Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's likely coinbase was chosen simply because it's the easiest way for their victims to buy coins. There is a vulnerability with Pizza businesses in that they trust the caller is making a legit order, and don't ask for pre-payment before delivery thus leaving them open to fraud. Whoever is doing this is clearly bluffing and hoping just a handful of businesses pay the extortion and likely flooded the mail system with…
Yeah you guys are probably right, after all. If it demanded cash and suggested visiting your local Citibank Branch or Citibank In Network ATM that clearly would also be an equally random and meaningless data point, totally not trying to make Citibank look bad or anything.
Pizzerias Receiving Extortion Letters Demanding Bitcoin
51–55 of 55 posts
Re: Pizzerias Receiving Extortion Letters Demanding Bitcoin
#52Apparently they've never worked in pizza. I could just see them sending it to my dad. First off, What's a bitcoin? Negative Online review...what's an Online review. Harrassing telephone calls...you mean a friday night? Farudulant delivery orders...10 all the way pizzas with anchovies...sure we'll make those right up and deliver them...ya right... Illegal drug sales...don't be primising illegal drugs to the delivery d…
Would you mind doing us all a favour and building a database of every pizza place like this on the planet? It sounds like my (our?) kind of place.
Re: Pizzerias Receiving Extortion Letters Demanding Bitcoin
#53Obviously the victim isn't the local pizzera its Coinbase. Someone just spent "not very much money" to make them look incredibly bad. Should be fairly easy to track them down, just analyze the pattern of yellow dots on the color laser print to figure out the make, model, and serial number of the printer making the extortion letters, then contact whichever of coinbase's competitors made those letters and ... Now if I…
Will be super easy as long as they had the foresight to buy the printer on a credit card and the pizzeria's police force is actually CSI. Seriously, the police are not going to analyze dots on laser printer to track down an extortion for $500, just like they don't swab for prints / DNA on a B&E. Real life is not CSI.
https://www.eff.org/pages/list-printers-which-do-or-do-not-d...
Re: Pizzerias Receiving Extortion Letters Demanding Bitcoin
#54Apparently they've never worked in pizza. I could just see them sending it to my dad. First off, What's a bitcoin? Negative Online review...what's an Online review. Harrassing telephone calls...you mean a friday night? Farudulant delivery orders...10 all the way pizzas with anchovies...sure we'll make those right up and deliver them...ya right... Illegal drug sales...don't be primising illegal drugs to the delivery d…
What could make them take Bitcoin more seriously than the threat of them being harmed by it? It wouldn't be surprising if the whole thing was orchestrated by a Bitcoin startup. And its an easy trick to pull too. You stuff printed letters in a mailbox and they find their way out there. How could anyone prove who did it?
Frankly it's impressive :) After a whole day on HN nobody brought up this possibility. There's also a lesson of strategy here. When you are not making progress being direct about something, try doing its opposite.
What I'm more curious about is how they'll follow up without making it too obvious that they are advertising. How will the make the now worried pizza owner casually bump into a promising Bitcoin company that protects them from extortion and all bad Bitcoin things? Run an ad in the paper or local TV?