Topic: Should Giga be tagged as a scammer? - page 12. (Read 17486 times)

Before giga gets the scammer tag, you would need to give the scammer tag to every other glbse asset issuer, because they did not fulfill the terms of the contract, where giga went to great expense and put himself at great risk to find a way he could continue to pay people, when the easier way would have been to do nothing just like every other asset issuer has done so far.

On the other hand giving a scammer tag to the one person that went into their own pocket to hire lawyers to try and sort out Nefario's mess (and in the process forced Nefario to give out those lists, because I don't think it would have happened otherwise) seems...perverse. Maybe it's just me.

Exactly.
BTW the legal constraints are just fluff to legalize the stealing of lots of bonds IMHO.

I do understand the arguments about not giving the scammer tag because of being under legal pressure, however I think some are viewing the scammer tag the wrong way. The scammer tag is not "You need to do this even though it may or may not be illegal". It's not about about dealing justice, or punishing people, or forcing people to do anything. The scammer tag is "He made x agreement, he can't or won't keep it". It's a warning about those who make promises they can't keep, and there's a lot of those around here.

IMO a scammer tag pretty clearly fits the situation, on the other hand he's a longstanding member (year and a half), has fairly good rep, and this is his first and only real incident. Have there been other incidents? Does he have any other investments?

Probably the one correct summation.

Right - that post of yours had way more useful/valuable content than any of mine?

Would suggest you use different translation software - whatever you're using now seems to mistranslate something that should come out as "Sorry - I was totally wrong" into "Go away you're a troll [Insert random insult]".

The problem when the issuer does not maintain their pseudonymity.

Feels insecure and lawyers up.  The liability is def on the part of the issuer.


This is not acceptable with contracts written under pseudonymity.  What we are seeing is what happens when the issuer fails to maintain the integrity of their pseudonymous contract.  Negligence?

In this particular case he is spot on.

I hear they're taking auditions for peewee herman 3. They need someone to play an overweight argumentative looser that lives with his parents and likes to argue like a 3 year old cuz Mark Holton is too old now.

You did well pointing out some facts on this Gigamining case. Now stop polluting the forum and let the mods do their job.

You just don't get it.

Your lawyer does not "tell you to stop doing something".  They may, however advise you to stop doing something.

You're using "order" and (this time) "tell" when you should use "advise" or "recommend". As a (professed) English teacher I assumed you understood those words have significantly different meanings - and hence that by choosing the words you used you were demonstarting a lack of understanding of the nature of the lawyer/client relationship.

On your later point about it not being smart to ignore your lawyer's advice, that could be why I said "Which isn't to say that it's a good idea to go against your lawyer's advice of course.".

It may seem like niggly little point by me to argue about semantic detail.  But it's a pretty major point.  Too many people (not just on this forum) claim that they're doing something because their lawyer instructed them to do it or told them to do it - attempting to portray the lawyer as the decision-making person and so shift some (or all) of the blame for the decision away from them.  In reality, lawyers advise that you do X for reason Y - attempting to claim that the lawyer ORDERED you to do X (and not disclosing Y) is factually incorrect as well as being deceptive.

Someone says "My lawyer ordered me to do X" - it gives impression they're helpless and have no option.

Person says "I'm doing because X because my lawuer advised me that if I didn't I'd suffer Y" then it becomes plain that THEY made the choice - and that they did so because they didn't want to suffer Y.  i.e. it becomes obvious they made a conscious decision to act in their own self-interest.

The latter is what actually happens -the former is what the nefarios/gigas of the world want everyone to believe - as it doesn't paint them in such a bad light.

Gigavps definitely deserves a SCAMMER TAG.

Gigavps got his shareholders data but has unreasonable claim requirements, even worse than nefarios initial claim procedure.
This should be enough to get gigavps scammer taged.
So my request is: scammer tag gigavps, because his way of dealing with this issue is just a way to avoid any payment to shareholders.


BTW: the letter from his Lawyer isn`t even signed so for all we know, gigavps wrote that letter himself  Just to "cover" his ass!

Greetz

How quickly they turn on each other. 

No, not really.


Lol whatever, if you have a lawyer tell you to stop doing something or you will go to jail and you ignore him, you're a friggen idiot. Well, you're a friggen idiot for other reasons but whatever.


You are right and that's a good point. You surprised me by noticing this. If he is now stating he incorporated/whatever with a lawyer and didn't reveal this in his contract then he committed fraud by issuing the original contract while never intending to keep it in the first place. In that case, he deliberately misled investors for financial gain and would be guilty of fraud. Give him the scammer tag.

Oops, sorry giga. You earned this one.


Yep. However, in this case he claimed he was using his lawyers from the very beginning. This was never revealed and it obviously invalidates certain clauses from his contract. This means he intentionally deceived his investors for financial gain.


Based on what you said above I think he does. He issued a contract which he intended to break. There is no way he ever intended that contract to stand; he lied in the contract, he had planned to go to his lawyer at first opportunity from the very beginning.

You fundamentally misunderstand the nature of the relationship between someone and their lawyer.

A lawyer does NOT "order" their client to do anything.  A Judge "orders".  Law Enforcement or Regulatory bodies may "order".  A lawyer "advises".

A lawyer only tells you what they advise you to do - explaining the risks and benefits of doing (or not doing) it.  Where you reject that advice (and do otherwise) they may (especially in criminal cases) ask you to sign that statement that you are acting contrary to their advice.  That's to protect them in case you subsequently try to claim you didn't receive proper representation.

Dont know where you got the impression from that the lawyer orders the client - it's actually the other way round.  The client instructs their lawyer what to do, the lawyer advises the client on what they believe the client SHOULD do.  In fact lawyers very much go out of their way to make plain they are NOT ordering a client to do something.

Which isn't to say that it's a good idea to go against your lawyer's advice of course.

Where there's an issue in respect of giga's behaviour is NOT that he may be having to take certain steps to protect himself and comply with laws/regulations.  It's that he appears to be attempting to misrepresent the past - in his own interests and against those of the parties with whom he entered into agreements.  Very specifically (for one thing) it is apparent that when the agreement was offered there was no mention of it being by an LLC - yet now he appears to be claiming (via his lawyer) that all agreements were with the LLC rather than with himself personally.  That has significant impact on the assets again which other parties have claim should he fail to honour the agreement.

There's no basis in law (and certainly no legal requirement to) misrepresent the nature of an agreement you entered into to avoid inconvenience now.  If you were wrong to make the agreement - then that's fine: sort out the mistakes, work to minise damage to both parties etc.  But don't just start lieing about what was actually agreed - whilst that MAY give you a better chance of avoiding SOME problems (by avoiding admitting to things) it's dishonest and deceitful.

At root the complaint against giga would be that by his actions he's putting his own self-interest above honouring his commitment to those he entered into agreements with.  Which is essentially what ALL scammers do - just in most cases that self-interest is "I want the money" rather than "I don't want problems with LE/SEC".

If you intentionally make it impossible (or impractical, or unreasonably costly) for your investors to get what was promised to them for reasons of self-interest then that's scamming just as much as if you vanished with their funds.  That's what seemed to happen with nefario - his lawyer advised him (NOT ordered him) that he should close down GLBSE in HIS interests and he did so, in the process (apparently - I've not seen what was agreed between him/the other GLBSE shareholders) breaking agreements he'd made with others here.

Scammer tag is (or should be) awarded because you choose not to honour agreements you made.  If I enter into agreement with you (by you I mean whoever - not usagi specifically) and you don't keep your end of the deal then whatever loss is caused to me is unchanged whether you were advised by a lawyer to break the agreement or not.  If there's good reasons why it would cost you to keep the deal then, frankly that's your problem and shouldn't be mine.  Giga should have thought about that BEFORE offering to sell unlicensed securities that were designed to make him significant profit and marginal (if any) profit for investors.  This was NEVER a share - but a bond (of sorts).  His obligations were crystal clear - and neither the risks (which he's now apaprently suffering from) or the rewards (which were only ever really going to him) were split with investors.

All that said, I don't believe he deserves a scammer tag (yet).  If he acknowledges that the requests for ID etc are to cover HIS arse (and aren't necessary for him to meet his obligations) and agrees to cover costs incurred by investors in providing such documentation then I don't see any real harm being done.  Though he still has to address the issue of those who are unwilling (or unable in the case of minors) to provide such information.  If his assertion is that the information is necessary for him to fulfil the agreement (and someone won't provide it) then he really only has two options - cancel the agreement and refunds all funds received (less dividends paid) on the basis that the investor won't provide information necessary to activate the agreement OR report it to the relevant LE/regulatory authorities (on suspicion that the refusal is for AML-related reasons).  You (he) can't argue that the information is somehow NECESSARY for the agreement to be transacted - and then in the next breath say that you want to keep YOUR entitlements under the agreement if preconditions for the agreement to be valid aren't met.

He seems to want to have his cake and eat it.  He needs to choose which - as he's not entitled to both.

The reason I agree with the post above is that it could indeed be used to run a long con. Simply setup an illegal/grey op then when the time comes to pay up you simply visit a lawyer and your clients will be screwed because they signed up under a false assumption and cant get their funds back without incriminating themselves.

Nefario/Giga et al  going to the state is as retarded as DPR going to them.

I completely understand this sentiment. But I disagree with it. Here's why:

Nefario wrote many posts proclaiming that his operation could withstand full-frontal attack by the state. He didn't beat around the bush at all when it came to clearly stating that GLBSE was an underground operation, the state be damned. Gigamining also did business on a very grey market site. It was clear to everybody involved that this was a non-state sanctioned enterprise. So, when they go to the state and the clients get F'ed it completely warrants the scammer tag.

If a business starts off in the white market then it's expected to be involved with the state. BitInstant is a good example of this. That's totally white market. I expect them to get involved with lawyers and such.

The Silk Road I absolutely do not expect to get involved with lawyers. I also think, and I think most would agree, that GLBSE and Gigamining were non-lawyer type businesses. So when they turn to them all of a sudden I think it deserves the scammer tag.

No he should not, and this is also why the scammer tag for Nefario is unwarranted. As it turns out, because of pirate and the actions of certain other people who like to flaunt themselves on the internet as "brokers" and "exchange operators", certain things are -- right now -- under review by official regulatory commissions around the world.

Like it or not, it does not matter what YOU think. If, say, Gigavps was ordered by a lawyer to do something, or Nefario was ordered by a lawyer to do something (BTW, Nefario did in fact make his lawyer's contact info public so there is no excuse for not checking this); then it is not under their control to prevent such action from occurring; Further, any party such as Theymos (unfortunately) who desires business to carry on as usual is only prolonging the inevitable.

I guarantee you, I say it twice, I guarantee you; the people who gave Nefario and may likely give Gigavps a scammer tag will one day come under the same legal pressure in one way or another if they remain involved in the "bitcoin securities business". And then what will they do? They will not give themselves scammer tags; They will simply remove the scammer tags for people like Nefario (and maybe Gigavps). ALL current exchange operators, including those who make several thousand dollars a month, are small peanuts, and will come under this pressure.

If you want to make bitcoin grow get the fuck out of gray areas like securities and stuff like tor and silk road. If you don't, the ONLY thing you will accomplish is to destroy bitcoin. And a scammer tag for Gigavps will become meaningless bullshit.

If Gigavps gets a scammer tag for stopping now, would you have given him a scammer tag if he had to stop for being thrown in jail? Legal pressure people. Get with the program.

Better quote it before it disappears.


Edit: And now I think more about that it is a fraudulent legal document as he surely knew it was bonds he was offering up as it says in his own words I quoted.

If the original contract specify the instrument as "bond", then the request for claims is void. The request for claims is treating the Gigamining's financial instrument as "agreement".

Now you know why I avoid investing in such bonds