Bacheca

scalemates
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Achim Ribbe
Hello,

In hindsight, I probably should have used the "report" button immediately. However, because this member has been active for many years, I decided not to. Looking back, that was a mistake. I am truly sorry.

I was interested in buying a kit from this person, but when I noticed that the BIC of their bank account started with "YAPECH," I decided not to proceed, just to be safe.

People who send money to these accounts are not really sending funds to a traditional bank account. In practice, the money is transferred through MT Pelerin, which converts the funds into Bitcoin and forwards them to a Bridge Wallet. The money is gone. There is plenty of information about this process online.

What makes this even more concerning is that, up to a certain limit, there is no KYC ("Know Your Customer") verification required. As far as I know, accounts can be created with no identity checks and used for transactions up to several hundred or even around a thousand Swiss francs or euros before one has to verify him- or herself.

Another issue is that many of this crypto accounts get hacked (as well as account here and everywhere by the way, just take a look at the hack and crack forums and you will be stunned). Large databases of leaked usernames and passwords are widely shared or sold on hacking forums, allowing scammers to take over trusted accounts and use them for fraud involving larger amounts of money if they can get in the Bitcoin wallet. Once an account becomes suspicious or unusable, they simply move on to another compromised account. The scammer ghosts away, the owner has no idea what happened.

I know this because last year there was a wave of scams on LastDodo, where I am also active, involving accounts from Switzerland. Although I never recovered my money, even after filing a police report, I spent time researching how these scams operate and eventually discovered the connection described above.

I understand that this information may not be directly useful, but I still wanted to explain the situation and share my concerns. Please be careful with accounts based in Switzerland, especially when payment is requested via bank transfer. Use PayPal whenever possible and avoid direct bank transfers. Unfortunately, I learned that lesson the hard way.

The account on Scalemates may appear trustworthy because of its long history, but it is very possible that it has been compromised as well. Susan might be a guy from Nigeria or whatever country.

If I were the owner of this site, I would require everyone to change their passwords immediately. And if you want to check whether your password or email address has ever been leaked in a data breach, visit haveibeenpwned.com/

I was extremely angry after this happened to me, and I became somewhat obsessed with finding out how these scammers operate. Believe me, no account is truly safe. And one more thing: never use the same password for multiple accounts.