Hello 2p2 community,

This is Grazvydas (Grazvis1) - long time HS online player.


Summary of what have happened:

I posted that I am looking for 20k trade in one of the Skype’s trading chats, impersonator of a high volume trader James Romero messaged me that he is interested into trade, I asked for a HV, and I send first under guidance of impersonator.

But the person on the receiving end of me sending 20k on ACR, was real James Romero account, and the impersonator got real James Romero to ask for a legit HV in a trading chat “Thai 20k HV @James Romero with Grazvydas”. (James send 20k BTC to impersonator upon receiving funds on ACR)


The reason of this post, is to clarify why I am responsible 100% of liability here, because that’s what James Romero claimed, and that’s what people participating in the trading chat seemed to agree.


And I don’t think the way James Romero communicated after the fact was just. I would like people to judge this too.


My last communication with James Romero was:

https://gyazo.com/0d33f8671fd54c1053ba0a009bcf5852


I was questioning what have happened in the Trading chat for 4 hours yes, because I was confused about what exactly have happened, as a HV for James Romero was a legit HV, which real James Romero asked. There was never an arbitrary decision, or anything like that, the few people that communicated in the Trading chat did seemed to take James’ side.

James’ message “and then you deleted a bunch of content from the conversation” is a 100% lie, I did not deleted 1 message from any conversation, I immediately posted a screen shot of that James’ message in the trading chat to call him out.


I think it’s only fair if people are informed of this, as this does show the person’s character, and he is a high volume trader.


And to judge the way impersonator of James managed to scam here, and if it’s me who is 100% responsible here, or there’s a part of responsibility on James’ side too:

Sequence of events:

1) I posted in a trading chat on Skype called “Crypto/Fiat Highstakes Exchange” that I am looking for a trade.
2) James Romero posted in the same trading chat that he is looking for a trade.
3) A fake James (fJames) and a fake Grazvydas (fGrazvydas) create almost identical clone Skype accounts and message the real ones (rJames and rGrazvydas)
4)fJames and fGrazvydas makes a plan for a trade with rJames and rGrazvydas, where if rJames gets a HV rGrazvydas will send $20k on ACR in return for $20k BTC/NAT8. (fGrazvydas asked 20k BTC for ACR from rJames, fJames promised 20k NAT8 for rGrazvydas' ACR)
5)rJames asks a friend for a HV, friend post HV, upon seeing so rGrazvydas send $20k to rJames.
6)Upon receiving $20k on ACR rJames sends $20k BTC to fGrazvydas.
7)rGrazvydas doesn't get $20k Nat8 and looks into it in more indepth and contacts rJames.


Conversations from trading chat:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing

Conversation with rJames:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing


A few points to clarify:

*I messaged ACR support to report theft by impersonation, because at that point I thought that the ACR account I send to was the impersonator/scammer. After realizing the way the scam happened, I thought ACR doesn’t need to be involved anymore, and I messaged them back asking to unfreeze rJames account and free the funds to him, which has been done by now.

*In the Skype’s trading chat, my initial conversation was trying to get a grasp of what have happened exactly, and me apologizing there is more of an acknowledgement that I understood the way the scam worked, not that I agree I am 100% responsible there. There was never arbitrary judge to rule on this, and I don’t think I have been provided a fair explanation why in this situation I would have to take all the responsibility.


Most likely I will try to get an arbitrary judge to rule on this, and to define what responsibility and what kind of due diligence a person should take when he is trying to get a HV. Because that was never answered.


All this happened in last ~7days.

Thankfully,

Grazvydas

****

Edit/MH:

Resolution:

If this sequence of events is correct and you sent $20k to his real ACR account and he sent $20k to the scammer I can't fathom how this is in any way your fault. I mean if your sending 5 figures through a Skype group with strangers you both should be confirming the SkypeID's before you do anything. You reported his ACR because you didn't receive the N8 funds that he sent to a scammer is what you're saying?

Scary scam tbh. Only way to safeguard properly against is to facetime the person you're trading with, and obv know what they look like.

I'm afraid you'll be taking 100% of the loss here though. One of the risk of sending 1st in transfers of this kind I suppose.

James is not entirely free of blame here though. The scam reminds me of the money laundring scam where someone is to buy a thing off of you for for say 1k, then "mistakenly" sends you 10k instead and asks you to send back the 9k difference to account xyz or just give it in cash during item pickup. Agreeing to that is in most places in the world illegal, though it may seem like you did nothing wrong. James did by proxy launch 20k of your money into the void...

James Romero was insulting and aggressive in these conversations, wishing to quickly put all responsibility onto you.

This scam can only be successful if both parties fail to verify or notice that the skype account is fake.

James Romero has 'called to authority', yet did not call or check the skype name was correct, which he himself says in the chat 'only takes 2 seconds'. There is clear negligence on his part here and he could have stopped this scam from happening with minimal effort. He surely has to take some responsibility for the mistakes in made on his part.

Little hard to follow but either of you could have solved this by facetime or a skype call. In the end, I kind of feel like you sent to the right place, and he sent to the wrong place, but both of you failed to do due diligence and verify you were talking to a real person.

Someone's gonna get screwed here. Probably you.

100%

Have seen this happen so many times in the high stakes community, unfortunately need to double and triple down on verifying its the real people because of these 3- way scams that involve real poker accounts to gain ppls trust.

You prob end up -$20k in this but idk why that James guy is such a douchebag when you get scammed and can't just help explain it nicely instead talking instantly about you wasting everyones time talking about it lol

I don't know the parties involved and have never done online trades for this amount of money so this is a completely objective, uninformed POV.

If someone tricks you into sending $20k to a third-party and that third-party is not part of the scam and someone then tricks him into forwarding your money elsewhere then ultimately the responsibility for the loss has to be with you.

The logic for my reasoning is causation - if not for you falling prey to the scam the third-party would not have been in the position to forward your money to the scammer. It's not reasonable for you to impose liability on an unsuspecting third party who wasn't a principal in your transaction, no matter how careless he may have been with the money he received.

For example, if you accidentally hand a suitcase filled with $20k to the wrong person in a transaction and that person then gets the suitcase stolen from him would you think he was responsible for your $20k loss?

sucks , the fake one messaged me the other day looking for a trade .

Did you speak to the real james before you sent ?

in 3 way scam like this you have to eat up the losses.
cant make other guy responsible when you got tricked by scammer

This sequence of events is correct.

I reported ACR account that I send money to, because I thought that was the impersonator/scammer.

After figuring out that the scam was 3-way, and that's real James' account, I asked ACR support to unfreeze the account and free the funds to him. Which was done by now.

I spoke with real James ~2months ago on Skype before this scam, just trying to set a trade back then. We both forgot about that conversation.

During this current "transaction" I only spoke with impersonator James, and then after not receiving funds, I message the Trading chat and then messaged real James.

Exactly what I thought when reading the OP.

So you spoke to the real James 2 months ago and then got added by fake James with the exact same picture and didn't notice? This situation sucks but you were very careless and sent the funds first. Any arbitration of people experienced in these matters are going to rule against you.

Was there more formal arbitration, or just discussion in the chat?

It won't make any difference in my opinion, but for peace of mind I think you're reasonable in asking for that.

-

You're best off asking for video call and verifying skype info for all trades, but another step that can be taken, as best practice, is that James can ask his HV to be more specific.

For example:

"HV 20k James R ACR for BTC. Must send to BTC address ending in ...AsDf1234."

or

"HV 20k James R ACR for BTC, I will PM account info you must send to."


It's important as a frequent trader, even if you aren't liable in these situations, to protect the person on the other side of your trades, and the avoid dragging the person giving you a HV into a dicey situation.


As a community, we really need to be more careful in these spots, even when we're not the one at risk. Our carelessness has made us a big target.

The person who hard vouched for James tagged the real James's skype account, if you click on that it takes you to the persons skype profile. All the while Grazvydas was speaking to a different fake account with a completely different skype username.

I got scammed the exact same why but I didn’t verify that it was tagged to the right person.

It’s a common scam that’s going in OTC group. Unfortunately, I took the loss but now I’m extra careful and never send first when I’m the one sending BTC or videocall

This is not true in "the real world". Heroin brudi, do notice that James was also tricked by scammer, not only the OP was. Both of them were in fact equally tricked at a minimum, and possibly one could say James was more tricked by the scammer since he's the one who sent money into a black hole. OP sent it toa legitimate recipient.

In the real world James's actions are partaking in fraud: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_mule
The money forwarded was not illegally acquired in this case, but James failed to conduct his due dilligence in the exact same way OP did, which caused him to partake in a fraudulent transaction. You can't do that and cry 100% innocence. If a person sends money into your bank account and asks you to forward it to another, and that chain of transactions ends up being a fraud somehow, you're culpable

Grazvis1 sent to the real James ACR account which puts himself at -20K between him and James.
James sent 20K to someone who isn't Grazvis1, this does not clear the 20K debt with Grazvis1 and only puts James at +20K with the scammer, he still has to clear the 20K debt with Grazvis1.

Grazvis1 sent to the intended party, James did not. James is the one who owes $20K as he didn't verify that he was talking to the real Grazvis1 and sent to an account that doesn't belong to Grazvis1.

This scam only works if the person sending second sends to an account not belong to the person who sent first.

I was confused but believed this as well.....

lmaooooo nice

How is James partaking in fraud if he was unaware of it? That's a contortion of logic. That's like saying James partook in fraud if he passes a fake $100 bill that he unknowingly accepted from someone else. James may not be able to cry 100% innocence but that has no relevance in establishing whether or not he's culpable for any of the $20k lost. If someone tricks the OP into handing James a suitcase with $20k inside and that same person tricks James into giving the suitcase to him then how is James responsible for the $20k lost by the OP when James has no principal relationship with the OP?

^Because he didn't do his due dilligence verifying where the transaction was going

Person A tricks person B into giving money to person C. Person A then tricks person C into giving that money to person A. And this is then.... 100% the fault of person B? Umm

Feel like this thread happened bunch of times, sucks but there is not much to be done and you can't prove that you were being scammed by the real trader

but the other guy also got tricked by the scammer. actually, grazvis sent to romero's real account, and it was romero who sent to the scammer. i'm not saying he isn't responsible at all, but pinning the blame entirely on grazvis is completely unreasonable. if anything, romero should shoulder the lion's share of the blame imo, since he's the one who sent to a fraudulent account