[WARNING: SCAMMER on Steemit] - "Steem Cash" is the latest project of a known con-man

in #scam8 years ago

Strange sequence of events today, I'll try to keep it short.

This morning I received an e-mail about "Steem Cash" that I immediately classified as spam/scam. I made a post on Steemit about it, but was soon met with negative replies, even by trusted members of the Steemit community. Result: I deleted my post and apologized to everyone involved.

Scam

A bit later though, a whole bunch of well-known Steemians (including some famous whales) approach me about the subject. We discussed, and I have learned about the general consensus on the activities of said scammer. They asked me to resubmit my earlier "scam warning" to inform our fellow community members about a possibly malicious scheme developing in the Steemit world.

I won't give any usernames, but ofcourse have to share the e-mail that is the subject of all this developing drama. See here:

E-mail

Email2

Other things to note: the suspected con-man doesn't think much about privacy of for example e-mailaddresses of his subscribers.
Secondly, the e-mail is not really spam, as I had somewhere subscribed for it.

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I'd like to clarify that I have never asked you to remove the post but pointed out that the content of the mail is (at least to me) not a scam as per its definition.

If people interpret this mail as scam because it has been written by Mark Llyford, is their decision to make .

By no means am I associated with Mark's businesses but I largly disagree on how people (some of them whales) attack him here on steem and personally because he has failed one of his businesses.

Call me blunt or naive, but I have had a talk with Mark in person and think that this downvote and attack campaign is not justified and is close to mobbing.

I appreciate that people make their own decisions on facts and due diligence rather then repeating content of random sites of the internet.

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@marklyford has been lying so much and so long time that it should be very clear that he is deliberately scamming people and not trying to do any kind of legitimate business. His businesses haven't failed, they have gone just like he had planned: he gets all the money and investors get nothing.

Just read these articles, please:

Note that all three of those articles were written by the same person, Ian Demartino, who has gone out of his way to launch personal attacks against Mark and his businesses (@samupaha I don't know if you are connected with Ian). I am speaking as one who has invested (and yes, lost) money in Mark's businesses but who still finds him to be totally honest and hard-working. I knew going in of the risks--and Mark went out of his way to make sure I understood those risks. His marketing techniques may be too click-baity for some, but that is different than calling him a con. Mark has shown great resilience in coming back against this kind of attack, and continues to work very hard to provide content of value and to be at the cutting edge of cryptocurrency.

Ian Demartino did some gods work there. he was the one to bust GAW Miners Scam for example.

Garza was indeed a bad man. I lost money at GAW like others, and good riddance to him. But just because you do some good things doesn't mean you can do bad things and be absolved.

@michaelx is questioning his journalism, and I do too as evidenced by his post in BST today, where he got his ass handed to him.

Note that all three of those articles were written by the same person, Ian Demartino, who has gone out of his way to launch personal attacks against Mark and his businesses

What proof do you have that this is just a personal attack and not real journalism? Can you prove any lies in Demartino's articles?

Oh and I sat in to the actual "interviews" demartino did, and listened and watched video of the others. He is literally sneering the entire time he is explaining he is going to do an objective piece about mark and lied when he said he would correct his pieces if he found things to be wrong (he didn't, and there was plenty to correct).

He also misrepresented that he was co-founder of the site he writes for, and admitted to lying flat out on recording, and misrepresenting that, among other things.

I have physical evidence, visual evidence, and know exactly what went on on a large majority of it as I knew mark and his personnel and operations. And I have no problem kicking his ass over mistakes, just as much defending someone that is being flat out attacked unjustly.

Kevin, you are in denial, the very best thing that you could do is give Marky boy some money......or something valuable, he'll pay you back, no worries

Thanks for the links. I'll read up on it.

Thank you for this information.

Thanks for sharing. Lots of talk going on but so far only you have shared resources to give more information on the history of this whole situation.

Do you know if there were any public remarks made by Banx to counter-act these articles (interested in both perspectives)?

Well, Lyford has made lots of videos. It takes time to watch them so I haven't done that much (yet). This is his "response" to the latest article:

He basically just boasts how he will continue working on Banx and doesn't address any real issues that DeMartino has raised.

I just wrote a post about Banx and C-CEX. Now I'm reading old bitcointalk threads to see if I can find more interesting stuff. Unfortunately Lyford has deleted and edited the official thread so much that it's hard to know what really happened. But here is another one that I'm going through currently.

Lyford would only go so far, the moment you dared to ask what happened to your money or you questioned a decision you would be blocked, Facebook, phone, email, twitter, Marky didn't care, he'd block you everywhere.....poetry

Lieford received almost 1 million dollars from investors, maybe more. This is fact. Banx run for 18 months and didn't make a single cent. Yet investors were paid out astronomical profits in Banxs shares leading them to believe the cash equivalent was a healthy profit. Once money stopped coming from investment Marky boy got bored told everyone Banx was making no money and sailed off into the sunset.

he conjured this mess up in jail, how about the fact that he doubled the net worth of his company from $6m to $12m overnight yet no tax implications? and then went 10 fold to a value of $120m overnight with no obvious tax implications, the man is a genius or a crook someone needs to decide

I'd be interested to know if the PDF contained any form of maleware (was my first thought when I read the email), but also if he's got a subscription list, and telling people "Steem Cash" launches on 4th August, what else will he be trying to do on / after 4th August? Will he be contacting people directly about purchasing through him etc etc...

It is a pdf. With Text. With an exclusive interview.

Not sure on the rest of that tho

make sure to always do your due diligence and do not give obvious conartists breathing room on steem

here's a fine article by Ian Demartino about one of @marklyford 's earlier adventures http://coinjournal.net/mark-lyford-opens-banx-sales-quickly-becomes-worthless/

Thanks for the support!

plus I find it very alarming that @xeroc let himself being used as a tool/bait for this guy the set foot on steem.

Maybe I didn't make myself clear enough the last time:

  • I am not associated with Mark or his businesses
  • He asked me for an interview w.r.t. the said post and I agreed to answer his questions
  • We have talked merely about Steem tech and how I see it.

However, I wonder about myself, that I need to justify to whom I talk to against someone that doesn't even bother to publish his real name.

I appreciate all your concerns.

Maybe I shouldn't give interviews and instead do an AMA on Steem :)

@marklyford is a serial scammer and he is using you to legitimize his businesses (aka ripping of people).

However, I wonder about myself, that I need to justify to whom I talk to against someone that doesn't even bother to publish his real name.

to protect myself from intimidation tactics like @marklyford did here

the only reason I care is because I find it very sad that you lend an obvious scammer your reputation to ride on.

I see no intimidation there at all. I see an OP that made a mistake. I read the reveals and that still seems like a controversy attempt...imo

For some reason I cannot reply to your next message down, not sure why (seems like perhaps there's only so many "levels" you can reply down-to)?
Anyway, my message I wanted to post to your next message down was simply:

AmA AmA AmA AmA AmA AmA

Scammers will always appeal to some respected figure to make themselves seem legitimate. He didn't come to me to correct his grammar, however.

Massive scam, he can't even be bothered to get the details right, there haven't been any Germans who have made $44k on a post. Plus of course, you can get all the tips you like for free, right here on Steemit; all you have to do, is look.

Cg

Maybe I misunderstand your comment. But there has been a German, going by the name mentioned in the mail generating $(steemdollar)44k on one post -> https://steemit.com/piston/@xeroc/piston-web-first-open-source-steem-gui---searching-for-alpha-testers

I didn't realise Xeroc was German, my point still stands though, you shouldn't pay for "secret information" that you can get for free on Steemit. Especially when that information on its own, guarantees you nothing.

Cg

"Getting the details right" - Cool that this is sorted. Anyway the whole thing still smells pretty fishy and it's a bit odd to see that @xeroc gives his name and reputation away for this.

I was asked for a quick interview, and I agreed. There is nothing more to it. If Steemit Inc. has had interest to interview me, I would have agreed as well, but they didn't (even though I offered it to them earlier).

Exactly. There's no "secret information". This guy is trying to use old world tactics, ie, ripping off innocent newbies on new world freedom of information. Spelling errors, too. Always a bad sign. At least hire an editor for pete's sake. Errors=scam

LOL, you try transcribing an English accent and a German accent accurately with speed...sorry Mark and Fabian :p

Yeah you're totally right. I guess all colleges to close their doors since all of the information available and them is made public in some way, shape, form on the internet.

And those textbook companies don't even get me started on those m************.

You see we did a bunch of research and compiled it together into extremely easy to read and follow instructions to help people. That's what text books in other things do too. And people pay for those. Are they scams?

You happen to have the luxury of being on this platform for a couple of months now and seem to know everything about the platform which is fantastic, for you. Unfortunately not a lot of other people have that kind of time available to them and they'd rather spend a couple of dollars to learn how to do it quickly and efficiently.

Those God damn scammers.

Errors=scam?? Glad you were not correcting my English papers!

Did you see anywhere where he was selling this information??

I checked, he did not but I assume he will be in the future since they allude to a launch.

It still doesn't look like a scam to me...

Thanks for stepping up for the cause!

This is disturbing on so many levels. By ruining your reputation here in Steemit, no one will trust you. There are so many other creative ways, but scamming and pretending to have "secret info" is just so low. Jeezzz.

I expected more intelligence from you. You're joining the mob already.

If any of you have ever taken a marketing class whatsoever you would hear of something called a leadin product or maybe something like a fly catcher product or something like a free report that helps build a subscriber list so you can then educate them about a product or a service or something that you're providing them.

The fact that he went out of his way and took his time and fabian's time to make an interview, transcribe it, setup a mailing list, build Pages for it, then find ways to send people there to educate them about the platform it's a scam how?

Self righteous much?

You are right about one thing though, people here are deliberately trying to ruin his reputation here on purpose because they have a personal Vendetta. It isn't him ruining his reputation it's them and doing it from spite.

He has already ruined his reputation. That's why people don't like him. And you are ruining your reputation by defending him.

I would gladly defend you from such attacks, or anyone else. I don't care who tries to intimidate me or threaten me like @bullionstackers or the rest. People can judge me based on my contributions and what I do, I am fine with that. If they judge me based on predetermined bias regarding someone else, good riddance.

Actually, I was trying to bring some rational discussion to the conversation, but apparently nobody around here wants that.

Get the bitchforks out.

congratz @r4fken for subscribing to any other mail newsletter. i wouldn't want to maintain your inbox :D

Haha, the amount of info can never be enough! But it's true, I can't even read 5% of it all each day...

"latest project of a known con-man?" Other than the personal attacks by Dimartino, what is your basis for labeling Mark a "known con-man?" I put some of my hard-earned savings into his business and lost said money. Was I conned out of it? No! I understood the risks going in--I also understood the potential and felt Mark had great vision and insight. He may have been overly ambitious, or ahead of his time, or it may be that the personal attacks sidetracked him. . . but having a business fail is not a con. Using aggressive marketing tactics may be annoying, but again--not a con. I think you have even overstepped in labeling it a scam. I am not part of his new business, but I suspect so far he has only been trying to build a list and get more people onto Steemit. We see this kind of marketing all the time--and I too tend to ignore it. However, we rarely see who is behind it. If Mark were trying to scam people, I think he would recognize the troubles with all the mud that had been thrown at him previously and simply use an alias.

Maybe should have used a clever alias like @r4ken and hid behind that, then people wouldn't know who to attack and would go looking for an easier target.

Just bumped into this thread and I am confused as to why this is getting so much attention about it being a scam when it looks like someone overreacted from an email they signed up to get?

Was that the TLDR?

This comment was spot on. Respect!
Marketers will market. That's what they do. Especially to an opt-in email list!
Not sure how you can see a scam in that...

Refreshing thought process to say the least.

I don't hide behind my alias. Everybody knows my name. What an uninformed remark.

And your address, and everything about you? I thought not.

If he were going to scam anyone surely would not use all of his information.

I linked my social network profiles and gave my full name. My address should show up within two minutes of googling. That's one.
Two: giving out personal data proves nothing. Not for me, not for him. I just replied to that retard comment about me hiding behind my alias.

the share issue was an out & out con, the fake profit statements were a con (still are a con), the fake closing down of Banx was a con, the intermingling of funds between various entities was a con, the conversion of investors funds to BTC & spending it on personal lifestyle was a con, the non filing of audited accounts is a con, EA is a con, in short Marky boy is a con

From the mouth of those ACTUALLY INVOLVED.

Hey Michael, I was ACTUALLY INVOLVED, have you considered the tax implication of doubling the net worth of your company from $6m to $12m overnight?, that is a declared profit of $6m in 24hrs

what about going 10 fold to $120m?, tax issue? netting a $108m profit overnight with zero tax liability & you claim that this guy Lyford is not a fraud?, I am rational & would dearly love a simple,rational answer to this tax scenario, I need you & Mark as my CPA!!

MARK LYFORD IS A SCAMMER? NO WAY!!!

CHEERS!!!

Thanks at @r4fken
Good info

@marklyford & @michealx

We can see how much guilt there .
You are not going to shut this up. Infact making the matter worst.
Guilty as charged

Please try to keep on topic.

Thanks for posting this. We need to be vigilant as a community to this sort of thing. As STEEMIT gains popularity more and more scammers are going to see the opportunity to con people. Hope everyone sees and is made aware of this.

Thanks, and agreed!

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