Dutch Bitcoin mining farm accused of fraud, delinquent payments
Clients of the self-proclaimed "biggest Bitcoin factory of the Netherlands" have launched court proceedings against Koinz Trading, considered one of the first Dutch businesses to trade in Bitcoin. Based in Lelystad, the company is now facing off against a client who accuses them of fraud.
The client's attorney, Marco Kalmijn, believes others are planning to press legal action as well. He accuses the companies of giving excuse after excuse instead of contractual payments, Kalmijn told the Volkskrant.
"At the beginning there were problems with a server in China, then he had been cheated by a business partner, and later he had to undergo an eye surgery", Kalmijn said of Berry van Mourik, the founder of Koinz Trading.
Clients pay Koinz Trading cash up front to subsidize the purchase of cryptocurrency mining machines. They then pay a small service fee against a year-long contract, with the commitment that Koinz will in turn transfer earnings on a monthly basis directly to the clients' accounts.
These payments have been extremely late, Kalmijn told the Volkskrant. He said Koinz clients received no money even as the value of Bitcoin soared over 19 thousand U.S. dollars.
Van Mourik called his angry clients a "headache dossier", he told the newspaper. He recognized that there are delays in the distribution of payments, but he made assurances that he would respect the terms he agreed upon with his clients. "If the value of the Bitcoin had not raised so much, then the payments would not have been that difficult".
Once their contracts are ended, Koinz clients can transfer the mining computer they pre-purchased to another location.
On Wednesday afternoon that value of Bitcoin was trading around 14 thousand.
