Quote from: brendio on March 20, 2012, 03:07:25 AM

Quote from: dooglus on March 20, 2012, 01:27:46 AM

There's a new posting on the news page at WBX, presumably from Andre:

Quote

Dear Clients, Again we would like to apologize to all our clients for the delayed customer support provided over the past weeks, Effective immediately 15th March World Bitcoin Exchange (WBX) will be shutting down trading / deposits and returning all client funds. Due to increasing fraudulent transactions on our accounts, WBX cannot operate in its current capacity. Combined with multiple bank account closures, we have deemed the best course of action is to halt trading and return funds

As of the 20th of March we will start returning all clients BTC, we currently hold the majority of our BTC off line, which is managed by Chris Moore our Technical lead, you will be required to logon to your account and request a BTC Withdraw to your personal wallets.

The withdraw of AUD is on hold until we have a clear indication when FUNDS are returned by our bank.

We appreciate your patience. WBX Team

I have a few comments:

1. I've never been appointed any position at WBX. This is the first I heard about being their "Technical lead". I set up the exchange for Andre originally, using the open source Intersango code, and made improvements as requested, and also agreed to hold Bitcoins offsite for Andre rather than leaving the whole wallet on the shared hosting server that WBX runs from. I don't think that makes me "Technical lead".

2. I am still holding 1768 Bitcoins for WBX. Until recently I have been depositing them back to the exchange on an as-needed basis, to keep the number of coins actually in the wallet on the exchange server to a minimum. I used to try to keep between 200 and 300 coins on the server to allow for day to day withdrawals, but since the Linode incident I've been keeping the exchange wallet pretty much empty. Here's a link to the address the coins are held at, so anyone can verify that I have them still: http://blockchain.info/address/1KnAveDXHDSdXmsNdE5itum459dkNp2pnW. Actually, doesn't prove much, just that 1768 coins are owned by someone. So around this time tomorrow I'll move them all to 1DodGYjF5LFoKg186jANZV9U8znXjagSzS. Perhaps someone could quote this bit before I do so.

3. On March 15th I noticed that I could no longer log in to the WBX web host. I don't know if Andre has changed the password, or if it's a technical problem of some kind. Each time I attempt to log in, I see:
"Received disconnect from [IP Address]: 2: Too many authentication failures for [username]".
I immediately emailed Andre asking for clarification, but have received no response so far.

4. Also on March 15th I received an email from Andre asking me to send him the 1768.0540 BTC he thinks I am holding so that he can start returning them to the exchange users. I suspect the 0.0540 discrepancy is due to network transaction fees. I replied saying that I have been returning the coins as and when they are requested for withdrawal by the exchange users, but that the most recent withdrawal request looked suspicious, and that I was awaiting his decision about what to do about that withdrawal request before returning funds to the exchange that would allow it to go through. I received no reply to that so far.

5. Although my login to the web host is no longer working, my login on the exchange is still an administrator account. This is confusing; if Andre was trying to lock me out of the exchange then leaving me an account with admin privileges seems like an oversight. Using the admin account I am able to see that nobody has attempted to withdraw any Bitcoins since before my login stopped working until just a few minutes ago. Now another user is attempting to withdraw Bitcoins, but again it looks suspicious. If Andre was reachable I'd recommend that he try to get further ID from the user, since PDF mobile phone bills are pretty easy to edit and so aren't much good as a proof of ID.

I don't want to be holding these Bitcoins any more, but I do want them to go back to their rightful owners. This leaves me not knowing what to do for the best. Does anyone have any words of wisdom?

Quoted and witnessed for you.

Thanks.

Quote from: brendio on March 20, 2012, 03:07:25 AM

If you are happy to do so, I think you should keep managing the bitcoin return process rather than Andre, especially since he has stated this in his message. Having a (somewhat) third party manage it is a better look, especially when many here are already suspicious of Andre's actions. I am not suggesting or accusing Andre, but returning the cold-stored bitcoins to him could lead to suspicions of him doing a runner.

I'd really like to hear Andre's take on that, but he's so hard to get in touch with recently.

Quote from: brendio on March 20, 2012, 03:07:25 AM

I'm not sure about payb.tc's suggestion of spreading the burden between AUD and BTC holders. I think it would be complicated. I also have a conflict of interest in that I have already withdrawn my BTC, leaving me with only AUD funds remaining.

Dooglus, are you able to see the total balance of AUD funds still held? We would need to know the proportion of BTC to AUD if losses/delayed withdrawals are spread between BTC and AUD.

I'm not sure about payb.tc's suggestion either. I can see that people with AUD balances will be likely to want that, and people with BTC balances won't.

I've no ability to see anything about the WBX bank account(s) themselves. All I can see is what the admin view of the exchange shows. I can see the AUD held in accounts, and the AUD pending withdrawal. What I can't see is whether any AUD has arrived in the bank account(s) but not made it into the database, or if any withdrawals have been marked as "processed" in the database, but never entered into the banking system. Either of those scenarios would add to the amount of AUD outstanding. Both of these scenarios are something that AUD depositors to the exchange would have a better idea about. I also don't have access to the WBX support emails other than those that Andre manually forwarded to me when asking for help, so have no idea how many users have been complaining about payments going missing in either direction.