Topic: The Rock Trading Scam www.therocktrading.com Exchange Review fraud opinion - page 45. (Read 36160 times)

I don't know what you are seeing but I clicked the link you provided and I see this:

Which also links to this:
https://support.therocktrading.com/kb/faq.php?id=64



Nota:
per our sole discretion we can require additional informations or documents despite the status

It makes it very clear that they can ask for more information.

and



(Unsure if that applies but it would give additional grounds for asking for identification)


Their TOS 8.4 allows them to block, suspend or close any account that does not provide their request for additional information. They must have communicated with you because otherwise how would you know that they require identity verification ?

8.4 doesn't specify that they require a reason - neither is there an overriding clause that requires them to specify a reason. It also doesn't specify that they have to inform you prior to blocking the account.

I'm not trying to argue the rights of wrongs of AML verification - but with most companies it is a legal requirement that they do not control. It is something that they have to do in order to stop the authorities from closing them down.

As far as I can see their TOS are consistent with their actions and I cannot see any court siding with you. (In this case Italian court)
It is something that is imposed on a company. They cannot just release your funds - it defeats the purpose of why they are asking for identity verification in the first place.

The only thing that you can do is provide your identification and then withdraw your funds.

Tips on providing identification to exchanges.

1) Get a piece of paper or sticker and write the exchange name on it and hold it partially in front of the identity document so it is clear that it is for that exchange only.
2) Get a dated newspaper and place it as close as possible with the date behind the identification and fold one corner of the newspaper slightly over the identification. This makes it hard to crop without having to extensively photoshop the info.
3) Take a photo with a date stamp on it.
4) I usually try to get away with having part of the serial number covered or use an expired identity card. (deliberate placement of finger) This limits as to where the information can potentially be mis-used.
5) Use a flash and directional light to put a shadow on the identity document. (Harder to photo-shop)

Don't trade anywhere you don't trust with your information - only deal with reputable companies.
Use different photos every time you verify your information and keep a record of it - if any of it ever gets used for identity theft you know who to sue.

DEX technology is being improved all the time. HODL till then.

So, you are saying they can disregard their FAQ? Really? FAQ are their own interpretation of their TOS and are binding in any court.

The text you quote of their TOS only applies to the process of registration. During this process, they can ask for further information at any moment. So the title is 6. WEBSITE REGISTRATION

If they could in any moment, without any ground, demand for documents, the AML regulation 8.3 I quoted would be irrelevant. They could already ask for the documents based on your quoted 6.3 on website registration.

And the fact that they are blocking my bitcoin withdrawals for months without saying anything doesn't bother you?

You would trust an exchange that breaches their FAQ (and TOS, 8.3) and that don't even informs the customer that all his withdrawals were blocked...

But not the deposits... deposit on, when you try to withdraw you will receive a nice surprise...

Yes - looks very clear to me.

Their FAQ is not their legal terms and conditions. It clearly states in their T&Cs

3. TRT is entitled to request the user, at any time and at its sole discretion, to provide further information to allow the correct operation and provision of services.


It could be. They don't know because you are refusing to give them the information.

Again, I have to point out their absolutely clear FAQ:

“Verification is not mandatory, but in order to deposit/withdraw fiat currencies you will need it” https://support.therocktrading.com/kb/faq.php?id=27.

The text you quote of their TOS only applies to the process of registration. During this process, they can ask for further information. So the title is 6. WEBSITE REGISTRATION

But once a customer has been accepted as unverified customer, the only ground to demand personal documents is:
8. AML REQUIREMENTS

3. In the event of anomalous or not completely transparent operations on the User's account, TRT may request further information from the User, including but not limited to document authentication, and may also freeze all transactions pending the performance of the appropriate checks on the account.

4. TRT is entitled to block, suspend and close accounts of Users who have not been properly verified, notwithstanding any useful efforts by TRT to contact the User and urge the completion of the due verification process.

None of their different and contradictory justifications to ask for my documents argues for any operation in particular.

And, even this case, they have to inform the customer. They have been blocking all ways for me to withdraw, including bitcoin, for months, without saying anything.

My identity was confirmed using a second Rock account.

And, as stated on the OP, I still own the banking account to where I did a few euro withdrawals 5 years ago, when their TOS permitted that.

Can my ownership of the account be in doubt?

Two highly contradictory statements:




Most centralised exchanges require KYC documentation. The ones that don't are either located in a jurisdiction that doesn't require KYC comply with international AML rules (read: dodgy country) or they operate outside of any jurisdiction (read: don't comply with any law).

If you value your privacy then send them your KYC documents.

Police won't be interested because you can get your funds if you supply your identity documents.

Courts are not anonymous - not only will you have to disclose your identity - it will be disclosed to various entities (perhaps even publicly visible).


This will put you in the "high risk" category. for mandatory reporting.

If you want to be anonymous  use a decentralized exchange that doesn't require KYC verification.

Thanks for your time and answer.

I have to change my text to make it clear.

I didn't request an euro or fiat withdrawal. To do that I would have to verify.

I requested a bitcoin withdrawal and their FAQ is clear: for bitcoin withdrawals or deposits you don't need to verify, only for fiat, including euro: “Verification is not mandatory, but in order to deposit/withdraw fiat currencies you will need it” https://support.therocktrading.com/kb/faq.php?id=27.

Moreover they have been blocking my bitcoins withdrawals for months (so, they have been blocking ALL WAYS to withdraw): at least after January or February. And they did that without even informing me or pointing out that there was any kind of problem with my account.

Actually they even decided to give up on requesting my documents. They only started again demanding them when I said that if they didn't unblock my bitcoin withdrawals in order to be able to withdraw 2 bitcoins I would post about this here on bitcointalk.

Sending them my documents probably won't matter. Their goal doesn't seem to be getting my documents.

I had to read all of your post, but I confess I do not understand, do not you know that in the last months more than 50% of the exchange, ICOs, even cloud mining are making KYC to their customers? everyone is now being forced to deliver your documents, you should already know this. Do the KYC, withdraw your money and forget about them

https://support.therocktrading.com/kb/index.php



https://support.therocktrading.com/kb/faq.php?id=42

Fellow bitcoiners:

Think twice before creating an account on the Rock Trading Exchange, even if you get a free invitation code, without reading the below quick summary and the Rock CFO ratings:
https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.postimg.cc%2FBnp4T9mz%2FEliale-Trust.jpg&t=611&c=touL1y9hWBnGrA

Please support the flags against the Rock CFO and Rock CTO to help warn about them:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;flag=206
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;flag=207
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;flag=493

and give them negative feedback:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=35172
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=15648

The Rock CFO was banned, but created a new account:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/marco777-2786780


Quick updated summary:



I) I have on the Rock Trading exchange 35519 euros and they covertly blocked all my means of withdrawal, including all crypto, on December 2017!, about 2 years ago (see balance scan below).

II) They refused several times to explain why. Now they wrote it was because the account was "dormant". Which is a complete lie: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.51377323

III) They didn't tell me about the withdrawal block and let me keep entrapping more money with a deposit and trading/paying fees for months unaware of the block against what article 8.4 of their own TOS demands. This is fraud and a scam.
https://therocktrading.com/en/pages/terms-and-conditions

IV) When I complained on August 2018, they demanded my documents against what their FAQ said "verification isn't mandatory"and the Rock CFO had confirmed me by email that verification was voluntary. They removed this reference to the voluntary nature of verification probably on 16 may 2019, which is another confession that they are breaching it. But the original version is conserved here as it was on 2 November 2018: https://archive.fo/BNSfb
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.51152105

V) Since I argued this, they eventually said I didn't have to send my documents, but they said that my money would be kept blocked "much more time".

VI) When I said I would take this public, they started demanding my documents again.

VII) Mandatory verification has no basis on their TOS, so they lied about an applicable european directive. But they know that the IV AML Directive isn't applicable to crypto exchanges. And the V AML Directive isn't applicable until Italy converts it into Italian Law. Moreover, even the V AML Directive only applies to crypto when there is fiat conversion/withdrawal. I only want to withdraw bitcoin.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.51753117

VIII) Italian Law, Legislative Decree No. 231/2007, as emended by Legislative Decree No. 90 of 25 May 2017, on AML and KYC duties, but his article 3, n.º 5, i), says that crypto exchanges are restrictively ("limitatamente") subject to this duties only on their operations of conversion from crypto to fiat. That is, to customers who ask for fiat withdrawals. I never asked for fiat withdrawal
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.50490829

IX) They confessed they are ready to keep my money "forever" (cit), under the pretext of the illegal KYC: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.47458158

X) For months they kept raising abusive suspicious about my ownership against the overwhelming evidence, which is a fact confirming that asking for my documents is just a pretext in order for them to keep my money blocked. No honest person would deny my ownership. If I sent them my documents they would invent another pretext.

XI) What they are doing is completely contrary to italian law (quoted above) and their own TOS/FAQ (see detailed analysis https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.46225609
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.45001851


XII) This is now on the european arbitrage system and on an Italian Financial Arbitrator, after a complaint with full disclose of identity with the same names they have on file. This was confirmed by a banking transfer to pay for the complaint cost and by documents sent. There is no longer any anonymity, but they still refuse to return my money.

XIII) Recently, they confessed several times that there isn't any security reason and that they know that the money is mine.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.50017001
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.50381769
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.50353964

XiV) They also confessed that if they lose the case they are not going to respect the decision of the Arbitrator to release my money: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.50017001
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.50344427

XV) Beware, the Rock CFO wrote he is ready to do to every unverified customer what they are doing to me, even without changing their own TOS:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.50060106 (translation and comment)

XVI) They breached their duty to respect the privacy of their customers and account security. They published here on bitcointalk almost all the personal details they had, including first name, nationality, gender, banking relations on a EU country and a full text of an 2013 email which was irrelevant to their defense:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.49989828 (italian)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.50343815

XVII) They confessed that they are not acting under their TOS/FAQ or italian law (so, they accept that they are breaching both) but claim to be "anticipating" the V AML European Directive that they know isn't applicable in Italy until converted in Italian Law:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.50016475 (italian)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.50528161 (translation and comment)

XVIII) On July 2019, they inserted a new sentence on their FAQ: "If your account is unverified you will not be able to trade, deposit or withdraw cryptocurrencies and/or euro."
https://support.therocktrading.com/kb/faq.php?id=64
They are trying to "clean" now acts they done on December 2017 and August 2018! The authorities will see this as a clear confession of the illegality of these acts. Only changes FAQ the ones who breached them!

XIX) They paid for 13 positive reviews on their Facebook page, all made on about 1h, on 28 September and 2 October 2019. This is a fraud and confirms what kind of people manages the Rock Trading.
https://www.facebook.com/pg/TheRockTrading/reviews/
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.52863951

XX) the Rock CFO (with his new account Marco777) denied for the first time in almost 2 years of public fight the amount of 35519 euros he is trying to keep "forever" (https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.54406770 italian). Which is something that only someone with scam intentions would do. He had confirmed the 35500 euros before :
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.50365334
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.50346052

XXI) They confirmed the main facts: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.44951057

My evidence:

I) I have the login and password of my Rock account.

II) I have the login and password of the email associated with the account and I wrote them using this email.

III) The IP I have is and always have been from the same country and location.

IV) There is a second Rock account that the Rock knows is related to me. An email was sent from that email account confirming my identity.

V) I quoted detailed conversations I had with the CTO Paci on Second Life 6 years ago.

VI) I can confirm my identity using the Second Life account associated with my Rock account.

VII) I still own the banking account with the account number (IBAN) the Rock Trading has on file.

VIII) There is a coincidence between the two names on file with the Rock and names on the complaint to the Arbitrator.

IX) I signed a message with a bitcoin address used to make a deposit on the Rock Trading in 1 June 2017: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.51271058

X) More than one year passed since this public conflict started. If I wasn't the owner, the real me would already claimed the money. I told them I wouldn't login again and no one has login on the account for about 1 year




More details (not updated):


I have been an unverified customer of The Rock Trading (www.therocktrading.com) for 7 years.

Currently I have there 35519 euros (and 99 XRPs). Check a scan of my euro balance.



You can confirm the scan was made on 16 August 2018. Check the 2018 on the market graphic and the date on the last trade on the market, on the top right.

If you have no time to read everything, jump to the conclusions below:

The Rock is owned by two forum members:
eliale: https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/eliale-35172
paci: https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/paci-15648

Since June or July 2014, their FAQ states clearly: “Verification is not mandatory, but in order to deposit/withdraw fiat currencies you will need it” https://support.therocktrading.com/kb/faq.php?id=27.

The CFO Eliale assured me on a July 2014 email that as long as I didn’t request a fiat deposit or withdrawal after this change, I didn’t have to verify my account.

However, on January or early February 2018, after I sold my bitcoins and ended with a high balance, they blocked all my ways to withdraw, including all crypto.

But they didn't told me anything about the block or about any problem. They let me keep obliviously trading/paying fees and making deposits for months. After the block, I even made a new deposit on 21 February 2018.

When I finally complained, instead of apologizing for the problem, they kept the block and demanded me to verify my account by sending my personal documents, with contradictory, absurd and against their own TOS and FAQ justifications.

Their TOS is very clear: they can only demand verification from current unverified customers if there is an “anomalous or not completely transparent operations on the User's account” (see point 8.3: https://www.therocktrading.com/en/service_terms/3 ).

They didn’t even try to substantiate any suspicious transaction.
   
   And, in case of any block, point 8.4 of their own TOS demands them to make “useful efforts by TRT to contact the User and urge the completion of the due verification process”.
   But they are blocking my withdrawals for months and didn’t even inform me that the block was intentional and that there was a problem. I had to go to them.

And they know perfectly well the origin of my money: trading on their exchange for the last 7 years.

See full details about their TOS here: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.45001851

   
Confirming this illegal and very suspicious act, their CFO refused several times to explain what facts made them block my account, keep silent about it for months and demand verification: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.45512110




On his email of 21 August 2018, the CTO Paci wrote that I didn’t had to send any personal documents: “BTW, is there any particular problems in providing some documents, if
I may ask? [ ] Anyway, feel free to not do it, if you wish so.”

But he added a very suspicious sentence: “Just be aware that our
support team will try other methods to check that the request to
withdraw is coming from the legitimate owner of the account, but that will
require much more time until we feel almost 100% secure.”.

They had no other way to verify on their own that I’m the legitimate owner beside the many ones I gave them.

Much less a way that is going to “require much more time”.

They have been blocking my withdrawals for at least 6 months and they are demanding more time?

They have no reason to suspect that I’m not the legitimate owner and I gave then even more evidence of this.

All the facts I describe on this post were confirmed by The Rock Exchange here:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.44951057


Why I’m unwilling to send them my documents:



I) Their TOS and FAQ give me the right not to send my documents and stay as unverified customer with full access to bitcoin deposits and withdrawals (but not fiat ones). They gave contradictory or against their TOS/FAQ explications and they are refusing to explain publicly why they are asking for my documents.

II) It's very risky to give a copy of our documents to anyone, especially using the Internet. One of their employees can make a copy, sell it or use it on some criminal activity or they might be hacked and then I'll end in trouble.

III) They blocked my bitcoin withdrawals for months without even informing me and violated clearly their TOS and FAQ and their personal word. They are doing exactly what scam exchanges usually do. I certainly won't trust them my documents.

IV) Since they blocked my bitcoin withdrawals covertly and violated their TOS and FAQ and disrespected the personal assurance they gave me that they wouldn't ask for my documents, they are acting on (to say the very least) a very suspicious way:  there is a very big risk that they won't release my funds after I send them my documents. Scam exchanges do this all the time. They just invent another pretext to keep the money. Someone who disrespects his word once, will do it again without problems.

VI) Because they are blackmailing me for sending my documents and holding illegally my money, I was forced to give large publicity to the way they acted and are acting. This is affecting their reputation. If I sent my documents and they didn’t release my money, any further publicity to their acts could make them use my documents on illegal ways as retaliation.

VII) They kept raising doubts about my ownership of the money here on this thread against all evidence, suggesting I'm an hacker or some sort of criminal, lying about the Law applicable and their TOS meaning, which confirms that they are acting in bad faith and that I can't trust them with my documents.




Conclusions:

Since I have unquestionable evidence that I’m the owner of my Rock Account and money, this is going to end on the police and courts, so I’m going to measure my words and let you take your own conclusions.

I)   They lore bitcoiners to create unverified accounts proclaiming clearly on their FAQ that "verification isn't mandatory".

II) When a customer has a high balance, they block all their means to withdraw money, including crypto.

III) But they don't inform the customer that there is a problem and let him keep depositing money and paying fees for months obliviously of the intentional block.

IV) When the customer complains, they present contradictory, against TOS/FAQ and absurd justifications or refuse to explain the reason for the block.

V) They claim having a right to freely block accounts against everything their TOS and FAQ says.

VI) And they start blackmailing the customer to send their personal documents or lose their money, again against what their TOS and FAQ and personal assurances they gave to the customer.

VII) They accepted there wasn't really an issue about ownership taking in account the several evidences sent, but they still after raise absurd suspicions about this as a pretext.

VIII) Even raising absurd suspicions, they ignore the offers to present even more decisive evidence of ownership by the customer, including ownership of the banking account used to do a few withdrawals 5 years ago.

IX) Personal documents aren't a evidence of ownership of any account and are used as a first delayed tactic by all scam exchanges to keep the customer money that is going to be followed by demands of authenticated documents, personal videos holding the documents and to a expected final scam decision of rejection of the documents.

X)   On my case, even after their CTO gave up on demanding my documents, he didn’t apologize for frozen my withdrawals for months without any warning or said he was going to unfroze them, he wrote any withdrawal would take “much more time”, without even saying how long or why.

XI)   After I wrote that if they didn’t allow me to do a 2 bitcoin withdrawal that I need (less than 1/3 of my money) I would be force to post this on bitcointalk, the CFO Eliale started asking for my documents again against the writing word of his co-founder CTO Paci. Therefore, going public about this was their decisive criteria to demand documents again.

XII) They are using scam actions to fool forum members, like creating an alt account and posting on the same day on this thread a supporting post that the Rock CFO quoted: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.45560191


             Take your own conclusions.

   

   So, Rock customers be aware: today they are keeping my money, tomorrow who knows…
Don't register, don't look for an invitation code (the so-called codice di invito), don't ask for an invitation code, don't accept an invitation code. Better avoid them like the plague.



For an Italian version see https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/the-rock-trading-wwwtherocktradingcom-scam-truffa-broglio-opinioni-recensioni-5025233