Topic: Occulta Scamming? (Read 3486 times)

"Also, my credit card company offers emailed code when I redeem my reward points."
Eureeka.

It's a combination of both of those plus buyers claiming non-receipt for emailed codes.

I'd like to know how many are non-delivery fraud, and how many of those gift cards are actually redeemable on the vendor website.

The bottom line is, no matter how code was generated, there should be one central database to store all legit codes, so they can be checked at redemption time. Am I missing something?

In both those cases you are ordering directly from the gift code provider.  Dealing with an emailed code via a third party is extremely risky.  Gift cards are the number one fraud category on eBay.  Why do you think that is?

I don't think that's entirely true, if you order GC from Amazon's website, there's "email" option which only send code via email.

Also, my credit card company offers emailed code when I redeem my reward points.

Amazon's gift code algorithm isn't exactly rocket science.  IIRC the code generators work for 4-8 months then Amazon catches up and shuts them down.  IIRC Amazon throws a pretty wide net out to try and recover funds from those who used illegitimate codes.

You should never rely on an emailed code.  If you don't visibly see a code on a plastic gift card there's a good chance it's illegitimate.

This is what a legitimate seller looks like:



I'd love to see some proof/evidence that any of these guys are selling legitimate codes.

Who knows?

Before I thought Amazon can't be that stupid to allow this happen, but after seeing videos like this:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ1qbijOGmc
I am not so sure ...

I find my self astonished every day at the complete incompetence of others.

With so many customers having used Occulta's GCs, if he is a scammer, either he is an incredibly smart criminal or Amazon is incredibly incompetent.

Careful, they might start to say you and I are the same person too.
I wonder will they dare to tell you to shut up.
I doubt it.

+1

Has anyone bothered checking into Occulta's story? One way we could do it is by asking Amazon the same questions he asked Amazon of newguy. Until that happens, I'm worried that Occulta might really be scamming us as well.

Turnabout is fair play.

Pretty obvious anyone selling Amazon codes at 10-20% off is up to shenanigans.  If you can get paid $1000usd on $1000 off commissions why on earth would you accept 80 cents on the dollar?

80 cents on the dollar from an untraceable payment source I might add (so no chargeback issues when the codes start coming up invalid and/or banned).  Takes Amazon a while to catch up but it always does.  Mark my words.

Sorry but the truth hurts.

Both sellers have acted very unprofessionally and I will not give either of them business having read these 2 threads.

The best part of the haploid guy, is that he actually bought $4,000 worth of codes from Newdude. He got them all with 0 issues. I am not sure where the final $570 owed comes into play but he did get amazon GC's worth 4k.

To be honest I dont really care how newdude or occulta get their amazong giftcodes as long as they are legit. I have bought from occulta before and he is legit I have had 0 problems and neither has anyone else. Newdude so far has been trolling and has apparently ripped off one person so far... Its common sense here.

I believe the ? makes it a question and not a statement, im no master of the English language. If you want to see libelous and belligerent post, look at the original thread. There was absolutely no argument made as to why he was a scammer. It was just so. Big bad Occulta deemed it so and that was it.

If that is your entire argument, you should edit your post title and cross your fingers you don't get banned.  "Not playing nice with competition" is not scamming.  You are being libelous and belligerent.  Revise your post to be accurate, or prepare to lose any credibility you may have.

1) Occulta used to sell for 20% off and still does if you buy enough.

2) Lets say he has sold $30,000 worth of cards(its probably much higher) Lets take an average of 12%(just a guess, since he now sells for 10 and used to sell for 20) thats a $3,600 that he is getting taxed on but never made. The time is a good argument, and it comes down to would you make more money getting BTC now or waiting a week and having $3600 more to spend on coins. If he is some market wiz and makes a killing trading and having coins now makes him more money. Then I cant argue against that. $1000 earned is $1000 earned, there is no way to argue that. Just because they are earned differently doesn't make it less or more valuable.

3)According to newdude, he buys ipads for $100 with some pawnshop deal(this is what he says I dont know if this is a fact) And resells them for $250-$400.

There are several problems with your argument here.
1. Occulta is selling them for 10% off, not 20%.
2. Bank transfers take time. Mailed checks take even more time. And then if he wants BTC, he has to wait even longer for a transfer from his bank account to whatever exchange he wants to use. And then Fees at the exchange!
3. The $1000 from Occulta is VERY different from the $1000 from Newdude. Here's why:
To get that $1000, occulta refers people to amazon, and earns 15% of what they buy. This can be as simple as links on his websites, to more complicated stuff such as setting up his own amazon.com sub-site. Occulta nets $1000 in amazon Credit.
 Newdude, if he is selling iPads, Buys them for $500-$800 each, and sells them for what, $50 profit each? He then takes that money and buys Amazon gift cards. (why he chooses gift cards? I don't know, Money laundry perhaps?) Newdude nets ~$50 for each iPad he sells.

Its 2012, It takes a week for a letter to get to pretty much any part of the world. How fast can one turn BTC into USD? 2-3 days? With the 10s of thousands that he has sold from 20%-10% off would you wait 2-3 more days for thousands of dollars more? Also is occulta located in the USA?

Hmmmm. Probably a better reason to get paid in gift cards and sell them on here. Huh.

International affiliates can be paid with a check or gift cards. Direct deposit is not available for non us banks.

What about out of country (USA) affiliates? Do you know how they can be paid?

Also for others that didnt know you can accept your amazon affiliates payments in either Amazon Gift cards, or as USD with a direct bank transfer.

I feel that my argument is logically thought out and can lead any rational person to a certain conclusion. Now I am not trying to persuade people to use or not use him, once again I could give a shit where he gets his cards. I am just upset that people absolutely trusted Occult's word and forced a competitor out.NO evidence, not even an argument was presented. All that was said is that how can anyone do 20% off? SCAMMER. That was his entire argument.
 Who here would not have loved 20% off amazon all the time?

Yea, 'Free Market'. Did you expect everyone to 'play nice'. I don't know about the other guy so can't speculate. However, YOU have a choice in this free market. If you honestly believe that, then go use the 'other guy'. Give him your business. And then in the end, maybe everyone WILL play nice.

But I do understand what you are saying, but you are aware of it. So your intent, is to put 'Your' belief into others. Making you no worse or better than occulta.  The 'Exception' here is if you have proof over speculation.

I didnt catch the black hole refrence but if your not joking and dont understand let me simplify.

Occulta earns $1000 through amazon affiliates(You can consider this a job) He could take this money and put it into his bank account. This would result in + $1000.

Instead he decides to be given his $1000 in amazon affiliate credit as a gift card. He then sells this gift card for $800.
His bank now would have +800

$1000-$800= $200 more that he could have had, if he had just taken the direct deposit.


Newdude earns $1000 through buying and reselling Ipads. He could take this money and put it into his bank account. This would result in + $1000.

Instead he decides to take his $1000 and buy gift cards. He then sells these gift cards for $800.
His bank now would have +800

$1000-$800= $200 more that he could have had, if he had just left that money in the bank.

That is not at all how it works, you clearly cannot read, as i have told you he bought the GCs with a credit card, not by selling goods.

This is now out for jury as i cannot repeat such simple facts all night long

This is essentially my entire argument. No one cares where the cards came from. Occulta didnt want the competition so he forced a competitor out of the market by lying. Bitcoin is suppose to be the essence of a free market. This was anything but. Essentially you had a monopoly that didn't like the competition so he used his reputation to smear the new seller and force him out.

Found it.





The $1000 doesn't come from him. It comes from Amazon and rather than buy amazon products, he wants to buy a Slushy at the 7/11.

Kids from different play grounds often don't get along. OR Obviously they don't like competition.

As far as the 'legitimacy' questions, Why not look into how McDonald's gets to sell at a discount? Cause you don't care but accept the discount. If there is a 'plausible' legitimate way for it to be done, it isn't the buyers responsibility to verify the validity of how or why. That is left up to other people who's job it is.

Now, if he were selling for 50% to 80% off, then you might have a point.  But even then, it could be getting rid of inventory before going out of business. Again, it's not the buyers job to determine motives.

But if 'What Ifs' are what you are looking for, then the list is a mile long. What if: it is a program like the ATF selling guns (LOL), and he/they will be horribly embarrassed when it turns out to back fire on them.

What If: ∞

So in the end,

It comes down to, is it a good and reasonable deal on the face of it? If you like it, buy it. If you don't, don't.

And I find it suspicious that you would take 1000$ earned in USD (that could be directly deposited into your bank account +$1000) and turn this into +800$.

Try and find a whole in that argument.

They are 100% the same here is why:

You earn $1000 from your supposed amazon affiliates account. You then take this 1000$ in USD and convert it into Amazon gift cards. You sell it at a 20% discount you get $800/$1000.

Newdude earns $1000 from selling Ipads.He then converts it into $1000  in amazon gift cards. He sells it at a 20% discount he gets 800/1000.

You are both taking 1000$ earned and turning it into 800$.

Theymos said the same thing, but i have spoke with chat reps and the first time they said there was not a problem with the codes, but it was suspicious that someone would buy $1000 of $100 GCs, yes they did tell me this... as they was all from the same account. The next time i spoke with them (when newdude reposted the codes) well, i posted that transcript. After theymos wanted direct from amazon to remove this user i contacted them again, and will forward his email onto them

I'd be interested in whether you actually have an honest connection inside Amazon, because it is more likely that the chat support agent is blowing smoke up your ass. Privacy laws and all that shit.

Seriously man, i have stated this probably 4-5times now on all these threads:

I make +80% profit, from amazon associates, selling here for 20% discount.

He makes -20% loss, by buying GCs with a credit card (talked to amazon in great detail about this now), and selling here for 20% discount

If you can still compare the both of us after reading that, then you are clearly cant read? simple math, there is no comparison. How i earn, what websites i run is a totally different subject.

First of all I called it, that someone would assume I am him since I stood up for him.

But exactly it is NOT my business to know where you get your cards. No one asked you when you first started. But why did a new seller have to prove where his cards came from? If he was in fact scamming he would have been weeded out like all the rest, thats what the market does. He was not given a chance, because you automatically called him a scammer with no proof and people took your word for it. It is not a couple websites you own but 40+. If you are able to do this all the power to you, but using your argument one comes to the same conclusion about you as newdude.

His opinion was taken as fact, no one gave newdude a chance to build rep. If you look at the orginial thread you will see 10 minutes after he posted he was called a scammer(I dont know if the timestamp is from edits or what so take this with a grain of salt) But still the FIRST post in this thread was from occulta accusing him. Now occulta does have great rep and has done tons of transactions, but why did everyone take his opinion as an absolute?

I do agree with you, I dont like the way he dealt with the situation. I would have loved for him to stay and give us amazon codes for 20% off. Some people can take criticism better than others.

I am not saying whether his deal is to good to be true, I do not know all the economic and social factors that allow him to sell at this rate. All I am saying is that if he gets his money from amazon affiliates(and is being taxed on it) to turn around and sell it for 10% off makes 0 sense to me. If we follow Occulta's reasoning then yes Occulta must in fact be "carding" like newdude.

Someone PM'ed me linking me to this thread, i will probably read it in more detail tomorrow but for now i cant be bothered to give a real lengthy reply to these claims.

All i want to say is this user must be:

gamer4156
Newdude
BTC guy

purely based on the latest replies in this thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=74747.0;all

seems he is angry and trying to tarnish me here

---------

gamer4156 if you are not newdude, you have gone off on a crazy tangent here. He is selling cards at -20% profit, originally here i sold (and still do sell with large buys) at +80% profit. I do own many high traffic websites, but this really isnt any of your business, or anything to do with people being scammed on this forum.

on second review of the link above i am like 75% sure you are all 3 users, you are both having a conversation with each other like 8 posts long, saying how newdude cannot be a scammer. The proof is undeniable about him being a fraud, thats why i am so sure you are all the same person, unless you are all equally stupid?

sure, that is unfair but it's just his opinion and I'm sure newdude can defend himself. I have to be honest though, after reading through that thread, I would never do business with newdude - and it's not because of occulta calling scam, it's his reaction that I don't like. The fact that he is withholding paying a debt because of the harsh reception he recieved at this forum makes me question his character even more.

The big thing for me is that I can verify occulta has had successful transactions over on otc but I can't with newdude.

Also, can you explain to me something: Are you calling occulta's deals to good to be true?

No he has not, and if he decides not to, then YES he is a scammer.He entered into a contractual agreement for a trade, if he doesn't follow through on his end that is scamming.  I am arguing that what he is doing is no different that Occulta. My crusade is against the ignorance of people. When Occulta showed up at 20% no one accused him of being a scammer, and we all just started buying for 20% off. No questions asked. A new seller shows up and a witch hunt lead by his COMPETITOR ensues. How do people not see the conflict of interest. If newdude was infact scamming why were no customers complaining. Read the thread and notice how adamantly occulta is trying to get him banned so he has no customers.


I am not saying that he is scamming cards, and that they are by any means fake. All I am saying is that the means to which he gets them is not how he says. But newdudes cards were not fake either and everyone called him a scammer, and chased him from the boards. He was going to sell at 20% off all the time. I just find it funny that a competitor is the one who lead the witch hunt.

hey gamer, has newdude paid back the 600 dollars he owes to a member yet?

and why have you chosen this particular issue for a crusade?

Occulta is in NO WAY a scammer. I have personally done THOUSANDS of $$$ in purchases with him.

I am not saying anyone will have problems with his cards.I purchased a $500 one a month or so back and have had zero issues. Here is my problem:

     A new seller enters the market and offers cards at 20% off face value(which is exactly where Occulta started). A current seller who just happens to sell the same product at a lesser discount immediately claims the new person is scamming. What does he provide as evidence? Nothing, his entire argument rests on the premise that selling at such a discount is irrational. No one, not even the mighty occulta, knows the financial and social factors at play with this new seller. What appears to most as irrational could in fact be 100% rational and legitimate.

     My main question to Occulta is why is his 20% so irrational when you started at this discount and now sell at 10%? There is 0 proof that newdude is scamming. There have been ZERO issues with newdudes cards, in fact there have been ZERO issues with Occultas cards. Why is there some lynch mob after newdude? It appears Occulta is just anti free market and hates the competition so he is throwing out accusations that are unfounded and frankly just lies.

     If you are going to jump on the "carding" train, lets see who is really lying about how they get their amazon gift cards.

1) Amazon pays in lump sums once a month. Occulta conservatively sells 30-40 cards a month. So each card MUST be from a separate website.


2) In order to become an amazon affiliate and receive money from them you must provide your TAX ID #. So every dollar that Occulta is getting is being reported from amazon as paid to him. This means that it is being taxed the normal federal and state taxes. Then he comes on here and sells for an additional 10% off. He is essentially raising his tax rate on his alleged affiliate income by 10%, you want to talk about irrational behavior? If he wanted bitcoins he could take the direct deposit(which is offered on ALL amazon affiliate payments) and go through dwolla and mtgox which would save him more than 9%.

    To me the person who is actually "carding" is rather obvious.


    

Can we tone down the language a bit from "X IS A SCAMMER" (possibly with a question mark on the end of it) to "I have suspicions about X. X, can you address these questions for me?"

Occulta has done a lot of business with many people and has had no issues. Perhaps you want to know where he gets his cards and perhaps he doesn't want to tell you. Then you don't do business with him, if you don't feel comfortable with it. Why must everything always be a binary choice between "sweet! I'll take 100 of these" or "NO ZOMG YOU ARE A SCAMMOR" for some people?

So you have a bunch of questions about Occulta. Ask them, but don't call him a scammer until you actually have some evidence that he is a scammer. Adding a question mark does not change things, by the way. Or do you need me to go around asking people if they know whether gamer4156 murdered his wife last year?

I have purchased thousands of dollars in gift codes from occulta without any problems.  It has been months since those purchases were made so I am confident that his codes are legitimate.

Net30 in our business 

Many times you will see terms as 1/2% 10 / Net 30.  This offers a 1/2% discount to the customer if they pay the invoice in full within 10 days or the balance in 30 days (without a discount).

Credit lesson for the day...

Net 60 is a term used for applying short term credit (usually Purchase Orders) over a period of time.

Businesses don't pay short term credit like people. They can pre-arrange a PO system where they order goods and services from other businesses based ont Net 60, Net 30, and many other arrangements. Net 60 however seems to be the most common.

Net 60 means they pay you for the past 2 months. So if he is receiving 40ish cards a month, he has to be running 40 websites. Maybe he is. I bring up the bank deposit because he is crying when another member offers a 20% discount and automatically screams scammer. So if he has the ability to get 100% of his money, where is the incentive to sell here at 10% off? If he wants bitcoins he could just take the direct deposit and go the route of dwolla-->mtgox and take the .5% fee with the $.25 for dwolla.
Plus in order to set up a amazon affiliate program you have to provide a TAX id #. This means that the money he is getting is  taxed as income and he is taking a 10% hit by selling it here. I may have a BS in Bio but this doesn't sound like a good business practice.

You can have multiple Site ID's in the same affiliates account, makes it easier to track where on your site(s) the traffic is coming from. I believe they pay you for each site id you use. He's selling for 10% less than the value of the cards, but he's still making 100% profit because the affiliate program costs nothing to set up, and nothing to use. Also, Net 60? Not sure what you mean by that.

Why bring up Bank deposit? He's not using that method. He's getting paid in Gift codes.

And yes, Pretty sure I've seen his site(s) at one point, but he has no reason to show them to us. It's quite easy to verify where they came from through amazon.

1) Amazon Affiliates pays a net 60, at the end of the month. So why does Occulta receive multiple gift cards when he should be receiving a lump sum?

2) They pay out in multiple forms. One form is a direct bank deposit. This method would result in 100% less a $15 fee. So why is he selling for a 10% discount?

3) Has he provided proof of the alleged website he owns that generates 1000's a month in affilate commissions?



If this is the wrong place for this thread please move.