Minecraft Scam Artists
This post is the result of an extremely thorough deep-dive into XEH, a “free” Minecraft server host with abused infra and a litany of scams. Fortunately, Torrent Network is not affected by this in any way. We begin with a report alleging that a user by the name of CoolDragon12346 was scammed out of $127.70 in Litecoin by a hosting provider known as Ether, the director of XEH. Seemed like a pretty small potatoes scam, but upon further exploration, it goes miles deeper than that.
This video shows the entire chat log of the transaction between Ether and CoolDragon. My apologies for the brainrotted technique of scrolling that was employed here; pause when needed:
If you are a verified member of OwnersUnited, you can see their post here attempting to sell XEH, then going back and forth about whether they are operational or not, and me grilling Ether about his nonsensical business model. The gist of it is that XEH was attempting to sell their host for $125, and claimed they were profitable despite being a free host. They stated they do these “bundle” packages (it’s made up) yet they bleed $6k a month in operational costs. Turns out, none of that is true. They earn no money, and all their infra is abused. More on that later.
Now that we got some context out of the way, let’s dive deeper. Turns out, I know CoolDragon (Landon) who used to be known as Xero. He’s an… interesting character. He was completely doxxed into smithereens due to his own poor op sec so using his real name is not a problem. Landon originally paid $127.70 in Litecoin to Ether. The wallet is public and the transaction hash is a621c7e5b4fd92351b2888d2d03d56dd736c2c9b0c8f76276aafbea24bf0e1d7. Any crypto nerd can confirm that on chain. While you’re there, feel free to investigate the other crypto holdings of XEH and by extension their other entity, XEFI. I bet you’ll find some interesting stuff there.
So, the scam goes like this: sell the host to multiple people, then withhold everything and let them fight over it. Ether allegedly also sold XEH to Cipher, an IT Admin at Valex Cloud LLC, also for $125 + fees. Then, Cipher resold XEH to Landon for $200, who still received nothing but a role in the discord, the pterodactyl panel, and the pterodactyl MySQL database. So, basically nothing.
As seen in the above screenshot, this payment was completed on PayPal. Landon paid multiple times for a host he should have already owned. Ether then claimed that Cipher was in on it, but there is no proof of that. You be the judge if this screenshot is edited or not:
Cipher yapped quite a bit about this. The short of it is that he claims that he didn’t intend to make profit reselling XEH, but that he needed a 256GB EU Node and couldn’t find one, and obviously XEH is so insanely over-allocated that there was no space for anything. The buyer also doesn’t get any of the hardware anyway. Cipher is trying to save his reputation. See here:
So, after all this, I got into a call with Landon and Ether. I didn’t record the call because 1. it would’ve made Ether clam up and 2. I am not trying to get sued since Ether is from the UK. This is what he revealed with CoolDragon and I as witnesses:
- XEH’s entire infrastructure is stolen. They only pay about $50 a month to host 8,000+ users
- Ether straight up admitted he does this scam all the time and thinks it’s funny
- It was the plan from the start to sell XEH to as many people as possible, let them fight over it, and run away with the bag
- Ether claims the data is safe and in a backup portal; users’ servers will be returned to them
- 95% of XEH’s nodes use swap (what did we really expect?)
- All of their stats they made public are completely made up; there is absolutely nothing truthful about them
- XEH is 100% a fraudulent entity, and they leverage their userbase to get investments that they inject into their other entity, XEFI to build their crypto portfolio
Landon claims Ether has done this numerous times previously, including his former host Synthoptic. He allegedly had 9 buyers lined up for that one and pulled the same scam on all of them. Ether pretty much knows his reputation is cooked now, and is waiting for me to write this blog post so he can have a laugh. Ether is a cartoonishly evil villain.
It’s also worth noting that Ether was unverified from OwnersUnited for making Hitler jokes. As it stands now, both parties are claiming that XEH is undergoing a hostile takeover from the other party:
Ether is legitimately a Nazi sympathizer.
XEH is now torched. Octant, where their backups were allegedly stored, is aware of a massive data breach. It seems Ether finds this funny and wants Landon to go down with his new ship.
The Plan
Landon has a plan to save XEH. If Ether is willing to give Landon access to client data, Landon plans to buy more drives and have his tech install them into his rack. He will host a download portal for clients to download their data within a month, then once clients have a local backup, they can choose to come back to XEH when the host is re-released under the ownership of Landon with new infrastructure.
Conclusion
Ether has a track record of doing these “scam sales” where he auctions off his host to multiple buyers and withholds all data and infrastructure. Landon was scammed, Cipher might be in on it but adamantly claims he is not, and Ether finds it incredibly funny. XEH is a fraudulent company leveraging their clout for crypto money. Since this whole thing unfolded, XEH had a massive databreach including all client credentials and servers (at least according to Ether.) Landon is a chronic gambling addict. As I am writing this, I am literally watching Landon gamble on livestream.
ℹ️ If you want to play on a server with top-of-the-line infrastructure, to get a breath of fresh air after this debacle, check out Torrent Network
Discord: https://discord.gg/torrent
Server IP: torrentsmp.com
Add on Xbox: PlayTorrent
To anyone at XEH, if you manage to access your data and want help transferring it to another node, installing pterodactyl, or any system admin needs, I’ll give you a discount if you email [email protected] with the subject line “XEH Drama”.