Topic: SCAM ALERT: spendbitcoins.com / Jeremy West (Read 9860 times)

<-oh, wait, I can't do that. ;(

Why the fuck did you bump a thread over a year old?

If only you had the sense to PGP sign, nobody could have modified your bid. Tsk tsk.

Unfortunately, this was not one of those auctions freequant.  This was an auction with a definitive end time.

So, the thread should read exactly what it does.

Some auction websites extend the auction deadline when there is some activity right before the end.
I don't see the problem with that.
This thread should be renamed "LIBEL ALERT : Inaba".

How exactly are my topics random?  Are you sure you understand what random means?  It would seem not... but maybe you're just confused.

And that's ok that I have somehow "tainted" my name for future commerce, because every single one of my transactions has been A+, both buying and selling.  You will not able to find a single person unhappy with their transactions with me.  I'm glad you hope I have been scammed, you are quite an upstanding citizen to think so. I hope no one has the misfortune of dealing with you, since you seem to be ok with the whole scamming thing.  Who knew?  Anyway,  WTG!

Dude, no one cares. And to be honest, I hope you have been scammed because your post in this topic are just random, rude and make little to no sense. The only thing you have done is tainted your name for future commerce and shown that your handling of matters is nothing but childish.

Wow, everyone needs to take a chill pill. I've heard a lot of good things about Jeremy so don't know why the OP went as far as to label him a scammer but there is no reason to treat each other like this    man, just sucks when you see fellow members taking shots at each other ...

oh well life sucks eh ?

I'm not really interested in continuing to argue with you.  It's obvious neither of us will change the other's mind.

The thing is, other people don't like to post publicly.  I've received a couple PMs agreeing with my view.  

But again, if your logic is that of LordGreynicks, that somehow past performance negates scammy behavior, then your logic is equally faulty.  This thread is not about what Jeremy has done in the past for other transactions... it's about what he's done with THIS transaction.  

The facts are not in dispute, which you seem to be unable to understand.  I don't know why you have so much trouble comprehending this:

He posted an auction that was no reserve with a specified ending time.
After the auction ended, he decided that he did not like the price and the way the auction ended for.
He edited the auction, after the auction closed, to have different rules and a different ending time.

He broke his own rules that he set for the auction.  That is scammy behavior any way you slice it.  Once again, if he had bothered to contact me, something could have been worked out.  But the fact that he made NO effort to contact me, the winner of the auction, clearly indicates that he had no intention of following through with his initial auction and instead his intention was to make questionable changes as he saw fit after the end of the auction if it didn't turn out like he wanted.  THAT is a scam.  That is the textbook definition of a scam.

Why are you unable to comprehend these established facts?  Seriously... I would love to hear your reasoning.

Please, tell me how you dispute these:

Jeremy posted an auction with specific rules, no reserve and an end time.
Auction concluded within specified rules and specified end time.
Jeremy changed the rules and added a reserve  after the end of the auction to get more BTC.

So do tell... how is changing the entire auction AFTER it's already ended not a scammy move?

Also, as a bonus credit, please tell me how people coming to this thread talking about how great their past transactions have been with Jeremy has absolutely ANYTHING to do with how he lied and cheated on THIS auction?  I am curious as to your chain of logic that leads you to the conclusion that somehow these things are related.  His past actions have absolutely no bearing on what actually happened.  I've seen no one defend the fact that he changed the auction after the fact - that part is just kind of glossed over in the posts that have nothing to do with this thread, which is why I've pretty much ignored most of those posts.  They are completely irrelevant to the fact that Jeremy cheated and lied on THIS auction.

*EDIT*

Looking back on the thread, you are pretty much the only person defending Jeremy in regards to his cheating.  Everyone else is just talking about what great dealings they've had in the past with him.  Kind of interesting that in 3 pages in this thread, YOU are pretty much the only person to defend his actions on the actual topic instead of being a sycophant on completely unrelated issues.  Both commendable and telling on your part.

I think you need to take an objective look at the situation again.  As far as I can tell, you and one other person are the ONLY people who think Jeremy scammed anyone.  Did you ever think that you might just be wrong about this?  And that's why everyone else is against you?

So... let me get this straight, LordGreynick - your chain of logic is thus:

Jeremy lies and cheats on an auction he posts -> Jeremy has supporters come in to defend him with past transactions that have nothing to do with the auction he lied and cheated on -> Therefore his documented false advertising and lying is OK because he's not cheated other people in the past.

That about sum it up?  Perhaps you should reassess who is the actual "tard" here, if you think your chain of logic is anything other than retarded.  But you go on believing in the honesty and integrity of Jeremy!  It's fine with me, I'm sure he'll swindle someone else someday, I just know it won't be me!    The bottom line is, Jeremy fucked up and he's completely unwilling to own up to his mistakes.

As I said, all this could have been avoided if he'd even bothered to contact me.  But as I've already said, he made absolutely no effort what so ever to even work out any problems or contact me in any way, shape or form.  He just saw an opportunity to grab more BTC and took it.  Yeah, definitely the kind of person I want to do business with!  

I find it ironic that the OP went out to smudge Jeremy's name and it's completely backfired on him

Now Jeremy is glowing and the OP looks like a complete ... hmm, OK I don't use this word much and I mean it literally ... "tard"

I have not dealt with Jeremy directly, but the OP (Inaba) is someone who has demonstrated that I would never want to do business with (and that;'\\s not just he vodka talking).  I I was on e-bay (or equivalent), he would be the one black-listed.

That's the problem with biddingpond - no one has feedback, so it's a haven for scammers.  I'm glad that there's at least a warning up telling you to use escrow now though!

In the past and when Spendbitcoins was just starting, and I could buy Amazon cards from Jeremy, there was a small hickup in the order with regards to the transmission times. Jeremy was contacted and immediately resolved the issue very quickly and was willing to even do more. From then on, I have used his services with the most pleasing results.

For future auctions like this, why not use that Bitcoin ebay clone thing? Ive used it before to buy booster boxes of Magic cards for less that half retail. Biddingpond, thats it. Just watch out on that site too. I won an auction for a raid card and the guy writes me telling me that the price was wrong and it was really 3 times higher and I should pay with Paypal as it was easier for him and also, he forgot to mention that you need to buy 5 sata hdds from him @ $25ea for 80gb drives and pay separate shipping. When I goto email him back, failure to deliver.

I lol'd.

Nah, you're pretty awesome, Jeremy. Thanks for the effort.

Can we please get back on topic? This thread's supposed to be about how much I suck.

Aww come on, don't go all cyber police on me now. I dun goofed, no need to backtrace me.

There's a link at the bottom right of the private message that lets you do exactly that. Just click it.

dammit, Lex Luther*

Whose luzer?

my bad; 'its luzer*

What's a looser?

Forward them to me

How far does someone have to go on these forums until they get banned? Not only has poster been repeatedly obnoxious on these forums (via post history), but has also sent me abusive private messages that I am happy to turn over to moderators if they want to investigate further....

I'm going to chime in here as I've done business with Jeremy West many times and found him to be one of the most honest traders in the community. There have been several times where I've made errors that would have allowed Jeremy to bilk me out of Bitcoins but, each time, he acted with the utmost professionalism and concern for customer service. It seems other here have had similar experiences with him.

This sounds like you're pissed off because something didn't go your way and you're wanting to blame someone other than yourself for that. As for me, I have done and will gladly continue to both do business with and recommend Jeremy's business with confidence.

Regards,
TMA

If ignorance is bliss, you must be happy as fuck...

This.

I'll call you a waaaaaambulance.

Can't comment on whether or not a scam or scammer is involved.  But I can confirm that the auction was edited and reopened after it ended. 

I was interested in bidding myself, but after talking to the old ball and chain, determined that we didn't have the date available...

Got no issues with Jeremy, he's a good guy

Great news!

Hey, at least there is an Auction Subforum now that doesn't allow for deletes/edits.  At least SOMETHING good came out of this.

What the fuck are you talking about? 

You scammed yourself.

What was lost ? the respect of the forum members reading this for calling out a respected member of the community and looking like a cry baby in the process.

....get over it.

Life isn't fair.  so?

Jeremy West is a very honest person, and I consider him a friend - that is all

Inaba what material losses have you made as a result of being "scammed"?

Are you intentionally being obtuse or do you really not understand the problem?

Chieffery is right, it's pointless to argue about it.  Jeremey lied and cheated and nothing is going to change that.

Here are the facts once more for you SgtSpike and anyone else reading, since you and other seems to be unable to grasp the simple logic that this entire farce revolves around:

1. Jeremy posted an auction with no reserve.  He specified a specific end time.
2. I made the last bid for +1 BTC higher than the highest bidder up to a maximum of 66 BTC.
3. Antares made a 35 BTC bid before my posted my 66 BTC maximum bid.
4. Antares edited his bid to reflect a higher price so that he would come out ahead.  I edited my bid to reflect the final price, which is the same price I originally bid.
5. Antares and I agree on what the original bid sequence was and who the highest bidder was.

These are all facts.  These are all undisputed.  Your argument seems to revolve around the fact that it wasn't an "ebay style auction," which I disagree with, but have ALREADY SAID on several occasions I will grant you that for the sake of your argument.  That being the case, my 66 BTC bid would stand as the maximum bid prior to the auction closing (or 100BTC if you want to take Antares misrepresentation of the facts, but in either case the actual BTC amount is functionally irrelevant since he agrees whatever it was was higher than his final bid). 

So the facts are, no matter what style the auction was, my highest bid was the last highest bid.... whether that bid was 36, 66 or 100 BTC - my bid was still the highest bid.  Jeremy felt that he did not get enough value for the auction, so decided to "extend it" with out consulting me as the highest bidder.  In fact, without contacting me AT ALL.  This is not the actions of an "honest" businessman.  An honest person would have made at least the attempt to contact the highest bidder and explain the situation before trying to squeeze more money out of people.  Instead he "extended" the auction and made it a "silent auction" even AFTER my maximum bid was made public knowledge, thereby putting me at a great disadvantage in bidding. 

The bottom line is, no matter how you want to say this auction was structured, my bid was the highest bid.  This is an agreed upon fact by both parties in dispute.  As such, Jeremy defaulted on the auction so that he could obtain a higher amount, instead of selling it for the agreed upon price.  He did not even try to work with me (and I am a very reasonable person if someone makes even minimal effort), but instead tried to suck as much BTC out of people as he possibly could.  He is, by any definition, a scammer.

Meh, I know people who have a shit ton of friends and still wrong other people.  The fact is that your opinion shouldn't matter here.. nor should mine.  The 3 people involved need to reach a consensus they ALL agree upon.  Doesn't matter how many million of Jeremey's friends think that he settled this well, unless the bidders involved are appeased, then the auction was borked.

On that note, I think it's rather clear that Inaba was trying to get the lowest price possible (who doesn't in an auction?), however Inaba you should be cautious to so willingly capitalize off other people's mistakes or oversight, as a predator is no more pleasant than a scammer/dishonest person.

Jeremy DOES have a lot of friends on this forum, because he always at least TRIES to do what is best for the customers he serves.  Maybe he did screw up - in my opinion he did not.  Regardless, he did what he thought was the best course of action based on the circumstances at the time.  I probably would have done the same thing he did.

The rules did not clarify that it wasn't an eBay-style auction, but no one else bid like it was an eBay-like auction.  In fact, I can't think of another time on this forum (or any forum that I frequent that allows auction threads) when the seller allowed an eBay-like bid.  That's why I'm so flabbergasted that Inaba is making such a big deal out of this.  It was assumed that it wouldn't be eBay-style bidding, because no one ever bids that way on a forum.

So, the fact that Inaba had a cheap bid (and everyone in that thread felt that way), the fact that the rules didn't state whether eBay-style bidding was allowed or not, the fact that eBay-style bidding was mixed with regular-style bidding (shouldn't everyone's bids be eBay style if anyone's bids are eBay style?), and the fact that posts were edited and original bid amounts could not be verified, all give good reason to have an extension of the auction via private message.  That way, the winner and amount is very clear and cannot be edited or ambiguous in any way.

Wow dude, I came here to let you know that you are right regarding the auction.  Looks like jeremey has a lot of friends on this forum and it's obvious by how blindly they back him up.  Now I'm not sure saying he was a "scammer" was completely accurate, perhaps shrewd businessman would have been a better title.  However the fact remains, there was an auction where rules where changed after the fact, and if that EVER happens, it better be something that all parties agree on.  Not just to maximize auction profit for the seller.


My humble analysis:

Jeremy you screwed up, you should be willing to shoulder some of the cost for not having set clear auction rules/environment.

Inaba this course of action will only win you more frustration.  While i appreciate the PSA, and will probably never participate in an auction here because of this, you should try and let it go.  Consider it a cheap lesson learned and never do business with the man again.

But I'm high as fuck so what the fuck do i know about anything  

This is completely and factually incorrect.  Both parties involved (Antares and myself) both agree on the sequence of events.  The editing of the bids is a side issue that has nothing to do with the problem at hand.  Antares publically admitted that my initial bid was higher than his prior to the close and that he edited his bid AFTER the close.  The editing of my bid was to clarify the bid, not to CHANGE THE BID.  Antares CHANGED HIS BID after the close.  My bid REMAINED THE EXACT SAME AMOUNT after I edited it.


This is patently ridiculous.  Because I didn't lose any BTC, someone is not a scammer?  A scam is a dishonest scheme or a fraud.  What do you call changing the rules of an auction AFTER the auction closes when you don't like the outcome?  That's called a scam.  The one perpetrating it is a SCAMMER.  What exactly do you call it?

I honestly can't believe you only classify someone as a scammer if they've SUCCESSFULLY scammed someone out of their money.  There are a number of labeled scammers on this board that would like their title changed back from SCAMMER then, since I and many others have fortunately caught them prior to them actually being able to scam someone out of their money.

So you're  effectively supporting scamming, so long as it's not successful, right?  That's the gist of what you're saying?  I know that's a ridiculous statement, but your statement basically says little else.


But this situation proves that he's not.  He offered the auction with a set of rules, which he changed after the fact.  He basically lied in the initial ground rules for all intents and purposes.  He may have been honest in the past and he may be honest in the future, but in this instance, he is very dishonest.

I'd like to point out that by his little scheme, he was able to more than triple the final price of the auction.  Pretty darned convenient!

I've done a LOT of transactions totaling more than a $1500 with Jeremy and he has been super honest, helpful and a pleasure to deal with.

Sorry your experience was no so great, but I assure you Jeremy is good for his word if you feel wronged it would have to be cluster fuck of a situation.

I have dealt with Jeremy many times and he has never even hinted at being a scammer. "Scamming" means you actually lost money to someone not you didnt get the deal you wanted and now you are stamping your foot. If this thread causes Jeremy to lose sales in fact it is YOU who are the scammer because you publically defamed an honest bitcoin business.

To be a crime there has to be a victim. The only victim I am seeing here is Jeremy and spendbitcoins by your baseless claims.

Now you need to make the victim whole Inaba.

Maybe you should re-title as "sore loser" alert.  I read the other thread and wouldn't come out with a scammer label like that.  You tried some tricks, and it wasn't appreciated by someone trying to run something sensible.  You didn't just piss off "Jeremy West" but probably all the other bidders and people who read the thread.  However, I than you for the warning not to deal with =Inaba.

Sometimes being a smart arse is just that, an arse. 

Depends on the type of bidding.  There are plenty of write-in auctions that end at a specified time.  Jeremy never stated that this was like an eBay auction, nor did anyone but YOU bid like it WAS an eBay auction.  So what makes you think that eBay bidding rules apply?

The whole reason Jeremy extended the auction was because of the editing of bids, nothing more.  With the bids being edited, he had no way of verifying the story on either side, so he had to extend it and make it a PM auction to be fair.  What is your suggestion?  That he allow you to keep your edited-in bid of 36?  Or that antanes (or whatever his name was) would win at 40BTC?  Or that you should win at 66 BTC?  What if antanes edited his post again to say 67 BTC?  Where would it end?  How could either of you prove your bids?

Yes, and at an auction house, I can make as many bids as I want in the time alotted.  The bids do not close at X time.  The bids keep going until there are no more bidders bidding.

This auction ended at X time, therefore it's nothing like an auction house auction.  It's like an eBay auction.  Have you ever been to eBay?  You bid your max bid and the top bid is X amount higher than the previous bid, not your max bid.  This auction, online, is far more like eBay than like an auction house.  


I would agree with you if it was and open ended bid.  It wasn't.  It was set to a maximum of 66 BTC.  So its' not whatever + 1. It's whatever + 1 so long as whatever is less than 66 BTC.  If someone wanted to outbid me, bid 66 BTC.

Read the whole thread, and agree that your bid off whatever + 1 isn't the same as an actual bid amount. Also the editing of bid posts should at any time in an auction thread like this should completely invalidate the bid. It certainly doesn't reflect at all well toward your scammer claim.

have you ever been to an auction house? when you put up your bid its how much you willing to pay. not the next highest bid + 1. Okay he should of stated that in the rules but he isnt a scammer stop complaining and stop being sour. you didnt lose anything except time.

So explain why it can't host an auction of such a type?  Does it affect the closing price?  Yes, I agree it does.  That does not automatically make it unfeasible.  In fact, if it has any effect at all, it is the opposite effect.  

I say my max bid is 66 BTC... all someone has to do is say 67 BTC and my previous bids are invalidated.  Knowing the maximum bid of someone is better for the seller than knowing the current bid, since you (the bidder) knows you have to bid X amount to win.  How is this any different than someone saying 66 BTC flat out?  All other bidders STILL have to bid more than that.  Knowing what you're up against as a bidder is always better than not knowing, so I fail to see how it's somehow unfair to anyone involved.

I'm calling him a scammer because he made a deal and then decided not to honor it.  It's not about the auction, it's about the principle.  Any deal I make with you or anyone else, even if I don't like the outcome, if I've made the deal, I will honor it.  I will not back out of it arbitrarily.  Worst case scenario I would contact you privately, explain the situation and try to come to a mutual accommodation.

Jeremy did not do this... he just decided to arbitrarily reopen it until he got the price he wanted without even contacting me in any way, shape or form.  I even tried to get him to do the right thing in his auction thread, but he essentially told me to take a hike (though not in so many words).  Hence, why we have this thread.

I can understand the frustration, but the same style of bidding on Ebay cannot work exactly the same way without effecting the closing price on a forum thread simply because of the fact that your highest bid amount is clearly visible for all the other bidders to view.

As much as you want to believe these bids to be exactly the same, they simply cannot be due to this. The reason is fairly obvious imo.

If the highest bid amount is visible to other bidders, everything changes. This forum is not able to accommodate bidding of this type as ebay or other auctions sites can. Closest thing to it would be to hold a silent auction accepting highest bids.

I had excellent business relations with Jeremy West. I believe that this guy is honest and dedicated to his customers.

Calling him a scammer because of a disagreement on an auction is, at the very least, excessive.

But there was.  If a normal bid was not valid, my high bid of 66 BTC would stand.  That is a clear, unambiguous winner, since the next highest bid was 35 BTC (or 40 BTC if you take the edited bid).  I've been out of school for awhile now, but I think that 66 is still greater than 40 in new AND old math.

He extended the auction because there was no unambiguous winner.

I trusted him to, until he showed that he does not honor his agreements. Glad I found out before I sent him BTC!

What would you call it, if not a scam.  Advertise an auction, but you don't like the outcome, so you change the rules after the fact and "reopen" the auction.  Sounds like the definition of a scam to me.

SCAM ALERT?  Oh please.  I'd trust Jeremy more than 99.9% of the people here.  He's done more in the way of customer service than most other Bitcoin "companies" can even hope for.

You're just mad that you couldn't win the auction cheaply with your cheapskate bidding method that no one else agreed upon or was using.

Yes, please read it.  Also please understand his "rules" were edited after the auction ended to include a clause of "bidnappers" (whatever that is) and was NOT part of the original auction, which I quoted above.

To whomever reads this thread:

Please read the auction thread at https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/sold-auction-hawaii-vacation-condo-2-bedroom-dec-3-10-2011-50763 and judge for yourself.

Highest Regards,
Jeremy

pretty sure i saw that you were wiling to bid up to 100 btc, then you edited it down.

No, the 40 BTC was edited after the fact.  My post was also edited after the fact to reflect the high bid of 35 BTC by the previous bidder, not like the 40 BTC bid that was edited to be over the previous bid.  I never had a bid "up to 36 BTC."  The only bid I had was essentially "up to 66 BTC."

If we were to play that game, I could have edited my post to reflect 41 BTC

This is what I saw: Someone else had a bid for 40 and you had a bid "up to 36."  Someone else won the auction.

I'd like to let everyone know that Jeremy West at spendbitcoins.com is unable/unwilling to follow through with deals he makes for BTC.  I would advise everyone to steer clear of his business, as he has shown that when he later decides he does not like the agreement he has already made, he will back out of it.

Be very careful if you decide to engage in any business with him, as it's entirely possible he will keep your BTC and not provide the goods or services he's offered. While this has not happened to me (thankfully) and he backed out of the deal prior to me sending bitcoins, I would question any deal I made and whether or not he would honor it once the BTC were received.

For those that care, the problem originated in his auction for a time share.


Nowhere in his original auction did it state the bid could not be open ended... it did not, in fact, state anything about the format of the bids at all.  As anyone who's used any auction site in the world knows, if you bid X dollars on a product, your bid is the top bid above the bid below you, not the "max" amount of your bid.  As such, I bid "up to 66 BTC" on the auction.  The next highest bidder was 35 BTC.  Apparently, my bid of "up to 66 BTC" was unacceptably too low for the auction, and thus he "reopened" it for "an hour" to take more bids in a "silent auction." 

But in either case, even if Jeremy did not "intend" to have a "normal" auction like every auction site on the Internet, my high bid was well above the next top bidder of 35 BTC.  In either case, Jeremy did not like the result and thus decided to "reopen" the auction in a "silent auction" style so he could manipulate the price to be whatever he wanted.

Anyone that dishonest does not need your business.  Buyer beware.