Well that was before the guy got tagged. You know, back when he was being all cool and helpful and the Father of Noobs in the noobs' estimation, organizing London's first first conference (unlike the more recent second first conference etc), giving opinions on legal matters and generally being a typical member of teh community.
Of course, there are multiple levels of scammer here. One level is relatively harmless and scams a few people out of pocket change shortly after joining the community. This type of scammer takes a few dollars worth of Bitcoin and giggles in his moms basement at how easy it was to steal beer money. I call this one the quickie scammer.
Another level is a scammer (clearly the most dangerous one) takes months building up the trust of the community and runs a long con. This type of scammer is brazen and understands that is doesn't matter if he personally meets everyone at the forum because there is still nothing legally that can be done to stop him because of the nature of Bitcoin. I could recite a list of them starting with Bruce Wagner but you know who they are.
Then there's the stealth scammer that really understands the system as well as any dev and figures out a way to hack it faster than the holes can be plugged. Less frequent but equally dangerous this scammer preys on people like Allinvain or the Linode theft. You will never know when this one is waiting to get you.
It's sometimes difficult to distinguish between the long con and the innocent idiots playing with more money than they should be allowed to handle. This group "loses" the money in various ways through no fault of their own - maybe. They are still here waiting for everyone to forget the last time they fucked up so they can do it again.
There are also the investment scammers. This group asks the community for a large up front start-up injection of money and without providing interest on the money proceeds to take a year or more to return a product while still earning fiat interest on the funds of gullible members of the community. I'd recite this list starting with magazines and mining equipment sales but again you know who they are.
The guy in this thread is just a quickie and relatively harmless. He may even do it again under another user name but will never really gain that much for his effort. I'd say watch the old established members closely and protect yourself from them because they have the ability to really screw you out of everything in your wallet.
