Goodbye Prohashing!

[blastar]

OK, That's it! I've had it with Prohashing... One of the best pools is going down the drain!! You guys have destroyed your business by interpreting the US law too strictly. Why the hell should I submit full info to the US authorities for using a mining pool? I am not a US citizen and I don't live in the US, and you have no jurisdiction over me, why should I give you all my personal info?! You are misleading and misinforming your customers by requesting such info and blocking their payments in the process. There is no other pool in the world that I know of which is asking miners to fill IRS forms!

You can keep my hard earned money, because I WILL NEVER give you my personal information, because my privacy is worth every cent!

I only give my personal info and report my income to MY national tax authorities, and nobody else!

Here is why I consider your action blackmail:
First, There were no prior warnings on my personal mining page, and you did not inform me otherwise that I have to fill an IRS form, and I only found out about this from the forum which I don't visit too often.
Second, When this IRS thing first appeared in the settings, I chose the option that I am not a US citizen and I managed to click on "Submit", and thought that was it!
Now you have stopped my payments and you won't release my earnings without the IRS form!! Really sneaky and not very customer friendly!
Furthermore, I have 2 trading accounts in the US with thousands of dollars and I have NEVER been asked to fill out such a form! How come a mining pool is asking me to do this?! I say the whole thing is BS!

My advice to you: consider changing your line of business if you can't handle dealing with the uncertainties of crypto-mining, your reputation is ruined anyway!
Best of luck!

[travelinmusic]

Yeah is does sound like good reasons to leave. I don't appreciate the US form either but I have a huge deductions elsewhere that will offset and do not plan on doing this forever. I think they will give your money if you are not US based. Not sure why PH is only tax site. Is definitely to draw out of the shadows. Insert conspiracy theory here.

[Aura89]

Blah blah blah blah, whine whine whine, boohoo, seeya, don't let the door hit you on your way out.

[sirandyr]

Jesus - don't understand why poeple outside the US are getting so upset about this. You only need to confirm that you are not in the US!
I live in Norway and worked in the Gulf of Mexico in the 90's, but still get the occassional tax form from the US authorities.
I just fill it out, send it back and thats it!
If you're in the US, however, and trying to avoid taxes.....

[blastar]

Jesus - don't understand why poeple outside the US are getting so upset about this. You only need to confirm that you are not in the US!
I live in Norway and worked in the Gulf of Mexico in the 90's, but still get the occassional tax form from the US authorities.
I just fill it out, send it back and thats it!
If you're in the US, however, and trying to avoid taxes.....

FYI, I was a big supporter of Prohashing before this debacle, and got many of my friends to sign with them, but here are the reasons why I personally (together with others outside the US) are upset with PH:

1- To begin with, I am not a US citizen, and I don't live in the US and I have never worked for a US company, and have no ties with the US whatsoever!
2- I have never ever been asked to fill out a form for the IRS while dealing with other trading companies in the US, let a lone a mining pool.
3- We in Europe do value our privacy, unlike Mr. @Aura89 with his intelligent comment above.
4- Why should I submit my personal info to a foreign tax authority who has no jurisdiction over me?! Would you accept submitting your personal info to the tax authorities in China just because your are mining at a Chinese pool?! I think not!
5- I always pay my taxes to the full in the country I reside in, and I am not trying to avoid taxes! But the IRS has no business peeking into my personal info, which is non of its business in the first place.
6- I have no problem submitting my personal info to Prohashing.com itself to prove that I am not a US citizen, but not to a 3rd party.
7- The way Prohashing sneaked this in without proper information to its users is the reason why we are upset! First they allowed me to confirm that I'm not a US citizen with 1 "Submit" button confirmation without forms! Then suddenly, we needed to fill out forms! I have been mining here since early October 2017, and there was never such a requirement to use the pool until recently.
8- They froze my payments without prior warning, and only after I contacted their support, they turned on the message on top of my personal earnings page stating that the payments are stopped! Where was this banner before?!!
9- PH interpretation of the law seems too extreme, and unwarranted. No other US pool or company requires foreigners to fill out these IRS forms!

If you guys don't get it, it is your problem, but for me (and many others outside the US), this is a no go, and Prohashing with all its other constant technical problems has unfortunately fully discredited itself. Everything worked much better before they started "improving" their business and "taking it to the next level", both technically and business wise.

[spauk]

you seem to be the only one having this problem, i haven't seen it personally so that makes it really hard to believe. also all these rants before a possible ddos makes you suspect.

[blastar]

you seem to be the only one having this problem, i haven't seen it personally so that makes it really hard to believe. also all these rants before a possible ddos makes you suspect.

Nice! Now I am being accused of ddosing PH just because I criticised their privacy policy?! Please! They can see my IP and they know that I have been a regular miner on PH, and by the way, there wasn't a ddos attack, because they were working on the servers and had some connectivity problems due to some technical issues. Before you start accusing people, read the news on the forum!

Prohashing was always my preferred pool, until they started with the IRS thing together the constant downtime and disconnections of miners, and I am not the only one having problem with their new policy. Look around, and see how many miners are still using PH! When I started mining in October 2017, there were over 13000 miners at any one time, now, there are barely over 5000, you need more proof? I am really sad to see this happen to PH, because I really like the system and the freedom of choosing many different coins for payout.

It is just sad to see people like you attacking other members because they are expressing their opposition to the new pool policy. You should try to inform yourself before commenting.

Peace.

[Steve Sokolowski]

you seem to be the only one having this problem, i haven't seen it personally so that makes it really hard to believe. also all these rants before a possible ddos makes you suspect.

DDoS? I'm not sure where you got that from, but just to be clear, we're not aware of any DDoS attacks ever having been launched against the pool except for the ones that led us to get the DDoS protection in late June.

[sirandyr]

Jesus - don't understand why poeple outside the US are getting so upset about this. You only need to confirm that you are not in the US!
I live in Norway and worked in the Gulf of Mexico in the 90's, but still get the occassional tax form from the US authorities.
I just fill it out, send it back and thats it!
If you're in the US, however, and trying to avoid taxes.....

FYI, I was a big supporter of Prohashing before this debacle, and got many of my friends to sign with them, but here are the reasons why I personally (together with others outside the US) are upset with PH:

1- To begin with, I am not a US citizen, and I don't live in the US and I have never worked for a US company, and have no ties with the US whatsoever!
2- I have never ever been asked to fill out a form for the IRS while dealing with other trading companies in the US, let a lone a mining pool.
3- We in Europe do value our privacy, unlike Mr. @Aura89 with his intelligent comment above.
4- Why should I submit my personal info to a foreign tax authority who has no jurisdiction over me?! Would you accept submitting your personal info to the tax authorities in China just because your are mining at a Chinese pool?! I think not!
5- I always pay my taxes to the full in the country I reside in, and I am not trying to avoid taxes! But the IRS has no business peeking into my personal info, which is non of its business in the first place.
6- I have no problem submitting my personal info to Prohashing.com itself to prove that I am not a US citizen, but not to a 3rd party.
7- The way Prohashing sneaked this in without proper information to its users is the reason why we are upset! First they allowed me to confirm that I'm not a US citizen with 1 "Submit" button confirmation without forms! Then suddenly, we needed to fill out forms! I have been mining here since early October 2017, and there was never such a requirement to use the pool until recently.
8- They froze my payments without prior warning, and only after I contacted their support, they turned on the message on top of my personal earnings page stating that the payments are stopped! Where was this banner before?!!
9- PH interpretation of the law seems too extreme, and unwarranted. No other US pool or company requires foreigners to fill out these IRS forms!

If you guys don't get it, it is your problem, but for me (and many others outside the US), this is a no go, and Prohashing with all its other constant technical problems has unfortunately fully discredited itself. Everything worked much better before they started "improving" their business and "taking it to the next level", both technically and business wise.

You´re creating a big drama over nothing - I understood what Prohash was doing and why (perhaps you need to be better informed, google for IRS and W-8BEN to find out prohashings and your obligations if you earn money in the US). Most of us using prohashing seemed to have understood - what could be easier than clicking "I´m not a US citizen"? Which personal information did you have to give to prohashing?

Life is generally unfair - but whining won´t get you very far.

[blastar]

You´re creating a big drama over nothing - I understood what Prohash was doing and why (perhaps you need to be better informed, google for IRS and W-8BEN to find out prohashings and your obligations if you earn money in the US). Most of us using prohashing seemed to have understood - what could be easier than clicking "I´m not a US citizen"? Which personal information did you have to give to prohashing?

Life is generally unfair - but whining won´t get you very far.

Hi, and thanks for your reply. I am not creating a big drama, I was just stating my opinion.

Just to show you why, here is the difference between what PH is telling us and what one of the major US trading brokers says:

Interactive brokers:

All non-US persons and entities are required to complete IRS Form W-8 to certify your country of tax residence and to establish whether you qualify for a reduced rate of withholding when opening an account. Forms W-8 are not provided to the IRS.

Requirement to Complete Form W-8
Form W-8, Certificate of Foreign Status, must be on file with IB. This form must be renewed every three years. If the form W-8 is no longer valid, IB will assume that you are a non-US person and withhold US tax at 30% on interest, dividends, and payments and lieu. Treaty rates, if applicable will no longer apply.

URL: h[url]ttps://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=tax&p=nonus[/url]

Prohashing:

The IRS mandates that international customers who earn at least $600 complete forms W8-BEN or W8-BEN-E....etc....
..... Because the information is not available online, the website can only display whether you have submitted the form or not. The forms sit on the disconnected disks until January, when they are filed with the IRS, and are never used for any other purpose or given to any other company....

URL: https://prohashing.com/help.html#settings-IRS

See the difference?! "Interactive Brokers" does not submit the form to the IRS, while PH does, and if you don't have a vaild W8 form, then IB will just withhold 30% of the income, while PH told me that they can't pay me anything! why?! Both are US companies obliged to follow the same US tax laws!