Be Weary of Mining Hardware Scams!

connormcsniper3 (25)in #mininghardware • 7 years ago

As a passionate cryptocurrency enthusiast, I wanted to take part in the decentralized blockchain network and what better way to do it than the Bitcoin network. After countless hours of research in how to set up a “mining rig,” I discovered it would be best to purchase an Antminer S9. I began doing research and wanted to purchase one on the cheaper side but also, I wanted to get mine a soon as possible because all miners must consider difficulty increases in the network therefore daily payouts become smaller and smaller over time.

Antminer S9.jpg

I came across a couple of websites that sold this hardware namely Ebay and the maker Bitmain.com, but then this sponsored ad came up: miningwarehouses.com. I checked the website out and couldn’t believe I could get an Antminer S9 a month sooner than the Bitmain website promised. It was however roughly $200 more expensive but the amount I could have potentially made in that month of waiting for the bitmain product made it seem worth it. I never heard of the website but did some google searches and I could not find any sort of reviews on the website even though it was supposedly around since 2015. The website looked real slick and even had some blogs on it how to identify fraudulent websites that were mimicking the actual Miningwarehouse.com. What really made me purchase it was the countdown of how few products they had and that they were going fast. Out of passion and excitement to become a miner I pulled the trigger and had to pay in either BTC or ETH via coingate. I had to send a specific amount, in my case 5.333 ETH, to a specific ETH address through coingate which I happily did.

The process checked out, however I never did get a confirmation email so I emailed customer service and they got back to me right away saying they did receive my order and it should be shipped by October 31st. I then decided to check it over with my more intelligent friend (on these matters), who pulled up https://whois.icann.org/en which will look up any domain to see if the information about when and where the website came to be matches what is displayed on the actual domain. In my case Whois revealed miningwarehouses.com was created just one week prior out of CA rather than in 2015 in Hong Kong. This raised some red flags so I brought them up to the customer service rep via email, but the rep ensured me he was unsure of why those things were like that but promised I would be receiving my product and they cared for their customer. Deep down I knew something wasn’t right and reminded him that karma is a very real thing and if they got away with this, the world would level the playing field with them. IT ALWAYS DOES one way or another.

So, November 7th came, the last day I would receive the package and no surprise nothing showed up. I also never received a tracking number and now miningwarehouses.com website is down for some “scheduled maintenance”. My dreams were crushed because I used all my savings to get scammed out of mining gear and I would not be able to continue my aspirations of joining the blockchain network. If you are reading this and you want to mine. DO YOUR RESEARCH ON THE COMPANY BEFORE BUYING. To be honest that goes with buying anything but I would only buy mining hardware from the maker: https://www.bitmain.com and nowhere else!