[HN Gopher] South African Brothers Vanish, and So Does $3.6B in ...
___________________________________________________________________
South African Brothers Vanish, and So Does $3.6B in Bitcoin Exit
Scam
Author : Aissen
Score : 151 points
Date : 2021-06-23 16:00 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
| phantom_oracle wrote:
| South Africa is a small economy relative to US, EU(block) or
| China and has large income disparity(small, very wealthy
| upper/middle class).
|
| $3.6B = ZAR51.17B (xe.com). That seems like a lot of savings for
| the small upper/middle class.
|
| The name of the crypto company "afri" suggests it might have
| targeted the African market as a whole.
|
| Can any Africans/South Africans explain how ZAR51.17B of savings
| accumulated in this crypto company(or scam)?
|
| Is it like Madoff who conned rich people or did these guys manage
| to reach pensioners and steal their money too?
| valas wrote:
| $3.6B is at peak valuation. The actual contributions maybe much
| lower?
| jonathanlydall wrote:
| South African here, I'm also wondering how they acquired so
| much Bitcoin.
|
| The figure is slightly inflated as it's the value at Bitcoin's
| high earlier this year, but it's still a lot.
|
| My theory is lots of international customers as I don't see our
| market being big enough, thumb sucking, but I reckon 2/3 of our
| country earns less than 500USD a month. Maybe their customers
| are from other African countries, but it feels unlikely to be
| enough.
|
| Perhaps they had some "whale" clientele from several different
| countries.
|
| I wouldn't personally think the "Afri" in their name is
| particularly meaningful, it's just a naming thing, but maybe
| some people treat it differently.
| miohtama wrote:
| A lot of might be money laundering from existing crimes,
| because of weak compliance controls in exchanges and
| countries like SA.
|
| Heck, the kleptocratic president and his party was robbing
| the country for a better decade.
| miohtama wrote:
| A pyramid scheme in Albania caused a civil war. You do not need
| crypto for it. Just greed and lack of education.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_Civil_War
| joshuahedlund wrote:
| > The name of the crypto company "afri" suggests it might have
| targeted the African market as a whole.
|
| Need someone with context knowledge, but I suppose the name
| suggests it could also have been targeting Afrikaners in South
| Africa (ex. "AfriForum"[0])
|
| [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AfriForum
| jonathanlydall wrote:
| South African here and although not culturally Afrikaans (I
| only really know English), I wouldn't see "Afri" targeting
| them specifically.
|
| If anything it associates it with Africa and Afrikaaners
| (like most people of European descent here) identify more as
| European residents of South Africa, rather than as African.
| To make clear, Caucasians here will refer to themselves as
| South African, but not as just African. If someone on the
| internet told me they were African, (and not in a bad way) I
| would assume they are of dark colour.
| Beehivewax wrote:
| With a population of approximately 60 million people that's an
| average of R850 (approx. $60) per person in SA at the current
| exchange rate. Obviously only a small fraction of the
| population are going to have invested. Even if I guess an
| improbably high number of 1 million investors the losses are
| R51000 per person (around $3600). That's more than a month's
| salary even for those just inside the top 1%, since it only
| takes $3500 per month to be in the top 1% of earners in SA [1].
|
| [1] https://www.goodthingsguy.com/opinion/perspective-salary-
| sou...
| swayson wrote:
| "Not your token, not your coin"
| holstvoogd wrote:
| About as useful a take as 'dont click on phishing links'
| Havoc wrote:
| Slightly more actionable though
| Animats wrote:
| They were apparently offering 10% _per day_ returns. What could
| possibly go wrong?
| agumonkey wrote:
| strangely enough, there was a similar bust happening in France
| last week (RRcrypto)
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| Sounds like it was a Ponzi scheme combined with an exit scam.
|
| That combination was sort of inevitable.
| FabHK wrote:
| It boggles my mind that people don't become a tad skeptical
| upon seeing such claims.
| miohtama wrote:
| Greed and lack of education.
| vmception wrote:
| Because there are many fully collateralized products in the
| crypto space that offer those kind of returns.
|
| There are many custodial solutions that offer access to those
| products
|
| Many people have no clue about the difference between
| custodial and noncustodial solutions
|
| And even if they are aware, it then becomes impossible to
| discern which custodial solution is more legitimate or has
| more assurances of security
| torcete wrote:
| Any recommendation of a bitcoin wallet for a Chromebook?
|
| Somebody close to me put some money on bitcoins. I told him to
| get a wallet and move the coins to the wallet where he is in
| control of they keys. This person only has a Chromebook as a
| computer.
|
| Does anybody have any recommendations of a software wallet for a
| Chromebook?
| [deleted]
| krobbn wrote:
| Something like a Trezor, https://trezor.io/ , or Nano Ledger
| https://www.ledger.com/ are relatively inexpensive things to
| let you have control over your own keys.
| fastball wrote:
| I just bought a Ledger Nano X after being out of the crypto
| game for a while and I like it a lot so far. Very nice that
| it's able to communicate with my phone over bluetooth and so
| don't have to plug it in every time like with the Ledger Nano
| S.
| azinman2 wrote:
| I wonder if in the history of banking the first banks had this
| much fraud with normal currency? Or is this just specific to
| Bitcoin? It feels like the stats now are just where by default
| everything with Bitcoin is (eventually) fraudulent and honest
| services are the exception.
| marc__1 wrote:
| you don't need to go that far back in time to find banking
| issues basically in every major geography, with different kinds
| of currencies, digital or not.
|
| Case in point:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danske_Bank_money_laundering_s...
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/21/europe/vatican-bank-money-lau...
|
| https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/bank-julius-baer-agrees-pay-m...
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| Money laundering is a different kind of a problem from what
| we're talking about here, though. Those are mostly KYC or
| internal controls failures - I'm not saying they're a _good
| thing_ but they 're not impacting other customers of the bank
| really.
|
| Find some recent example of the owners of a bank/exchange
| absconding with their client funds: that would be closer to
| the matter at hand.
| FabHK wrote:
| Last example of a bank failure where ordinary people lost a
| lot of money I'd say was the failure of Lehman Brothers.
| Lots of risk averse retail investors were sold Lehman
| certificates with somewhat better yields ("mini-bonds")
| because Lehman paid high commissions to the retail banks,
| eg in Germany and Hong Kong.
| hectormalot wrote:
| Wirecard :)
|
| But you're right. Mostly the normal banks and exchanges are
| regulated and incidence of fraud is low. A lot of that
| regulation is "lessons from past failures", which crypto
| hasn't had yet.
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| Wirecard wasn't a bank/exchange either. But a payment
| processor. It was fraudulent though.
| tedunangst wrote:
| Reinventing modern finance one disaster at a time.
| agumonkey wrote:
| seems like wheel shaped things enjoy regular reinventions
| acdha wrote:
| I think it's more that the problem can seem deceptively
| simple because you're using the default system everyone's
| assumptions are based on and you don't need to understand
| the history behind it to have the basic banking experience.
| The average cryptocurrency booster hasn't studied the
| current system or its history[1] so it's easy to focus on
| the happy path and say you're making things easier until
| you hit a reminder of just how hard it is to stymie abusers
| when the rewards are high.
|
| 1. education from their fellow salespeople is typically
| worse, like getting medical advice from a health-supplement
| vendor.
| api wrote:
| "Speed running the last 200 years of financial history..."
| ska wrote:
| There is a great word for this "recapitulation".
| nerfhammer wrote:
| The US has had periods where banks or even corporations could
| print their own money.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildcat_banking
|
| It wasn't fiat money, they were deposit notes representing gold
| or silver. And while outright fraud wasn't much of an issue
| since physical banks can't just disappear and leave town
| overnight, if the bank collapsed the currency would probably
| not be redeemable anymore.
| jsrcout wrote:
| George Byron Merrick's book Old Times on the Upper
| Mississippi: The Recollections of a Steamboat Pilot from 1854
| to 1863 [0] has a fascinating chapter on how people got rich
| on wildcat banking swindles.
|
| [0] https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/47262
| slowhand09 wrote:
| Nevada, New Hampshire, and Utah have gold notes that are
| legal tender now.
|
| https://www.jmbullion.com/gold/gold-notes/
|
| https://www.jmbullion.com/1-nevada-goldback-gold-note/
| manquer wrote:
| Fraud was high.
|
| It was not fraud by the institutions as such, but
| counterfeits was a big problem with as many as 7000 unique
| notes it was next to impossible to know which was genuine.
|
| Post the civil war as much as half the currency was estimated
| to be counterfeit. The secret service was given the policing
| money task as a direct result.
|
| There was streamlining of currency issue after that.
| doggodaddo78 wrote:
| I think hard currencies took care of trust about intrinsic
| value. It's only the establishment of rule-of-law and
| regulations allowed fiat currencies to proliferate. Regulations
| were written in the tears, fears, and anger of common folk.
| There's essentially no way to trust someone else with a BTC
| wallet and there's no trust in BTC's value because there's
| nothing behind it... it shouldn't be used to store value long-
| term, only for quick, transactional events.
|
| Banks and municipalities who issued their own fiat currencies I
| believe encountered many more problems.
| prepend wrote:
| I'd like to know this as well. I suspect there's more because
| now the entire contents of the vault can fit onto a slip of
| paper. So just logistically can be moved around more than
| previous bank eras.
| makomk wrote:
| Even in the modern era there's a lot of fraud and scamming
| going on. This sounds like a classic Ponzi scheme, and Bitcoin-
| based Ponzis are just one corner of a broader universe of
| similar scams all across the globe. They've even brought down
| governments and the odd country...
| an_opabinia wrote:
| What if the exit scams happening today in China are 10x worse
| than South Africa's, because it's so much bigger, but we aren't
| hearing about them? Never mind history.
| moneywoes wrote:
| Any examples?
| rchaud wrote:
| Deposit insurance is a relatively new concept, at least in
| North America. It didn't exist in the US until the Great
| Depression. Canada did not introduce it until 1967.
|
| A lot of what's happening in the crypto space is just self-
| professed libertarians re-discovering fire. They start off by
| being skeptical of banks and monetary authorities, but
| eventually realize that an unregulated free-for-all attracts
| bad actors that ruin it for everyone else. Hence the wet
| blanket of AML + KYC + Deposit ratios.
| vmception wrote:
| Probably a great time to introduce you to ACH fraud
|
| https://www.afponline.org/publications-data-tools/reports/su...
|
| Its just as large and just as consequence free as
| bitcoin/crypto heists and fraud despite the paper trail
|
| Some reinforce their respect of one system by looking at the
| proportions of the money supply and transactions, I would say
| that isnt that important as the industry / interest in fraud
| has a fixed size
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| No, it isn't.
|
| ACH fraud was 1% on 21 billion$. That's 210 million in total,
| way less than the 4 billion from the article with 1 Bitcoin
| scam ( of an exchange, again).
|
| None of the ACH frauds were the exchange/bank running away
| with your money fyi.
|
| And probably a lot of them, if end users, was even insured.
|
| Edit: Sorry. Made a mistake corrected below by a comment and
| follow-up.
|
| 0,08% fraud on 51 T. Is still way less than this sole scam
| vs. BTC market cap.
| sokoloff wrote:
| > ACH fraud was 1% on 21 billion$
|
| 21 Billion per year is close to the annual ACH transaction
| volume measured in _count of transactions_.
|
| The total value of those transactions in dollars is
| somewhere over $50T (Trillion) dollars.
|
| 1% of _that_ is $500B.
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| Mmm. Where did you see those numbers? I haven't found
| that number.
|
| + The number i found for fraud in ACH afterwards was
| actually 0,08 %
|
| > ACH fraud is extremely low at 0.08 basis points, or 8
| cents for every $10,000 in payments
|
| https://silamoney.com/ach/understanding-the-basics-of-
| ach-fr...
| sokoloff wrote:
| https://www.nacha.org/news/ach-network-moves-23-billion-
| paym... is where I got the data on total volume.
|
| I took the 1% from you, assuming you got it from
| somewhere reliable or at least that you believed in it.
| (I looked for it in the report summary; I didn't find it;
| I assumed you got it from the full report, which I don't
| have access to.)
|
| If the correct figure is 0.08%, that's almost $41B on
| $51T (more now, as the network volume continues to grow).
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| Sure. Thanks for correcting me and sorry for the
| inconsistent number at first. It wasn't easy to find
| numbers since most just retold the original mentioned
| article without absolute numbers.
|
| But the entire fraud /year is way less percentage then
| this sole scam from the entire Bitcoin market cap valued
| against its peak.
|
| So his comment is actually a net positive for traditional
| payments ( even if you neglect insurance, ... )
| FabHK wrote:
| FWIW, 0.08 basis points = 0.0008% = 0.000008 = 8 in a
| million = 8 cents in a million cents = 8 cents in
| 10,000$, as the article says. (0.08% would be 100x more.)
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| No, 0,08%
|
| One one-hundredth (.01) of a percentage point. For
| example, eight percent is equal to 800 basis points.
|
| https://www.investor.gov/introduction-
| investing/investing-ba....
| vmception wrote:
| The perpetrators are often not prosecuted, which is what I
| meant by consequence free.
|
| ACH Fraud has also been going on for at least 20 years or
| so in similar amounts
|
| Yes big bitcoin heist and no insurance for those victims of
| that exchange
|
| Both true
| dragontamer wrote:
| There's a reason why the middle ages had a huge number of
| coins. A mint could be trustworthy for a generation as some
| Noble family takes care of it with high degrees of trust.
| (Usually proven amounts of silver in each coin, for example)
|
| Then the wrong child becomes the leader of the family and and
| bam, they start reducing the silver weight and replacing the
| coins with cheaper metals and the entire trust in that coin
| disappears.
|
| And that ignores issues like the Conquistadors coming back from
| the new world with literally tons of gold / silver and royally
| messing up the gold / silver coinage economy.
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| >>Then the wrong child becomes the leader of the family and
| and bam, they start reducing the silver weight and replacing
| the coins with cheaper metals and the entire trust in that
| coin disappears.
|
| //
|
| That's actually a plot point in an anime called Spice and
| Wolf[1]. I encourage anybody who has an interest in medieval
| economics and early capitalism to watch it.
|
| [1]https://myanimelist.net/anime/2966/Ookami_to_Koushinryou
| dragontamer wrote:
| A lot of my historian friends liked that show, especially
| because it tried to focus more on the mundane issues in the
| Middle Ages.
|
| Mr. Lawrence had a leg up on his rivals because he's the
| main character with practically a modern economics degree.
| So his ability to predict market trends and focus on
| important information is head-and-shoulders above everyone
| else.
|
| Holo the Wise Wolf in contrast, is a minor, fictional pagan
| deity without much understanding of human culture. But her
| sharp wits gives her a lot of street smarts that stands
| above even Mr. Lawrence. It seems that she can control the
| yields of wheat fields to a certain degree, but since the
| recent invention of crop rotation and some fertilizers, her
| followers were no longer praying to her (and probably don't
| need her anymore). So she heads off with Mr. Lawrence (the
| first merchant to swing by after she decided to leave).
|
| Holo serves as a good stand in for the audience as well: as
| Mr. Lawrence holds roughly 15+ different coins out and
| describes their relevant marketplaces, Holo of course gets
| bored of the discussion (much like the audience probably
| does).
|
| Giving Mr. Lawrence "knowledge", while giving Holo "wisdom"
| allows the pair to balance each other out in their
| journeys. Especially since the basic plot of the show is
| "follow rumors to make money". Holo can accurately sniff
| out the truth out of rumors, while Lawrence can predict
| where the markets go once he's given the facts.
|
| EDIT: In many ways, Holo serves as Watson while Lawrence
| serves as Sherlock in most situations. Lawrence explains
| the plans to make lots of money to Holo (much like Sherlock
| explains the situation to Watson, since Watson is the
| audience stand-in). But unlike Watson, Holo quickly catches
| onto the money-making game and is quite capable to changing
| the plan for the better. So its actually a very fun dynamic
| to watch the two. Just enough explanation from Lawrence,
| and just enough improv from Holo to keep things
| interesting, even though they're just buying and selling
| things throughout the show.
| thesausageking wrote:
| Much more fraud is committed using US Dollars than Bitcoin.
| It's just not news so you don't read about.
| sam_bristow wrote:
| A lot more non-fraud is done with USD too though.
| shkkmo wrote:
| https://xkcd.com/2476/
| [deleted]
| ffhhj wrote:
| > Nothing is known about Diogenes' early life except that his
| father, Hicesias, was a banker. > Hicesias and Diogenes became
| involved in a scandal involving the adulteration or debasement
| of the currency,[10] and Diogenes was exiled from the city and
| lost his citizenship and all his material possessions.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diogenes
| cowvin wrote:
| I mean a currency that protects you from government
| intervention also protects criminals from law enforcement.
| They're just two sides of the same coin.
|
| The first banks would have dealt mostly with physical money /
| gold, so it would be a lot harder to pull off this kind of
| fraud.
| colonwqbang wrote:
| Why? Just take the gold and run. Bank robbery was a thing,
| and it's much easier to rob your own bank.
| anonyxyz wrote:
| This still happened as recently as 100 years ago. Con men would
| set up false banks in small towns and make off with a lotnof
| money. Lookup Yellow Kid Weil.
| azinman2 wrote:
| So what changed? I'm not concerned with any current bank
| making off with my money (although I'm more concerned with
| risky practices leading to them to go under, which is legal
| and as 2008 proved, the tax payer will absorb).
| [deleted]
| saalweachter wrote:
| I wonder how many bank robberies were scams.
|
| Bank owner embezzles for awhile, bank robber shows up,
| publicly robs the bank, makes off with $1000, bank owner
| claims $10,000 was stolen. Bank owner now has a reason why he
| can't give everyone their money back.
| throw7 wrote:
| Can tumblers and mixers -- or to other large pools of bitcoin --
| actually make bitcoins essentially untraceable?
|
| That doesn't make any sense to me if bitcoin is truly a trustable
| public ledger.
| acdha wrote:
| It's a question of how much effort someone wants to put in and
| how much information they can gather: you can trace all of the
| transactions in and out, and you can try to get information the
| operators or other parties involved. Since the goal of the
| crooks is to spend that money, simply looking at high volumes
| going from tumblers to exchanges would make it hard to conceal
| that much money unless they're willing to sit on it for a long
| time.
|
| Someone laundering a small amount of money probably won't get
| that much effort but $3.6B is a much harder problem because
| it's an unusually amount of money to launder and it's enough to
| get law enforcement involved. It's not inconceivable to image
| _everyone_ receiving bitcoin traceable back to the tumbler
| being asked to prove that they weren't involved. That factor
| limits the total volume going through a tumbler and increases
| the cost since everyone using it is risking being targeted as
| an accessory.
| cwkoss wrote:
| I've liked Bitcoin for a while now, but have always found
| tumblers scary.
|
| Seems like many users are tumbling their personal-use-
| quantity drug bitcoins for bitcoins from crimes with much
| more LEO/regulatory oversight - like money laundering (and
| increasingly ransomware).
|
| I wonder how many people have gotten a knock on the door by
| the Secret Service and found their risk mitigation strategy
| actually painted a bigger target on their backs.
| acdha wrote:
| I think of it as basically the same problem as running a
| Tor exit node: you're basically taking on the risk of
| whoever committed the greatest crime using that system,
| with the knowledge that the more successful you are at
| making the service work the more likely it is that someone
| sketchy is going to send traffic your way because it's
| cheaper / more reliable than the alternatives.
|
| Even if you love the concept and want to see it succeed,
| that's a big deterrent unless you love litigation and are
| confident that it won't be a SWAT raid.
| bdcravens wrote:
| You can trace transactions in and out to addresses, but with
| enough inputs and outputs, connecting the same actor becomes a
| very hard problem.
| dreyfan wrote:
| props to Elon and Kimball for running the ultimate long con
| aaroninsf wrote:
| Who could have possibly have guessed that an unregulated dark-
| money scam would turn out to be a poor get rich scheme?
|
| Teasing 20K by the weekend...
| Havoc wrote:
| It's questionable whether all of it is South African money. Not
| sure whether this pay walled article mentions it but there is
| suspicion of it being a money laundering op. The scale just
| doesn't make sense for straight SA retail money
| bserge wrote:
| Jesus Christ, all the popups and ads make this website an
| unreadable mess on mobile.
|
| Literally the dream of the evil execs in Ready Player One, "75%
| screen coverage for ads before inducing epilepsy".
| chx wrote:
| https://archive.is/MCdnL for a more readable version.
| jessaustin wrote:
| Please, improve your life:
|
| https://ublockorigin.com/
|
| That isn't helpful on _mobile_ Chrome, but that 's why I only
| use Firefox on mobile.
| bserge wrote:
| Ha... I stopped using Firefox because the design is honestly
| unusable for me. But yeah, the addons were great.
| jhloa2 wrote:
| I assume he's on IOS which does not support uBlock.
| azinman2 wrote:
| But it's supported content blockers for a while now, which
| is very similar yet more performant and privacy preserving.
| Xavdidtheshadow wrote:
| Not uBlock specifically, but there's a robust content
| blocking system there. AdGuard is a pretty good one!
| doggodaddo78 wrote:
| I wonder if this could change soon with Mobile Safari
| extensions in iOS 15.
| ornornor wrote:
| Nextdns is your ticket then. Haven't seen an ad in ages on
| my iPhone.
| jessaustin wrote:
| I hear great things about IOS, but whenever I've tried to
| help my father use his iPhone I have been astounded by how
| terrible every aspect of it really is. Clearly I am doing
| something wrong.
| fungiblecog wrote:
| No, you're not. To non-fanboys iOS is the most painful
| experience.
| doggodaddo78 wrote:
| What's terrible about it?
|
| Is it an old phone that hasn't been updated in years or a
| recent one?
| jessaustin wrote:
| It's fairly recent. He bought it because an audiologist
| thought (mistakenly) that it was required for a new
| hearing aid. I know that I can't expect all the useful
| standardized gestures of Android to work, but this iPhone
| seems to have no gestures at all. The only way we've
| figured out to reach the settings (hearing aids seem to
| constantly require fiddling with settings, but that's
| because hearing aid manufacturers don't value software
| and it's not the fault of IOS) is finding the one
| settings icon on the several pages stuffed full of icons.
| Then one is faced with a list of about 75 items, and you
| have to remember which item has the subitem you're
| looking for. Everything I need to change on Android
| settings is a pull-down from the top, and one or two more
| clicks. If one needs to go back to an earlier menu, there
| is a "< back to" link somewhere on the page, but it's
| tiny, always in a slightly different spot, and on Android
| there is always a large button for that purpose at the
| very bottom of the screen.
|
| I'm braving the onslaught of HN downvotes because I
| really hope that someone will suggest a solution to my
| problem. I really want to help my father use his iPhone.
| synackrst wrote:
| There are a few things you can try -- hopefully one of
| these helps. It's definitely less intuitive than is
| ideal.
|
| If you're on any of the Home Screens (icons), you can
| swipe down in the middle of the screen to pull up Search,
| which you can use to more quickly get to settings rather
| than trying to scroll though apps to find it.
| Alternatively, you can put the Settings icon in the "app
| tray" that's on every Home Screen, rather than whatever
| the defaults are.
|
| Settings also has a semi-hidden search mode, which you
| can get to if you swipe down in Settings (scroll all the
| way to the top).
|
| Finally, "Control Center" has a Hearing control you can
| add -- I'm not sure if this integrates with the hearing
| aids, but it might let you have a much faster way to get
| to the specific settings if that's compatible.
| doggodaddo78 wrote:
| Yes, there are many accessibility features. Turning off
| slow, excessive animations is a big first step.
| Miraste wrote:
| iOS has gotten less intuitive over the years. It can do
| everything you're having trouble with, though. There's a
| quick settings menu that's pretty similar to the one in
| Android. You can get to it by pulling down from the top
| right corner of the screen. It's customizable with
| whatever settings you want [0]. There are a few other
| gestures; you might find this page helpful [1].
|
| The back buttons should always be in the top left when
| they're available. There is also a gesture; you can swipe
| in from the left side of the screen to go back. There's
| an accessibility setting to make the buttons underlined,
| too [2].
|
| [0] https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/use-and-
| customize-con...
|
| [1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208204
|
| [2] https://9to5mac.com/2018/05/25/how-to-go-back-on-
| iphone/
| doggodaddo78 wrote:
| I would say it's the lack of SJ with a bean counter in-
| charge are leading to slacking .
|
| Product coolness, usability, reliability, value, and
| customer service have all fallen off a cliff in the
| search for more money.
| jackkkk wrote:
| If you know exactly what settings you need to access,
| pull down from the top on your home screen and search for
| that setting. No need to remember a series of steps.
|
| I'm guessing since it's a hearing device, it should be a
| simple pull down and search for "MFi hearing device" or
| "Hearing Devices" which will instantly take you to that
| settings.
|
| That said, learning how to find the exact settings the
| first time around is going to require a learning curve.
| Cipater wrote:
| My bosses at work are all old folks who use iPhones and
| they always come to me for help with this and that.
|
| Their problems always boil down to the fact that all app
| settings can only be accessed by going into the system
| settings, scrolling through all of them to find the app
| you want and taking it from there. To make it worse,
| sometimes an app setting will be hidden away under
| another nested system setting and there's no way to know
| this without googling.
|
| So frustrating. I see the "user friendliness" of IOS
| touted all the time but IMO, functionality is so well
| hidden from the user that they end up accepting and
| settling for Apple defaults.
|
| The only advise I can give you is to teach your father
| how to use google to find out how to do stuff on his
| phone when he gets stuck.
| doggodaddo78 wrote:
| > My bosses at work are all old folks
|
| Ageism isn't cool, bud.
| fencepost wrote:
| I've never used this (little need), but a search for "ios
| shortcut to settings" turns up a howtogeek article on how
| to use MacStories' list of preference URLs to create an
| ios shortcut directly to many areas of settings. May make
| for a simple quality of life improvement.
|
| Edit: this does not appear to be as simple as I'd hope on
| ios 14.
|
| Edit2: it is that simple if you follow the directions
| (set URL) Then second step (open URL) instead of winging
| it like a 1337 programmy dude.
| fungiblecog wrote:
| There are two types of iPhone users. Fanboys and those
| thinking of moving to Android.
| mindslight wrote:
| I think it's the same thing as people who say that Amazon
| has low prices. They have no objective basis for
| judgement, and are just repeating what they've heard.
| benrapscallion wrote:
| Any time I want to read something on Bloomberg.com, I first
| send it to Instapaper. It's almost an instinct now.
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| It is ironic that you can use your money electronically without a
| middle man with cryptocurrency, but people choose to leave it
| with a middle man regardless.
| shuntress wrote:
| Even if it was viable to use bitcoin as a currency, I would
| still want to leave most of mine with a bank.
| rytcio wrote:
| The point is that you don't need a bank/exchange/middleman
| with bitcoin. You just need the wallet key and password.
| Bitcoin can be stored on a post-it note.
| rchaud wrote:
| Not ironic, because nobody that has serious money in BTC cares
| about using it as a currency. It's a get-rich-quick scheme for
| regular people, and a way to launder money for everybody else.
| In both cases, you need a middleman.
| cbm-vic-20 wrote:
| That's because nobody treats it as a currency, but as a
| speculative commodity.
| mdoms wrote:
| 1. No one uses it as money. No one (within margin of error).
|
| 2. Bitcoin is very confusing and hard to learn about. But
| buying from an exchange makes it easy for normal people.
| [deleted]
| doggodaddo78 wrote:
| Hey everybody, use my new bitcoin exchange! I'm based in...
| Bulgaria and absolutely not the Caribbean with a margarita and
| twin models.
|
| Deposit your BTC for safekeeping today!
| SunshineReggae wrote:
| Every time that I read a story like this I am always wondering:
| how come the people doing exit scams (suppose it is one) aren't
| more afraid of the repercussions.
|
| Given Bitcoins track record, it wouldn't surprise me if some of
| the funds would belong to quite questionable characters, so you
| are basically stealing money from organized crime groups.
|
| It is obvious that you can buy some protection with $3.6B,
| however your face and name is publicly known, meaning that you
| will be on the run for the rest of your life or possibly face a
| very gruesome death.
|
| Is that really worth it?
| rightbyte wrote:
| Ye it is hard to grasp. I mean if they can get a 1% fee it is
| still 36 million USD and they would not have to hide from
| mobsters.
| miohtama wrote:
| You are correct and gruesome deaths happen, like with OneCoin.
| The ponzi queen, however, is gone and "no one" know if she is
| dead or managed to disappear alive.
|
| https://www.coindesk.com/promoters-of-crypto-ponzi-scheme-on...
| vmception wrote:
| The simple answer is that they can affect the change that they
| are interested in, with that money now. Instead of imagining
| for their whole lives.
|
| Basically, life isnt worth living poor, or the current state of
| the world isnt worth being unable to change. Death is more
| favorable than skimming table scraps.
|
| Although the luxury consumptive spending is a tiny portion of
| what is possible, and nobody can take those experiences away
| from you, the funds contributed to charities, political
| campaigns, and investments allow shaping the world as you see
| fit now.
|
| So thats the explanation, without justifying it. Despite recent
| attempts of making society seem more fair, this has always been
| the history of the world. Seize and lock in a millennium of
| control and favor for your family.
| moneywoes wrote:
| Not to mention South Africa as well
| Bombthecat wrote:
| Uhhh if they stole so much, they probably also stole from really
| rich guys who don't care if you live or die..
| Cipater wrote:
| _The first signs of trouble came in April, as Bitcoin was
| rocketing to a record. Africrypt Chief Operating Officer Ameer
| Cajee, the elder brother, informed clients that the company was
| the victim of a hack. He asked them not to report the incident to
| lawyers and authorities, as it would slow down the recovery
| process of the missing funds._
|
| and
|
| _While South Africa's Finance Sector Conduct Authority is also
| looking into Africrypt, it is currently prohibited from launching
| a formal investigation because crypto assets are not legally
| considered financial products, according to the regulator's head
| of enforcement, Brandon Topham. The police have not yet responded
| to a request for comment._
|
| $3.6B is 1% of South Africa's GDP. That's a lot of money.
| rchaud wrote:
| "$3.6 billion at its peak"
|
| Could be down 40% or more by now. GDP isn't nearly as volatile.
| treeman79 wrote:
| It's still a lot of money.
| YoungWeb wrote:
| It's only a matter of time until this hits the news cycle and the
| sell off ensues. Hopefully it won't because it's international
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