With all emerging technology there is going to be teething problems, and that’s certainly the case with the cryptocurrency Bitcoin. One of the biggest hurdles (at least in many parts of the world) is still the difficulty of buying and selling the currency easily and with confidence. This isn’t helped when there are so many people willing to scam or use your funds in their money making experiments.Having dabbled in BTC a couple of years back when the Intersango exchange was still around, I recently decided to dive back in and see if anything had changed. Other than a myriad of scandals, things are still relatively the same. In the UK you need to be willing to manually setup a bank transfer (or use an app like Barclays PingIt) and trust an exchange or a trader not to somehow run off with your money.
Using Paypal has still not been perfected, Ebay is still full of scammers, and it’s still a pain to try and work out the most cost and time effective method when you factor in bank transfer fees and currency conversions, BTC withdrawal and transaction fees, and identity verification.After a quick Google (you should NEVER just do a quick Google) I decided to give IGot.com a chance. They promise the ability to “buy and sell Bitcoin easily in the UK” for “FREE” and with “no deposit and withdrawal limits.”Yeah, it didn’t quite work out like that did it guys?I had a modest amount of BTC that I wished to sell, so I signed up and began jumping through the identity hoops.Verify an email address, verify a phone number, add a bank account, deposit bitcoin … the final step, upload an identity document and a utility bill.This is where chinks in the armour begin to show. The final step just doesn’t really work. I tested it on Chrome and Firefox and after about 15 attempts I was still unsure whether I’d actually completed the step.There are two links, one for the Passport/Driver’s license scan and another for the Utility Bill scan. Clicking on either pops up a blank box. No browse button to find the document, no upload button to begin the process, it took me ages to figure out that you have to actually drag and drop the file on to the blank box.
It then does a snazzy yet broken upload animation under both links (why both?) without any completion message or instruction about what to do next. You might take a wild guess and close the blank box and then click “Verify Identity.”A message then says “Both documents should be uploaded.”My immediate response to this was “oh I did it wrong, I need to upload both at the same time.” Not that that’s an easy task.After several attempts at dragging and dropping and clicking in different combinations, I gave up and assumed the documents were uploaded. It would seem “Both documents should be uploaded” was not an error message, but a confirmation message. Even if you only uploaded one document. I learned this when an email came through days later saying the documents were rejected, with a generic and unhelpful explanation:Please see below for possible reasons:
1. Colored copy of your identification is needed (it was a full coloured passport scan).
2. Utility bill must be no more than 60 days old (it was last month’s bill).
3. Your address does not match your utility bill (it does).
4. The utility bill you submitted is not valid (I submitted a landline phone bill and a national insurance invoice and I cannot find a page on the site that lists the accepted documents. Everywhere else has since accepted these).
5. Your personal identification must clearly show your picture and not be blurry (the passport scan was a ridiculous file size, resolution and DPI, and it clearly showed the picture as it is on the passport, which naturally is a bit weird looking due to the shiny security watermarks etc).A bit disappointed I went on a signup spree elsewhere. I joined Bittylicious.com, Coinbase.comand BitBargain.co.uk. All of these accepted the documents within 24 hours, and although their processes can be long winded (sometimes having to take a photo of your scruffy self holding the passport as well) it was all clearly explained and actually works.Since these other services were a lot more user-friendly I jumped back to igot to withdraw my BTC and take my business elsewhere.Or so I thought.It turns out that even if you have completed every verification step (apart from the one that they don’t seem to want you to) you cannot withdraw more than 0.05 BTC per day, and they also take 0.0005 BTC off the top.Not quite the “easy,” “free” and “no … limits” advertised on the homepage.So I began the tedious process of withdrawing 0.05 BTC per day until it was all out of there. Only instead of it being daily, they inexplicably leave the withdrawal pending for days on end.At this point I was pretty angry. How can a respectable exchange accept instant deposits of any amount but not allow you to withdraw it? All while making the verification process as difficult and convoluted as possible?
I turned to Twitter and opened a couple of support tickets on the site. There was no sign of withdrawals completing until I did so. The first time I complained the transaction was completed within the same day (though it still said pending for several more days on the site itself). I then attempted another 0.05 BTC withdrawal. This took a week and was only completed when I threatened to blog about them.
Some may say I handled this a little brash, but along the way I had become aware that many others were also having trouble with igot and with amounts of money and BTC much larger than I was using. Take this guy who claims to have lost $40,000 AUD.
I’VE WAITED OVER 4 MONTHS FOR MY MONEY, HAVE RECEIVED NO REPLIES RECENTLY, AND THEY HAVE DONE NOTHING.
These Twitter users joined my conversation with igot with their own stories. Even fully verified accounts are being screwed.
Now check out this Reddit thread with a lot of user complaints: Scammed by Igot – Owed USD16K for more than 100 days! Rick Day (chief conman) keeps breaking his promises to refund me the money.
Yet when the likes of Duncan Riley at SiliconANGEL dig deeper, it seems possible that Day is simply an assumed identity of a con artist.
…IT’S AS IF THE NAME RICK DAY MIGHT BE MADE UP AND THAT’S WHAT WE THINK IS A STRONG POSSIBILITY, OR ALTERNATIVELY SOMEWHERE ALONG THE LINE HE’S LEGALLY CHANGED HIS NAME; IN A VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH FOLLOW THE COIN IT’S CLEAR THAT NOT ONLY IS DAY INDIAN BY ANCESTRY, HE’S INDIAN BY BIRTH BASED ON HIS ACCENT, AND THERE ARE NOT A LOT OF INDIAN KIDS BORN “RICK DAY” IN INDIA (TO BE PRECISE, THERE ARE NONE) LET ALONE AMONG THOSE OF INDIAN HERITAGE OUTSIDE THE COUNTRY.
Although igot is registered with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC/ABN: 600 161 233), it’s also been suggested that it’s really a front for an Indian firm called I Got Tech Solutions, which is linked to by igot. What this means for those who have been scammed is anyone’s guess.In short if you’ve yet to use igot then steer well clear. If you’ve got funds locked in to their system then it seems your only option currently is to kick up as much fuss as possible. Sadly though it seems the more funds you’ve deposited the more they’ll fight to hang on to them.