The legitimacy of Bitcoin escrow platform BTC-ASIA.com is being questioned as reports on users’ experience and other information related to the company shows it is likely a scam. In this latest Scam Alert report from Coinfomania, we will detail the company’s information, including several complaints from users, and all existing red flags about the platform.
What is BTC-Asia.com?
BTC-Asia.com describes itself as a Bitcoin escrow service company. It was initially established by Colbert Low (also known as Ninjaboon on Bitcoin Forum), who is also the founder of Bitcoin Malaysia, a Bitcoin service platform that offers legal consultation for companies that want to establish a presence in Malaysia and Asia.
As an escrow, BTC-asia.com serves as a middleman for Bitcoin payment between the buyer and seller. This service is quite essential when people want to transact with untrusted parties.
Ninjaboon reportedly began the Bitcoin escrow service in 2013 and handled the business legitimately. Following users’ feedback, BTC-asia.com conducted several cryptocurrency transactions for people on a clean sheet. Many users had recommended Ninjaboon’s Bitcoin escrow service, saying that he is trustworthy and provides fast responses. Despite these testimonies from the supposed BTC-asia.com users, Ninjaboon only operated the business for two years.
In 2015, the domain “BTC-asia.com” expired and was purchased by an unknown entity, who allegedly handled the Bitcoin escrow service fraudulently, thereby tarnishing the already-established reputation of BTC-asia.com per see.
Ninjaboon had declined to have any information or affiliation with the new entity and warned that users should not use the service any longer, as it began redirecting to another website at some point.
Following the story so far, BTC-asia.com seems to have fallen into the hands of the wrong guys, who are mismanaging the escrow service following users’ complaints. Part of the users’ complaints was that BTC-asia.com no longer responded to messages mailed to them, and some of the escrow funds are not being released either, according to Ninjaboon.
More like a disclaimer, Ninjaboon went on to post another warning to the affected users, which reads:
“For the record, BTC-asia.com expired in May 2015. I used to own this site, but it expired in May 2015. Not sure who owns it now. Anyone could have done a back-order from a domain registrar, and I do not know who owns btc-asia.com now.”
Is BTC-Asia.com a scam?
The activities of the current BTC-asia.com management have caused many users to believe that the Bitcoin escrow company service is now shady and that customers are likely to encounter problems while using BTC-asia.com service.
Someone pointed out a discrepancy about the year the company was established. While reports claimed that the BItcoin escrow service began in 2013, this user shared that the company’s domain has only been created in March of 2014.
Another user with the name Timerland responded to the thread, saying that for the fact that they could misrepresent their existence is enough red flag. The initial complaint went on to inform that “their site looks completely bogus and I wouldn’t trust a single cent with them. In fact, any escrows that are outside of the forum [Bitcoin Forum] should be used with caution, because the reason they have to own a site is to have a gateway to scam.”
Timerland also narrated that BTC-asia.com’s multi-sig escrow page is usually down conveniently for a reason. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence since they would not be able to scam money easily with multi-sig escrow.”
Also, he alleged that the 0.05% transaction fee charged by the escrow company is quite shady and will be unsustainable for them in the long run. “The only way for them to make money is to scam you. Ninjaboon has specifically said, do not use the site since 2015 and has not actively maintained it since then.”
On Reddit, a user had confidently spelled out on the title of his post that BTC-asia.com is a scam. The Redditor posted this on r/Bitcoin a few days ago but the story was removed by Reddit’s spam filter. In response to this post, a supposed BTC-asia.com user shared another experience with the Bitcoin escrow service, which relayed confirmation issues with the company. The Redditor wrote:
“I tried a transaction with BTC-asia.com site and these guys are total scam-artists, they sent me a link which redirects to their website page with a qr for payment, i make the payment and they claim to never receive it, i got a confirmation email from exodus(my wallet) that it was confirmed and these guys completely deny receiving the payment . and when i send them an email they blatantly deny receiving the payment. So it’s up to you guys if you ever wanna use them but if you ask me they are a scam.”
Final words
Anyone seeking to use BTC-Asia.com for escrow should take utmost caution considering the red flags about the company.
While there are non-legitimate escrow businesses offering Bitcoin services that might be posing as safest amongst others, it is worth noting that a few legitimate ones still exist. However, It will only require consulting the right source to locate them.
Reputable peer-to-peer (P2P) cryptocurrency marketplaces like Paxful and LocalBitcoins have integrated escrow services on their platform to protect traders from getting scammed.
