Why I have respect for terrytibbs

[jwzguy]

OP: The scammer tag is to give users an idea of whether or not you can be trusted based on your past behavior. I think you should have a pretty clear answer as to whether it should stay now.

Sorry, I think your definition is false. It is merely an indicator of whether or not you should exercise additional caution.

The idea is to warn people who might trade with him, not to punish him. The forum doesn't handle justice.

Wow. You can't have missed his point more completely. Just because it's not meant as a punishment doesn't mean it's not used to judge whether or not you can be trusted. That's exactly what it's for, and your answers are saying more than anyone else could.

[1714176526]

1714176526

[terrytibbs]

Just because it's not meant as a punishment doesn't mean it's not used to judge whether or not you can be trusted. That's exactly what it's for, and your answers are saying more than anyone else could.

I was specifically referring to the "This forum doesn't handle justice." part.

You're speaking in definitives, the tag isn't. It's a warning - a sign to take extra precautions when trading.

[bitlane]

FINE.

I will contribute to the Compensation Fund....and I am sure others will as well.

I would help pay off these 'debts' just to throw a middle finger up at them all, so that there was never another word mentioned about it.

Who wants to collect ? Swallow your pride and come get your $4 so that we can help restore a contributing member back to status.

[theymos]

I stopped reading right there because I was also labeled a scammer once for arguably no good reason and I am one of the most productive members of the forum now. I don't know TerryTibbs but when I see a scammer tag, I just say "What now?".

You were labeled a scammer because you scammed someone. It was removed because you paid them back.

Terrytibbs scammed someone and has not paid them back. He has a scammer tag so that other traders are warned about this incident. Initially I was opposed to reacting to scammers at all, but I decided that if scammer accounts were not somehow marked, almost everyone would feel that the forum had neglected its responsibility to traders. (Most forums would ban scammers outright.)

The amount of time elapsed since terrytibbs' conflict and the quality of his posts are not relevant: he still scammed someone in the past and has not paid them back.

[terrytibbs]

FINE.

I will contribute to the Compensation Fund....and I am sure others will as well.

I would help pay off these 'debts' just to throw a middle finger up at them all, so that there was never another word mentioned about it.

Who wants to collect ? Swallow your pride and come get your $4 so that we can help restore a contributing member back to status.

I don't want your charity. Besides, Maged has stated it would be very difficult to get me back to ship-shape regular member status, because we'd have to find all of my customers and refund them, which may prove difficult as a lot of people have taken a hiatus from Bitcoin.

I appreciate the gesture, however.

[terrytibbs]

As an aside, I find it quite humorous and amusing how most people deem me more dangerous than a low-post-count user.

Maybe I'm doing this all so that I can later scam you all for millions! Hahaha - reverse psychology!

[HolodeckJizzmopper]

The amount of time elapsed since terrytibbs' conflict and the quality of his posts are not relevant: he still scammed someone in the past and has not paid them back.

Ok, so, hypothetically speaking, if I were to completely pay back TT's debt in BTC (something I'm willing to entertain), it would be grounds for removal of the "Scammer" tag ?

If I gave TT BTC for him to pay back the debt, will that remove the "Scammer" tag ?

... and, Theymos, I take it you don't consider RealSolid/CoinHunter a scammer seeing as how all the mods are notably silent in those discussion threads ?

I just can't wrap my head around the laissez-faire method of forum moderation here.

[Blind]

I stopped reading right there because I was also labeled a scammer once for arguably no good reason and I am one of the most productive members of the forum now. I don't know TerryTibbs but when I see a scammer tag, I just say "What now?".

You were labeled a scammer because you scammed someone. It was removed because you paid them back.

Wait, so Matthew, the president of bitcoin vendors association, and editor for bitcoin magazine is an ex-scammer? My faith in Bitcoin just increased tenfold!

Seriously, what the hell is wrong with you people?

[HolodeckJizzmopper]

Wait, so Matthew, the president of bitcoin vendors association, and editor for bitcoin magazine is an ex-scammer? My faith in Bitcoin just increased tenfold!

Seriously, what the hell is wrong with you people?

Yeah, i'm quickly losing faith in this community here, and Bitcoin as a consequence.

Actually starting to think about selling my mining rigs...

[Electricbees]

Actually starting to think about selling my mining rigs...

This is relevant to my interests...

[Matthew N. Wright]

You were labeled a scammer because you scammed someone. It was removed because you paid them back.

scam   [skam]  Show IPA noun, verb, scammed, scam·ming.
noun
1.
a confidence game or other fraudulent scheme, especially for making a quick profit; swindle.

2.
to cheat or defraud with a scam.

Theymos, no matter how many times you spread that FUD, no one will ever agree with you.

I asked someone to make a 2BTC image for which they thought they'd be paid immediately (even though we had no contract).

When I was a little late to respond to their inquiry, they went straight to the forum screaming that I had scammed them.

They did the usual freakshow of telling everyone that I they were sure I was a scammer (I don't know how in the world they came to this conclusion to which they later retracted and apologized publicly for being irrational).

They went further to say that everyone could use the image freely that they had originally made for me and distributed the source files openly to the forum.

At this time, without any inquiries or presence of a moderating force on the forums, I made the adult decision to tell the person to go fuck themselves, to which without any communication from you, you gave me a scammer label.

After some in-fighting and almost everyone eventually agreeing that the entire problem was that there was a 'scam', but that we lacked a clear contract, you made it clear that if I just sent 2BTC to the individual that my label would be removed.

Here's the funny part-- scamming is not up to interpretation.

Scamming means when someone has intent to defraud, which I had not. And even if I did, how does me giving him 2BTC change any initial intent? If anything, that individual scammed me by getting away with his horrible actions, giving away my product to the community for free, and still getting paid for it, and scammed by you for having to follow through on the whole thing and not just do what he deserved--- ignore him.

You really owe me an apology still for having judged that situation poorly, not to continue spreading FUD about it.

Back on topic, TerryTibbs made a decision that even I wouldn't have agreed with. If my customers lost everything due to my own business practices, I would cut my losses as well. The fact that he didn't makes things complicated. Scammer? Probably not.

So then why is there a "scammer" tag though if "poor decisions", "bad business", "lack of clear contracts", and "administrator's whim" can all be considered "scams"?

Seems like we need a little more clarity than just "scammer". Maybe "Defaulted" tag for bad loans, maybe a rating system (I'm aware you had one before that broke/didn't work?) to allow people give evidence backing up their claims that someone is a scammer, etc?

I mean, seriously-- I'm not different than anyone else. I don't care much about someone who has a scammer tag, until the admin wrongfully gives it to me. Then it becomes aware to even me that that sort of power shouldn't be left up to theymos alone.

I stopped reading right there because I was also labeled a scammer once for arguably no good reason and I am one of the most productive members of the forum now. I don't know TerryTibbs but when I see a scammer tag, I just say "What now?".

You were labeled a scammer because you scammed someone. It was removed because you paid them back.

Wait, so Matthew, the president of bitcoin vendors association, and editor for bitcoin magazine is an ex-scammer? My faith in Bitcoin just increased tenfold!

Seriously, what the hell is wrong with you people?

I hope you're being sarcastic. Theymos doesn't dictate whether I am a scammer or not. All he can do is use his personal judgment and slap a label on people. I am not a scammer nor am I an ex-scammer. I am an ex-theymos-abused person who paid the ransom and got the label removed at the price of having to swallow my pride.

Wait, so Matthew, the president of bitcoin vendors association, and editor for bitcoin magazine is an ex-scammer? My faith in Bitcoin just increased tenfold!

Seriously, what the hell is wrong with you people?

Yeah, i'm quickly losing faith in this community here, and Bitcoin as a consequence.

Actually starting to think about selling my mining rigs...

Anyone who would sell off Bitcoin based on anything that happens on these forums much less the actions of a fallible admin should not be considered to having had 'faith' to begin with.

[Blind]

I asked someone to make a 2BTC image for which they thought they'd be paid immediately (even though we had no contract).

When I was a little late to respond to their inquiry, they went straight to the forum screaming that I had scammed them.

It goes without saying to expect payment for goods or provided services upon delivery, unless agreed otherwise beforehand. Is this concept foreign to you? You say that you had no contract, what's that supposed to mean? Did you expect the guy to fly over to Matthew's HQ, with his team of custom made Armani wearnig lawyers, to sign in blood 10 page contract for delivery of 2BTC worth of designing work? Do you sign a contract with grocery store owner whenever you're out to get some cheese? These dumb knobs expects to be paid immediately, how silly!

A "little late" is vague, is it a day, two, a week, by your standards?

Anyone who would sell off Bitcoin based on anything that happens on these forums much less the actions of a fallible admin should not be considered to having had 'faith' to begin with.

Bitcoin is a community project, run by people like you and me. Many people involved in Bitcoin frequent this forum, so one can judge what kind of people the community is made of, and seeing scams and wiseguys trying to pull their tricks left and right, might be off putting to some people, damaging perception of Bitcoin project and retarding adoption in this early stage. So while my statement about losing faith was a hyperbole, is not that far from the truth.

[HolodeckJizzmopper]

Anyone who would sell off Bitcoin based on anything that happens on these forums much less the actions of a fallible admin should not be considered to having had 'faith' to begin with.

 I need to respectfully disagree with you.

 This community is a barometer and has potential to adjust the vector of Bitcoin.

[Matthew N. Wright]

It goes without saying to expect payment for goods or provided services upon delivery, unless agreed otherwise beforehand. Is this concept foreign to you?

It also goes without saying that if someone has difficulty getting bitcoins out of an exchange that the individual who sold the service should communicate through e-mail until there can be no resolution, and not go on a smear campaign to get attention and claim people 'scammed them' without any evidence.

You say that you had no contract, what's that supposed to mean?

It means that we had a friendly and casual understanding. Did you think that a contract was a bad thing? Don't you realize that a friendly agreement to the tune of "I will provide a finished image for you for 2BTC to your liking" could be abused to continuously tell that person that you don't like their designs and have them remake it for all eternity? The one thing both myself and that individual took out of the deal was that we both need to make terms much more clear before doing business and that there is no 'friendly business' on this forum.

[*random retarded ramblings*] Do you sign a contract with grocery store owner whenever you're out to get some cheese?

Actually, grocery stores are regulated in many ways, including internally with a customer return policy, so you don't really need an additional contract in most cases. You're also attempting to compare graphics design with buying something at a store. Herp derp?

A "little late" is vague, is it a day, two, a week, by your standards?

It was a few days late, but the reasoning was that I was due some BTC but it never arrived and I couldn't get my Korean money turned into Bitcoins fast enough to the individual's likings, so instead of even responding to my emails, he jumped the gun and assumed I had scammed him. He was wrong for that. Very wrong, and very unprofessional. The only reason Theymos actually gave me the scammer tag was because I publicly stated "I'm not going to pay you now because you've publicly called me a scammer in 3 different threads without even waiting 24 hours since my last email or replying to it, you posted links to download the source files of the graphic I had commissioned you to make and instructed the entire community to "abuse it freely", and then tried to get theymos to give me a scammer label.". Theymos apparently only read "I'm not going to pay" and didn't see anything else going on, like how the OP voided any verbal agreements we had in the first place and therefor there was nothing to pay for.

Bitcoin is a community project, run by people like you and me. Many people involved in Bitcoin frequent this forum, so one can judge what kind of people the community is made of, and seeing scams and wiseguys trying to pull their tricks left and right, might be off putting to some people, damaging perception of Bitcoin project and retarding adoption in this early stage. So while my statement about losing faith was a hyperbole, is not that far from the truth.

That makes some sense, I agree with that, at least on the consumer front-- I don't agree with that much on the life of Bitcoin though. Bitcoin doesn't need numbers, it needs power players, and power players aren't usually superficial, at least not in the nerd world.

[Matthew N. Wright]

Anyone who would sell off Bitcoin based on anything that happens on these forums much less the actions of a fallible admin should not be considered to having had 'faith' to begin with.

 I need to respectfully disagree with you.

 This community is a barometer and has potential to adjust the vector of Bitcoin.

Point taken.

[Maged]

There are a few points I'd like to make here, Matthew:

1) Theymos didn't mark you as a scammer out of his own accord. The request originally came from me after I reviewed the available information, then theymos did the same and came to the same conclusion.
2) You were extremely new at the time. You had no "credit" to speak of. If you had, I might have covered the costs of that image myself.
3) You had no intention of working with the guy to resolve the dispute. Had you asked him to make a new image because he broke the requirements for the first image, that would have been acceptable. However, instead of working with him, you said:

I hereby retract my original offer, regardless of my original intentions to work through a current issue to make payment. Have fun with your expensive thread.

The reason we removed the tag was not because you paid the guy, but because you finally made a show of good faith. The fact that it resolved the issue was a side benefit.

Also, your case caused us to change our policy a bit regarding scammers. We no longer mark someone as a scammer that quickly unless the evidence is overwhelming.

As for the terrytibbs case, let me ask you this, is Bruce Wagner a scammer? He was trying to help people save their homes with the best of intentions, but he got bogged down in paperwork. That didn't change how a court ended up ruling on him, however.

Also, there's no way for us to ever know for sure that someone "defaulted" and got burned and weren't just scamming the whole time. Let's pretend that I take out a loan of 250 BTC so that I could invest it in Pirate's program. By Pirate's rules, I'm not allowed to tell the people who lend to me that fact. Now, let's pretend that said program turned out to be a ponzi scheme this whole time (note: I'm not actually claiming that; I'm just giving it as an example of a real possibility of what could happen). Because of this, I just tell my lenders that I can't pay them back.

Do I deserve the scammer tag? Does it change anything if I tell you that I have never put a single bitcoin in that program, and thus it really couldn't have been the reason why I couldn't pay you back?

That is why, under both cases, we consider the person to be a scammer if they don't end up fulfilling their obligations regardless of their own business deals.

[Matthew N. Wright]

There are a few points I'd like to make here, Matthew:

1) Theymos didn't mark you as a scammer out of his own accord. The request originally came from me after I reviewed the available information, then theymos did the same and came to the same conclusion.
2) You were extremely new at the time. You had no "credit" to speak of. If you had, I might have covered the costs of that image myself.
3) You had no intention of working with the guy to resolve the dispute. Had you asked him to make a new image because he broke the requirements for the first image, that would have been acceptable. However, instead of working with him, you said:

I hereby retract my original offer, regardless of my original intentions to work through a current issue to make payment. Have fun with your expensive thread.

The reason we removed the tag was not because you paid the guy, but because you finally made a show of good faith. The fact that it resolved the issue was a side benefit.

Also, your case caused us to change our policy a bit regarding scammers. We no longer mark someone as a scammer that quickly unless the evidence is overwhelming.

As for the terrytibbs case, let me ask you this, is Bruce Wagner a scammer? He was trying to help people save their homes with the best of intentions, but he got bogged down in paperwork. That didn't change how a court ended up ruling on him, however.

Also, there's no way for us to ever know for sure that someone "defaulted" and got burned and weren't just scamming the whole time. Let's pretend that I take out a loan of 250 BTC so that I could invest it in Pirate's program. By Pirate's rules, I'm not allowed to tell the people who lend to me that fact. Now, let's pretend that said program turned out to be a ponzi scheme this whole time (note: I'm not actually claiming that; I'm just giving it as an example of a real possibility of what could happen). Because of this, I just tell my lenders that I can't pay them back.

Do I deserve the scammer tag? Does it change anything if I tell you that I have never put a single bitcoin in that program, and thus it really couldn't have been the reason why I couldn't pay you back?

That is why, under both cases, we consider the person to be a scammer if they don't end up fulfilling their obligations regardless of their own business deals.

Thanks for clarifying Maged, I was -extremely- new at the time and didn't even know admins were alive.

I still think it was less than half my fault though, only given the ridiculous, unprofessional, libelous, and contract breaking manner in which he acted.

It's good to see that you guys don't give it out so easily anymore, but so long as it's done in secret and only the mods know about it, I'll never appreciate/trust it as much as I could.

[terrytibbs]

As for the terrytibbs case, let me ask you this, is Bruce Wagner a scammer? He was trying to help people save their homes with the best of intentions, but he got bogged down in paperwork. That didn't change how a court ended up ruling on him, however.

Also, there's no way for us to ever know for sure that someone "defaulted" and got burned and weren't just scamming the whole time. Let's pretend that I take out a loan of 250 BTC so that I could invest it in Pirate's program. By Pirate's rules, I'm not allowed to tell the people who lend to me that fact. Now, let's pretend that said program turned out to be a ponzi scheme this whole time (note: I'm not actually claiming that; I'm just giving it as an example of a real possibility of what could happen). Because of this, I just tell my lenders that I can't pay them back.

Do I deserve the scammer tag? Does it change anything if I tell you that I have never put a single bitcoin in that program, and thus it really couldn't have been the reason why I couldn't pay you back?

That is why, under both cases, we consider the person to be a scammer if they don't end up fulfilling their obligations regardless of their own business deals.

Fair enough, I have nothing against you, and I don't really mind the tag. I was just explaining why I have no intentions of repaying this out of my own pocket.

Regarding your hypothesis: What if you incorporated before giving the funds to pirate? Would you, as moderator Maged, still label yourself a scammer?

[Maged]

Regarding your hypothesis: What if you incorporated before giving the funds to pirate? Would you, as moderator Maged, still label yourself a scammer?

No, I wouldn't, because I would have hedged my funds with the possibility that the program would collapse. I would find a way to pay people back.

However, let's say I wasn't prepared for such an eventuality. I would absolutely label myself as a scammer. The only way I wouldn't do that is if I properly disclosed to people in our agreements that I wasn't obligated to pay them back if the business collapsed. However, much like when you really do incorporate, good luck finding people to trust the company without a co-signer to take the final responsibility. No bank in the world gives loans to non-mega-corporations without a personal co-signer for this very reason.

[bitlane]

As per Forum Policy....

Why hasn't Rexcoin received the SCAMMER Tag yet ?
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=61782.0

He has defaulted on more than 1 loan, yet nothing has been done.

He SHOULD HAVE been labelled a scammer while he was still an active forum member....now I doubt he will ever return.