Topic: Scammer Trade Fortress - page 3. (Read 19519 times)

The only thread I know of for forum rules is this one regarding moderation policy: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/forum-moderation-policy-20333
The list is more or less contains general guidelines, not all-inclusive rules. There's also a topic in the Meta section about off-topic replying. You'd probably have to ask theymos or a moderator for the specific details of your temporary ban.

Back on topic. I think I've mentioned this before, but I believe it still applies: it's not a scam even if your claim is true. What happened to you is that you paid TF for a website and he delivered a site that you're not happy with and that you claim was poorly designed. It's a case of buyer beware to me. You're well within your rights to give him a negative review if you're unhappy with his work (which you've already done), but claiming that he stole your money doesn't fit the situation.

If you had paid TF to design a website and he ran off with your money, then you'd have a good claim to label him a scammer.

ON TOPIC UPDATE TO MY TF SCAM CASE:
I have publicly agreed to donate 100% of the scammed coins TF took from me to charity.
So far I've recovered
--0--
of the 27 coins TF scammed from me (he scammed them by pretending to competently develop my website, story in this thread and also the thread here - https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/tradefortress-review-thread-146319)
I see there's no updates on his work products or reviews thereof so hopefully he's stopped doing it, but after making this kind of money that's unlikely.
How does the poll thing work again?
Also, I was briefly banned from posting to forum or sending messages for "SPAM". What are the forum rules on that? It's tough following the rules of my community if I don't know them. . .

Man you guys are relentless. Where do you get "a family that believes in god" I said my dad was a deacon in the church. I didn't say what I believe in.

I am agnostic. fyi

That's priceless, coming from a family that believes in gods.  

Anyway, regarding this thread - MoneypakTrader.com, you make FAR too many assumptions in your posts.  Try writing smaller rants, stick to a couple key points per post, and move forward once those facts have been confirmed.  You'll never get anywhere with your "apparently, obviously, assuming, etc." talk...

Then just download the zip file yourself and email it to him or something, the codes not much use without the MySQL DB anyways.

^^ sheep

Please note that none of us can actually run that code without a copy of the MySQL database.

Yup, that was the line.

Not that he is to busy asshole that he is a deacon in the church and I cant send him to a page with vibrators and bongs on it. 

"My dad is too busy to review the code". That's what did it for me. How about you guys at home?

Shit I can't have my dad review the code for this page. I will get another programmer to review it. I will let the forum know what they say, but I really only trust what my dad says.

 

even after I posted his code for public review. link please?

Cutting to the facts you use in your analysis
Good thing I started the arbitration or it would never have been filed and we'd be left with TF BS about Real ID needed. Unfortunately, you can NOT file arbitration with judge.me and ask the other person to pay the full amount. I agreed to pay half the cost after TF raised that as an excuse (even though TF previously said he'd pay the full cost). I fell into the trap some of you are in (believing that if I addressed TF complaints, he might go through and follow his word by paying the other half). Obviously his comment on this topic was subterfuge and it worked like his other subterfuges worked in distracting people from the real issue. This is how he does the work too - TF move #1 - Give me a final product that fails spec in multiple ways and ask me go through and find all the bugs to correct. Typical customer response - try to explain all the bugs to him. Repeat TF move #1 with excuses as to why he can't perform correctly and as much misdirection as possible. He KNEW the spec when he submitted the final site to me every time it failed, so when he submitted it the last time, I was within my rights to reject his contract for fraud.
Hopefully that clears up the facts a little.

It is funny that the scammer who took 27 btc from me, 15 from another, more from another, probably more from others. . .  ends up as the one people seem to side with even after I posted his code for public review.
He knows just enough about coding to be dangerous and lead people on to take more coin from them.
He got me, but hopefully this thread is preventing others from losing coin to him.

I can understand if people don't like my writing, but to allow theft/fraud of coin from me because of that is a little overboard.

Yes, the contract started with me asking for a site that could process bitcoin deposits similar to the site in his sig. He agreed (implying that he designed that site, probably how he does the scam). Months later I realize he's never coded a bitcoin deposit taking website.
When a person engages in a trade, they have a duty to perform competently or else they will be responsible for refunds. I had no agreement to give him money for sub-standard non-functional work.
I am responsible for giving him the 27 BTC and facilitating his scam, true. But I am definitely within my rights to cancel his contract because he breached it by submitting a final website (multiple times) that failed to meet the requirements of the contract.

Anyways, all this would be resolved in arbitration. Unfortunately judge.me is apparently unable/unwilling to do it. If they ever explain why the case is being ignored, we will know the reason, until then we can only speculate.
I'd pay half for arbitration but it's obvious TF has no intention of refunding any of my coin regardless of the arbitrator's ruling.
I like sublime's idea of having open arbitration in the forums, which is kinda what we're doing here.
I submitted my evidence (which is undisputed as far as I can tell) -
1) I paid 27 BTC.
2) I received this (after much back and forth on his inability to code the site correctly) - http://94.75.216.85/en/file/398233/Moneypak-zip.html
3) I canceled the contract.
4) TF refuses any refund.
5) At least 2 other forum users have similar complaints (one has scammer tag though).
6) TF agreed to pay arbitration but never filed the case (TF instead emailed judge.me with complaints against me, preventing my case from being allowed, see below).
7) It appears that instead of filing/paying the fee, TF intentionally sabatoged the arbitration with unfounded false allegations. . .

I have to say, the only person in this dispute who sounds like they know what they're doing, and isn't irrational is TradeFortress. I've dealt with many, many, many web devs (some shit, some great) over the last 15 years. Carlos comes across as someone trying to sound technical, and stick up for a buddy. Also the move moneypaktrader pulled in starting his own arbitration and then choosing split the costs set off all sorts of red flags for me.

Just my $.02

The script was made so only him can understand (actually, you can understand it, but you have to spend a few hours on it) and implement new features.
Tell me what experienced programmer would make ONE page for the entire backoffice script? A minor change to one of those if's would cause tons of bugs.

Maybe I exaggerated when I said "written by a 14 year old with 2 months experience". But that wasn't certainly made by a experienced programmer capable of making a website like this.

I'll ask the important part again, did you have a contract?

If you didn't have a contract that clearly specified the configuration that TF was supporting (x version of bitcoind, x version of php, x version of MySQL, x y and z web browsers) then he is liable to support whatever version of bitcoind, php, msql etc that you are using. Also, unless clearly specified, he is not liable to add a "forgot password" screen, although it would be unfair not to do so.

You say he is an incompetent programmer, I work in the web development industry, and many clients have come to the company I work for after spending sometimes in the hundreds of thousands of dollars on some cowboy web development company. They had to call it a loss and start all over again as it was their fault for choosing that company, they never seen a penny of that money as that company acted entirely within their contract. just because somebody is an incompetent programmer (which BTW I personally do not agree that TF is) doesn't mean you are entitled to a full/partial refund.

Already done a long time ago and after much time wasted, the final site submissions continuously failed to meet the agreed specs and he has been fired.
If the mechanic on your car fails repeatedly to fix/improve it as you ask and it's obvious he is unqualified to do the original task, you don't ask him to keep working on it do you?
I guess that's the heart of the dispute though. If someone is unskilled/unable to do the job they say they can do, should they get time to learn and keep hammering at the job until it resembles what they agreed? I say no, if they can't / don't perform, then I shouldn't need to go through the work and tell them to bring everything into compliance (for the 3rd/4th times).
He knew all along the site needed a way to get bitcoins in and out and claimed (again) it was working on his final submission of the site. When he says it's working and basic tests show it's not, I won't argue with him about it, begging him to do the site correct, he's fired. He had plenty of warning that his work on the site was failing specs and it is no surprise to him being fired.
Ultimately his  willingness to pretend he is not an incompetent programmer allowed his scam to work. Along with pretending to know how to code a bitcoin ecommerce site (pretending to have done the site in his sig).

Perfect. Send TF a list of all the problems/changes you want made and have him fix/make them.

Did you have a contract with him?

I paid 27 BTC (currently valued over $1K USD).
I received this as the final product: http://www.megafileupload.com/en/file/398233/Moneypak-zip.html
direct link - http://94.75.216.85/en/file/398233/Moneypak-zip.html

Therefore TF scammed me for 27 BTC.

The BS about arbitration was apparently redirection away from the facts of the dispute. TF has no intention on following through with arbitration at judge.me or anywhere else or he would have done so. It's very simple to file an arbitration claim as I did, but instead TF tried to weasel out on the name issue which he failed at.

You can judge for yourself based on the facts. maybe you think a website that doesn't accept btc deposits correctly and doesn't allow PW changes is acceptable. . . He pretended like he coded the decent looking bitcoin website in his sig when I asked him to do a site like that, but obviously he has little to no ability to code a bitcoin site like I asked for. Having the site spit out errors constantly and not even load if the connection to mtgox or blockchain is down is also unacceptable. The site he made is worthless to me.
Having that website in his sig while advertising coding skills is obviously fraudulently implying he coded it and can code something close to that. Particularly because I asked for a site like that and he went along with that for the deal we made.

I've addressed the legality issue of my services in my thread.