You've said many times that he sent 20k btc and received 20k ACR. How is that +ev for him? 20k=20k. Also why would he look for a p2p trade when he could just deposit 20k directly to ACR via his bitcoin wallet?

its on romero at least for sending 20k to the wrong account . if he wasnt lazy with not checking for certian who hes sending money to, all that would be wrong is that they would not know why each of them sent what they sent to each other.

also thats probably someone they know scamming them or someone in there group its too personal and niche for a random scammer to even know who they are.

Hello Grazvydas,

I have given a lot of time out of my life to you and this situation.

I cannot keep responding to you.

I have 5 different full time projects I am working on now. I trade high stakes, produce coaching content, hold private coaching sessions, run a stable (22 horses by myself), hold a position at corporate startup that just went public, and play highstakes poker.

After the incident you admitted you were in the wrong many times to me and the rest of our community, even apologizing to me.

All of the moderators in our private group along with the head of security at ACR took my side.

And now you are backtracking, trying to recover your loss by blaming others and reaching for support in forums that don't know anything about our private Skype Groups and the protocol that drives them.

It is your job as a recreational trader to simply verify the identity of the Trustworthy Broker that you are trading with.

Not only do we ask that all recreational traders video call their Trustworthy Broker before trades, but we gave you a specific link to my profile to use (minutes before the trade).

I will not be responding to you anymore, as I cannot afford to give you this much time out of my life.

WHAT A DOUCHE soooo busy

That's a distinction without a difference. The fact he shipped a converted version of the OP's money has no relevance. That's akin to receiving the OP's money in $20 bills and sending the scammer the same amount of money in $100 bills. It's still the OP's money that was lost.

Meh. Douche or not, I'd like to hear more from OP about the "Trustworthy Broker" business; might be something missing from the story.

I mostly agree. But the point is, Romero was tricked every bit as much as OP, and he's the experienced one. Yes, OP is the one that is out the money, due to the nature of the scam. But I don't think it should necessarily be as simple as OP sent the money first, he's screwed. Romero plays a (presumably unintentional) role in this.

James Romero received 20K from Grazvis in his ACR account and his actions after the fact, sending $20K to an account Grazvis doesn't have access to, show that he acknowledged the original transaction as a debt to be repaid. If you do a swap and after receiving the funds you happen to send to the wrong BTC address or account on a poker site, you have not repaid the person you swapped with yet. These are the current balances:

Grazvis: -20K to James
James: +20K to Grazvis, -20K to the owner of the BTC account he sent to.
BTC Scammer: +20K to James

To clear this sheet the scammer would need to send 20K to Grazvis, since this is obviously not going to happen, James needs to uphold his side of the swap and actually send the 20K to Grazvis as he has not been repaid yet. After that transaction the balances will be:

Grazvis: 0
James: -20K
Scammer: +20K

James is the one who ****ed up by sending funds to a 3rd party who has no intention of passing those funds along to Grazvis. This situation is no different than if Grazvis was swapping for BTC and James sent to the wrong address. It appears as if James has no issue with using the 20K Grazvis sent to subsidize his 20K mistake. Sorry, but I don't see any way this isn't viewed as theft.

Grats on being rich and cool and sooo super busy #highstakeslife happy you graced this thread with your presence

This would seem to imply that only one person ****ed up here. If that is truly your intent, then it's a pretty silly start to things.

Actually, it's a lot different. But I guess attempting to simplify it that way helps you make your point?

We can play games with this all night. I could say that Romero made a deal with the scammer, he received the $20 K he was promised, and sent the $20 K in Bitcoin as promised. OP made his own deal with the scammer, sent $20 K, and the scammer didn't send him back $20 K - that's why he's out the money.

Or, we could just use common sense. Holding OP 100% blameless in this is beyond ridiculous.

Can you post the screenshots of the protocol that the mods and the trustworthy traders show the recreational ones when they sign into the group?

The information and facts about what happened came out in an unorganised manner judging by the chat. Can you post what the mods verdict was once they had read and understood exactly what transpired?

Can you explain, why as a trustworthy experienced trader, you too did not do any basic due diligence on your end?

How did the OP send $20k to Romeros ACR account if they never actually talked to each other? Makes no sense.
Also I really hope the brand new account is just a troll and not actually that guy because if it is wow..
To actually be a trustworthy member of any community, get scammed into sending heaps of money to a stranger, and then go on to slander the person who got screwed to save face for your obvious day 1 mistake is incomprehensible. So much scum in poker.

This Romero guy always seems to pop up in trade groups asking for unrealistically massive trades. I've always assumed that he mostly does so to brag about how much money he has, and his post on this forum (assuming its him), seems to confirm the narcissism.

That said, I'm not really sure what to make of this situation.

So let me get this straight, both people never talked to each other (to the real each other) until after the scam took place. The scammer(s) messaged both of them individually and the scammer tricked both of them individually. Grazv was tricked into "initiating" the trade and James was tricked into sending 20k to the wrong account.

So simply because Grazv sent first, to the correct account, and James sent second, to the wrong account, Grav becomes 100% liable for the scam? If Grazv is responsible for verifying James (through the HV or in general) then isn't James also responsible for verifying the correct Grazv? It's pretty clear that Grazv is somewhat responsible but 100% seems a little much.

I don't know maybe I'm missing something because I'm a noob to high volume big trading. From James's perspective he sent money to the perceived correct account (someone messaged him saying send money to this account which he did, even if it was the scammer). From Grazv's perspective he sent money to the correct account as well; it was the real James's account on ACR. To say that either person is 100% liable seems ridiculous to me. I guess it's slightly more Grazv's fault as James's has no real ability to verify anything whereas Grazv had the opportunity to verify if it was the real James before sending to James's real account.

EDIT: That James Romero post in this thread is 100% a troll post (hopefully for humanity's sake)

Don't send money to random people on the internet. You have no recourse.

that’s 6.

How does it make no sense? Scammer gave OP Romero's ACR screen name, and OP sent the money. Once Romero received the money, he sent to scammer's Bitcoin address.

lol it's pretty easy for James Romero to be too busy to keep interacting with Grazvis over this - he's not the one who's out 20k so he doesn't give a ****

James got 20k to his ACR account so he sends BTC. Nothing wrong

Graz sends 20k to a wellknown HS trader his ACR. Nothing wrong.

But you can argue for both sides that they are wrong.
if my friend wants to loan 2k and his name on Pokerstars is HENKVLIEGEBOS
and he said oh send it to iamNOTascammer because i have a new account. I will call him and make sure its him. Graz wanted GG i remember(NOT BITCOIN) and then James sent bitcoint without confirming. Thats wrong to me

But on the other hand if a guy says i send you ACR give me bitcoin and he send first, u have no risk that he will not send.

Everyone loves a chopped pot. I think James needs to sent 10k to Graz


and lol at james his attitude

Guys , this sucks for both sides but Graz is 100% in the wrong here.

You need to remember that
1. He didn't video call to verify a well known identity.
2. When Thai hard vouched for James , he tagged the real James in the Skype post. When this happens, Graz should click to make sure he's talking to the same person.

When sending first the onus is always on the sender to do their due diligence. If the person who sends first isn't liable , you can basically just always work with a 2nd person and send online sites/ewallets first , rec the BTC and then try and reverse the transaction claiming scams.

Romeros tone has been officious and beyond rude for this entire debacle. From the get-go he has been unsubtly trying to bully Grazvis into acceptance of the loss, presumably so he can move on with milking the trade group for his own profit. James's overly defensive approach loudly suggests that he is quietly aware of some level of culpability.

James has repeatedly cited the need for basic due diligence, however he clearly feels he is above doing that due diligence himself. This is because he never deigns to put himself at any risk, that is to say, he knows if things go wrong he will deny any responsibility without compunction - as demonstrated.

They both should have checked who they were taking to and sending to.

Why is the onus just on the sender to make sure they send to the right account and not both of them?

+1

sharing the loss 50/50 seems fair. Both sides have been negligent and both sides could have prevented the loss.

Someone tasked to send money to a BTC adress should be expected to perform more due dilligence verifying the recipients ID than someone sending money to a poker site account. If the xfer to ACR poker is found to be fraudulent then at least one can quickly contact the site and try to resolve/reverse it (like OP did). If the xfer to BTC is found to be fraudulent you're **** out of luck.

- Well, except if you're forwarding money and thus personally don't care at all if the recipient is legitimate or not. Like James.

Amazes me that the person who sent funds to a legitimate recipient is to take the hit here and the guy who sent money to a scammer is to get off free. James recieved $20k from OP and didn't send OP any money back.

edit:
I don't think that word means what you think it means

Skype secret group...., poker players always try to avoid transfer fees, not to mention paying taxes and thats the result.