During the time I've been here I read about many scams. Some were really big, some were small; some were about money; some were about trust; some were about cheating signature campaigns and so on. But what all had in common (or -- almost all) was that, once the scammer was exposed, s/he left the premises for good. This happened especially after big scams. If you need examples, look at the cases of
pirateat40 (very well documented by xtraelv),
master-P,
El Cabron or the most recent cases of
alia,
Polar91 or
figmentofmyass.
Indeed, some were banned and this was the reason for their disappearance. But not all of them.
One particular case raised my attention, which involved the theft of 4100 BTC, plus other (which seemed to be at that time) lower scams. And my attention was brought by the fact that the scammer did not leave the forum, was not banned and is still active. This is the case of
TradeFortress.
This is
the main story (more details
here):
Inputs.io HackDate: 2013-10-26
[74] (disputed)
Victim: Inputs.io, passed on to creditors.
Perpetrator: Accusations of inside job.
Transaction of interest: 9536feebe3a50b94f85ca27d56e669a7209bd4188385d55c5b97227c95cf7f74
[75]Amount:
Estimate 4100
BTC[76]Equivalent in USD: 640615 $
Equivalent in January 2014
BTC: 780
BTCInputs.io, a web wallet service run by BitcoinTalk user TradeFortress, was supposedly “hacked” in October 2013 and was unable to repay user balances in full. There are many accusations of the hack being an inside job. TradeFortress had a contentious reputation and had supposedly scammed two separate people before this incident.[77][78] When the theft was announced in November 2013, TradeFortress began offering partial refunds; however, 4100 BTC was not paid back as that was the shortfall from the supposed “hack”. Apparently, years later he tried to pay back some of his victims but in the end he abandoned the idea:
A number of people have emailed me asking whether the reimbursement program is still open.
I am replying to clarify that the program is closed and no funds are available. Sorry.
Please do not reach out to me about this program.
However, excepting this scam, TradeFortress was accused of several other users for scamming the with various amounts. As it can be seen, what he did with inputs.io was
his masterpiece, but he "exercised" his hand well before that.
I had hired tradefortress to do some programming for me and I had given him a 15btc deposit. He hasn't responded to any of my messages for a week. How do I have a scammer tag applied.
Update: TF is apparently reneging on his arbitration offer.
I believe TF is a SCAMMER because:
1) He scammed me out of 27 BTC by promising to deliver a site he was incapable of programming.
2) He is refusing to cooperate in the investigation process of his scam work on my site (he won't show his "final product" code here and is reneging on arbitration). Public review of his work on my site will obviously be very embarrassing for him, thus it is very unlikely for him to settle our dispute openly.
3) He has scammed others (he probably thought it was safe to scam other scammers, but he got greedy and started scamming more forum members and obviously has plans to continue to do so).
LOL, he did the same thing to me and then made up some BS and still owes me a few BTC but i got over it. Tho with BTC increasing in value wouldbe nice to get the coins back
More scams or scam attempts can be found
here.
Why I'm creating this topic? As I wrote above, it's because I was almost shocked to see that the scammer remained active for 8 more years after all these scams. He was last active here last month. According to BPIP, he is (just) the
28th most distrusted user from the entire forum (but I think he should be placed on a higher spot). Also, as it can be seen on LoyceV's website, there are some users (not 1 or 2, but 13!!!) which
trust TradeFortress - a fact which I find to be amazing. Another aspect amazing me is that only 23 users distrust him!
What's even worst is that it also happens that he is a VIP member, meaning that he actually paid 50 BTC to obtain this rank (no matter that when he paid BTC had a lower value). And while such members - VIPs or Donators - should be remarkable figures among us, sadly, there are cases when such titles are worn also by scammers...
Coming back to the story, I still can't understand the guts of this guy, to keep being present here all the time, involve in various threads, in various boards (Bitcoin Discussion, Gambling, Securities, Altcoins, Meta, Offtopic etc.) without having (almost) anybody asking him: "do you really have the guts of actually still being here after all you did?".
Moreover, some actually praise his posts:
TF, thanks for the laugh. When I saw who posted that I laughed so hard I almost pissed my pants.
Very rarely I saw someone which told him something more or less subtle, about what he did and that he does not belong here anymore.
It's like... everybody forgotten his actions... or closed their eyes.
Why is this happening? Opinions...?