With scammers it's better to be safe than sorry
While the case of Mogul game is pretty much closed now because Matt Trainer ragequit Steem, there seems to be still a few users who didn't like the witch hunt (for example, @thejohalfiles and @onceuponatime).
It should be noted that there is nothing bad with a witch hunt if there actually is an evil witch.
In this case everything was pointing to a scam. The game was made by a guy with a history of multilevel marketing scams and he was even convicted to jail once because of a fraud. The style and language he used was just like any other "get-rich-quick" scam.
But did we, as a community, react too fast? What if there actually was a legitimate business after all? Should we just have wait and see what happens?
Of course not!
If you give freedom to scammers act how they like, they will abuse that freedom as much as they can. If other scammers see that one has pulled off a successful con in a certain platform, you can be sure that there will be more of them. They are attracted for weak people with money.
"Let's just wait and see what happens" is very retarded strategy in the case of scammers. What actually happens is that the scammers take thousands of dollars, sometimes even millions, from ordinary people and give nothing valuable in exchange. No refunds, of course.
That's why it's not a shame to speak against and downvote something that seems like a scam even if you are not really sure if it is. Very effective strategy against scammers is to make sure that all legitimate businesses stay away from marketing techniques that scammers use. Then we can be pretty sure that when somebody acts like a scammer, he really is because no serious entrepreneur would do something like that.
And we should also understand the meaning of reputation. People usually earn their reputation by their actions. If people lose their reputation with bad actions, they should suffer from lack of reputation. That's the only way to incentivize everybody act ethically and with integrity in all situations. Open blockchain is a good place for people with high moral sense because everything is recorded forever.
I am a Nigerian prince who needs to use someone's bank account temporarily to deposit $70million, I will give you a $5million cut for for your trouble. All I need is a bank account, sort code and an eye popping, mind bending lack of due diligence and common sense on your part. Queue here please ...
I'm a Nigerian Prince too.
Poor Matt.
Being a certified marketer who ran a website for over 2 years that showed people how to earn money online, I've seen a hundred thousand scams, MLMs, and get-rich-quick schemes.
The language this guy used was spot on. Talking about his newbie grandma making $60k+ in her first month, implying that if she can do it, anyone can...
I'm proud of my newfound community for jumping this dude's shit as soon as he tried to get his foot in the door.
Well done Steemit community! This is the first time I have seen a scam not get away with a boat load of money from hard working people. So cheers to you guys!
The guy admitted he didn't know how Steemit worked but he was gonna make you millions anyway lolz.
On the other hand, maybe my Grandmother missed out on a $10,000 a month gig. ;-P
I have to ~ disagree some with you here. Only call it a scam if it is a scam. (edit: took away "wholly", insert "some")
If you don't know, then you are the scammer by saying that it is.
You're not soft on crime because you base your judgement on the evidence available. It doesn't mean that you can't warn others about a persons history of abuses. Of course you can, but there's a difference between that and jumping to assumptions about that which you do not know.
That's too time consuming attitude. Most people don't have enough time to waste on researching potential scams. That's why it's easiest just to assume that if something looks like a scam, it is.
And of course real businesses don't need to use any scam marketing techniques. So they have very little risk to be false identified as a scam.
Even when you "assume" that it's a scam, you shouldn't actually tell others that "it is" unless you know. Saying "this looks like a scam" is quite enough and adding "this person even has a reputation of being a scammer" should make even the dumbest person vigilant enough not to do unprotected business with the particular entity in question.
It's not anymore time consuming than that.
Yeah, you are right that it's good to think a little bit what kind of words should be used to describe the situation.
My point was mostly towards people like @thejohalfiles, @onceuponatime and @stan who thought we should have given a chance for @matttrainer to show what he has to offer. It's more harmful than useful to let cases like that to go on until we can be 100 % sure whether or not it's a scam. Because usually it is and that will lead to defrauding of many users.
Right. Well what @mattrainer should have done was to give up the payout of the post first of all.
Then if he actually had a game going on, let him explain it in full before it's upvoted. If he says things that don't check out, then he has lied and it's a scam.
But even if this had not been a scam, there would have been nothing wrong with pointing out previous incidents.
I'm disappointed that Stan got involved in this and I've asked him to make a statement about it, but I can see and empathize with why he might have first thought it was a positive thing for the platform (since he had successfully worked with the guy) and then dug his heels in even as things started to look bad.
I see a lot of trust issues in the anarchist/anarcho/crypto community overall. Some people trust anyone, some trust the wrong people time and time again (genuinly trust) and some people imidiately distrust anyone who has a vision or comes out with a new product/marketing idea.
I just don't want us to swing to either side and I instead think that we should notice that there probably is too much emphazis put on "trust" as such most of the time. On a positive note, at least this is where the blockchain and open source can come in to fill the gap to certain extent.
Anyways, I think your intent is good and as you said, it's a matter of wording it.
if there is no money in the background, like the promised gold or 10 mio, its pretty much a scam ^^
easy like that
It's never "pretty much". It either is or it isn't.
By the way, professional mythomaniacs and entitled people love leaping to judgement based on "pretty much".
oh ok sorry :-) ok without money it is a scam... forget "pretty much"
If money is promised and there's no way to secure it, yes. But that's a hard call to make.
This latest example of Mogul was more obvious than that.
Sounded like an infommercial to me but I welcomed him anyway and then he gave me a reply and a .28 upvote which I thought was nice. I read a couple of reviews of his webinar and both said the game itself sounded pretty cool, but he did not. If it was a scam, we'll never know for sure. That "backed by gold" thing sounded like carnival barker nonsense. $1.28 billion in gold, if I remember correctly. Had he done a soft sell pitch he would probably still be here. As a newbie here I was willing to see what would happen but I wasn't willing to spend anything. Thanks for looking out for all of us. Steem on!
The fact that he made several retractions and ultimately removed (although they are still viewable on Steemd.com) his posts, I think supports that it was a scam.
I hear that.
Steemit working the wright way, great work my fellow steemians this post was up 700,- plus some...
I think it was even more than 1200 dollars at one point. So yeah, great work!
@matttrainer lost also the reputation of his account. That's great because now he can't try anything like that again (at least with the same account) because everybody will know to be very very skeptical.
well spoken :-)
I seen the post and looking into it and it sounded like a great idea, went to the webinar and listened and thought it was a good pitch until he started breaking out the prices to be a part of it and WOW go right for the throat, and way out of line and ridiculous, and him bailing just puts the final nails in the coffin, very sad
Flags and negative comments are the power so far against these kind of people.
I think there should be a ban option also (after a big number of flags for example)
There certainly could be this feature on a site such as Steemit.com, but not on the Steem blockchain itself.
For the moment, Steemit collapses posts from low rep users while other sites such as Busy.org or beta.chainbb.com lets us browse all content exactly as it is.