Hey all,
Yes grab your popcorn because I'm going to report to you yet another scammer.
Known Steem accounts:
Known Discord Ids:
- slothyy#2322
- Panda#3993
- psychsherpa#3610
I would strongly urge everyone to avoid doing business with these IDs.
Fuck, just the fact that this guy has so many aliases is shadey enough as it is.
Before I go any further, I'd like to thank @therealwolf for providing many of these screenshots. He did the real detective work and deserves most of the credit for helping track this scammer down.
Background
Ok I'll try to keep this brief. About a half a year back I had a delegated SP givaway and one of the winners was @fatpandadesign. He is smart, charismatic, energetic, and nice fresh face with cool projects.
I made about 3 or 4 loans to him, which he paid back in record time, quickly gaining my good graces. Then he had a Pandacoin ICO, and I foolishly gave him about 2000 usd worth ethereum to buy his worthless tokens. Oh and then Woops, wouldn't you know it, he suddenly had a seizure, and he is in the hospital and blahdy blah, it's going to take him a while to get the ICO going, derpy derp.
About a month and a half later, he just sort of faded from view and I had realized that I was almost certainly been duped.
I should have posted about it sooner
I'll fully admit I should have posted sooner, but I had already been reeling from the Zeartul scam and the Viva scam, and it's pretty embarrassing to admit to yet another scam. And it did take a while for the Panda scam to sink in. My bad, but I'm correcting it now.
In Recent news...
Fast forward to about a month ago another new, smart fresh face approaches me: @getslothyy.
He's cool, he is hip, he is smart. He's got this great Gaming discord server, and he strangely eager to do business with me. He wanted loans, the subscription service, etc. Luckily I was smarter this time, and actually took his Owner key each time I loaned.
Imagine my shock when @therealwolf tells me that @getslothyy and @fatpandadesign are one and the same!
(again the result of @therealwolf 's detective work)
Proof that links @getslothyy to @unmentionable, which I already knew was linked to @thefatpanda.
He admits it here. Right from the horse's (or panda's) mouth.
You know, if I had any doubts that maybe FatPanda was just a guy who had fallen onto hard times and poor health, and wasn't really trying to scam me, then this revealation kills it.
FatPanda = Ben Schwartz
Here is a video that has already been available on the internet:
Title: Ben Schwartz of Fat Panda Design & Coin Panda Crypto ICO testimonial
The video was done by Mariza Monteiro who is another person scammed by Ben.
What sort of person would take a large amount of money from you, and then come back to you under a different name, without telling you?
These are not the actions of an honest person. FatPanda/Slothy is clearly a scammer up to no good.
Summary: FatPanda/Slothy/Ben Schwartz is a scammer and not to be trusted.
I'm not the only one he has scammed. He got @therealwolf pretty good as well, and some others I won't mention in this post.
I tried to seize the @getslothyy account.
This will mark the first time I have ever repossessed an account. I feel that was justified since Panda took 2000 usd from me and the slothy account is worth around 300 usd or so. I was going to give the Owner key of this account to @therealwolf to reward him for his detective work.
However, Panda attempted to do the account recovery procedure which resulted in a Mediation counsel, including Someguy (Anonsteem) and some members of PAL. I won't talk about it too much here. I do think the mediation was handled fairly, but unfortunately I had to give the key back to Panda.
I tried to make this contract with Panda:
https://steemit.com/bank/@neoxian/the-coffeenana-bank-of-neoxian-daily-contracts-2018-04-30
He has broken this contract by not paying me, so I am free to act against him (flagging him and writing this post).
The danger still exists
Even though I'm exposing him. This guys is clever, charismatic, and highly intelligent. He very well might be back, under a different name, to ply his tricks again. What will it be? @cheekymonkey? @bouncingbear? He seems to like the animal themes.
He will try to do business with his next mark, by taking a series of loans and then paying them back very quickly (using money scammed from others no doubt). Once he has gained your trust, he will go in for the "kill" and have some big deal where he needs 2000 to 6000 usd from you. And then once you give it to him, Oops! He has suddenly suffered some disaster, such as a seizure, or he gets beat up and is in the hospital, or his sister has cancer (see his latest post about a lost laptop). I swear this guy has the worst luck ever, wouldn't you know it?
This guy is an online grifter; this is how he makes his living. I'm sure he is not just in Steem, but probably in Dash, Bitcoin forums, other loan platforms.
He will set up some cool, hip new discord and invite as many high profile people over as he can.
Another thing he does is swoop like a vulture on anyone I loan a fair sum of money to. He will try to get that money from them, claiming he is an expert trader and can double it quickly.
I'm on to your tricks Mr. Panda, and now hopefully everyone else is too.
@neoxian, you're an amazing person - thank you for working with me together to expose that piece of ..
Here is my story: https://steemit.com/abuse/@therealwolf/warning-ben-schwartz-is-a-scammer-who-owes-me-2600-sbd
I just read your post, I'm so sorry you got scammed.
Thanks for bringing this to our attention and sorry for what happened. I also loaned him a bit of SBD's(60SBD)to help him out with his dying sister and the job he had just been fired from and then of course his laptop getting stolen.. crazy stuff to make up to scam people... what a horrible person. After a couple of days he said this:
Glad that time didn't come before he got exposed.
Nooooo, he told me that he was installing updates on his computer and that he was super happy with it! Oh noooooo. :C
Unfortunately I believed in their stories and I lent 70 SBD and 80 STEEM more than 1 month ago :( What the fuck did I do when trusting someone like this :(
Sadly many people have fallen for his scams. Last I heard he was mugged and hospitalised in Thailand with his passport seized, only his story changed from post to post. I was initially duped and followed getslothyy a little while back as I started gameplay streaming. I cut all contact when I learned he was fat panda and warned many people not to lend him money.
This I hope will serve as a warning to people not to blindly trust people online. Sorry for your losses Neoxian.
I intend to keep the gaming community going, even without this pendejo. We had something good going, and I refuse to let it die because of one bad apple. Hopefully I can keep your good graces...
what is gaming community??
I hope so, it's a very popular community.
Hope you can keep it going, it is a great little community.
Yeah, I remember that Thailand Story was my first run-in with the panda... it immediately felt super fishy!
smooth talking dude
Hi @neoxian. Remember he introduced you to me. When i first raise the alarm to people close to him immediately many labelled me as unsympathetic because of the numerous issues that he is facing. What i found strange was him telling me there is a hack in playing steem dice and he is able to return a profit that was just too unbelievable. But to avoid losing friends with people who still trusted him at that time, i merely distanced myself.
But you neoxian has been very understanding. I took a contract when SBD was low and it skyrocketed late last year and you didnt press on the same sbd to be returned instead made it easier for me. Thx.
This is a reminder to be on your guard constantly against this type of person.
Thanks to both of you
Sorry to hear both you and @therealwolf got scammed, and thank you for providing this information to all of us.
Seriously, these scammers are the main reason people starting to distrust one another. We can't even help people in need without feeling fearful of being scammed.
Thank you for making us aware and we must really take action against them.
Oh no, I'm so sorry to read that. It's sad that people would take advantage of kindness from others but I guess the world is made up of many different people.
thanks for information, the good @neoxian
I'm one of the mods of Gamers United. While all I have is the posting key, I will NOT let this group fall to shreds on account of one bad apple. Excise the tumor, save the body. If there is anything I can do to help, let me know. DM me in Discord, or find me on Twitter. Handle is the same there.
A new discord community was set up after The Unmentionables discord group folded that he ran at the end of 2017 and we sent a message to every user of that, that it came to light that he was using the unmentionable account for his own profit, not to help the community like it was set up for. The new discord group has gone strength from strength. All it needs is a good leader, the people will understand and follow you.
Well, hopefully I can fit that bill...
You are probably going to have to set up a new discord server and a new steemit account. I can support that new account.
I will probably take you up on that offer. If I can keep the spirit of what made GU awesome intact, I'm gonna do it.
I am one of the witnesses recruited for GamerUnited (whatever that means to be honest). I haven't had a lot of time to participate and I was recruited by @getslothyy. I was planning on making a gaming community at some point and it was easier to just join one already getting started.
While I am not surprised (this is just another day in Crypto) it is very disappointing. Thanks for posting about it though, this stuff needs to be public.
I do agree it needs a new Discord, new everything as he was the key face of the community.
Powerdown in 3, 2, 1.
We all cant be aware enough of this...super messed up dude and also that you couldnt get the money back in second attempt.
awesome detective work indeed!!
Some other users of his:
Those are him too?
[EDITED]
I have removed flags from @thegoliath, I am confident they are two different people and the received an explanation why they both had a linked transaction to the same Bittrex account that I am comfortable with. I don't believe he is involved. I was too hasty in my response to catch the 7-day payouts before it cleared.
I am still very confident @croftj0827 is one of his old accounts as it uses his Bittrex account he uses regularly for many transactions.
Having talked to Ben, and listening to Goliath's dLive streams, I don't think they're the same person.
I don't think so too, but I am curious their (slothy and golaith) connection sending funds secretively between Bittrex.
I am still researching.
[EDIT] See above
Ive met thegoliath in person at a monthly steem meet held in Adelaide. His brother is also in regular attendance. I would not suspect thegoliath to be involved in scamming users based on my irl impression of him.
For what that's worth.
I got scammed from him as well, he told me to send funds to his Bittrex directly at some point and having told him I couldn't do that, he said sending it to his Steemit account was just as good.
gotta keep on the look out for bums like that!!
Anyways I really appreciate what you do for the community!!
OMG! That's ridiculous! Thank you so much for letting us know. We all will avoid such scammers cheapest ugly persons. Send them to hell
God Bank of Neoxian
It really beats my imagination on the huge amount of time, energy and brain power these scammers invest to con people. These scammers are crypto blockchain killers. Only if they could invest such amount of time and energy into building a useful cryptocurrency platform that adds more value to the blockchain.
thanku for providing us the names of scammers and making us aware about them, so nice of you sir, we should investigate fully before blindly trusting anybody...
This is too bad to scam a helping hand in this workable platform. Thanks for sharing this information everyone should be at alert now.
Hello @neoxian
Thank you for sharing this informative piece on scam...i dont know what some people gain by scamming their fellow human beings,which is very bad:)
I will take note of these people you have mentioned:)
I appreciate your awareness...thanks for sharing at this hour:)
Thank you so so much for informing us about these scammers and what they did. I have taken note of them. Sorry for the money you lost. Third to comment here.
Very bad news for us. All cheating fraud systems are the same. At first they will achieve trust than a time they will cheat. We need to be more careful from this cheating and cheater or scammer.
I am very concerned about the scams you are experiencing,@neoxian
hopefully this becomes a lesson and experience for all of us
Neoxian I hate read this bad news, at least thanks to @TheRealWolf they were able to tear down all their tricks and warn us about this Mr.Panda.
It is a pity that there are people who seek to take advantage of the good intentions of others.
wow this can not be left sir @neoxian.., i will try to avoid it all. excuse me i want to resteem your post
Hello, I regret this news, but we are not safe in any part of the scammers who only seek to take advantage of those who do their things for good, thanks for giving me this information and that detective who helps you at least you know who scams you
Thanks for helping us to know about those scammers. @neoxian
I still don't understand why bad people can't channel their intelligence towards good....
Anyway, thank you @neoxian, you have paved the way for caution in case he wants to scam some other people...
You are the deal because you will keep growing since you work... Let's see the end of the Panda guy...
Live and learn. People will say the most dishonest things that makes it hard to trust people who are in real need.
you again did an great job thanks for making us aware about it
These scammers just keep getting rising each day but thanks to you man for sharing about them
That dud is vicious. What makes people like that tic and how do they sleep at night??
Unfortunately the scammers are everywhere and they are in quantities! It is not possible that there are people who can not earn their money by their own efforts if not with someone else's.
when they rob people who provide their services, it not only hurts them because they take away what is theirs, but also to other people who need it, they can not get a loan, because there is fear of being a scammer.
You must be a little more alert when it comes to lending your money, the scammers dress like white doves.
Really sucks that you were a part of it along with many others. I didn't co-sign with him as my cautious side is not trusting. I myself on an off-topic thing had someone try scam me with a potential IT job, but I picked up on that one.
I just wish this didn't happen to anyone.
He likes using animal names and @Grumpycat comes to mind. Hmm...
That fuck got me for 8.6 SBD!
this kind of stuff really is the reason why I don't take chances here on steemit. I just take it slow and post, and comment only. I know if you don't take risks you don't get rewards mantra but I want to enjoy life, not be a statistic. Oh well, thank you guys for sharing your stories. I hope things get better on here, and I guess with crypto, it's kinda like the wild west for now.
Thank you very much for your valuable information. It is a pity this type of situations and I will take note of each of the scammers. We are going to spread it so that everyone finds out. Thanks for sharing @neoxian
I am still glad I didn't send over what little SBD I have left on my account. This is quite disappointing as I almost trusted him as he is the creator of "gamersunited" whom has the backing of some of the witnesses and big ones in this platform.
I already replied in the real wolf's post, but here is my tiny little 100 percent vote. I hope you recover some part of what you lost. Thanks for posting, this needs to be in the open so others don't fall for him.
What a scumbag. Someday Ben's bullshit is going to violently catch up with him in real life. The sooner the better, if you ask me.
Thx you @therealwolf and @neoxian for providing update on scammers and their names pls ban their acc from steems.
I feel bad the account was returned to that douche. That would have been the first in hopefully a series of fitting punishments to be metted out to him.
I also bought his worthless PANDA coin for 0.467 Eth. I knew he was desperate for cash when I was able to negotiate the price down so far. I was totally 'art of the deal' ready to walk off a wealthy pandacoin man. Joke was on me.
He built trust and report with me and we did the exchange. Anyone want some Pandacoin? It even has a whitepaper. @ironshield
oh my god! I feel very afraid now sir when I read this scamming news. its very dangour situation for steem & steemian's. Thanks a lot sir for show up these scammer account list. I hope everyone now be alert for this issue.
Will be careful and this was indeed necessary buddy to expose this guy and in doing that others will get to know him if he does any attempts.I suppose he will not stop here.
So sorry you got scammed. I already read @therealwolfs post. Not sure I understand how all of the owner key stuff works but I'm going to look into it. I'm still a minnow..... For now.
OMG sir ridiculous😟😞. May God save us all from bloody scammers feeling so bad right now 😟😞😟😞
That piece of shit needs to be tracked down and beaten mercilessly so that he will really end up in the hospital. Since that is the excuse he gives to his victims.
Hi @neoxian. I've seen your name around and even seen some people I know that bank with you. I don't think I'm in need of your services, but happy to know you are there to help those that do need the help.
I'm sorry to hear you were not able to retain the account via mediation. It's very unfortunate when it becomes technical over who the rightful owner is of an account, even though you hold the "mortgage" on it, of sorts. Thanks for providing the public service and letting us know about the scam accounts.
I'm sure karma will catch up with him. This will definitely be the last time he will scam anyone in his life time. How does he even sleep at night knowing fully well, he scammed an innocent man filled with kindness? Still don't get the whole thing. So sorry @neoxian @therealwolf