Topic: Onus & Remedy in Scam Accusation Threads - page 4. (Read 6488 times)

Groundhog Day.

I just about choked when I read what you posted. I'm very upset at you because you are misrepresenting what I said. For example, you wrote "admitting to deleting material information." even though I told you I had republished the information on this thread: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/nyancpa-final-claims-process-updated-september-22nd-2013-133168

You say "he says he "can't remember" specific facts." The facts in question are limited entirely to the mistake I made in discussion about how to value the formula. It was acknowledged by others as a mistake at the time, and quickly corrected. It was said in a discussion thread and not a thread intended to advertise BMF. The actual formula was published by me in the same post !!! and on the spreadsheet and in the shareholder letter. There was no 'can't remember' here. It was a can't remember meaning I didn't look it up while I was writing a PM.

You write "he admits to incorrectly valuing his assets:"/"I mis-spoke about the nature of the formula. I think I said "average" instead of "max" – "
this is the same as the above. It's limited to the nature of the formula, which was published in three other places and I corrected my mistake within hours of making the post in question.

You write "He admits that while he was representing  the value of his investments in the future - if  the investor how liquidated their asset would actually receive less value.: "The claim was that if someone wanted to liquidate their investments, that would be the price they could get. This is true ""
It's not looking good for usagi."

I can't believe you said that. I had spent a long time explaining to you fair value accounting and you turn around and make a statement like this. We were a fund that held securities for the dividends they provided. It would be stupid, frankly, to value them at bid price. Please read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_value -- this was written into our contract. I quote:

"...fair value is the amount at which the asset could be bought or sold in a current transaction between willing parties, or transferred to an equivalent party, other than in a liquidation sale."

Many of the securities we bought were in IPO and were valued at the ask merely because they had not finished their IPO. it is disingenuous, false, and frankly uneducated to say we should have valued in another manner.

Everyone could see our contract not only on GLBSE and the forum but on our webpage. What's the difference? Simple, if we buy 1000 shares of BMMO for .1, and BMMO trades for 0.09 - 0.1, we value them at .1 to stabilize the value of the fund. We do not immediately value them at 0.09. No company in the world works like that. Are you suggesting we would sell 100 shares of BMF at 0.50 and then be forced to sell the other 9900 at a lower price, merely because we had paid exchange fees or that there is a bid-ask spread on ever security? That is insane. No one could ipo like that, or operate like that.

I don't know why you are misrepresenting what I said like this but I feel compelled to point it out. if you are unable to deal with this situation fairly I would be very surprised given your history here. You cannot state that I was incorrectly valuing the fund when it was written into the contract that I would use the principles of fair value accounting (added value through analysis) and then turn around and say that the use of fair value analysis constitutes misrepresentation on my part. That's exactly what you seem to have done here and I must strongly disagree. You cannot propose a victim here because the contract stated very clearly I would value through analysis. Not that I would add value to the NAV, but that I would value based on analysis. If someone didn't read the contract... that's really not my fault.

update

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/usagi-is-he-or-isnt-he-a-scammer-133823

If usagi made false representations about his investments then then I would think he should be a identified as a scammer.

Where are those statements (or due to deletion: What were those statement) And where is the proof these statments were false?

I just find it curious that individuals who actually did lose money are not pursuing this as aggressively as you.

I'll detail it in PM when I get time to write it all up.

But in brief the summary would be that he scammed in various ways:

1.  Deliberately misleading investors (current and potential) so that they'd over-value his securities.  Clearly anyone who bought them based on false information suffered loss - as they paid more than what they would have had to pay had the false information not been promulgated (and they may not have invested at all had the false claims not been made - avoiding the inevitable loss associated with investment in usagi).

2.  Using assets from one security to prop up another.  That had the effect of transferring value from one asset to the other - defrauding all investors in the first (and enriching those in the second).

3.  Removing equity backing a guarantee - causing a loss to a specific set of investors (this one's fairly tricky to understand but blatantly obvious once you figure out the math).

4.  Extending an interest-free loan from one asset to another and disguising it as an investment. This actually defrauded a THIRD set of investors (sounds impossible - but true) rather than either of the parties to the loan.

5.  Attempting to defraud investors of assets that rightfully belonged to them (this one's ongoing).

6.  Repeatedly lieing about past events - defrauding anyone who believed those lies and invested as a result.

Note that none of these have anything to do with usagi's trading performance - that's incompetence not scamming and doesn't deserve a tag.

Note also that it is my contention that to be a scammer you do not necessaily have to succeed at scamming.  If you intentionally make misleading statements with an intent to gain financial benefit (defraud) then you are already a scammer.  If anyone then invests that makes you a successful scammer.  So I don't believe there is any need to prove that any specific individual actually suffered loss - just that there is a class of individuals who reasonably could be expected to suffer loss as a result (whether any actually did suffer such loss is irrelevant).

The reason I say this is simple:

Say I offer an investment and make a false statement in the process of selling it (claiming expertise I don't have, claiming I have personal capital I don't have, claiming person X is a good friend of mine - whatever, it doesn't matter).  IF the statement if proven to be false AND it could be reasonably concluded that the statement would increase the likelihood of people investing (by making the offer more attractive) then that should be sufficient on its own to award a scammer tag.  It should NOT be a requirement to prove that some specific individual actually invested because of that statement.  A lie was told to try to get investment - that's enough on its own in my opinion : it shows the person is a scammer, it's not necessary to determine how successful they were at scamming.

That only applies, of course, to false statements that would reasonably impact on people's decision whether to invest or not (and how high to value shares).  Minor details such as gender and name would NOT warrant a scammer tag even if given in the context of soliciting investment.  Repeatedly lieing about gender/name etc should, however, be taken into account as evidence that someone habitually lies and hence any unsupported claims made by them should be given less credibility than would be given to such claims from someone who had a record of usually being truthful (it's character evidence - which gos to determining the credibility of a witness).

EDIT:  removing liquidity from the market was just part of my explanation of how potential victims go far beyond just those who directly invested.  I have no intention of trying to claim losses or even particularly argue that point now that it's accepted I can submit evidence without having invested.

I disagree that this topic is about the "scammer" tag, there were few topics about this in the "meta" folder. It is more usagi is trying to prove that he isn't the worst scammer out there.

@bcb

It's usagi, not usgai. Not sure why did you spell it this way it few times. No offense man.

So you believe him to be a scammer for removing liquidity from the markets?

No, I never invested with Usagi.

To be clear, I don't invest anyway - I day-trade.  I believe most assets sold on here have no investment value (i.e. the expected profit from them is negative) but so long as there's someone who over-values them they're fine to day-trade.

I'll happily day-trade investments that I believe are terrible investments and, in some circumstances, I'll day-trade ones that I believe are outright scams/ponzis.  Where I won't touch an investment at all even temporarily is when I believe the issuer to be manipulating the market price UP (if they manipulate it DOWN then obviously I'm in like Flynn).  I never even temporarily held any shares in assets issued by usagi.

That I didn't invest does NOT, by the way, mean I didn't suffer any loss.  Any money being invested in usagi was money not being invested in other companies.  As someone who trades, an increase in liquidity on assets that I trade is generally a good thing.  If, by misleading investors, usagi caused more money to be sucked into his companies then that will have reduced the liquidity on other assets which I DID trade: and hence reduced my profit.

I point that out NOT to try to claim I'm owed something (any losses I suffered were entirely trivial - the amount of funds I traded with then were small anyway) but to point out that there's a fallacy in assuming that only investors can be harmed.

And IF usagi scammed/defrauded/misled (for now it's officially not proven or unproven) then the victims surely extend to those who invested in other funds/assets which held usagi securities.

Consider pirate.  Would ANYONE claim that the harm caused by his actions was limited ONLY to those who knowingly invested in him? 

Probably not.

These guys HATE usagi

I don't suppose we could end the "is usagi a scammer" derail (god knows there are already enough threads discussing that) and get back to talking about the scammer tag in general, whether it has any usefulness any more, under what circumstances it should be applied, etc.

Deprived

Yes.  I would like to read your evidence. 


Also did you invest with Usagi?

Notice that user, deprived, always trying to control the discussion with his long and boring posts when the subject can affect him. Anyone reading the securities subsection will find him there, inserting himself in every discussion where Usagi participates. If you spot Usagi in a thread, there is a great chance that deprived will follow to 'demonstrate here again that you just don't understand it'!

But it is not just that. A read in Deprived last posts is a good exercise to understand how he cleverly try to induce readers to follow his instructions. There is not one single post of deprived that a subtle command has not being given. There are always a 'you can', 'you need', 'you will', etc. in his texts.

Deprived has been constantly indicting Usagi in the last three months. Deprived and the organized felons did not save words to produce a massive amount of clueless accusations against Usagi. The consequences are very harmful not only for Usagi, but for this forum.

Evidence? Try to read this and then come back to this post. If you are able to digest that, then you will perhaps understand what I am talking about.

It is impossible to determine any meaningful information in that amount of false accusations. It became a confusing puzzle of words. It is a situation where there is no escape for Usagi. The whole thing became a "snow ball".

The administration of this forum did not intervened when was necessary. Moderators were exceeding biased against Usagi. Their lack of properly response let the organized felons push the "snow ball" further down against Usagi. No one in the forum administration/moderation acted with the necessary authority to avoid the consequences.

Now 2012 is coming to a end. Bitcointalk became a den for fraudsters and people conniving at financial criminal activities. The scam accusation section, out of control, became the stage for users come and play their emotional drama and falsely accuse other users.

The problem with pointing out information about usage has always been that usagi replies in length - whilst avoiding the key issues.  This gives the impression of a robust defence and undoubtedly deters most from raising complaints (whether those complaints had merit or not).  Also most people not only can no longer SEE what usagi claimed in the past but can't actually remember the general nature of what was claimed by usagi - so lack the available information (because usagi deleted it) to even determine for sure whether they were cheated or not.

If it's going to taken seriously then I'll type up a proper list of some examples (some i've previously raised, others I never bothered even mentioning as seemed there was interest in purusing it).  It won't be today (gone midnight here already).  In some instances I'll be able to quote exact relevant posts from usagi - in others I'll only be able to describe roughly what was said, at about what date and in which thread: if usagi then denies that, then theymos would need to use his ability to view deleted/edited posts.  But let usagi commit to a lie by denying having made such posts before theymos wastes time undeleting them - so its easy to hand the tag out afterwards when it's proven to be a lie.

usgai,

Please don't put words in my mouth. "I think he is pointing out that most non-investors are blind. "

What I am trying to say is that here is a lot of people who don't like you and are not creditors but still call you a scammer. 

If anyone has evidence of usagi defrauding, misleading or other wise materially misrepresenting his business please PM me.

And I will update this thread

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1424892


Right now it seems that usagi made false statments and provided inaccurate documents/formulas to represent the performance of his investments.

Then he also deleted numerous post to cover it up.

Anyone can point out scammers.  However it seems a lot of people really don't like usgai but many of his most vocal critics didn't really lose any money.  I help track down scammers who didn't scam me all the time.  However it is usually pretty clear that scamming did occur.

With Usagi is seems to be much more grey.  He had some good investment vehicles and some bad investment vehicles.  Is usgai a scammer or just a bad investment manager.  

I'm not saying only victim's have useful evidence.   If you have evidence that usgai intentionally scammed his inventors please PM me.   But so far I have been PM'd by one one guy who lost funds and every just seems to hate usgai.

Also if you have knowledge of specifically what info was contained in usgai's deleted posts that would be helpful also.

 

Logic just isn't your strong point is it?

Even IF we accepted that "most non-investors are blind" is that a valid reason to ignore ALL non-investors?  Let's be honest - most non-investors ARE blind.  So are most investors.   So the ones who aren't blind shold be ignored because MOST are blind?  Or is someone pre-determining that ALL non-investors are about you - and hence their accusations have no merit even before they are submitted?

And why did you start a thread claiming it to be about a general topic then start arguing your own defence?  Did I previously in this thread make any accusations against you?

You then construct a nice strawman to demolish - that I have claimed you lost money (true - and accepted by you as fact) and that that is why/how I accuse you of scamming (false).  Losing money doesn't (of itself) make ANYONE a scammer.  It doesn't necessarily even make them a bad investor.  Nowhere have I ever claimed otherwise.  So not sure why you're wasting time arguing against a contention I've never even made. 

For the record I 100% agree with you that if anyone's accusation is essentially "usagi lost me money so is a scammer"  with no other evidence then they're wrong.  If their argument is "usagi lost me money so is incomepetent" with no other evidence then they're wrong.  They-re wrong - not because you aren't (necessarily) a scammer or incompetent - but because they're saying a conclusion (scammer/incompetent) logically follows from making a loss: which is by no means a sound jump to make.

Your argument appears to be "You're wrong so shouldn't be allowed to submit evidence."  Nice try.  Maybe you should be the one who decides whether you get a tag or not - would save everyone a lot of work and obviously YOU believe you're so impartial that you can choose which evidence is valid.

If you did not lose money, then why do you believe I lied to you? The fact you made money in mining suggests you would have made a similar amount if you remained invested in BMF. I'm sorry you seem so convinced that I scammed or lied, but the facts don't seem to support what you are saying.

Irrelevant. I made money on other mining stocks. (To be exact a stock and during a different time period).

You say I lied and gave fraudulent statements of fact -- can you actually provide evidence that I did so? If so, please PM it to BCB. Don't post it in this thread -- you're off topic hijacking is not wanted here. This thread is for intelligent people to discus an intelligent problem. If you have issues (and you do appear to have issues) you should air them somewhere else.

To address the main point of your post however, thank you for providing yet another example of why damages are important in a scam accusation case. You appear unable to show that as a result of what you claim is a lie, that you lost any more money than you would have if you invested in GIGAMINING or any other company.

I don't think it's crazy at all.  For many of the most egregious scams real-world lawyers and real world courts are the most appropriate remedy and the scammer tag is pretty meaningless as those involved don't give a shit about being labelled a scammer on a messageboard and such a label in no way helps victims.

There are already Bitcoin specific and real world mediation options available to people but people lack confidence in using them and there's no way to compel people to use them.

You could have the fairest judges in the world, but as long as there are no real world consequences accompanying the scammer tag - which there aren't and cannot be as it exists at the moment - it's going to remain a joke.

Unfortunately, it looks like this topic has already derailed into being a discussion about your businesses in particular rather than about the value or otherwise of the existing scammer tag system.