SCAMMED ON BITSHARES??? I transfered over $1,000.00 USD in BTS to what I thought was a trading bot, it wasn't.

First of all don't be me. This should be pretty easily avoided as long as you understand these currencies are completely digital and thus removes the old adage of possession is 9/10th of the law. I am a disabled person and my pension is all my family has to keep us afloat. Losing 14,000 BTS was almost everything I had in my account. I understand that as a person on a fixed income I must find returns and I must cut costs in the present to conserve for later. I currently invest a small portion of my earning into pure speculation markets. I am not a financial planner and I know my methods may offend others. I don't care.

I initially learned about EOS and I have some EOS coins that I purchased on Kraken.

I eventually learned about Bitshares and opened an account with them.

I invest with the idea that I am betting that the world will be a better place one day and it may be a world with Bitshares.

So, I deposited my funds into my account in bitshares and I left it. I have a busy life and figured I would get to figuring it all out at my own pace. I outsmarted myself when I read the following message on my account overview screen. Here.

As you can tell this is just "dzen-robot" asking me, tomb74, to transfer 14,000 BTS. I thought this "trade proposal" was a "bot". I assumed (I know, I know) it would work out if it was not in fact a bot and I mistakenly send someone my funds. So began an interesting exchange that ended pretty well.

These are the transfers of blockchain secured messages. As you can see I sent him messages with a deposit of 1 BTS. This is the way he initially sent the trade proposal.

I sent him the following as soon as I thought I made a mistake.

He responded that he wanted to know where I was from. He asked me why I complied so easily. I asked him why he asked me to transfer the funds in the first place. His answer was that it was a social experiment. He then asked why I complied so easily and did I think my Government would return me in case of fraud? At this point I am thinking Nigerian Scam. He then posted "regarding the return, be calm". He concluded that message with "wait 30 days for the return of the BTS."

I was very perplexed and fearful at this point about losing the money. I was unsure if I would even get any of it back. I scratched my head and thought, outside of calling the law, what could I do.

I decided to try Discord.

I had listened to a few Bitshares hangouts through there. I also received access to the Bitshares channel when I signed up to trade. I saw that Hive account@officialfuzzy was on there and sent him a message to see if he could help. I knew he would be busy and that I was completely at his mercy for any help. I was relieved that he listened to me vent. He said he would see what he could do. I thought about it overnight and decided to write Mr. "dzen" a message that I felt conveyed my anger and may be easily confused as from a neutral party. I believe the fact that I used .00001 BTS to attach the message when I wrote it may have added to his confusion and ultimate compliance.

Here is my strongly worded letter.

When it was all said and done, he transferred all of my funds back, but wanted me to answer his questions.

Luckily for me, I got a full refund. I hope this information can help others in the future to avoid any losses. Thanks for stopping by.