You had no proof of it being a scam. As far as I am concerned it looks to me as if you don't support free speech or freedom of ideas on this platform. I did not see a single word in his post asking for money. I also watched the video of the presentation @stan did in Hollywood. I found it very interesting and was eager to learn more. I believe we should leave it up to investors to do their own homework vs policing and dictating what people post here. How do we know you don't have your own agenda and are making false claims against people? - the only way is to let the collective Steemit mind come to its own conclusion. Calling something a scam straight off the bat without even knowing the real details behind it is just childish and unprofessional in my opinion. We are all human and we all have a past behind us, some may view our past good some bad. What hard evidence do you have this guy is the con man you claim he is? - when you are successful people try to damage your reputation in all sorts of ways. The information you have could also be false. We all deserve a chance to redeem ourselves and speak our minds at free will no matter what.
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We had all the makings of a scam.
There was the the promises of huge/easy money. The urgency to get in early. The hype men that appeared from nowhere. The webinar that ended up asking for a lot of money. The promise of a product with essentially no details because it didn't actually exist (admittedly). And the fact that the guy didn't even understand how the blockchain/Steemit worked.
Add to that his history - convicted criminal (from his hedge fund scam with his company Hardcastle Hedge Fund), multiple other complaints about MLM practices and scams (such as WUKAR/Dubli) - and his overall behavior in general that is certainly nothing new, based on previous complaints and his own videos, and there is a pretty clear picture of who this guy is. Also, the fact that he teamed up with another person who is an alleged scammer adds to that picture.
No, that was in the webinar. Sign up for the webinar, they pitch you the BS story for two hours, then ask for money (via wire transfer?) in order to get in early and make huge profits.
Well, in my opinion, denying what is right in front of us is quite childish and unprofessional. When we see something so egregious, it's hard to dismiss it. And waiting for them to explain themselves while other people might be falling victim to the scam isn't an option in my book. Never mind the fact that they weren't actually explaining anything. They decided instead to attack anyone who dared to question them.
Indeed we do. And that's precisely what I and many others are doing and have done. On a blockchain that's built on trust and transparency, we shouldn't be so trusting of those who come with poor reputations and try to conceal their obvious scammy and childish behavior. I would think that those of us who have fairly good reputations in this community wouldn't be the ones under scrutiny in this case, given the circumstances.
I would like to know what exactly gave you any confidence that this was a legitimate project they were trying to sell?
Also - this post wasn't just about last night.
@ats-david , bingo this point wasn't just about last night :)
watch the back peddling now
Sounds pretty conclusive to me... Shame I missed the drama
Cg
number 3 on trending wow a shake up of the exact same line up that's been up there forever, kudos
Damn! Talk about deconstructing an arguement. Impossible to disagree with that, well played, Sir! :)
That is exactly my opinion. How many good ideas we'll lose in the future with this kind of approach? I see this like censorship on steemit. We all preaching free market and than immediately jump on first big project. When I joined steemit last year every were I saw: steemit is SCAM, Larimers are SCAM, stay away!! Later on : Voting trails are SCAM, etc.Still today are people who post here and collect rewards every day and saying: don't buy steem. Who cares! We all adults here and we can do whatever we like. It's our money and our decisions. I'm not talking about this particular project here. And even author of this post don't want to mention any names. Wonder why?
I see this as wisdom of the crowd by Steemit not falling for projects that require your money up front with the promise of delivering something later that will make you richer.
Everyone screams scam at everything nowadays, you have to know who to listen to and judge by yourself, how you can compare Steem to Mogul is beyond me.
Last time I'd checked we had around 170000 accounts. That's crowd. We can see exactly who killed this particular project. I can't compare Steem and Mogul because you didn't gave me a chance to even see Mogul. And crowd which you are talking about, sold me steem at $3 last summer. They really take good care for new steemians at that time. And steemit also promoting rewards for posting. How many people actually earn money on steemit? It would be funny to find Mogul to succeed on one of our competitors platform later on. Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. Steemit is great but we should be more open minded and long term focused. The real crowd will find and kill all weed, don't worry.
"The real crowd will find and kill all weed, don't worry."
Yeah, that's worked great for twitter and facebook and reddit. /s
That's why I didn't join any of those in first place.
Yes a really big crowd and even more probably reading it. Let's see do I want the platform to be known for the one that possibly skipped on a huge opportunity or the one that directly helped a really huge scam make bank and fuck over their members and readers? Hmm hard decision there.
The crowd was not the one that sold you Steem at 3$, that was the free market.
Go look it up. Last month I had curation rewards from 1500 unique authors.
If he indeed was not trying to scam anyone he would've stood his ground and defended his project. Not instantly lash out on careful users and start banning them from his "game". If this guy is in charge of that project and this is how he behaves, I don't care even if he was shitting out full blocks of bitcoins. That is unacceptable and very unprofessional. After his behavior I even tested him real quick to see how he would react and he behaved like a 8 year old boy who had just had his christmas present taken from him.
Yes, that's a user I want to trust 100-10,000 $ to.
Thank you very much for your answers. I'm sure we both on the same train here. My only concern is that this kind of behavior could scare and turn away some potential investors. I can smell the rat a mile away and this one was really stinky. My disagreement was only about how we handle this situation. But this is just a small bump on our way to success.
Real investors and people who are about to open up projects as big as in the range of this one will be more open about it, I believe. If not they'll at least stick around to convince people what is being accused is not true, not have a banter and ragequit.
We vote like we usually do and filter it out I guess. What's concerning to me is if a big part of the community already react this gullible to this type of easy to judge scams or characters, how will they act to others who aren't complete morons and know how to behave and trick readers and investors.
Guess it will be a lot more controversial with upvotes and flags when that time comes.
People are on internet for years. Most of us are familiar with all kind of scams and the naive ones will learn on a way. It could be expensive but that's free market.
Wasn't the ostracism effected by the very free speech you support? As a newcomer here I was very hesitant to call bullshit especially when there was such instant and heavily weighted support thrown to the initial posting. When I did post it was to point out multiple inconsistencies between the image he was presenting, the claims he was making, and the reality available for anyone to find through a simple google search. None of what I posted was from a third party who might be bitterly libeling an honest man, it was all just factual information gathered from his own website and the sources it led to. That information happened to present a bigger picture than the naturally cherry-picked one he was offering and frankly, that picture looked bad. I would hope that anyone else with a little time on their hands might do the same in similar circumstances regardless of who the OP is.
Even as a newcomer it's good that you did your research. I think you'll find that when it comes to matters of scams, clickbait, and deviant behavior steemit is not so different from the rest of the web.
For that to happen inputs are needed. He provided one, you - another.
It's only broken when it doesn't work for me!
I think I might have taken this position if his behavior and how he talked to people hadn't been so over the top. I was on the fence until he started behaving so badly over a few questions. Also, I don't appreciate the whale votes pushing a "potential scam" to the top of the trending page. That feels like an endorsement.
I agree. I was hesitant to vote on the announcement post cause it already looked fishy from the get-go. But @stan's comment made me think it could be something real. Then after watching the facebook video of his older seminar for some time I had my own opinion on this person and wouldn't touch anything he endorsed with a 10 foot pole, not to mention his very unprofessional reaction to people warning users not to put their money into it without a second thought.
I agree with @thejohalfiles that we shouldn't jump to conclusions based on prior experience and opinion, but when there are so many other factors involved and it just screams red flags, I'd rather falsely accuse someone and warn others than have members of our community lose money on a scam.
A counter-question, how would the users feel that upvoted his post and @stan's comment with a 100+ vote trail if this indeed turned out to be a scam afterwards and many lost a bunch of money on it? I know that's not something I want in the back of my head. The reason I mention the big curation trail on the comments is that it gives it a bad view to newcomers and outsiders (oh over 100 people have approved this, might as well throw money at it) and a reason why I am careful when I vote with my own trail on comments that are controversial.
As a newcomer, I appreciate your integrity with the vote trail. Thank you!
That is true, it wasn't just his own reputation on the line, it was the reputations of everyone who backed him, and it seemed like some were backing him with a lot of skepticism as well. I think if it had flopped, it would have caused a much bigger rift here.
I can only speak for myself here, but stan has been working on this project for a long time. I DO trust both dan and stan larimer, and so i naturally upvoted it when he told me about it and said that it was a big thing he has been working on.
However i will say that good people can get scammed. I will also say i dont know if this trainor guy is a scammer or not but i DO know the talk stan had given was excellent and i thought this was tied to that.
This is why i give whaleshares to people more and more. It helps others...
Help let the community decide more and more for me is a good thing imho.
Exactly @fuzzyvest. Good people can also be scammed. I watch the webinar yesterday and found so many false mix with no link. The guy was really over the top, making the all thing really sounding like a typical scam.
Thank you Fuzzy, I appreciate nobody is perfect. I also understand it wasn't proven a scam, something I am currently trying to write about.
My position isn't set in stone, but it was a "warning card" for me to question the judgment behind what will be promoted with Whaleshares. For now I am just watching to see how things go.
Key. Dont exoect perfect solutions as they rarely exist when humans are involved.
EVERYTHING and i mean everything can be abused. I am giving alot ofntrust to a community by giving them this power and WHEN someone abuses it it will indeed cost them. ;)
I really appreciate your attitude, it's nice to know that my opinion is valued by respected members of the community. I still don't know much about Stan or Dan but I do know what some of my dad's friends give me a sleazy impression and my dad doesn't seem to see it. Same goes for friends.
This right here. Up until the end I felt skeptical as hell but didn't want to go and call him a scammer even if he was because I only have my perspective to judge that on. What bothered me was the way he seemed entirely insincere, just looking to sell something, and how initial many people saw an opportunity for their own benefit an were ready to jump into bed with him. I am happy the community eventually decided to voice their opinions. It seems pretty clear that the members invested in steemit in more ways than just monetarily were not ready to jump on board with a guy like this.
Using one's stake to reduce rewards on something one disagrees with is not censorship, no matter how many people here will tell you it is. Matt Trainer could have kept going but he got personal and gave up pretty quickly.
Conversely, the real speech in danger of being confined is the speech which challenges suspicious people and suspicious proposals.
This is the way the "collective Steemit mind" comes to its conclusions, if such a thing can be said.
"the only way is to let the collective Steemit mind come to its own conclusion."
@ats-david's post here = $791
@matttrainer's post = $0
The wisdom of the stake-weighted Steem crowd has spoken
Should have been more clear brother. - come to conclusion through words, not down-votes and sweeping the conversation up under the rug.
What? Really?