Is AlphaBay exit scamming? Various reports of people having their money withdrawn who could not have been phished, including me.

I deposited about 1.991 BTC and it took hours and hours, and after I finally checked back half a day later, they had been withdrawn. There were many other reports on the Alphabay forums, of people saying they, just like me, thought that they'd gotten phished or hacked, but had a very strong feeling it would have been impossible.

 

Now there are more reports of issues such as customer and vendor accounts being frozen or banned, deposits never showing up, complaint threads being banned, and reports/evidence that the admins are being really counterproductive.

 

There were so many reports of being phished or hacked last night- bitcoins vanishing- and many people realizing this couldn't have been possible, but every time these forum threads went up, the admin would comment something like "This is how everyone gets phished: [link]." Then they change the thread to status to "resolved/fixed" so no one can reply anymore. I saw this happen last night in a thread where everyone was very suspicious of it being a large scale hacking/phishing operation and everyone concluded they were exit scamming. It's still happening today.

 

 

Thoughts? Anyone else with reports of scams and strange activity on AB?

edit: formatting, grammar


Comments


[17 Points] BarbarossaDNM:

22+ BTC are missing from my alphabay wallet after I went to withdraw them. This is real. Admins have been silent for days. Hope that is just due to Christmas.


[7 Points] AgoraRises:

Everything seems pretty normal for me..


[7 Points] throwaway50cent:

Alphabay reminds me of bitcoinfog. Scams for a very long time because people will continue to use until they have personally been scammed, despite numerous reports by others.


[4 Points] BlackSwordfish:

I never keep a spare penny in my dnm accounts just in case. Alphabay is going downhill I feel


[2 Points] bipboopbapbeep:

I think there's an admin who's stealing from accounts. That being said, i have not had any problems with Alphabay, after using it for many many transactions.


[4 Points] sadguytw:

i just made this throwaway to make a post about this. i deposited about 17-$ like day and half ago and it still hasn't shown up. maybe they are on vacation or something. man this was gonna be my second order and i was pretty excited about this whole dnm but now i have a strong feeling i aint seeing that money again.

edit: 170 not 17.. i know still not much but lot for me


[5 Points] None:

[deleted]


[4 Points] psychopathLOL:

I have only ever deposited 2 times to make 2 transactions on AB

When I access the DNM the ONLY 2 places I visit are this sub reddit and AB through the URL provided in the market super list

So I know if I ever get "phished" it was an admin/mod that took the money


[3 Points] HumboldtFarmss:

I left a post on the AB forums about a 62 Bitcoin withdrawal finalized but never received. It's been well over 24 hours since I made the withdrawal. I will give them until Saturday evening to respond then I will stop taking orders and let my customers know what is going on. I will update this post when I get this resolved and get my funds back.

EDIT: Admin promptly answered my post and I got my 62 Bitcoins. He explained "Sending 2 withdrawals to the same address within 15 minutes can sometimes trigger a security flag. We've sent your withdrawal manually, sorry for the issue".

http://stbux7lrtpegcra2.onion/forum/index.php?threads/62-bitcoin-withdrawal-finalized-but-never-recieved.46372/


[2 Points] redditulousfun:

"Bar"none


[2 Points] akfir5io68:

I have no problems using AlpaBAy


[2 Points] questofmanyflavours:

I had a small amount dissappear from alphabay several months ago and Im sure i wasnt phished. It was fortunelty only about $1 which happened to be sitting in the account. I changed my passwords and noticed no more problems but I think something a little odd is going on there


[2 Points] None:

[removed]


[2 Points] Theeconomist1:

/u/Trappy_Pandora - where are you bro??? Its not like you to be gone for so long.

I don't know what to make of this. AB seems to have considerably more phishing issues than previous markets have had. I don't recall people getting phished on Agora to this extent or Evo, and those were big markets.

We did have a long time community member report his funds were taken. While anything is possible, I don't think he'd fall victim to a phishing scam. He's been around a long, long time, not a noob. /u/alphabaysupport - are you around? It does seem like your customers are exceptionally prone to getting phished if that is the explanation. Have you looked deep into other potential causes of missing funds?


[1 Points] bar_none:

If you want to see some of these threads, I've got some links for you:

http://pwoah7foa6au2pul.onion/forum/index.php?threads/why-is-this-whole-page-full-of-people-getting-accounts-drained.45968/

http://pwoah7foa6au2pul.onion/forum/index.php?threads/are-we-being-robbed-by-alpha-bay.45948/

http://pwoah7foa6au2pul.onion/forum/index.php?threads/admin-why-is-my-account-banned.46198/

http://pwoah7foa6au2pul.onion/forum/index.php?threads/withdrawal-sent-to-someone-elses-wallet.46179/

http://pwoah7foa6au2pul.onion/forum/index.php?threads/why-is-my-vendor-account-banned.46170/

http://pwoah7foa6au2pul.onion/forum/index.php?threads/coin-vanished-and-i-wasnt-phished.46129/

http://pwoah7foa6au2pul.onion/forum/index.php?threads/btc-stolen-hacked.46116/

http://pwoah7foa6au2pul.onion/forum/index.php?threads/all-my-coins-have-vanished.45982/


[1 Points] throwawayagain214152:

it wouldnt be christmas morning without some fresh shilling!! thanks santa, you always deliver on time


[0 Points] teddybearortittybar:

If you haven't learned by now that AB is shit then I can't help you any more.


[1 Points] None:

xmas day scams. wow welcome to xmas on the darknet


[1 Points] AlwaysDankrupt:

I don't really have an opinion on this yet, but haven't there been this exact kinda post almost every week for the last year? It seems more like someone trying to sabatage them rather than an exit scam. then again, there was that dnmavenger thread that warned us about them starting to selectively scam.. I don't know, this is all so confusing.


[1 Points] BoxAddict:

Never used AB before . Not sure how to 100% prove but I would think some kind of proof you didn't get phished if you have it. What's your website entry method? Ive got all the addresses of hidden services i access on an encrypted flash drive; saved on the day of signup so there is no chance its changed. Obviously the text file is just a pgp message signed to myself, not just plain text lol.

2-FA can be broken if phished, of this i am positive. At least the way some sites do it. I'd take any suckers money that bet me i couldn't prove it. would rather not help out anymore scammers by explaining tho


[1 Points] Areusur:

Alphabay are not exit scamming, they're commiting a rolling scam and they're getting away with it. They will only exit scam when their userbase starts to move elsewhere, they've no reason to go for the big win until that time and they'll just continue selectively scamming. If I was a vendor I'd set up elsewhere and get my coin out of alphabay for two reasons, the first is obvious but secondly i wouldn't want to be paying a market that is stealing from my customers and by extension stealing from me.


[1 Points] None:

Here's the real problem:

Most experienced people on DNM's have a feeling in there stomach that its all a scam. Hell, we all know it is. Unfortunately though, all the big vendors use Alphabay, it's the main DNM. This is coming from my main perspective of fraud, but im sure that you cannot log on to Crypto Market and find your favorite dealer


[0 Points] BigBarsBigCars:

No shit AB is one giant scam. The fact that they have trappy_fucking_pandora on their team is proof enough. Can't believe anyone fell for this market lmao.