This post is a public service placeholder to collect any information on BitcoinOZ, as it has now become clear he has misrepresented himself as a Marketing Executive at Coinabul(!!), is lying and worming his way out of his status as a member of the Bitcoin Global board, and has possibly been misrepresenting himself as a Financial Services Professional. I don't think he deserves a scammer tag as I have not suffered any financial loss. However, if you have suffered financial loss as a result of this guy's actions, or if you have any information considering the large number of possible cases he has engaged in, please post that material in this thread. Thank you for your time,
-----
The Case against BitcoinOZ
Contents
1. Who is Bitcoinoz?
2. What did he do?
3. Character Witnessing (opinions/why you should care.) -- please add to this section your opinion. I'm sure lots of people will stand up for him, as he's a well-known member of this community.
-----
1. Who is Bitcoinoz?
David A. Hollis of Victoria, Australia (address withheld) goes by many names. Some of these names include (but are not limited to) noagendamarket and now, bitcoinoz. But you may know him better as the guy who ran BITCOINRS, or as one of the members of the board of Bitcoin Global (GLBSE). As you can tell, he is a member of the community in the strongest sense; he is involved in many businesses and other "schemes" in the community.
As David A. Hollis, he advertises himself as a Marketing Executive for coinabul.com
(which has now been shown to be a misrepresentation by Mr. Hollis; see post below by Jay Shore), he runs bitcoin.com.au, a bitcoin blog which he uses to promote coinabul.com and other businesses he is involved in. He also runs the BitcoinMedia Youtube Channel, aliased as "
Ozzy Bitcoin". As you can tell, he's a rather involved member of the community. He is not an anonymous troll. He's a well-known community figure and one couldn't be blamed for assuming he had the ear of quite a few people, and a certain modicum of trust among many of us here in the community.
2. What did he do?
Apparently, quite a lot. While outlining each and every bad thing he has done is probably a waste of time, I'd like to point out a small handful of facts which probably warrant action. Maybe not action in the form of a scammer tag, but maybe something like getting fired from coinabul.com or having his reputation knocked down a notch or two.
One. David A. Hollis misappropriates the resources of coinabul.com to troll and defame users on bitcointalk.org.
As mentioned, he runs http://www.youtube.com/user/BitcoinMedia -- on this channel he has published a defamatory video regarding me (and possibly other users). Normally this would not be a problem except that he is a well-known public figure, and for the fact that the contact information on this channel is listed as "coinabul.com" and the coinabul twitter page (which I therefore assume he runs).
This is a blatant mis-appropriation of company resources. I have been led to believe that coinabul.com supports his defamatory message against me. I assure you that I do not appreciate this in the strongest possible sense, and that I cannot say anything further regarding that video and it's apparent promotion by coinabul.com because I do not believe this is the correct venue for fully expressing that complaint.NOTE: Coinabul has nothing to do with David Hollis -- Mr. Hollis only worked for Coinabul for a few short weeks over a year ago, as an unpaid intern. Secondly all links now appear to have been removed. So I have struck the above paragraphs.Two. David A. Hollis has said untrue and damaging lies against me:Although I am not a court of law or a lawyer, I will present evidence now that I believe shows:
a) David A. Hollis set out to intentionally deceive people;
b) for the sole purpose of financial gain
c) and to damage an individual
1. My evidence that David A. Hollis set out to intentionally deceive people for the purpose of financial gain.One of the first questions when dealing with libel or slander is what kind it is, and what the damages are. In many cases the advice is to ignore it if damages cannot be shown. However, in cases of malicious criminal libel, which is a special type of fraud in U.S. law, damages are assumed. But in a case where damages can be shown they should be. In this case, Mr. Hollis has set out to escape his obligation as an operator of BITCOINRS to recognize shares owned by NYAN:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1359710"Im sure the other shareholders will be more than happy with your donation of 2000 shares since you just offered to not accept them. "
The intentional deception here was that I had not, in fact, offered to donate them, and I still require them to be returned to CPA in the future (once I get the list of shareholders for NYAN).
2. My evidence that David A. Hollis set out to intentionally deceive people for the sole purpose of damaging another individualAlthough I cannot speculate precisely why he has enganed in a smear campaign against me, it is easy to show that his comments were damaging because I believe the type of comments he issued fall under the category of malicious criminal libel, which (again) is a special type of law in US law where damages are assumed. Malicious criminal libel is what it is called when you accuse someone of committing a crime which they did not commit for the purpose of issuing libel or slander.
The following quotes are material evidence that BitcoinOZ has accused me of committing a crime for the sole purpose of damaging me:
a) from
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1361438-- "I believe the company has obligations exceeding its assets and therefore should appoint a liquidator."
(establishment of the requirement that he is acting on belief and without evidence)
-- "People say...CPA is no different...both made up companies...not a damn thing I could do about either company. You are no (censored) different..." (establishment of the fact he knew the charges against me were false, and was basing what he said on public opinion)
-- "Theres no way in hell Im going to become an accessory to your crime here..."
(establishment that he has accused me of committing a crime)
-- "Anything else is knowingly committing a criminal act."
(repetition confirming intent)
b) I refuted his statements in a response to that post in the same thread.
Therefore Mr. Hollis was made aware of his error, or was given a chance to provide proof of his claims. Instead of doing so, he continued on in full knowledge that I contested his claims and that he did not actually have any proof...
c) ...as shown in the
several following instances where he has accused me of committing a crime in that and in other threads which I will not show (ex.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1362875).
It's not necessary to display each and every instance, just the above will suffice (for now). Again this isn't really a court, although I don't need a flood of evidence for that either given what I have already shown.
3. Character Witnessing
Why should you care?
1.
You should care because David A. Hollis is abusing his position and his status as a community member to lie and obfuscate the truth; he expects people to believe him because he is a well-known community member and not because he has provided any evidence. I believe it is dangerous to do so.
Although he is well-known as a member of the board of directors of Bitcoin Global, and was directly responsible for voting involving financial matters of the company, he has publicly denied being anything other than a shareholder (
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1361722). In that linked thread he has misrepresented himself as being merely a shareholder. It seems obvious this was done to try and limit his legal liability (which is probably unlimited).
This isn't a single instance; he has repeated this many times. ex.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1361923 where he stated, "I owned bitcoinglobal shares on glbse and went to shareholder meetings. I also own telstra shares in Australia and go to the annual general shareholder meeting. Exactly what different level of liability does that imply Im not aware of ?".
However, the truth is a little different; as stated, he was a member of Bitcoin Global, a title which carried several obligations and duties. One of which was voting on the direction of the company from major moves like GLBSE going legit (which was an announced motion at a meeting he was present at), to both major and minor financial decisions of the company.
So it appears as if David Hollis is dishonest and is willing to lie to avoid possible jail time. In many developed countries including Australia, this is in and of itself a crime.
2.
David A. Hollis breaks his word on business contracts, and obfuscates and lies to get out of his obligations.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1362184In this message I outline how BitcoinOZ made an agreement with me to transfer ownership of shares, and then backed out of it. Although he didn't break any laws in that message really I suspect that his smear campaign is an attempt to both get out of keeping his word to me in PM, and also to shift some of the blame to my own companies (and others). For example in
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1361960 he says "
If GLBSE is a partnership so is cognitive,nasty mining,CPA and every other stock on glbse". He repeatedly mentions my name and company in his own defense, as if I had anything to do with his possible legal problems with GLBSE. It's kind of weird but that's the only reason I can think why he is doing this.
For example he has said "Usagi was on Nefario's secret panel to approve glbse assets. They had more access to him than the shareholders did.....". This is a blatant lie, and he knows it! IIRC it was even mentioned at a shareholder meeting! I offered to set up a public panel of community members to take the control away from Nefario on issues like banning Kludge and Goat, the Diablo-D3/DMC case and others. However Nefario never listened to any of my advice and did not give me control or ownership of anything. The panel was then immediately disbanded. Nobody would have ever thought it was secret either, as I made several posts about it and talked to a lot of asset issuers -- anyone I could find. Probably including our Mr. Hollis. I probably have the logs somewhere.
3.
You should care because David. A. Hollis is a hypocrite. He has repeatedly stated (for example) that CPA is insolvent.
He has been asked to stop. He has justified these ridiculous statements by saying "If CPA is solvent you shouldnt need to sell personal property to cover its loans.". This is disingenuous and irreverent on many levels; First, the loans in question were backed by a personal guarantee. Thus it is wrong of me to wait until we have the CPA shareholder lists before the loans are paid; I should pay the loans myself as I advertised personal responsibility on the loans, and then get the money back from CPA myself when all is said and done, fairly.
He has also claimed that if I am unable to show proper financial records I am insolvent and/or fraudulent. This is an odd claim, but it is also hypocritital. As a member of the board of Bitcoin Global, noagendamarket is on record giving Nefario carte blanche to buy any laptop he wants and then to have GLBSE pay for 50% of it's cost. Now, that isn't a crime and is certainly legal. But what I find odd and hypocritical is that this does not appear to ever be mentioned again anywhere in the Bitcoin Global financial records -- there is no reciept, there is no follow up in a shareholder meeting -- nothing. How then can Mr. Hollis accuse me of being insolvent/fraudulent "because I do not keep proper accounting records", when he does not keep proper accounting records himself? And no, this is not an "admission" I did not keep "proper accounting records". I've offered to show the CSV files and explain any transactions in them several times in the past. My own companies have nothing to do with it, obviously!
4. You should care because David A. Hollis intentionally covered up a crime involving a ponzi scheme on GLBSE and on the forums. Out of respect for the possible legal proceedings against the individual in question I cannot name any names, so don't ask. Let's just understand two things: David A. Hollis, in full knowledge that two separate crimes were taking place (a theft and a ponzi scheme) and with knowledge of the individuals involved:
a) allowed this ponzi scheme to operate on the lending forum of bitcointalk.org
b) covered up the theft and ponzi scheme for his own personal financial gain and to avoid trouble with the law.
AGAIN and I cannot make this clear enough, out of respect for possible legal proceedings which may be an issue, I cannot reveal anything further about this. If you would like me to do so, all you have to do is call me to testify in said legal proceedings. But I will say this, it's bloody unlikely to happen as I have no special information that 20 other people closer to this issue have, so yeah, don't bother asking.5. You should care because David A. Hollis could do the same thing to you if he decides he doesn't like you. Some of the other cases where he has lied about me in order to defame me, are when he accused me of scamming or creating preferential shares because I sold a single to pay off the CPA loans.
The problem with this is that he was informed that I had a legal claim on the single. Further to this point, those of you who remember the BMF motion to allow BMF to buy hardware will remember that I had offered to donate the mining from my own personal single to BMF, to help the company. This single was, in fact, the one I sold. It was never BMF property. It was sold because I had a full and legal right to do so to cover my personal obligation on CPA loans.
When informed of the fact of my legal claim, he merely repeated that I had committed a scam/fraud. This is in line with everything else mentioned in this report.
He has also posted defamatory videos of me on the internet, which he knows to be false and misrepresentation of me and my character. For example, the video describes me as doing certain styles of martial arts which I do not do, or engaging in things I do not do; these are clear misrepresentations.
But beyond that, I believe that David A. Hollis is a disgrace to this community, and maybe -- just maybe -- should be preemptively labled with a scammer tag in recognition of the extreme misappropriation of his position he has engaged in on many fronts, not limited to a libelous and defamatory campaign against me for financial gain, or to escape possible criminal liablity with gas-lighting, outrageous lies, and mis-characterizations of himself and others.
In short, you should care because, as he is a prominent member of this community, I cannot idly stand by and watch him lie and manipulate people and abuse his position to gaslight and to obfuscate the truth. it's people like David A. Hollis who are destroying this community, and I say **** that. And I say **** David A. "BitcoinOZ" Hollis. I've really had enough of his sh** personally. I can't keep up with the massive smear campaign he is a party to. I just want to be left alone, so I thought I would show how little credibility this jerk really has. I wouldn't want someone thinking he was someone who could be trusted.
I mean, I trusted him myself. As the operator of NYAN I trusted him because he was a member of the community and I bought 2,000 shares of his company BITCOINRS because I believed he was an honest person and a good businessman because of his reputation. I screwed up. If I could go back I wouldnt' have bought those shares. I had no idea he would turn on me like this, try to screw me over like this. You have been warned.
A final thought. A lot of people have said I am a scammer just because I use different names on different forums, or that I have used different names here. Well I've never tried to hide that or hide myself and basically stuck to the same two names, Serena and Usagi. BTW, Serena is an English name and Usagi is a Japanese name. I just wanted English people to feel more comfortable in dealings with me. Lots of Chinese and Japanese use an English first name. So I am sorry if you feel this is scummy but it was not my intention to decieve. However, I would like to point out that after GLBSE shut down and rumors of the board members being scam artists started to fly around, BitcoinOZ used his status as a donator to have his name changed on the forums. That's right. he changed his name on the forums so people would not associate him with his former identity. That is something way way worse that I did -- he actually is using a different name now to hide who he was and what he did in the past. So yeah.
-----
ADDENDUM: David Hollis advertises himself as a "... Financial Services Professional" on linkedin, and advertises himself as a Marketing Executive of Coinabul. These claims have now been proven false in a post by Jay Shore below.
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-hollis/3b/6a3/880
I do not know if he really is a financial services professional however given his misrepresentation that he is or ever was an Executive at Coiniabul I doubt it. Please note that it is a crime to misrepresent yourself as a financial services professional in the USA and Canada and likely Australia. It is illegal to call yourself a financial services professional or offer any kind of investment advice whatsoever unless you are accredited. The defining acts being to do with "advice" and "investment" and "financial services" and nothing to do with how such things are denominated, i.e. baseball cards and bitcoins are both under that umbrella. I would propose Mr. Hollis to show us his accreditation as a financial services professional. If he is lying about his job experience as an Executive on a resume that might not in and of itself be a crime, but if he is lying about having professional accreditation from a sanctioned governing body, that is in fact a crime.------
Edit: The links to coinabul.com have now been removed.