As an outsider, and being bored at work today, I read all of this, and all of the stuff on Matthew's "bet". Now, perhaps I am missing something, but here are the points I see as relevant:
1. Did matthew actually take money form anyone? (from what I could see, he did not)
2. Reading the huge thread on his "bet", I actually found myself laughing quite a bit. How could ANYONE have actually thought that it was serious? It's like watching Reality TV and thinking it isn't all scripted.
3. Where did he "actually" scam anyone? Scamming, to me anyway, would be defined as stealing money in some way. I can't see anywhere this happened.
4. It seems like all the upset people were upset because they didn't get any free money, which they did nothing to get anyway. None "lost" any that they already had. Too me its like giving my friend saying he will put $10 on a horse for me. He ends up not going to the track, so he never bets on a horse. Did I get 10 bucks scammed?
5. Garr OUTRIGHT robbed people. In an ACTUAL auction (in my state anyway) shill bidding is FLAT-OUT illegal. Period. It's like going thru the drive thru, then the cashier adding $5.00 onto your bill and keeping it. Did she hold a gun to your head to make you buy your Doritos Tacos? No. Did she scam you? HELL YES!
6. It is VERY obvious that the apology was a last resort, no way out. "Oh look, I sent a picture of my penis to someone and I am a politician. I can just deny it was me." "Oh look, they tied the picture to my account, shit, no way out of this now." "I am deeply troubled by the penis picture. I am seeking help, and am extremely dissapointed in my own actions." Muhahahah, next time I will buy a disposable cellphone!!
7. Refusing to ban/scammer tag/etc Garr can ONLY be because of some sort of friendship/financial/dating/WOW buddies or some other relationship. I mean what grey area is there here? He scammed, plain and simple, and got caught doing it. And he didn't do it just once either. That Werner account was NOT new.
I am writing this all down though, gonna sell it as the next Netflix Original Series! "The BTC Conspiracy--A 10 part limited series, only on Netflix"
I have the same read on this that you do.
When I came to bitcointalk I was expecting to find a tight group of folks who valued honesty.
Sure, there would be the Josh type of idiot and the ever present crowd of minor thieves and pickpockets but the luminaries of the forum would reasonably be good people.
Theymos, Goat and Garr are not meeting that expectation. The worrisome part is other folks, even those universally respected (John K.) in the community seem to turn a blind eye to this and support it, if only by association.
The really strange thing is the guy that this forum has branded as "Untrustworthy" is actually the one person here that I do trust.
This is one eff'd up place.
