LibertyReserve - what the Internet is talking about?

World championship… Brightly lit stadium… Long-distance race… The leaders have gone ahead and actively fight with each other taking great pains. It’s impossible to have 2 leaders, two champions. Somebody will have to step back and give a place. E-commerce market is the same stadium. And not only on the e-commerce market but any other market in the world where the leaders struggle for the clients. It is a healthy competition.

Till recently the unquestionable leader on e-payment market was the creature of Dr. Jackson Douglas e-gold payment system. Having started its activity in far 19996 this payment system was the most experienced player with the largest client database. And it seemed to be forever. However, 10 years passed and the system got some problems with law. The younger runners that have got tired to be behind the leader and to occupy the second and the third places didn’t fail to use the opportunity. Comparatively young and ambitious payment system LibertyReserbe was one of those who thought that laurel wreath and a title of the winner will match it greatly. Being an unspoken leader on the investment market this processor felt great. However if for investment market anonymity and secrecy are normal things, for the world market of the online payments any mysteries and shady background are unacceptable.

Knowing this LibertyReserve decided to lift the veil of secrecy and tell the whole world who is who. Several weeks ago the company has updated its corporate section and listed those who “stand behind the company success”. In addition LibertyReserve has posted the photos of the office and specified the exact address in Costa-Rica. Also there was provided a history of the company starting from 2006 though the service had been launched much earlier. Even the lettering in the bottom of the site proves this fact «© 2002 — 2008 Liberty Reserve S.A. All rights reserved». Why you may ask? It appeared that the founder of LR has significant reasons to hide his past.

Being eager to mount the podium LibertyReserve has forgotten that with obtaining the honorable title it weirds itself to the a sharp look-out of world mass media and of many thousands of users who watch every move and learn the company’s history in details. Though it seems that system hasn’t taken great pains to conceal its traces and to hide its indecent history where the constant change of location is a fair thing. However, let’s start from the very beginning.

So, as we have already said LibertyReserve caring about its transparency and publicity has published the list of the company managers. However the Internet community is mistrustful and prefers to check every word and every letter. Having failed to find anything significant about neither Amed Mekovar, LR’s Corporate Director nor about Eric Paltz, Business Development Manager, the “opening minds of the Internet” have started their own investigation. And very soon all the forums started to discuss an artickle from the online encyclopedia about electronic payment systems (http://dgc.wetpaint.com/page/Liberty+Reserve/revision/59) where the authors revealed the truth and told the some facts from the private life of the company owners.

According to the interview with Planetgold.com the system was launched in 2002 indeed by some Arthur Budovsky, Ukrainian by birth. Budovsky was born and grown up in Kiev, then left for Germany with his parents and then went to the USA where he was acquainted with some Vladimir Kats, known also as Ragnar Danneskjöld, the owner of planetgold, which has interviewed Arthur Budovsky and s a matter of fact was promoting his business.

Basically there is nothing criminal that two young men have founded their own business and were working for the welfare of the people. But here is a question: for what people? The answer to this question was found by the US police and in July 2006 those two friends were charged with money laundering and operating an illegal money transmittal business and arrested. Together with them police has arrested such companies as GOLDAGE HOLDING INC., ECSN INC., EXECUTIVE COMMERCIAL SERVICES INC., INTERNETWORK MANAGEMENT INC., GGN INC., B TO B MARKETPLACE INC. и MGA INTERNATIONAL INC., owned by those two guys who were operating out of their Brooklyn apartments.

The young men have chosen the simplest way of operation. They have launched and developed one of the largest exchangers GoldAge.net, opened an offshore company in Panama and were conducting the cashless transactions through the accounts of that company.

Having created a site of their company the guys specified the following address: 2106 Bath Avenue, Suite #101, Brooklyn, NY 11214 USA, which appeared to be a Post Office Box. However they knew that the US government doesn’t like such a mess and decided to change their address to the one in Nevada to avoid any kind of prosecution. Later the location was changed to Nevis and then in Panama. In 2007 the whole contact information was removed from the site. Instead of the address the owners. The contact information has been trimmed down to just a contact form and a phone number: 917 331-9604, which “occasionally” appeared to have a New York City area. A short search with the web search engine have lead to the site of AboutUs.com where this phone number was specified as a contact one:
James Bell
+1 917-690-8126
PO Box 940538
Rockaway Park NY 11694 US

But who is James Bell and why does his company uses the phone provided to support LibertyReserve clients? The usual operation: Google search engine, key words and bingo! James Bell was found. Though here is an interesting fact. James Bell appeared to be the owner of Gold-Age.net, one of the companies of Budovsky-Kats tandem. By the way, the information came from the interview with the same Ragnar on the site of planetgold. Again PR…

In October 2007 the contact information was updated once more and here we see the address in Costa Rica we’ve accustomed to. In the same 2007 the owners of the system give various interviews in different resources however the names are quite different: Joul Lee and Eric Paltz. Here we should mention that Eric Paltz in that interview was introduced as the owner of the system, or being more specific, as its founder. On the undated corporate page Eric Paltz is presented as Business development manager. And there is no a single word about the founder of the system. Strange enough, isn’t it?

also we should note that the activity of Budovsky and Kats is not limited with the companies listed above. In addition to them the young men have launched a project named Global Digital Currency Association, which became an excellent tool to struggle with the competitors: a wave of a magic wand and the rating of the inconvenient rival fells down… However recently that project became unavailable that could be caused by the excessive attention to this project registered by the following address: 2106 Bath Avenue, Suite #101, Brooklyn, NY 11214 USA, the first address of LibertyReserve.

Also the public investigators have found a connection between Budovsky-Kats and such known exchangers as cambist and autocambist, proved by the following conversation found in the archives of Osdir. Some J Murray wrote:

“I recently contacted John Kyle of cambist.net in order to purchase e-gold. I received an email from John with instructions to make the payment out to "B-To-B MarketPlace Inc." and mail to:
B-to-B MarketPlace Inc
7400 Shore Front Pkwy #2E
Arverne, NY 11692
I mailed the money order USPS Prioirty Mail on 12/30/05 and it arrived on 1/3/05. Since then I have left voice messages and emailed John Kyle with no response. Has anyone here had dealings with cambist.net or B-To-B MarketPlace Inc?”

The message was answered by the notorious Ragnar and it is necessary to note that the reply was impertinent enough:
“So, how much are you paying to buy $22.00 worth of e-gold that you want a dedicated team of professionals waiting on you hand and foot?” and signature with the supported projects:
Ragnar
Gold Age - http://www.goldage.net
GDCA - http://www.gdcaonline.org
Shop anywhere with e-gold - http://www.goldstores.com
Liberty Impact - http://www.libertyimpact.com

Here we think all the comments are unnecessary.

Why does LibertyReserve that divides its live into the life before and after the arrest cannot refuse that past? May be it is dear to their hearts? They could simply change the name in order not to give a birth to various rumors and to start a new life. Was it difficult for the company that has changed so many locations?

Actually past is a past left far behind. Now we have our present. And what is our present now? A full collapse on the e-payment market reached due to the efforts of the US feds and numerous attempts of LibertyReserve to attract people’s attention. First it has announced the partnership with a law firm, then with McAfee Secure, provider of security technologies. In several days the system has posted in its blog an invitation for the exchangers to come to the company office to make contracts with the system. The invitation was followed by the news about coming update of the site content, then about the update of merchant directory… Why do the system does this you may ask? The answer is simple: to show up and to “prove” that they are common people and they work for the common people.

It is necessary to note that all those news appeared within one month, and it is very strange for the processor that was keeping mum for a long time and refusing any contacts with press. And not only with press. Updating the system the company forgets about the customer support service. according to the forum posts it is easier to knock on Heaven Door and get the God than to get LibertyReserve. And so many people try to do that…

Also lately more and more account holders started to complain that someone’s account was hacked or blocked by the system. Some problems with money transfers occurred, and not only with them but with the whole functionality of the site. DDoS attacks. More and more people started to complain of frequent phishing attacks and password stealing let alone the appearance of fake websites. People become more and more indignant however the system itself remains silent and shows its indifference to all the problems occurred. It is not a rare thing to see how people fling mud at the system on various forums, call it a scam based on ponzi… No respond from the system. If LR keeps this tactic it will very soon lose all its clients and to get the reputation of the most spited over and indifferent processor on the market. However, already today we can see the results. The company rating is falling inexorably fast.

Probably the system has issued all those news releases to up the rating and to return the lost positions.

We don’t want to overshadow the situation however one should admit that the situation is far from being ideal. No one can get rid off the past and it will always be a thorn in a side, and weight down like a stone. Charge of fraud and money laundering will be an indelible stot for the LR. It is like a charge of doping use for the sportsman: disqualification term is over however ill fame remains.

Nobody knows how long will the system run and what prize it will take. It is too early for us to draw any conclusions however for the “grey system” it is a high time. The situation is unpredictable. Probably LR will become a leader and will fill all the empty niches on the e-commerce market. And probably it will leave the track due to the lack of strength. Though the doping control committee presented with US government may also influence the situation. The situation with UK- based online payment processor Neteller proves that the hands of the US feds are long enough to reach even the companies beyond US jurisdiction. So, the offshore registration can also be an ineffective defense. Here is some food for thought…

Comments

save your future by saving your wealth physically best choice is gold bullion
Thanks for the great reading, we buy <a href="http://www.goldcoinsgain.com/gold-bullion-coins.html">gold bullion</a> in a recession. I will pass this on to our ira clients to read

http://www.eurogoldcash.com/

this is ragnars next scam currency

It simply mean that you never read the comments of your clients, go to this page and see the documents I give at this sweb site: http://libertyreserve-recovery.blogspot....
I have the original documents from an official institution (government inst). Do you believe me now!

I've worked days and days (20hours or more per day) on this problem happened at LR:I've obtained some results, but since that, I'm thinking what can I do with these very important and official infos? I don't know! Still thinking. Sometimes I tell myself why not publishing these infos? But when I remember that each one think also to himself, to make profit, to scam others (as it happened many times to me and none has helped me): I say, why must I publish these important infos?

Tell your opinion