On the 2nd of May 2018 I purchased some crypto currency coins called Arionum (ARO) from the only available exchange that was trading in them, an exchange called OCTAEX.COM which although a dot com, would appear to be located in China.
I setup an account on their site, straight forward enough. I then transfered my bitcoin amount into the OctaEx exchange and proceeded to made the purchase or ARO. All of this worked perfectly well.
I then decided to move the ARO coins to my local wallet and went about entering my local wallet details onto their website in preparation for the withdrawal. This was done without any issues and because I copied and pasted the local wallet address into their website form, I knew it would be correct. I did however also check the address to make sure, as I always do.
The image below is a screen grab taken from their website which clearly shows the wallet address that I saved for my withdrawal. You will notice I have highlighted the letter p which is in lowercase at character position 79 in the address. It is also important to note that their support team has also confirmed that I am unable to amend this address or change it in any way once saved.
The is the link to the block-chain explorer that you can use to prove my actual current wallet. You will also be able to see that it is the address stored on my Octaex account.
I then requested to withdraw my ARO coins from their exchange to my wallet. All appeared to go well. The image below shows that record of withdrawal which gladly also shows the correct address, all should have been good to go but unfortunately it did not go well.
I waited for an hour but no coins appeared in my wallet. I then check the block-chain explorer for my wallet and it also did not register any incoming transfers. I emailed Octaex.com support email address which is clearly displayed on their site. They responded quickly and confirmed that they had sent the coins and that they would arrive shortly, so I waited another hour.
The coins did not arrive.
I then emailed them again to find out what was happening, they responded by sending me a screen-grab of what I can only presume is their website admin program. They sent the image to prove to me that they had sent the coins but what they inadvertently done was send me visual proof that their system had changed the withdrawal address. The image below is a screen-grab sent to me by their support staff that clearly shows the coins have been sent to a very slightly different address. Different by just one character (character 79) being uppercase instead of the correct lowercase.
The is the link to the block-chain explorer that you can use to prove the address they sent my coins to.
After they sent me this I emailed them back to explain that somehow their system had changed the character in position 79 to an uppercase P and as a result my coins had been sent to a different address which I have no access to. I asked that they send the coins again to my actual stored address. They refused to listen to me saying that they had sent the coins already and they would not be sending them again. They also accused me of being dishonest and trying to get the coins sent twice. They accused me of not being trustworthy.
When I pushed them on the fact that the address was different, they even at one point suggested that the block-chain address's were not case sensitive! This as we all know is not true.
They refused to do anything and stopped responding to my emails.
I then connected to them on their Telegram channel and tried to get some support through their representative 'Megan Fox'. This proved to be pointless and worse it was obvious they did not want to admit that there even was an issue with their systems. Shortly after I had this discussion, I was banned from their Telegram channel. They never responded to anything else that I sent them after this time. I tried twitter, email and their other channels but they just ignored me.
The images below are the screen-grabs from my discussion with 'Megan Fox' on their Telegram Channel.
I gave them a further 48 hours to respond and even emailed them again but to no avail. That is why I have went to the bother of creating this page and making as many people in the crypto arena aware of how badly this exchange has acted. They are a disgrace.
I realise that it is unlikely that they done this maliciously, but the fact remains that somehow their system changed the letter p from lowercase to uppercase and that sent my coins to a useless address that I or anyone else can access. The coins are lost (burnt).
All I want Octaex.com to do is admit the error was at their side and refund me my bitcoin or resend the coins again to the correct address.
Although the amount of coins I purchased is small change to many of you reading this, it is a lot of money to me and I can't afford for my family to be missing that amount. I feel scammed and badly let down.
Please help me get the coins returned.
The following addresses are all the social avenues I have to get to Octaex.com. If you are able to please let them know that you do not agree with what they have done and that they should do the decent thing.
Click here to go to Octaex.com Telegram Channel
https://web.telegram.org/#/im?p=@octaex
Click here to go to Octaex.com Website
https://octaex.com/
Click here to go to Octaex.com TWITTER Page
https://twitter.com/octaex
Click here to go to Arionum DISCORD Channel to register your anger
https://discordapp.com/channels/399590985165963274/399591513451134983
If you feel like donating ARO to help me recoup my loss then I will provide my address below any and all will be gladly received.
563ijNRTE4wB8LFDT73R8SoTpgP5kSpVhm3fnu9xgLUoBSNdHU5BAnJBYZPEcFWhSYj5gNZRx92e1jJpAMYHPKvY
Lastly I would just like to say that the ARO Dev team have been very supportive and understanding with all of this and even though I have been burnt I still think ARO is a great project and deserves to be support by you in every and any way you can. Just be careful and don't use Octaex.com to buy your crypto.
I have also dedicated a webpage to this issue so that Octaex can't have it taken down as they already did on Telegram. This is the URL to the webpage.
http://www.29bit.com/octaex/octaex-exchange-are-dishonest-beware.htm
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