106
107

Theymos in trouble with FTC now? (FTC just confirmed bitcoin charity fraud within their purview) (self.bitcoin_uncensored)

someguyontwitter が 投稿

https://twitter.com/FTC/status/609060730109878272

The Federal Trade Commission just confirmed this yesterday. Charity fraud includes "deceitful business acts" such as "accepting donations and not using the money for its intended purposes" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charity_fraud) like say accepting donations for the bitcointalk forum, then appearing to launder the funds, paying friends far above market rates for work on said forum (www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2mei83/for_the_amount_of_money_that_theymos_is_paying/) with no improvements to show for it. FTC may bring in additional agencies and charges for the laundering.

I filed an FTC complaint here: https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/GettingStarted?NextQID=265&Url=%23%26panel1-9#crnt and a complaint with my state's attorney general here: http://www.naag.org/naag/attorneys-general/whos-my-ag.php

If you live outside the US, you can also file with the US ambassador for your country in addition to the FTC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambassadors_of_the_United_States

Background info: While the FTC has long prosecuted charity fraud, they just started with crowdfunding fraud in June with several investigations ongoing. Yesterday, they confirmed this includes charity fraud with virtual currency donations.

全 24 件のコメント
並べ替え:
ベスト
トップ新着論争中古い順Q&A

[–]crawlingfasta 14ポイント15ポイント  (7子コメント)

TL/DR

I'm all for this but the thread title is terrible.

[–]2ndEntropyhodl 13ポイント14ポイント  (5子コメント)

Theymos has been reported to the FTC because he was accepting "donations" to run bitcointalk and /r/bitcoin but has not been using the funds for their intended purpose.

The Federal trade commision is a government division in the US that investigates things like charities fraud. From my understanding you do not have to have set up a charity to be prosecuted for charity fraud, if there is evidence that people were donating for a cause and the money did not go towards that cause you can be fined or jailed.

[–]awemany 5ポイント6ポイント  (1子コメント)

Can't say I feel at all sorry for this guy if the FTC grills him on this, but I hope for all you guys over there in the U.S. that that law is very narrowly defined. Could else be used for all kinds of shenanigans and repression, too!

The U.S. justice and law system seems to take an approach a little bit too much on the heavy-handed side on many things, at least for my very personal liking.

[–]Big_Man_On_Campus 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

In America, unlike a lot of other countries... the letter of the law must be clear, the enforcement of it not so much.

Basically, Americans by tradition are scofflaws and they tend to be proud of it.

/note that I am speaking as someone who was born and raised in the U.S.

[–]AmIHigh 1ポイント2ポイント  (1子コメント)

If there was proof about the /r/bitcoin part we could go to the admins and say he's using the subreddit for financial gains, but so far there's been no proof of this.

[–]NoEscapeEver 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Reddit is not a court, we could certainly go to the admins with "where there's smoke, there's fire" accusations and see if they stick.

[–]someguyontwitter[S] 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Accepting donations to run the bitcoin subreddit doesn't make sense. I think it was limited to running/upgrading the forum

[–]cap2002banned in /r/bitcoin 7ポイント8ポイント  (0子コメント)

I love all the heat this guy has coming for him. This is war.

[–]ntaoheunthaoe 9ポイント10ポイント  (6子コメント)

I hope he ends up in jail.

[–]someguyontwitter[S] 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

He may just end up with a fine like this guy: http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2015/06/11/ftc_fines_erik_chevalier_for_using_video_game_kickstarter_funds_on_himself.html

[–]caveden -2ポイント-1ポイント  (4子コメント)

This is too much. I hate what this guy has been doing concerning the censorship but "throwing him to sharks" so the sharks can put him in a rape cage is too much.

Concerning the donations, you can't really claim he isn't investing on what was said. You may be disappointed and never want to help him again, but when you just donate money like that it's a gest of faith on the receiver. Having your trust betrayed is no reason to throw someone in a rape cage.

[–]ThisIs_MyName 2ポイント3ポイント  (3子コメント)

Eh people have been thrown in the rape cage for much less. Stealing a few million USD seems like one of the more worthy crimes.

[–]caveden 2ポイント3ポイント  (2子コメント)

  • He didn't steal. People donated to him.

  • The practice of an unfairness is not justification for the practice of another.

  • Edit: oh, and I forgot, he didn't take "millions" in donations. When people donated, it was worth much less and you know it. It became millions because he had the wisdom of not selling the bitcoins for fiat.

[–]ThisIs_MyName 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

He didn't steal. People donated to him.

Technically true, but in the US it is illegal to misappropriate donations. Good law, IMHO.

[–]caveden 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

You can't even claim that. Unless there was an efficiency clause somewhere, what I doubt very much.

And regardless, this is no reason to send the guy to a rape cage. What kind of hateful, "bloodthirsty" people are you?

[–]frankenmintbanned in /r/bitcoin 1ポイント2ポイント  (4子コメント)

I read the body text and was thinking, "Well, donesn't him having an active Github repo for new forum software squash ANY AND ALL claims of fraud"?

Its not like he claimed the money would be donated to other charities or to a cause to help the homeless or XYZ. He said it would be there to help in case of a catastrophic event in BTC and/or to ensure that the forum remains online and improved. >>Furthermore, it was a donation, what recourse would a donator have? The donation could be claimed as a tax exemption, that's it. I'd also argue that those who donated to the forum, did so AFTER feeling that the forum added value to their lives and they wanted to ensure it remained active. (I wish we could see the volume of how and when donations went in.) Also, the data is out of date for treasurer information. Would /u/theymos kindly express the current standings and nature of bitcointalk.orgs funds please? Last time I checked the address I saw a balance of just under 600 BTC sent to another address on 7-31. As you can see here , my data is two years old. Theymos BCT holding address transactions shown here.

Fatal flaw here everyone conveniently misses is that: BCT and Reddit/r/bitcoin are still here! They are still being maintained and actively moderated. Therefore there are no grounds for complaint. In other words, reddit.com/r/bitcoin is not a fintech charity, bitcointalk.org is not a fintech charity either. SMH

[–]someguyontwitter[S] 5ポイント6ポイント  (3子コメント)

Nope, not at all. He paid far above market rate for services/goods, a classic laundering move. In this case, the coverup may be worse than the crime. Had he simply sold/traded the coins and not broken out expenses, he could have plausibly argued that he was moving coins around for accounting purposes or putting them through a tumbler.

A donor has rights you may not be aware of. If you donate to anyone, even a for-profit business, who said they would use your donations for X, but spends even a fraction of the funds for something else, that constitutes charity fraud according to the FTC. The FTC will then build a case and try to recover some of the funds for the donors.

[–]KayRice 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

The problem is that the initial donations were given at the time when Bitcoin was worth a different value. At the time when the money was donated there wasn't a concern of paying a ton of people too much money for fake work.

I don't think it's worth investigating criminal activity. /u/theymos may be a shitty person who is too stupid to properly spend the money the community gave him, but that's more on the community to stop trusting him than it is to call the cops.

[–]TotesMessenger 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

I'm a bot, bleep, bloop. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit:

If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads. (Info / Contact)

[–]man_slave -1ポイント0ポイント  (0子コメント)

Oh, I thought you meant Feathercoin

[–]Noosterdam -1ポイント0ポイント  (0子コメント)

Damn, between the flash crash (could be small-blockers), the timing of the possible security issues being pointed out in XT, the Satoshi hoax, and the preposterous censorship, it looks like the knives are out...but two can play.