Topic: Massively fraudulent Escrow Transaction! (Read 941 times)

No doubt that everyone likes simplicity but if signed message for important information was followed then this scam would not happen. I am not saying this has anything to do with you. OP is here to be blamed for not keeping his account secure. I hope this case should be used as an example of using signed bitcoin address wherever possibly we can.

I can't speak for others, but users have always seemed to appreciate my simple and straightforward approach to escrow.  My process is extremely simple and I think fair.  It should be common sense that you need to have a secure account to make trades with it.  The problem here has been identified as the user not securing their account.  Those seeking a deeper meaning or some excitement can dig into my last post on this thread.

Oh..

I didn’t realize that..
Last I knew they switched to multisig and OG was one of them..
I even merited that post.. I wonder if he was edited out of the post since I last saw it..
Idk.. My mistake either way..

And also phoneposting autocorrect mistakes edited..

It wasn't that long ago. Can you try and remember if the seller sent you a link and asked you to check out a thread for whatever reason? Why would there be a need for you to click on such a link? Try to remember the conversations you had with that person that got you tricked.

A phishing link requires you to submit your login details on the fake site. If you spoke with the seller or did some other forum activities one minute and then you were asked to log in again the next minute after getting a link from the seller, that should be something you would remember. Your computer being clean and malware-free is normal. Phishing links are not flagged as malware.

But what about your browsing history? Go through it thoroughly. If you got a link from the seller in PM, the fake site that disguises itself as Bitcointalk has got to be there. Check your browsing history for the day or days (if there were several of them) when you first started talking to the seller over PM and see if there is anything there out of the ordinary. 

Nope.

Okay, well regardless, he doesn't need Og's to hold treasury funds anymore. I do wonder why that is the case.

You mean "amateur". Okay, if that is the attitude you have then the crypto space will forever lose users over easily avoidable things. It would have taken him all of 30 seconds to send me a quick DM. You acting like that is such a big deal is exactly what the problem is. Sure, Og and his "policies" don't say that he has to do that, but it does not mean he SHOULDN'T do it.

I did not know that Og was even willing to accept the shipment, as it would force him to reveal his receiving address to the sellers. Agree, this would have been a GOOD THING TO KNOW! (Another recommendation he should have made to me to protect the security of the deal).

And yes, I agree, it is 99% my fault (assuming I got phished), but the fact Og won't even take blame to that remaining 1%, and admit that in the future he should make sure newbie users who are doing big escrow transactions use a little extra security in their deal, or at least RECOMMEND it to them. That's still, one of the primary points I am upset about. His responses to me and complete dodge of all blame is another thing that makes one wonder how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Sure, I can understand that he maybe sees this as a ploy to defame him... but my God anyone who would do that has to be pretty fkn bored. Because obviously it doesn't do any good. You all just defend him blindly without even considering the fact that he could maybe be doing more to keep this a safe and legitimate place to transact. Because as it is right now, unless you are an expert crypto -> real world item trader... and use escrow a lot... you wouldn't even know of the potential pitfalls. You wouldn't even know to use signed messages. You wouldn't even know to ask if the item could be shipped to the escrow agent. These are all things he should have like a copy/paste message he sends to every person who comes to him for escrow.

Something. Anything. The fact he's been doing it this long, let umpteen number of scams happen (NONE OF THEM HIS FAULT, SURELY)... without him so much as giving me even one word of advice during the process... Is troubling.

OG was not removed as treasurer.. OG is still a forum treasurer..
theymos just changed the way the treasury works..

It is a super amateur mistake getting your account phished..
OG shouldn’t have had to explain that elementary security precaution any more than he should have to explain to you to double check your sending address..

Deals with only messages from accounts are the norm.. Most know to keep their account secure, especially if they are relying on it for such deals..

You could have chosen many different ways of using an escrow.. You chose basic..
You could also have had OG receive the miner and then ship it to you, to make sure a miner existed.. Many do this with physical coins..

This is 99% your fault..

I’ve been scammed in crypto 2 times.. Both were my fault..
Once when I was very very new to crypto for like a $20 gift card..

The other time for one of those pet buying scams because my GF wanted a specific cat, and I was drinking and playing cards and didn’t think twice and just paid for it..
Actually I was really really an idiot and ASKED if they would take BTC because I didn’t have Venmo..
Think it was like $450.. I was a total idiot..

This sucks.. I know..
I really don’t think you should be blaming OG for it though..

Actually I’m pretty sure OG is quite suspicious here that this is a setup to scam or try to defame HIM..
Look at it from his point of view too..

Because during the time when OP was carrying out a deal with Burky155 with the said compromised account, Burky155 obviously knew what he needed to do to trick OGNasty.
If it was any random user with malicious intentions, for example, let's say I had malicious intentions. Why would I hack into BetGalaxyADM's account, tricky the escrow service provider into releasing funds into Burky155's address. What would be my end game? Nothing!

Burky155 did this because he wanted the funds released into his address

Remember when someone compromised your account? I think that's exactly what they did to OP though he is yet to provide us some evidence of how it happened.

I will be more into you got phish linked. Your account credentials were stolen from it. If you are trying to imply that OgNasty has admin access or access in the forum database to manipulate account information then I do not think anyone will believe it. OgNasty is just a forum member like rest of us. Only Theymos has the access of the forum database and admin panel, Cyrus should have it too. But no one else for sure.

I think you need to move on after all. Create a flag for burky155 which you have not yet. Users will support it. I am tagging the account.

The account that sent it to me was: dragospirvu75.

Was it from the same account? Not that it matters, just curious... Burky155?

I had someone try and phish me a short while ago so you were probably targeted too during the same time or maybe earlier. These people will usually send the links to a lot of people and whoever falls for it falls for it.

Sure, Agree, but that doesn't mean I am asking that he REQUIRES these things. Just a simple message "Hey I see you are new... I would recommend a few additional security steps if you want your deal to be truly secure. You can go forward how you have it setup currently, but it is not 100% secure the way it is being done. I just wanted to let you know that."


Agree on the 100%, I was simply stating that to make it clearly obvious that no other person other than the seller was the one with access to my account. Unless the seller himself is also the escrower... but I am not suggesting that is the case here.

And yes, that is what bothers me, that they don't take the job seriously when there are 5+ figures of funds being transferred.

And your last one... that's unfortunate =(


This is the part I don't really agree with. I think that Og has been around in escrow long enough that he has likely SEEN IT ALL. Yes I know OG is/was a treasurer for the forum. I wonder why Theymos removed him from such position. 

Yes I know it was not me (why the "by the way"? lol). I can understand why he felt like he had to release the funds. I just wish he took his job more seriously and didn't let new users to the crypto space who are making a pretty big purchase get screwed over.

A website cannot inject your computer with a keylogger (not without me actually downloading and executing a file)... It can however trick me into logging in again thinking I was on the real website. I have ran scans, malware, etc... My computer is squeaky clean and I have never in my life suffered a security issue like THIS before. That is why I am pretty sure, the only way(s):
1) I got phish linked.
2) Something even more shady happened. I won't imply where my brain goes with this. But I think you get the idea.

I am sure this is first time OgNasty experienced too or he would definitely take the route. From his part I do not see there were anything much to be done. He should not have a doubt when you (which actually was not you by the way) were telling him to release the fund twice.

OgNasty has a long history in the forum. If you are not aware then he was holding 400 BTC for the forum and successfully returned it to the admin after few years. It worth millions of dollars.

There must be some keylogger in one of those UR. You clicked it and he was logging every input from your keyboard. I suggest you reinstall the windows and use a good anti virus to avoid giving him more into.

About 100%.

Unfortunately, not many "escrows" take that job seriously while they take a considerable payment for something as simple as reading a few messages and sending one transaction.

I tried, but clearly it failed I'd offer to do it myself, but I don't want to dox myself to handle physical goods.

@BetGalaxyADM,

How did you get in contact with the seller in the first place? Did it have anything to do with OGNasty recommending them to you? Or it might be another "trusted" forum member, but could be an alt or a fellow gang member of OGNasty. I have read in the past that OGNasty had some connections (including monetary) with the administrators of this forum, that a few people find odd or got them ask questions. Maybe this is how you got hacked? I did not dig into it personally because like you I am no longer having any financial deals with anyone or any organisation promoted by this forum.

It's very reasonable that the service you pay for could afford sending one sentence saying maybe you should use PGP to sign your message, but I think you're wasting your time here. I know because I did, when I got scammed for 100k (but in a different manner, it was not about a purchase of goods). For me, it's now between the lawyers and the courts. They know that at best they'll never have to pay you or at worst they'll just have to pay what they owed you in the first place anyway. But I've never heard of anyone going to jail for it.

Bottom line, mainstream here is a bunch of thieves, exit scammers, liars.

No matter what scam happens it's either:
-The victim's fault (this was my case as well)
-When this can't be defended, like it's a large scale scam where every single person who used the platform got scammed, then it's "ok", and we should have "compassion" for the scammer, because the scammer has done some fair trades in the past: the scammer account has very little trust consequences for his account and continues to do business as usual: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/royse777-bitlucy-and-long-story-in-brief-5403679
-When a promoted platform is involved:
     *Either this platform is doing signature campaigns in this forum, so it's your fault, somehow you should know that scammers are everywhere.
     *Either the platform does not do signature campaigns in this forum, so it's the platform's fault, but in this case they can't help you either lol because the platform doesn't care that much.

He could have, yes. But there is another side to that story. People are generally lazy to take the longer and safer route. If OgNasty required from the two parties to sign bitcoin messages as confirmation or doing any extra work besides PM exchanges, he might lose clients because of that. If a client is lazy to do what he says, he will just find a different escrow agent that doesn't require all that extra work. That's just the way it is.

What are the odds that the guy with access to my account was also the seller? Because that is where they had the funds release to... If it was another person I would of expected they try to cancel the deal and change the refund address.. or change the shipping address for the miner.


Yes... I know... and I agree... but I also was the n00b here who hired an expert who I was hoping would offer such advice and keep the deal secure. Especially considering the amount... Isn't that something a escrow provider should at least show some effort in trying to do? If the escrowers did that, it would make this place much less of a hot bed for scammers.


Yes I know, and I will definitely do this sort of thing in the future. Again, I feel this is something the escrow expert service provider should have recommended to me. Especially considering his experience and knowledge of the amount of scamming that can happen here. It really bothers me the complete lack of care he has. You know he did not even so much as apologize for getting scammed? Didn't offer ANY advice like you all have on how to avoid this in the future... didn't show even one ounce of empathy. I will never, EVER, use his service again because of that. He could really help protect and boost his escrow business by making sure less people get scammed and more people have a good experience. Have to ask yourself, why does he not care to do that?

To clarify the bottom of your message. My scott2k account was hacked. Burky155 was posting in the goods section selling mining hardware. We had PM discussions back and forth before going to og for the escrow deal. He did send me some url's, but I unfortunately cannot go back yet and check if they were in fact phishing links, or not. I still have not got a reply to my account recovery email I sent several days ago. This is how we know it wasn't some "random" hacker... The hacker was CLEARLY burky155... because the hacker had the funds release to burky155's provided release address.

The forum account can be hacked and unfortunately you were targeted. If you both or the Trio (You, OG and Burky155) were using signed bitcoin address to communicate with each others using current date then I think this sort of damaged could be avoided.

OG in his signed message:

Burky155 in his signed message:

You in your signed message:

Whatever you do; the idea is, the important information should be digitally signed from known bitcoin address. So you do not need to trust the forum account or telegram account or any account.

I am wondering why OG and minerjones or anyone else who are offering their escrow service do not practice digitally secured signing.

This is not going in my head. The timing.

Assuming Burky155 is a hacker. How the hell he had this clear timing when BetGalaxyADM needed the mining hardware, he see and order it then hack BetGalaxyADM to confirm OG to release the fund?

I don't see any of this being the escrow's fault unless the deal was that OgNasty has to see the tracking ID personally and verify that the goods have been shipped to the correct destination. Was that the case here? If you and OgNasty didn't agree for him to verify the tracking ID, it's not his responsibility to do that.

You could have made this deal safer yourself. Some people already mentioned how.
Since you have two accounts on Bitcointalk, the deal could also have included that confirmation to release funds needs to come from both accounts. Or the forum account + any other type of confirmation like Telegram, social media, Skype, etc.