SmartMix.io is a scam - Part 2
In Part 1, the following was established:
1. The
users 1st Tx with SmartMix.io appeared to succeed; user sent 0.7001 BTC to SmartMix.io and got back 0.7 BTC (nothing being said here about whether the coins were mixed or not; just that SmartMix.io sent back the userss BTC).
2. The
users 2nd Tx with SmartMix.io failed. User sent 1.8620081 BTC, and received nothing back.
User submitted several support requests via the contact form on SmartMix.ios website, but received no response
...that is, until a couple days later, when a blog webmaster, upon reviewing the evidence, acted with awesome integrity and pulled every SmartMix.io promotional article from his blog and
issued a scam warning.
Emailing from
smartmix@protonmail.com (email address not listed anywhere on SmartMix.io's website) the scammer wrote to the user:
please excuse our late answer.
Your support requests from
aebib@pm.me landed in our spam folder.
The only thing that actually came through were the threats sent with the adresses
smartmix@gmx.net and
dead@youare.com. (not so nice)
We will investigate the situation and check all the information you provided us.
This may take a day.
Not that it's relevant, but the user did not submit any support requests using ANY of the email addresses listed in the scammer's email, and did not send any threats.
That was the only communication the user ever received from the scammer.
The user responded to the scammers email as follows:
Your support form should not have a "spam" folder, but rather, should be attentively monitored, like a professional business would operate.
It's not "nice" to be unresponsive when dealing with large amounts of your customer's funds.
Resolution.
1) Look here:
https://blockchain.info/tx/50135c1e012202f60ac414faebeec8a1a138589fa1bbf86c7d40cad0922790d1Notice that your address - 3PVFJCMNti7kY4fxZ3nnwALX4qTS6xsoj4 - received 1.86200821 BTC from my addresses, 1PoPLJYdw17p6PQeVYNHFz32Z74VtXkEfZ,
1Mvfd79nvJLbfeKZHFFrfHwCb2gEVUnrVR.
2) Review your records and notice that you have not delivered the 1.86100821 BTC (minus your 0.0001 Tx fee) owed to me.
3) Look here:
https://blockchain.info/address/1DFnmz26X4c3gBtpbgwz2HRJHkCqJfRuh1That is the output address I specified when I initiated the mix. Notice that it has zero balance, and zero Txs.
4) Send 1.86100821 BTC to the above address and we're good.
Your prompt attention here is important.
While the scammer never emailed the user again, on 6/23/2018, he
did email the blog webmaster:
after carefully analyzing all transactions and mixer logs we found the following:
1. The user made a successfull mix of 0.7 BTC
2. He created another mixing session to clean more bitcoins
3. He sent 1.8 BTC somewhere, but not to us. The address in the mix page has not received any funds.
We are very sorry for the person who list her bitcoins due to sending them somewhere, but cannot do anything.
Other than that we have a lot of happy customers and the mixer always works fine.
Regarding the communication with the customer: We are not willing to help him anymore in tracking down his funds, since he sent us death threats.
We ask you kindly to put up the posts on your website again and remove the scam accusations since they are not true and damage our brand.
Key part of the scam attempt:
He sent 1.8 BTC somewhere, but not to us. The address in the mix page has not received any funds.
And thus we arrive at the scammer's MONUMENTAL ERROR:
When the scammer sent the user's BTC from
3PVFJCMNti7kY4fxZ3nnwALX4qTS6xsoj in Tx #1,
he
unequivocally identified himself as the owner of that address.
3PVFJCMNti7kY4fxZ3nnwALX4qTS6xsoj is where the user sent BTC to initiate Tx #2.
Incidentally, the webmaster utterly rebuffed the scammers request:
Webmaster also noted:
And despite your excuse, this is not the first time that this has happened.
Webmaster is correct... see links below.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2827109.msg40602386#msg40602386https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2815450.msg32960872#msg32960872https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2815450.msg36160019#msg36160019https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2815450.0Next up: Alert the writer of
"Top 5 Bitcoin Tumbler Services 2018" where SmartMix.io is listed as #1 and ask,
"WTF?!?!?"