He had the equivalent though, a spotless profile on BTC-OTC with hundreds of positive ratings and feedback from well known people around here. Also people DID know and meet him personally - he still scammed them.
TradeFortress did something similar and people did (and do) still believe him for example when he accuses others of being scammers (e.g. on his page ripplescam.org) because, as we know from the bible, those without sin throw the first stone!
It's funny how so many people believe the rubbish that comes from people like tradefortress especially when they accuse others of being scammers with no proof whatsoever, even when evidence presented indicates otherwise. Then to hear that they have gone and scammed others. I wonder if people that believed all the rubbish will wake up and realize a lot that they were calling scams probably weren't and was just to make themself look big and important. It's much like MPOE-PR who will probably be the next big scammer on here. She/he/it has a following from the trolling against everyone trying to show anything new on here and constantly call everything a scam on here. True there are a lot of scams but you shouldn't call a program a scam from the start for no reason just to gain some self importance.
With BTC price rising so much it will make others want to jump on the bandwagon and there is likely to be more like tradefortress turn up.