Thank you for that info. I do not know if I shell tag him or not ? Because I have some doubts about screenshots. Why would a legendary and DT member do so obvious extortion attempt ? Any advise from DT members ?
Read the thread... his excuse was that he was testing what the alleged scammer would do when asked for a bribe.
I don't think this warrants neg trust but it's up to you. I just excluded him from my trust list.
Here is my view on the issue.
Last week I noted that vlom has removed several users from his trust list including me. I decided that I would reciprocate so I removed him from trust for that reason alone. I also removed other people from my trust list purely because I added several of them long a go but sadly for one reason or another they did not add me to their trust list therefore vlom was not the only one I removed. Maybe in future things will change.
I read this thread and agree with suchmoon and I would like to expand on my reasons. I would not recommend or advise negative trust for vlom because of previous post history such as this in the Minexcoin scam:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5046331.0As for not adding vlom to a trust list or removing him from a trust list, that is down to how individual sees things. For example, I see a screenshot where only messages from vlom are displayed but none from nemgun are displayed except for one quoted. I am inclined to ask why the one who is accusing is not showing screenshots of his own posts.
Sure vlom has said he played along with somebody he calls a scammer just to see where the conversation would go and he stated that, he never denied it. On the contrary he explained why he took the course of action he did. From what I see vlom posted in more than one place about the nvo scam so members do not trust and do not believe somebody who was some part of a group that carried out a multi-million USD$ fraud:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1917456.0 and
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5189564.msg52680237#msg52680237Regarding the screenshots, it has been alleged that during the course of a PM conversation which has not been fully published that nemgun (none other than a main protagonist in the nvo scam) exchanged messages with vlom (acting as an investor and victim of the nvo scam). There is no way to currently know who instigated which parts of the alleged conversation and who said what-to-who and what motives were or were not behind various parts of the conversation because the full text has (maybe very conveniently) not been released therefore opinions regarding the context cannot be genuinely concluded.
Now, for example if vlom or any victim was offered on a no-strings attached basis any BTC from the scammed/recovered nvo funds because he was victim of the scam or if vlom or any victim asked on a no-strings attached basis for any BTC which was capped to the equivalent of (or less than) his total losses in the nvo scam while clearly asking if any of the funds that were scammed still remained and if he could get refunded/reimbursed/compensated specifically from those nvo funds - then there is nothing wrong with that in itself.
So, hypothetically speaking.... If during the course of a PM conversation between a scammer and a victim of his scam, the victim asks to be refunded/reimbursed/compensated no more than the amount invested/scammed amount but the scammer says "No". Then, if for some inexplicable reason (or because the scammer incorrectly fears default DT1 negative trust from the victim will hurt his plans for returning back to this forum) the scammer asks the victim to remove the negative trust. The victim at that stage did the right thing and did not agree to remove correct negative trusts but sensing desperation in the messages sent by the scammer he decides to play game to test the scammers resolve.
Whether the scammer is offering a financial payment as a ruse to entrap the victim in the hope to start a thread such as this one with partial conversation screenshots in revenge for the victim leaving negative trust after being scammed
or whether the victim demanded or asked to be refunded/reimbursed/compensated no more than the amount scammed in return for removing the negative trust because:
a) he simply wanted his funds back because he was scammed and thought he should write and ask for them because the victim noted the scammer returned here intermittently (for example between 11th August 2018 and 6th February 2019 the scammer made zero posts in the forum and after 4 interim posts decided to return to this forum from 2nd October 2019 to proclaim innocence as far as the nvo scam was concerned). The victim finally had a chance to think of any way to get his funds back BUT may or may not have had any intention of removing the negative trust if he got paid what he was scammed out of.
or
b) finally after many months of not responding to him, the scammer finally starts a conversation in the forum with the victim because he wants to have his negative trust removed and the victim uses the opportunity to ask for the return of his investment. After being told there were no funds the victim believed the scammer is lying and has access to some of the scammed funds but he would not refund/reimburse/compensate him (no more than the amount he was scammed) therefore he lied and offered to remove the negative trust in return for payment or partial payment of those scammed funds because he wanted to see what the scammer would do. If the scammer did make a payment maybe the victim intended to immediately inform the community by starting a thread showing the blockchain proof along with screenshots what happened and would ask other victims to ask for their money too. If he did not make payment maybe it would re-enforce the view of the victim that the scammer is a low-life.
Thanks to the screenshots released which only show a fraction of a much longer conversation, nobody can be sure what really happened but what is clear to see is that the person releasing the screenshots has not released anything that might be deemed as negative to his own reputation so no surprises there.
Having said that, a brief look the way nemgun is posting, the large periods between posts during the time of the nvo scam, his absence when he should have stuck around helping and answering questions - does not bode well with me. Looking at his post history, the words uses and the style he implements especially when at least USD$4 million was invested in the ICO by innocent investors and other investors outside the ICO lost funds too. It does not surprise me that the URL "nvo.io" is dead. It also does not surprise me at all that the "veserus.com" domain is dead at Cloudflare too with the fault being at the host especially after reading through some of the posts by nemgun. Reading through his posts nemgun claimed he was CTO of the nvo project therefore was not responsible for the scam, others alleged other things. Add that along with the manner in which parts of the alleged conversation between vlom and nemgun have been posted raise questions about whether nemgun is as innocent as he claims to be.
So in a nutshell, looking at what both vlom and nemgun have contributed to this wonderful forum of ours over the time they have been members and looking at the allegations made against both of them I am absolutely in no doubt whatsoever that I would believe and support vlom over nemgun any day until or unless something concrete is presented. The positive feedback I left for vlom over 18 months ago on 28th March 2019 for the Minexcoin scam thread he started will stay as I see no reason to remove it and I will consider adding appropriate trust for nemgun in the near future. In this particular incident I completely believe vlom when he says he was testing to see if nemgun would disclose any information about the USD$ millions that were scammed so he could be exposed.
I request members put this issue behind them and do not judge vlom on the basis of what a user with the background of nemgun has stated and alleged and I request it for the reasons I mentioned above. Whatever may or may not have taken place between the two it goes back a long time well beyond the date/timestamp shown in the screenshot and there is not enough evidence to suggest it was extortion. On the contrary with the evidence available it
seems like it was a well planned game by nemgun with the aim of starting this thread to get revenge on vlom who ended up being framed by a clever and shrewd instigator. Maybe time will tell.
One final note for all to consider, there is a scam accusation thread in which a prominent and highly respected Legendary member of the community is one of the victims. He claims to have had money scammed and it has been accepted by the scammer and the community the amount quoted is correct though the scammer claims no scam took place even though the victim was not given his money.
The highly respected and very well liked Legendary member who was a victim created a scam flag which was widely supported and still is even today. Here is the interesting part, the highly respected and very well liked Legendary member clearly stated in one of the posts in that thread something like "if the scammer was to hand over the funds the legendary member victim was owed, he would remove his support for the flag even though he was the one who actually created the flag". Nobody batted an eyelid when he wrote that.
Nobody accused the Legendary member of extortion, nobody made allegations against him, nobody removed him from their trust list and rightly so. I am sure if the highly respected and very well liked Legendary member did not make that post publicly and instead sent it in a PM and the scammer posted screenshots hoping to get other members to try to get the same reaction as what is happening in this thread - members would never have abandoned, questioned or attacked the highly respected and very well liked Legendary member because it was clear who contributed more to this forum and who has USD$ millions worth of scam allegations against him and who has never had scam allegations against him.
So at the very worst case scenario if vlom basically said "give me what you owe and I will remove the negative feedback" that is not extortion because that is the same as saying "if the scammer was to hand over the funds the legendary member victim was owed, he would remove his support for the flag even though he was the one who actually created the flag". The only difference is that vlom seems to have tried to help victims of the nvo scam even though he was not a victim himself.
