Edit 2: @zeartul deleted all of his comments, including ones where he promises to repay, so, that speaks for itself, the scam warning is back in effect.
Edit: Update @zeartul has responded with a promise to pay everyone back, let's wait on see, Scam warning removed for now
Hi Steemit,
With a heavy heart I do this, for the first time, I'm issuing a Scam Warning. The user @zeartul who also owns and operates @bellyrub and the @bellyrubbank appears to be performing an exit scam. I believe that he also has used these other accounts: @carlidos @psych101 @mrsteemitbwhale, and @lifeisamazing .
I would advise against doing business with any of these accounts.
He has defrauded numerous individuals with the @bellyrub service which either would under deliver or fail to deliver, and the @bellyrubank which offered the To-Good-To-Be-True APR of 45% (!!!) but now it seems that depositors won't get their money. I personally will be out 422 steem in unpaid rentals, plus the 100 SBD that I foolishly placed into his bank.
@zeartul is in the process of powering down (and with his @bellyrub accounts too) and sending money to Poloniex. I fail how to see how this makes sense if he really planned on repaying me in 2 days (and everyone else too). I have unvoted his witness and removed all my power delegations from his accounts.
I'm ashamed of the role I played in this. He fooled me and gained my trust by paying off his loans. He seemed like a great guy to do business with at the time, and he paid me generously for my delegation rentals. I sung his praises and even gave him "pimp of the week" award, and had encouraged people to use bellyrub and put money in his bank. I'm very sorry about that.
Probably the biggest clue I didn't pick up on at the time for whatever reason was the ridiculous 45% interest rate on his bank. There is no universe where this rate makes sense, that should have fucking woke me up. Lesson learned there, next time anything offers that sort of rate, it's a scam for sure.
I'm fine and the Bank of Neoxian will be fine
I would to reassure my depositors that my Bank is fine and will survive this. Definitely my delegation business is drying up in a big way, but my loan business is booming, and I have other ideas in the works. I'm still offering a 5% apr for my bank, which is aggressive, but not silly like 45%.
Anyways be careful out there guys, the Steem oceans can be rough sometimes, but I wouldn't have it any other way.
Oh and @zeartul, if you read this, it's not too late to make good. I'll be happy to remove this warning if you can write a post explaining to the community what's going on, and your plans to make things right.
Horrible. I hope he returns my 500 Steem principal deposit. I thought his steem bank scheme was okay because I read the posts that you vouched for him.
Sir @neoxian I have 1,000 STEEM coins at bellyrubbank
I trusted him because I saw that you are vouching for him.
ToT
Now I won't get my money now? @thecryptofiend donated me that money
This can't be happening @zeartul
I'm sorry I'll try to make it up to you.
Thank you Sir but I feel terrible, but it's not your fault.
Oh, crap man, 1000 like 1 with three zeros? :(
Yes Sir @irreverent-dan T-T
One Thousand STEEM Dollars
I can't say anything, its just pure evil what he did.
That's a lot of Steem... Let's see how this will play out.
This is him.
I'm sorry to hear about your loss. If you want to help stop @zeartul, please take a look at a post I just made that might help if enough of us do something:
https://steemit.com/scam/@trending/please-help-stop-zeartul-from-getting-away-with-his-scam-make-poloniex-aware-of-it
Thank you sir for your concern and assistance.
1
Please return my 500 Steem principal. Have a heart. Money isn't everything
in this world we live in.
Come on @zeartul
I need a resolution now and the others too.
1
Sir what's keeping you?
I want my payment ASAP please.
Would you be interested in doing an AMA style with us on @askme ?
Reply back.
You just asked a scammer that won't answer questions whether or not he wants to participate in an AMA. SMH.
The premise of your account doesn't make much sense to me. Why would people choose to go through you to do an AMA? They should just make a post from their own account and tag it AMA.
I'm genuinely curious what value are you adding to the AMA formula and how you envision your account succeeding in the long run?
Hey @contentjunkie it was more of interest into the mindset of a scammer and just maybe he'll own up to stuff if people can get into an honest Q and A w/ the individual. In a lot of ways, it was sort of a joke really. I highly doubt he would. I did the same thing for Matt T. when he came on the platform.
Thanks for asking about the purpose of the account. The premise of the account is so people can have a designated area to run an AMA just like reddit. They can still answer questions using their main account on SteemIt. It's more a way to help promote it to and have a schedule around future AMA's with interesting people. Most of the time ( this was the true intention of the account )it was for people who don't have a SteemIt account can do an AMA if the person is interesting. I give them the posting key and they get a chance to give SteemIt a spin . We haven't had that yet , but soon. Thanks for the questions.
Whoo. hopefully it all comes back. I only put 30sbd in, so it's more the principle of it than money for me
Albertus de Saad, master commenter here, bringing you another life story from The Cult.
There was once a little puppy. Cutest thing youve ever seen. I fed him ground mince twice a day and he grew strong. But he kept shitting on my carpet. Id try to teach him to stop doing it, and he'd listen for a week. And then... shit on my carpet again. Eventually my entire palace started smelling like shit. It got so bad that the local peasants started calling it the shit palace. Anyway, long story short. I fed the mungrel to the peasants, they slept with a full belly (pun, hehe) and now my palace doesn't smell like shit anymore.
So @zeartul, i guess what im saying is that you shouldnt be like that puppy, because the peasants WILL eat you. Pay back the money and let's be done with this scammy behaviour.
Yours truly.
Donald Trump.
Please accept my condolences Neo
Thank you for this post @neoxian - I'm one of the victims. I lost 150 SBD which may seem to be not much, but for me it is ;/ I still hope that this is only a sad joke...
@zeartul is shit!
Greedy little shit! Man if I ever go @whale mode, Ill hunt his ass down and take him to Vegas desert... Taking peoples money will get you killed around here! Damn, 45% was weird to me... So he does not have any of my money... Still the most shitty move in a while!
HOPE EVERYONE GETS THEIR BACK!
Congrats for being smarter than I was.
We win or we learn... I stopped hosting the #bellyrubchallenge cuz he was never on point when he needed to send the funds... So I was kinda in the red but nothing major... Still, @zeartul F%&K YOU!
!
Too bad I cant pull out our convo on Discord.... You obligated yourself, and dont try making me look like a lair... You stopped replying me after sometime... I still did not get 2.227 SBD for my bid from +1 month ago... I am not the one scamming people!
You praised the bellyrub bank and how should I invest and stuff...
Now were here...
!
Fuck you moron, we agreed on weekly payments...
I made you more promo and witness votes that now I regret! 50SBD a week was the price tag and I had 30SBD in prizes ---> bellyrub votes.... Making you money again!
See how greedy you are dumb dumb?
Obv you could NOT pay as your shit person
i thought he was your friend
Absolutely insane, what a damn shame. Thank you for the warning. Really hoping that steemit starts thinking of the impact that this can have on the community and how it negatively impacts all of us.
I am depositor of @bellyrubbank. Any one can help me? Thank you for this post. Im looking for return of my sbd. On that time it almost equivalent to my 1 month posting on steemit "my 25 SBD to @bellyrubbank" thank you!
This shows a lot of character on your part, bro, for admitting your responsibility for promoting him. Integrity is worth more than STEEM any day. Good on you @neoxian.
Everyone will bounce back and when STEEM takes its parabolic rise to the top we will all look back on this and be glad we stuck it out.
45% interest is just the mode to attract customers
Well so I had already know that I had also seen someone as a post about it well it's a great informative post for all that will help them to say their money from such scam boats.
Glad I'm not involved in all this "shit" ^^ I would give the guy a chance and wait what we does before judging him though...
Thank you for the info/heads up :) im sorry to hear you hade troubles :(
This subject is not my ballpark.. he he ;0
& i wish to say thank you for your support╰დ╮❤╭დ╯
@neoxian - Sir he got around 1 Million Steem in his accounts.... Those are a huge number :O It's a shame they started scamming innocents.... Nice you decided to share this news Sir....
To get more audience, I wish to ReSteem your post.
+W+ [UpVoted & ReSteemed]
In the words of dang007, it's a scam...
https://steemit.com/@dang007/comments
Sad to hear bad witness behavior. Thanks for update shit information.
So sorry for the hear about bad news. I was totally disappointed after hear this bad witness news. Keeping touch. Thank you for update @neoxian.
Disappointing. Thanks for the share information @neoxian.
Thank for this information @neoxian
thank you very much yes it's scam bots i send 10 SBD for upvote @bellyrub but i dont recive upvote
I asked him once how is he able to pay 45%APR and he was mad at me for asking. Then I looked at the bellyrub upvote scam. It all makes sense. I guess I can kiss my steem goodbye.
He got mad at you for asking 45% but u still send it in?
Well he explained how he was making a ton through bellyrub and had the means. I bought the story.
https://steemit.com/bellyrub/@xyzashu/some-lessons-from-bellyrub-scam#@dang007/re-xyzashu-some-lessons-from-bellyrub-scam-20171129t031235157z
so sorry to hear about it
it feels bad to have scammers even here at steem it,
I am resteeming this
Business and politics become very cruel, if it is like this, what can be done by Steemians who use his services, hopefully there is a reply and explanation about this.
He is on the run .
Why send 4000 steems out of the system? Via Poloniex
He have debts to pay.
@bullionstackers yes, this is very cruel in the business, it should not need like this.
Shit will always be shit, thats why...
I am only out 1SBD with @bellyrub and only used his service a few times. Thanks for this update and now I know why I never received a credit although I did ask several times. Resteeming!
@neoxian,
That would be a great thing to raise an alert against his work! Yeah I have noted his work few months back! After reading your posts I have decided to use his upvote service and few time i sent $1 to them and got $0.8 worth upvotes! I have questioned it and they got kind of nice answer that I didn't understand!
You know I have no such SP to fight against that crime and if I do, we all know the outcome! So, I stopped using his f*cking upvote service! Seriously I hate people who show like they act genuine, but they are not doing things in genuine!
You can do nothing! I know you from the very first day in Steemit and trusting you and know how you are doing things! So, those are good lessons for all of us! And don't worry about your SP! I know it's huge, but sometimes we can use it in great purposes! Anyway glad you decide to share this fair warning!
Cheers~
That is really shameful behaviour and people will now be afraid to use any such service. Why people turn out to be bad in the end, steemit can take us to very long if we are genuine to it.
disappointed. never like him so much.
I think at first he was making an insane amount of money with the bot and it was very profitable for him. When the Bot Trackers came out it made it much less profitable maybe even not worth it. It is crazy how fast things come tumbling down.
!
Thanks for posting this! I sent you a message on chat bro FYI!
Sad to see this witness behavior...
Thanks my friend for the useful information
@zeartul @bellyrub I am owed "just" 1 SBD but I still want a refund.
destroyed already bellyrubbank
@zeartul
Come on and pay me my needed funds now.
!
I hope so.....i just want my 400 steem back. No need to worry about any additional amount just the 400 asap! Pmease this is a lot of money to me and you promised me as a newbie that you would be trustworthy
I'm glad to hear it. I'll modify this post to reflect the new update.
He lied about selling @bellyrub. The money going to Poloniex is going to his pocket, the evidence is the fact that he is continuing to lie about the facts.
Funds wouldn't be going to the same Poloniex account if they belonged to different people.
!
The story keeps changing, so now he controls the @zeartul account too, the one that you're posting with...
!
" thats dang sending the liquid funds"
Mental slip? "Dang sending the funds", or "I sent the funds to Dang's account"? You can't simultaneously claim to be sending it to an exchange to get a better rate while also claiming that it's someone else sending the funds to their account.
He started a power down to "pay you back" just before withdrawing over 4000 Steem to Poloniex.
!
That was liquid Steem transferred to Poloniex. Who have you paid back with the money you transferred to Poloniex 12 hours ago?
I lost 5sbd to this fraud, I feel sorry for cryptopie who lost 1000 steem, but hey, I am sure he will pay everyone back, as soon as he has finished trading off all his steem...
He keeps telling everyone that he will pay back, but actions of a liar and thief tell otherwise.
Chance to prove us all wrong, grow a conscience, and pay back what you owe, your soul depends upon it...
I am happy to hear you say that.