Topic: Possible Scammer varakunai - 64 dimensaions comment (Read 180 times)

Thank you.  I appreciate you posting this.  As Bitcoin becomes more and more popular, the user base extends to include people who use that type of language.  I hope you don't let this interaction sway you away from continued participation here.  There are many great members, but unfortunately with the good comes the bad.  Stay safe!

I'm a total newbie in this section of the forum and I couldn't figure out how to reply in Ognasty's post, so I started this "topic". I didn't believe in any immediate response to the accusations because I wanted to digest what was going on.  This is the first scam I have had a front row seat to. I'm an engineer by occupation so my technical bullshit detector is at least to rev 50.

The situation: The sale of (eventually) 2 cards from me to Varakunai via Ognasty escrow.

In this transaction, buyer had actually posted his name and (US)address, phone # in the email traffic between the three of us. There is a business run out of this address according to google run by someone who has the buyer's name.

Further along into the email traffic the account posted some pretty abusive/cheesy remarks demanding cancellation because I was scamming him. blah blah blah. That OGnasty was bad because he wasn't refunding to the supplied "link" immediately (!) blah blah blah.


 I actually called the guy to find out what the heck was going on because the remarks were juvenile and the scam was pretty self evident in that the scammer had a link to click on to refund the ether.  The person on the other end of the line was actually well spoken. Being the parent of two wily teenagers I was prepared for some variation of "I have no idea what you are taking about Dad story".  After talking to this guy, I  believe this guy's Bitcointalk account was hacked. In my mind it makes no sense to divulge your residence address in a scam in which the best outcome is that you are $200 to the good and you suffer reputational damage.

After calling him he immediately killed his account and tried to make amends from a new account. He has since apologized to OGnasty and made amends for his poor IT habits.

The meta issue: This particular kind of hack is the most dangerous because potentially all three parties get hit with the escrow agent shouldering the most risk. I believe Ognasty behaved correctly and safely. Ognasty is to be further commended given the bad language that was used.


My recommendation is that the forum software get upgraded to at least what is common practice everywhere:

1) Forced PW changes every X days.

2) Forced PW format Y character length, with at least one cap, one number, one special character, one lower case character.


He who is without sin category: I immediately changed my never changed bitcointalk account password.


Closing anecdote. This last item has had the weirdest sales trajectory.

1) First listed on ebay, within a day, someone with the strangest 30 character ebay name I had ever seen with a (0) feedback account 1 day old (!) bought it. CANCEL. Try Bitcointalk.

2) Two previous "buyers" gave myself and Ognasty the eager beaver treatment (I WANT THIS CARD NOW, I'll SEND THE MONEY RIGHT AWAY!) only to remain silent to "show me the money" entreaties.