Topic: SCAM EXCHANGE MONITOR: BestChange - page 3. (Read 1446 times)

I was not been a big fan of  Best Change when they first came to this forum with their signature campaign, it took a very long time for me to give them credit on that front. Their very long standing signature campaign (which is still running) with virtually no complaints against their forum representative for delayed payments etc should not be conflated with the actual business Best Change are conducting.

They are listing entities on their website and receiving remuneration for referrals therefore have a responsibility towards all customers that are arriving on the Best Change website only to be directed away when affiliate links are clicked. The danger was always going to be in the event any of those affiliated exchanges were to enforce a KYC/AML scenario on customers and if customers lost out financially who would actually be at fault.

Best Change have had accusation of their conduct raised in the past and I would still advise caution when using their website because once a customer has moved from the Best Change website to an affiliate exchange, it is the exchange that decides how to treat the customer: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.53617135

Ultimately, I think Best Change are partly responsible for any financial loss customers incur as a result of directing users to their affiliate websites. Those customers would not have been diverted to (and maybe never would have found) the affiliate exchanges had they not been listed on the Best Change website. As for the exchanges themselves, the very low rates of scam allegations against them (via Best Change) means thankfully this is still at very low levels. In the case you mentioned, why was the exchange not removed for their listing?

By them writing "Reliable and Trusted" on their website it does not relieve them of moral and ethical responsibilities towards customers. I wonder if any of those that are part of the Best Change signature campaign will look in to this and ask Best Change for an explanation.

We all agree. To be honest right now it's not a feedback system but a system where you leave your comment or make conversation. It's same as we are sharing our opinions to each others in the forum. The difference is in BestChange when it is positive comment it is showing positive review (green I assume) but when this is a complain or negative comment it is showing as only comment, not considering it a review anymore. And finally where they are showing their overall score they are only counting the positive feedback to mislead the visitors know anything that is happening in the negative side.

I was using it for analogy only that this could happen too.

I've used BestChange too, and posted in their topic several times. I like their service.

I haven't. But that doesn't mean things can't be improved.

That's probably why they haven't been tagged yet (other than by TMAN). Let's keep it that way

It makes me curious how they decide which exchangers to add.
It's no joke for OP, who lost 0.256BTC.

We all know that inactive flags, with insufficient support, mean nothing.

As far as I recall, and my memory may be deceiving me, at least Ratimov and icopress have used their services and I would say that a few of those who wear the signature or have worn it in the past have also used Best Change. I would say that among the Russian community there are a few who have used it. Many of those are in DT.

Have they been scammed?

It doesn't add up to me that Best Change uses a system that allows large scale scamming and this has not resulted in massive negative feedbacks from DT or flags with sufficient support.


Don't get me wrong, in everything else we agree: the feedback system needs to change, and linking to a "service" that freezes funds by requisting KYC but only provides an email address is a joke. A bad one.

You don't have to be cynical for that. It's very clear they don't want valid complaints to be visible, and designed their "feedback" system to allow that. A honest feedback system could benefit the honest exchangers.

There have been several accusations, some of them in Russian (so I can't read them), and Best_Change has 3 inactive Flags (created by 2 different users).

I noticed the lack of negatives, but didn't pay close attention to it. I've used the site exactly like you described:

I really want BestChange (or any other service) to provide a honest overview of different instant exchangers. It's hard to know which ones can be trusted without a review system, but now that I know the review system is flawed, I'm back to square one.

How about OP's story?
I'd say it's totally unacceptable for a "company" that only provides an email address to demand KYC. So OP got scammed, and until this moment BestChange allows the scammer to hide the negative feedback.

Exactly. But if someone advertises a scam in their signature, the user gets tagged even though they're not the scammer.

I don't think that matters.

I did answer your question. Okay let me try it again.
Honestly no one was scammed by Best_Change. How would they? BestChange is a site who compares exchanges and help the users to pick the best service to exchange their corns. I will not accuse Trustpilot for losing money in a site just because I saw positive ratings about the site in Trustpilot. But Trustpilot has some liabilities to be transparent to their visitors because they are successful in their industry.

The question here how BestChange are conducting business with the exchanges. Because these exchanges give them money to list their site, they are obviously biased to work for the exchanges. They need a system which favours the exchanges. Otherwise there are no point for them to have a controversial UX which shows 0 negative rating for all the sites they list.

If any site scammed anyone then it's those x,y,z exchanges. It's not BestChange but BestChange has liabilities because they made a system which favours those x,y,x systems and do not favour their visitors to get real data other than some manipulated feedback. If BestChange are in question then it's their review structure. They are not directly involved in the scam.

How are we going to confirm the user who lost his btc did not find the website x,y,z from search engine or any other ad?
They found the exchange from a random source, exchanged and it went wrong. Then the guy found BestChange advertising the exchange and he wanted to have their help to resolve the case. But when it did not then they are in the forum seeking our help. How are we going to know all of it?

There has been more than one scam accusation against BestChange in the past. The most visible one is here: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/about-bestchange-again-5219339

The situation described then is similar to what OP is describing now. Made a payment to an exchange, the exchange then froze that deposit and demanded KYC. The exchange in question (although now inactive) is still listed on BestChange with a 100% positive rating and multiple "cancelled" claims.

But regardless of whether this is the first or the one hundredth time this has happened, BestChange need to do better. Their landing page says they only use "reliable and trusted" exchanges, and the exchanges are all "100% legal". They give exchanges a green tick to show they have undergone "additional checks". If this is true then BestChange should have, at a minimum, a name, address and company registration for OpenChange that they can provide to OP to let him take forward his claim, not to mention they should not be allowing exchanges to nullify all negative reviews with a single click.

I also remember some threads, resolved positively, but although you are replying to me, you are not answering my point: there are quite a few people on the forum using Best Change regularly. What are the chances of none of them being scammed over the years if Best Change have been twisting the rating system so people can be scammed and they just cash in a commission.

I believe that in this, o_e_l_e_o and I have a quasi-ideological opposite position. For him companies in general are evil and do anything to make money, including scam people.

What I know more closely are small and medium companies and I say that a company that does not treat its customers well does not last long in business. I don't even take into account scam because in the physical world a small or medium company that scams ends up with its owner in jail.

Another thing would be big megacorporations.

I saw few threads against Best_Change in the past. If my memory is correct, I do not think the feedback manipulation never was in anyone's mind before. If they had the same feedback system where there are no negative were visible then it proves my argument of eyeballs on only the positive random rating numbers. I think our brain is designed not to pay attention in flat numbers.

0/20, 0/10, 0/50, 0/32, 0/87 if these are some feedback data presented on a table to quick look then you are lost on the numbers that are changing at the right but while you are lost on those numbers, you are not really paying attention on why in the left all are 0.

But do you think if this was the case, during many years nobody would have complained on the forum until now? There are quite a few people on the forum who regularly use Best Change services.

Out of curiosity, I clicked through some other exchanges they list with a perfect 100% feedback rating. Here's an example: https://www.bestchange.com/exwallets-exchanger.html

With 8 pages of feedback, and 30 pieces of feedback per page, this exchange has ~240 pieces of feedback. It is rated 0/57, meaning it has ~183 claims against it which it has simply cancelled and therefore do not show up in its ratings. It is incredibly misleading, and I agree, bordering on scam territory, for BestChange to allow these exchanges to simply nullify any and all complaints against them without any kind of resolution or verification the complaint has been settled.

A cynical person might suggest that BestChange allow this to happen since they are paid commission from all these exchanges, and so it is in their own interest to continue allowing users to be scammed by them despite a huge number of red flags.

I agree with this 100%. @Best Change, you know I have a good opinion of you, at least so far, and I also think this case can't just be left at that.

If they only keep positive feedbacks as "reviews" then thats plain shilling. Just my opinion.

A suggestion:

Before cancelling claims, how about asking the customer if he agrees to cancel his claim or how about having a buffer like number of days so if the customer failed to respond if he/she agrees to void his claim, it will not be a dead end.

@Best_Change, speaking about the reviews


I was not able to look in details when I visited the site earlier but then I noticed there are no negative (red) reviews for any exchange.
This is tricky. A part of Neuromarketing. Nothing wrong with Neuromarketing but your approach is misleading. You are giving the users a look that there are all positive about the exchanges you list.

An internet user who do not have time to look at every details for different sites, do not know how different exchange sites function in details, mostly they are your visitor. They see everything good about all the site you listed. It does not always raise in mind that why there are no negative for the sites listed, they check for the best exchange rate. They see reviews but easily miss the part of no negative review, eye balls are are always on the numbers of positive reviews. They do not see any negative for the selected exchange too because eye balls are always in the positive ones. They make the exchange.

So, even you are saying this is not the best UX but this is obviously misleading approach.

I do not think loyal visitors which you think regular apply for site like yours. In a site like this (listing sites) internet users do not spend much time. They know the site exists, visit, find the service, leave the site. Almost all the users in your site do not really need to know how the site functions entirely. They only see the first page and the data left on the table. It is important that you present your data correctly.

I am not blaming you for anything. A service always can not serve everyone as the client expects. Thing can go wrong sometimes which is absolutely fine when there is intention to make it correct. I think you really need to improve this feedback part and be real. Right now this is not a real feedback system, not from the look of it.

At first, I didn't think BestChange is to blame, but I'm more and more leaning towards them covering for scammers.
Just like, apparently, exchangers ask customers to deposit to addresses they don't control. That's very shady!

Despite this, the anonymous site demands KYC from their customers. I don't think that's right.

That would mean that all other (positive) reviews available for exchanges are just solved financial claims?
I don't think your explanation is good enough, because I can clearly see people praising service, saying communication was great, and we can also see love messages...



You need to add information for ALL exchanges with random kyc check may be performed and coins could be confiscated.
Alternative option is to say that all exchanges could ask for kyc.

So what happens if I create bunch of fake positive reviews and ''attack'' your system like that?
Why don't you consider that to be abuse in the same way like you consider ALL negative reviews?
For example, I could hire bunch of people to make minimal transaction and write 100 or more positive reviews for openchange or any other exchange I want.
You can't control this manually and delete every negative review like you are doing now.

Only just saw this thread, but I've said exactly what is being discussed here in the other thread OP opened: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.60491521

It is incredibly unethical that exchanges are simply allowed to nullify any claims against them, even if those claims are unresolved, and retain a 100% positive rating on BestChange.

If the exchange in question is the one deciding when a claim is resolved, without any independent verification, then the whole system is utterly meaningless.

OpenChange should then inform OP of which custodial service is holding his coins or which law enforcement agencies his coins are being handed over to, so can pursue other avenues to reclaim them. Allowing OpenChange to repeatedly close his claim despite it being unresolved is incredibly shady.

Problem. People who are not your regular users, they easily misleads. Isn't it better to have an improved UX if you feel it's not enough. New visitors will have better understanding.

This is a better idea and this is how it was supposed to. I am glad that you are working on it. Looking forward to see the update.

What's wrong to send the coins back to the address it came from if the sender do not agree to AML/KYC. I personally do not see any problem since he did not convert it from crypto to fiat.

Why not?  I've never used your service, but is it an advertising service for exchanges, or is it a service to help customers find an exchange for their needs?  If it's the latter then you should certainly have reviews, if it's the former then you're just shilling for the AML/KYC scammers like Freewallet and your service is absolutely useless.



I won't say this is intentionally misleading, but it's definitely misleading nonetheless.



I'm calling BS on this.  Bitcoin was intended to put individuals in control of their wealth, and take control away from governments and institutions who've bastardized the financial industry to keep masses beholden to their services, and therefor subject to their fees and control.  The fact that we have the commonly used term "Financial Industry"  in our vocabulary is a testament to their bastardisation of money.  What "industry?"  What do they actually produce?  What value do they add to the lives of normal citizens?

Allowing governments and their "financial institution" cohorts to apply their restrictions on bitcoin only allows them to continue their policy of using finances to enslave the populous.

These are the options:
The problem is that the service can decide when it's "resolved". And, no surprise, they all "resolve" everything!

That's a lousy excuse. Every services on the planet can receive unwarranted negative reviews somewhere on the internet. That makes it up to the customer to decide how they value reviews. Giving the service the power to censor reviews makes the reviews utterly useless and worse: misleading.

Of course I know Bitcoin itself will still work. That's not the point.
AML doesn't mean you can confiscate someone's funds because a previous owner may have committed a crime. That is what fungibility means. AML also doesn't mean an exchange can return the funds after receiving KYC documents.