Using Reddit for Bitcoin-related activity is an excellent way to meet like-minded people. But as is the case with any online platform, there are always criminals lurking in the shadows. One user attempted to sell US$500 worth of Itunes gift cards on Reddit in exchange for Bitcoin. While he got scammed, he did get his revenge on the culprit as well.
Bitcoin Attracts All Kinds of People
To put things into perspective, buying or selling digital goods online always carries a particular risk. That is the price one may pay for dealing with anonymous entities. The seller of these Itunes gift cards will not forget that story so quickly, as he nearly lost a lot of money by trusting someone.
His US$500 worth of Itunes cards was purchased for US$380 worth of Bitcoin, a sweet discounted deal both parties could agree to. The big problem arose when it came to who would “go first’ in sending the digital goods. Reputation on the Internet is a valuable commodity, as it is easily earned but hard to rebuild once it is gone.
Things got even messier when the buyer wanted to have the cards shipped to a fake address. The Bitcoin payment never arrived, and the buyer had deleted his Reddit account all of a sudden. Not a great way to get involved in Bitcoin for the first time when a business deal goes awry, that much is certain.
But the gift card seller was not planning to chalk this up a loss just yet. After conducting some research, he found out the buyer’s first name, his city, and the IP address. Keeping in mind how all of this information is publicly available on the Internet, no illegal methods were used to obtain these details.
Karma Can Be A B*tch When Putting In A Bit of Effort
Granted, most people would not go through all of the trouble to find out all of these details and just file a police report. Unfortunately, law enforcement will do nothing about these claims, as they are not worth the hassle. Conducting a good old Google search can reveal a lot of information about an individual, especially with public social media profiles.
After a bit of back-and-forth communication between the seller, scammer, and his family, the deal was finally concluded. US$380 worth of Bitcoin was finally transferred into his account. It took a little while to get everything sorted, but this story goes to show scamming on the Internet will get you nowhere. Sellers and buyers should always use an escrow service to settle their agreements, rather than blindly sending products or money.
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