Michele
BitPredators (BtP): data mining, blackmail, ransomware, extortion — or all of these in one?
Within 15 mn from paying for a purchase worth €150, my invoice was cancelled — technically (and possibly) because the blockchain had slowed to a crawl and it hadn’t been confirmed within the generous (!?) lapse of time granted by BtP. As anyone would know, you can’t "call back" a BTC transfer. I only had a screen shot and a transaction ID; as a result I had to struggle for BtP to even admit that they had pocketed my money. When they did so at last, they demanded that I register on their site and comply to a complete KYC procedure (photo ID, selfie, etc.) in order to get reimbursed. Of course, I wasn’t ready to do that: in view of all the negative reviews posted here and elsewhere, why should I give my personal information away to a U.S.-based racket? There followed a substantial number of mails back and forth. At first I was told that their KYC request was to comply with applicable laws (yet, they had no way of knowing my country of residence), then that it was defined in their “Terms” (where I did find it, nested in some obscure paragraph). One interesting statement bounced on me was that “every shopper is required to agree to our terms of use before paying a BitPay Invoice.” I then asked them to tell me precisely when I had been asked to accept their “Terms” (a standard procedure, usually a checkbox, when finalising a purchase online) in the course of the transaction. Even as I sent them the screen shot that showed that nothing of the kind had ever taken place, they consistently ignored this request of mine, which I repeated in the course of the last 3 or 4 mails. Basically, they only reiterated that that’s how things were. They didn’t even bother considering the fact that I’d had no way of being aware of the existence of their “Terms”, but, interestingly enough, they stated at some point that “BitPay cannot accept duplicate payments made to invoices and this payment needs to be refunded.” Does this sound like BtP’s racket risks getting exposed by some external audit of sorts? Can we hope that a class action will go ahead to force BtP to return the funds of what seems to be hundreds of users? —— Shortly after my own attempt, aborted by BtP, a member of my family tried to prove that mine was just a case of bad luck. Well, her payment did get confirmed on the blockchain in the allotted time. Regardless…, BtP cancelled her invoice. In her case, though, they admitted to having received the money, but placed the same KYC demands. More satoshis thrown to the hyenas…