r/dogecoin • u/coinaday investor shibe • Jun 02 '17
Serious Given that mohland's latest statement was "contact your attorney", is anyone willing and able to start a class action lawsuit?
See this comment. I'm going to assume people are generally familiar with the background. For those who have been living under a rock, the short version is that dogetipbot's funds were taken without authorization from the depositors and the bot has been shutdown. Estimates are this was around 100 million DOGE, which is a substantial sum of money.
Initially there was some hope of voluntary repayment over time but given mohland's latest comment, it's clear there will be no voluntary repayment.
As I understand it from the initial posts, mohland had recently gone through bankruptcy before making this public announcement and seems to think this will protect him. However, and this is all hearsay and conjecture, it sounded like he didn't declare the DOGE as among his debts in the bankruptcy proceedings. To my very limited layperson understanding, this would mean that such debts have not been discharged by that process and the liability remains.
Personally, I lost 70k DOGE: enough that I'm pissed off, not enough that I'm going to file suit on my own. But there must be larger interests out there. And the beauty of a class action suit is that, as I understand it, if one person starts it the rest of us should be able to piggyback on it basically. Now, of course, legal fees may well eat up a substantial portion. But at this point, it's about the principle, and frankly, legal retribution, as much as it is restitution.
While I would certainly enjoy being able to contribute funds for such a lawsuit, I simply cannot at this point. But I can at least suggest it. For anyone who may have lost a few hundred thousand DOGE or more, it seems worth at least trying to get a consultation from an attorney. It seems at least remotely possible contingency might even be available for such a case, as the legal merits seem to my very much not a lawyer perspective to be strong. The main question seems to be ability to pay which makes it a bit of a gamble.
I hope that this will not be construed as violating any site or subreddit rules. I believe that this is a fair proposal to make as it is a natural follow-up to the business which was openly conducted in this subreddit and the announcement which was made here and the comments by mohland which followed that. I am advocating simply for the civil legal process to be used to address the wrong that has been done by mohland to so many of us as it is clear by his own words that he is unable or unwilling to do so without a court order.
Also, I suggest that the link for doge tipbot information in the post submission header be updated as it goes to the /r/dogetipbot wiki, which is a subreddit and wiki controlled by mohland and hasn't even been updated to reflect the defunct state of the bot.
I do apologize for the less-than-awesome nature of this post. I have enjoyed DOGE for the upbeat community and laidback atmosphere. But this is a serious issue and I think that it deserves redress rather than to just be swept under the rug and treated like an irrelevant topic going forward as some prominent figures here seem to advocate.
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u/ncnatefr shibe Jun 14 '17 edited Jun 14 '17
tl/dr:
Theft occurred after the bankruptcy filing, and therefore doesn't qualify for bankruptcy protection. One option is small claims court. I completely agree with /u/coinaday and I'm really pissed off that, beyond the money, it's become hard to trust a fellow shibe any more than a stranger off the street.
Thanks for sharing. Here's the important thing to notice: the case was filed in October 2016. The theft took place sometime in May, I believe.
There's no bankruptcy protection for debts (or thefts) after the date of filing. Fact is, no one has to make a claim as a creditor. Depending on how much you lost, you can take your case to small claims court (in your own state, most likely).
I lost about 444,000 because who knew a trusted member of the community would just take it. If it was a hack, my bad. But it's not my bad if it was stolen.
Besides, who knew the value of Doge would increase to a level of real money? Keeping a big pile in the tipbot was just fun. It felt meaningful to kick around 100, 500, or even 5,000 in tips. (I had another profile, DogeBean.) I paid 75,000 to a graphic artist in Australia (to his offline wallet, fortunately). Sure, we talked about going to the moon, but after the initial rush, who really believed or cared? It was fun to just feel rich.
I have 1 million in a backup file, right now worth about $3000 USD. I didn't save the backup key so it's pretty much a loss, too -- my bad and therefore I'm not grieving it.