united-states contract-law internet terms-of-service fraud
Mistakenly agreed with a scammer’s term of use
<p>Say, someone was scammed by a false online bitcoin mining service. He invested some money to buy the scammer’s service, the service was said to produce bitcoins online at a very fast speed without any user operation.<br>
But when the victim was about to withdraw his money from the online mining site, his money was frozen.</p>

<p>However, prior to this, he agreed to the terms of use mistakenly (he skipped viewing the TOS and just hit the agree button) in the scammer’s website saying:   </p>

<blockquote>
  <p>You must keep online while the mining is running, or you will not get your money back.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Yes, he got offline while mining, but the online mining was said to run at least 7 days to get money, and hanging 7 days online is pretty much impossible.</p>

<p>Could the scammer be accused? What evidence could the victim provide to accuse him?</p>

<p>Accused of what? </p>

<p>Clearly stating under which conditions you (the <strong>accuser</strong>) would earn money by doing nothing more than staying online for 7 days? </p>

<p>You agreed to these conditions, but did <strong>not</strong> fulfill them, so the scammer (the <strong>accused</strong>) was the one that earned money for doing nothing. </p>

<p>The scammer had the same motive as you had, earning money for doing nothing. </p>

<p>In the end a Judge will  make a decision based on the presented situation and motive of the participants. </p>

<p>In this case the motives were the same, but you did not fulfill the conditions you agreed to, so the other - as agreed to - earned the money for doing nothing. </p>

<p>The Judge will probably come to the conclusion that had you, <strong>in the unlikely event</strong> of actually earning money for doing nothing, would not make a claim that the scammer was trying to commit a fraud.</p>

<p>So the Judge's final conclusion may be, that both parties had agreed to attempt fraud <strong>against each other</strong> and <em>that only one would be successful</em>.</p>

<p>Since the agreed result (as desired by both parties, whom we assume are not minors) came about, the Judge would probably dismiss this case to avoid further waste of the taxpayers money.</p>

<p>Based on the Jurisdiction, this will be worded differently - but in the final result will mean the same. </p>

<p>This may be a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_faith_(law)" rel="noreferrer">good faith and fair dealing</a> violation which would give the victim a civil cause of action to recover at least his original investment.</p>

<p>Your court will surely lack jurisdiction against an unidentified scammer in a foreign country hiding behind a sequence of VPNs. </p>

<p>Unless by some wild application of both skill and coincidience, you identify the scammer in a nation from which you have a chance of filing litigation. </p>

<p>Yes, you would have a case that the requirement to keep a web browser page open for a week is an unusual request that should be stated more clearly.  Against you is how unrealistic your expectations were, being unclear on what you get in the bargain. he expectation of "getting something for nothing". </p>
