Anybody else been screwed by d2jsp?

I sold an item for 20k forum gold, gave first, the buyer never paid and when I filed a scammer accusation, MY account and remaining forum gold got locked and I was told I'd have to pay the thief 20k fg for making an unsubstantiated claim against him. WTF!? So, maybe I didn't have an air-tight case (do you ever?) but you'd think my reputation in the community would be worth something. No matter what, you shouldn't lock someone's account for reporting bad behavior--that's just absurd. I made an attempt to contact Paul (njaguar) directly without any luck. It appears he's taken great measures to hide himself from his customers. The more I talked about what happened to me the more horror stories I heard from other people about how they'd had their forum gold locked, their accounts banned, and for stupid stuff.. like saying something that the forum owner found mildly offensive to his religion. I mean, come on.. are you running a business or what?

There is a lot I don't like about d2jsp: You can't cash out, you can't sell your forum gold to other members, you can't talk about virtual item sellers, you can't arrange trades in non-forum gold currencies, you can't review bad traders, you can't even trust that the forum gold you've got is safe because your account could be banned at any moment for any or no reason. To some extent, I understand Paul's reasoning... a fearful and ignorant population is a population easily controlled, and to maintain his profits and keep the whole forum gold racket going he's gotta rule with an iron fist. Fortunately, I'm not the type to just complain and not do anything. I knew there had to be a better way.. d2jsp's failures left a lot of room to build something better, and that something is finally ready.

What Ogrr.com does better:

1. You can cash out at any time.

2. You can arrange trades external to the site.

3. You can discuss anything you want.

4. You can review other traders.

5. Users are treated as customers, not annoynaces.

You might be thinking.. "If users can cash out, how does Ogrr make any money?" Good question. We have some of the usual fluff you can spend money on but the truth is that I don't think Ogrr will be making much money. I'll be happy if it breaks even. I've got other businesses that are paying my bills. My goal with Ogrr is to give the community a better place to trade. I do think that Ogrr could become a huge thing though and I'm putting a lot of effort and capital in to it.

How will Ogrr allow users to cash in and out? Bitcoin.

If you haven't heard of Bitcoin by now, congratulations, you're not as nerdy as most of the other people reading this post. For the jocks out there, Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer crypto-currency... It works sort of like BitTorrent in that it's not controlled or owned by any one entity. If you haven't heard of BitTorrent, well, you're probably getting laid a lot more than I am so go ahead and congratulate yourself for that too. With Bitcoin, anyone in the world can send payments to any other person in the world instantly, irreversibly, anonymously and without fees. So long PayPal! But, if you still want PayPal, it's very easy to convert your Bitcoins to PayPal. There are numerous exchanges operating that allow you to convert Bitcoin and withdraw to just about any other currency/payments platform you want. More on that later.

Ogrr will take deposits via Bitcoin only but if you don't want to use Bitcoin you're free to arrange your trades on the forum in any currency you like.

How do people acquire Bitcoin in the first place?

Well, there is a process called 'mining' in which you utilize your computer's GPU to crunch numbers and 'find' Bitcoins. I'll leave it up to you to do your own research on this as it's a bit complicated. For beginners, I'd say you should forget about mining. The best ways to get Bitcoin right now are:

1. Be one of the first 1000 Ogrr.com users to make 10 posts and receive 1 free Bitcoin.

2. Sell some items you've got on the forum to someone who already has Bitcoin.

3. Buy Bitcoin directly from someone who's got it--a person, one of the exchanges.

It's difficult to sell Bitcoin for PayPal because PayPal has been known to ban accounts that are caught doing this, and because of the chargeback risk. Bitcoin is irreversible, PayPal is not so you can imagine that a lot of scammers would love to give you PayPal funds for Bitcoin.

In the United States there are many ways of getting dollars in to a Bitcoin exchange, including making a cash deposit at a local bank. In other countries, it will depend on how strict the banking system is. If your banking system is very tightly controlled, Bitcoin makes even more sense for you as it's beyond any government or bank's control.

Why Bitcoin will dominate secondary market payments for virtual items:

1. Bitcoin payments are irreversible--the biggest problem for sellers.

2. Bitcoin payments have no fees, making microtransactions (<$1.00) possible.

3. Bitcoin payments are global, making borders meaningless and currency conversion unnecessary.

4. No age or jurisdictional restrictions. Anyone with a connection can setup a Bitcoin wallet in minutes.

Bitcoin makes a lot of sense for a lot of other industries as well and we're already seeing many shops starting to accept Bitcoin. Soon enough, you may have no desire to convert your Bitcoin to other currencies. The social implications of global Bitcoin adoption are pretty awesome and I hope gamers can help pave the way for everyone else.

How you can get started with Bitcoin:

1. Watch the intro video: http://www.weusecoins.com/

2. Download the MultiBit lightweight client for managing Bitcoin on your own computer: http://multibit.org/

3. Sign up for a Mt. Gox exchange account for buying and selling Bitcoin, and storing Bitcoin if you don't trust the security of your own computer: https://mtgox.com/

4. Deposit and withdraw funds to/from Mt. Gox with BitInstant: https://www.bitinstant.com/

5. Check out the official Bitcoin website: http://bitcoin.org/

6. Check out the official Bitcoin forums for gobs of more info: https://bitcointalk.org/

7. If you're feeling studious, scour the Bitcoin wiki: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Main_Page

Wired magazire recently had a great article on Bitcoin: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/11/mf_bitcoin/all/1

Other Great Bitcoin Resources:

Live Transaction Feed: http://bitcoinmonitor.com/

Network/Economy Info: http://bitcoinwatch.com/

Exchange/Market Info: http://bitcoincharts.com/

Live Mt. Gox Exchange Feed: http://mtgoxlive.com/orders

Join the Bitcoin discussion over at Ogrr: https://ogrr.com/forum.php?f=26

We're looking for honest feedback about Ogrr. If anybody's got anything to contribute, feel free to drop me a line here, on Twitter or post it in the site suggestions over at Ogrr: https://ogrr.com/forum.php?f=382