanover_street_3rd_floor
But have not had any luck.

Goggle show up lots of companies are registered at 14 Hanover Street. So it looks like a company selling "off the shelf company registrations" is who is really there. The Company report from business intelligence company I use might give you more leads to follow

Here is a custom search that might turn up something.
http://www.cylex-uk.co.uk/google/companysearch?cx=016729864569533560013:5agkikkhevy&cof=FORID%3A9&ie=utf-8&hl=en&q=INTERSANGO%20LTD

I have an account at Intersango and so this thread caught my eye. I used them when they first opened as they where the only place you could get Bitcon back then. I logged in OK and found I had left 3 BTC in my account (small change at that time worth £12) so I have made a request for my 3 BTC.

Think of England as a pirate ship off the coast of Europe as far as finance is concerned so unless fraud can be proved rather than just sloppy business I would expect the police to get involved. In which case it would be a civil matter and it would be difficult to recover any money. If the company is forced into liquidation a Receiver would be appointed. They would sell any assets and the tax man would get first bit of the cherry. But I'm not a Lawyer. I can buy the report for you if you like.

Hope this is of some help.

12GyM6kF9ZTmbsRBdDNixpfpvLu8zBQWse

AFAIK, she did not go the civil dispute route, and she did not hire a civil lawyer. Because I remember she said once "don't question me why I don't sue him" or something similiar: can't find the source now. She is following this thread occasional, may come and clearify. I thought that she is firmly on the police/FBI route.

I will help by repeating the story as another creditor, to any police officer who took icicle's case, once she announces the police officer's email address or contact method (icicle: if you are reading this: you can contact us with PM on this forum to avoid exposing the police officer's email address), be it a U.S. police or U.K. police.

I am not giving up the idea of hiring a civil lawyer. Did you check that we must have a civil lawyer to plead to force liquidating the company? And do you know the price range of such a lawyer? You would be helping a lot other people by some digging, and it is still possible to arrange co-share of the cost. That being said, I will continue to support icicle on police route as well as spend effort going through a civil dispute.

Just a quick update. I spoke with my lawyer friend but her expertise in this area is not specific enough to really help us in this matter. She, as well as the police, have told me this would normally classify as a civil case, relating to the agreement signed between me and Intersango and hence they advised to arrange a consult with a civil lawyer, which is what I think Icicle has already done. Also I don't think a Dutch lawyer can really help here, since the company is based in the UK and Patrick is in the US, so I think for now it may be best to follow Icicle's approach and contribute to her case the best we can.

In response to your comment on being from the first world: 12.4 BTC is a lot of money to me. I am a student and I could currently pay off a good part of my student loans with this (esp together with the BTC that went missing at mtgox), which will save me a lot of worries during for years to come.

Thank you. This is important to check the possible outcome.

When the action is needed, there are several actions we can take:

1) We can repeate what icicle did in the U.S., filing a case in police - I do not know U.K. police would act to this, but in China the outcome is: they take the case, write a file, close it in a cabinet and it's there forever - bribing may or may not kick start the progress.
2) We can sue the company,
3) We can ask related entities to act, e.g. check if it requires a court order to freeze intersango account or request force liquidation - perhaps proof of delayed payment of debt is sufficient to start it without court order? I have never been living outside of China. I am oblivious.

Apparent to me that 1) and 3) are less expensive. 2) perhaps can be inexpensive too, because there is a chance he doesn't want to present in the court (if he has nothing to lose), making it less work for everybody. Again, this is a guess from someone whose knowledge of the western world is from hollywood movies.

P.S. We should pay your labour with a percentage if you are to go through all the trouble for others - it's nature. We can fix that when we are set on action
P.S. Losing the 30 coins in Intersango and the 100 coins in MtGox to a Chinese is like, losing between 650 to 1000 coins for people in the first world.

I am Dutch and lived in the UK for some years. After that used to visit the UK regularly up until recently, but no plans now for the foreseeable future. I do however have contacts in London that may be able to file a case and I should be able to travel to London at a relatively low cost if needed.

Annoying thing now is that I had to cancel my withdrawal request because in any case I do not want any BTC to go to mtgox anymore. I can prove, however, that I requested a withdrawal and asked for support twice over the course of two months, and of course my emailing Patrick. I have now again put in a request for the full amount of BTC owed to me by intersango, but to an offline/cold storage wallet. Something I should have created a long time ago.

If we really want to file a case we will have to look into what we stand to gain and where we stand legally under UK law, where the company originates. One of the worries I had, and possibly share with other people, is that BTC is not legal tender and hence we might not get coins, but only original fiat investments. On the other hand, if we buy shares through a bank or company, then those aren't legal tender either. It seems only logical that if we had bought some shares in e.g. Tesla motors a few years back and they were owed to me by a company who can not provide those original shares, that I would get recompensed for the current value of those shares, even though those shares have doubled in value many times over since then. I will confirm with my lawyer friend how this works under Dutch law and I am quite sure in the UK it should be the same, or at least similar.

Patrick has bitcoinica's money in MtGox - okay, but what about Intersango's customers money? It was stored in a 'hot wallet' on Intersango, and when it was not, it should be in a 'cold wallet' by Intersango, no reason to go to MtGox.

I feel it is perhaps time to take action, to ride the wave and get some attention. Someone spoke him as having a little responsibility, helped a user when she couldn't fully proof ownership, so if he had money that he doesn't consider his own he may gave to owner, thus getting the rest of the coins from him requires more than asking. Meanwhile a case against him would make it public, so people are aware and learn something from it.

How many of you intersango users are located in England (where the company is registered - correct me if I am wrong) and how many live close to San Francisco (where he lives - correct me if I am wrong)? We need to file case in two places, see who has the jurisdiction.

Early this month I was tempted to file the case in Poland where Intersango bank account is, by asking my friend who was visiting - we failed to get authorization (signed) from other users to file case for them (I wasn't able to myself because my withdraw only had stuck 2-weeks, too short to be taken seriously). I believe simply trying to be noisy without any authorization letter wouldn''t help, so I gave up asking him to file a case in Poland.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/the-biggest-thief-in-the-bitcoinica-debacle-mtgox-260225

Bitcoinica/ Intersango's BTC funds were on Patrick's account on MTGox.

How would you know this, Dipsomaniac?

It would seem that Gox going down is the final nail in the coffin for all of our hopes of ever seeing our BTC returned to us.

Bitcoinica/ Intersango's BTC funds were on Patrick's account on MTGox.

I've lost all hope of ever seeing my 15 BTC again and I'd rather just move on and forget about this whole pile of shit than carry on by taking legal action.

Best of luck to anyone that does.

Fuck MTGox.

Have been trying to withdraw from intersango since start of December. Some smaller amounts (up to 0.09 BTC) went through around December 10th.

Then tried to withdraw the rest (12.4 BTC) several times (#58315 and #58371) just before and around X-mas. Thought perhaps these amounts were too big to deal with in one go so was polite enough to reduce the withdrawal to 2 BTC (#58470) on January 6th. Logged a few support tickets and tried to email to Patricks gmail.

Guess in a way I am lucky because last withdrawal would have gone to mtgox, so I have just cancelled it and now I will have to go all the way to the back of the queue again...like the queue still matters...

I do not believe the message on the intersango homepage. Does it take a month to restart a computer? Should they not have been able to come up with a plan to avoid such a long downtime of their hotwallet system and at least warned us beforehand, if the downtime of the power facilities had been scheduled - as it says on the website?

It is really painful to see a bunch of nitwits and amateurs (I am being polite here) turning a beautiful idea, that even has potential to rescue humanity from our current debt-ridden economic system, into a complete disaster.

for me 3 months that i try to withdraw 11.5btc :

I've opened several support tickets and sent emails to them

-----------------------------------------------

Withdraw #58610

Requested withdrawal of 11.56730000 BTC

------------------------------------------------

it's time to regroup all mail, tel number, FB profile, and make a big trolling action !!

I am ignored, as expected.

What kicked me to return and follow up this post is:
Intersango website isn't accessible today, from HongKong, Texas (U.S.) and China. The error is "ConnectionTimeout".
Edit: the next morning the website came back and I can login successfully.

Interesting: sounds like your withdraw request is made in November, before user theta successfully withdrawed bitcoins in early December 2013. Either you are treated differently than theta, OR, together with icicle's case, it suggests that cash withdraw ceased earlier than bitcoin withdraw (notice that this thread was started with a bitcoin withdraw problem).


You meant Amir Taaki and Patrick Strateman.

Amir Taaki is nick named zgenjix when he was a computer game developer. Today he is known as an important bitcoin developer. When Intersango advertised that it is run by the people who maintained bitcoin software, I believe that refers to Amir Taaki, who is according to icicle no longer assocated with Intersango. His contact information is very easy to find - like most opensource developers, he made his online contact information public.

According to Internet posts, many emailed Patrick using [email protected]. Some got help (before December 2013), some are ignored. I read this:


Note that on the same page, someone nicknamed 'drcross' 2 months ago suggested "Contact patrick dot strateman a.t. gmail dot com. He's a nice guy and will sort you out". Also note that, from my days of Google search homework, everyone who complained against Intersango publicly seems to have difficulty speaking English in correct, full sentences, perhaps they are all foreigners like me.

At least from all the info we collected in this thread, it seems that although bitcoin withdraw doesn't seem to work, selling you coins and retry with cash withdraw would not get you any better. Some posts say that they got bitcoin withdraw successfully, as I did in July 2013, but virtually no one reported successful cash withdraw - not that they are obliged to, though.

I just emailed Patrick (in a nice tone), and my password is of good quality. My name would expose that I am a foreigner right away, before my English does. We will see if he disables my login outright, when that happens I'll let you know. Although I expect be ignored, I cautiously kept a screenshot while typing my password to evince that it is a good password, unlikely guessed out, before writing to Patrick, so that if my login stopped working, I have evidence to show it is unlikely a 3rd party hacked and changed password. Let me know if you think of something that I should do now, while I still can access my account.

Intersango blocked me after i did a 2100 euro wihdrawal and ask for support..

wait now for 2 months and sent a lot of emails....

Amir Taaki en Patrick Strateman is scam and fraud.. Don't go in business with them!!!

zgenjix
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
skype: zgenjix

They scam and fraud. To the court with them.

#582XX 1.0 bitcoin ca. 1.1.2014 hanging (requested). Ticket from maybe 15th with request for "staff action" unanswered.

Thank you for updating the latest news of Intersango (regarding to hot wallet). That piece of news evinces that not all Intersango people are on fishing holiday, and somebody is doing something in Intersango. Perhaps they don't take withdraw request a high priority now. In fact, as I observed, hotwallet stopped to react on 0.01BTC withdraw since 18 Jan 2014, it could have been down since - I hope it was not because of larceny when security fixes are behind schedule.

I have a question for all of you. If, when a condition is met that you think the waiting is over and that you are facing a scam, and should take the next level of action, what would that condition be?

- until a certain day without any user report that their withdraw request being processed. i.e. everybody has trouble
- until there is a user whos request has not been dealt for a certain months. i.e. someone has trouble and it will happen to me.
- if hot wallet canot be fixed in a certain days. i.e. when an execuse is identified.
- right now, because failure of hot wallet apparently does not have to suspend manual withdraw processing, unless they are magically coded together (e.g. manual processing considered a special hotwallet operation and all withdraws have to go through the hot wallet). i.e. the current news is suspicious enough

In mooting this I am not expecting Intersango to act on our deadlines - they could have acted on icicle's case,  but they chose to not to respond under that enormous pressure, so we already know they can afford to ignore. I am mooting the point because having a clear 'conditon of action' makes us act swiftly when needed, and having a plan let us feel less worried.

You also need to consider the disruptive nature of bitcoin world. It is not a legal tender - to police at the moment, at best a commodity, and at worst a casino chip. It is possible that the police can only get you the fiat money you deposite into Intersango account, as scams are often dealt this way, which is merely a fraction of its current value, overshadowing the ingenuity of your investment decision - and police probably are less interested in helping international investors like us, especially when the proof of deposite has been years away, if still exists. There are reasons for waiting, with condition, for Intersango to act professionally; and there are signs that they have acted professionally in some cases.

P.S. I know intersango is likely one man, but until he speaks of his company as himself, I try to remain objective, to not to rob him away of the chance of dealing this case professionally, that is, on the business entity level, not taken personally. On the other hand, if it is a one man show, it is a very hard job to do. Trade platform carries a lot of expectations with it, security, efficiency and customer communication. You need to be an excellent people person to glue different type of staff together to make it work, and it is very labrous for one man to run. Before the owner figure out a way to quit properly, he has to deal with these expectations in the pace he can afford.

My request was october 2013, around the 23rd. There is no request ID because the request was made via a support ticket. I have been locked out of my account, reason: no photo ID on record. I sent a high resolution passport scan in that same day. All tickets have gone unanswered since, I am still locked out of my account and still have no bitcoins.

The matter is in the hands of the fraud department at Ingleside Police Station in San Francisco.

Up date from Intersango home page

NOTICE: BITCOIN TRANSACTIONS HALTED
The system running the hotwallet has halted due to scheduled downtime of power facilities.
All bitcoin transactions will be halted until such time as the system can be manually restarted.