Topic: Scammer Tags- Pirate Pass Through operators ? - page 4. (Read 6914 times)

The PPT operators didn't admit it was a Ponzi either.

Then you don't understand what a Ponzi scheme is. The crux of a Ponzi scheme is that depositors are told that there is some underlying business or investment that does not actually exist.

"A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to its investors from their own money or the money paid by subsequent investors, rather than from profit earned by the individual or organization running the operation. The Ponzi scheme usually entices new investors by offering higher returns than other investments, in the form of short-term returns that are either abnormally high or unusually consistent. Perpetuation of the high returns requires an ever-increasing flow of money from new investors to keep the scheme going."

Right, but you can't take that literally. Otherwise, everything would be gambling. Crossing the street takes the chance that you'll get hit by a car but it's not gambling. When you are being lied to about what is happening with your money, that's scamming, not gambling. When you play craps, that you might win or lose is gambling. That the casino might not pay you even if you win or that the table might be rigged is not part of the gambling equation.

I guess here is the meat of what we disagree upon.  I don't agree that participating in a ponzi makes you a scammer.  And pirate is only a scammer in my book because he didn't admit it was a ponzi up front.  If he had admitted it was a ponzi from day 1, then I wouldn't see any reason to give him a scammer tag.

Open ponzis are illegal only because the law says they are.  I don't see participation in a ponzi as any different than other forms of gambling.

One definition of gambling:
2: to stake something on a contingency : take a chance

For the same reason Pirate does.

There is no such thing as "gambling" on a "scam". Gambling and scamming are mutually exclusive.

Knowingly participating in a Ponzi makes you a scammer because you are paying the Ponzi operator make you the recipient of fraudulent transfers.

They did precisely the same thing Pirate did. In fact, they paid Pirate to do what he did!

They scammed everyone else who paid into the Ponzi scheme, just like Pirate did.

He had to do these two things, for reasons that I explained elsewhere. He had no other way to protect those of his investors who did not wish their information given to Pirate. Had he passed through information to Pirate, there is no way he could have prevented Pirate from trying to settle his debts directly, depriving other of his investors of their rightful share of those payouts. If you and I each half own a house, you can't cut the house in half, sell half of it, and keep all the profits as "your half". We are each entitled to half of the proceeds of the sale of any part of the house. You are not fully entitled to all the proceeds of the sale of half of it leaving me to try to sell my half by myself.

Ok, let's turn the situation around then.  Let's assume you are right, and EVERYONE knew this was 100% a scam and a ponzi.

Then why do the pass through operators get their reputation dinged again?  For servicing the people who wanted to gamble their money on the scam?  Uhh, not in my book!  They held up their end of the bargain, which was to pay out as long as pirate was paying out.

And I don't see how "knowingly participating in a Ponzi scheme" makes someone a scammer.  There are plenty of openly-ponzi "investments" or "services" or whatever you want to call them on this forum.  Are you saying that every one of those operators should also receive a scammer tag?

To me, the scammer tag is a result of someone not holding up to their word or contract.  Pirate should receive it, since he promised to pay out, and did not.  The insured PPT's that didn't pay out should receive it, since they promised to insure their deposits, and haven't paid them out.  The uninsured PPT's should not receive it, because they did what they said they would do.  They didn't scam anyone.

Now, certainly, I'm not saying that participation in a Ponzi scheme is legal, or morally "good", but I fail to see the connection between that and the scammer tag.  As long as the PPT's were up front about what they were investing in and upheld the terms of the agreement they stated, they did not scam anyone.

There is no way to prove payb.tc, the operator of the BitcoinMax PPT, knew or did not know the nature of pirate's operation.

That doesn't matter; the reasons payb.tc is a scammer are that he

1) refused to recognize the reality of the BS&T default, preferring to remain mired in the past and demand full payment

2) refused to comply in good faith with pirate's request for PPT account information

3) refused to comply with his own BitcoinMax account holders' requests that their account info be passed through to pirate

4) suddenly proclaimed an 'all-or-nothing' stance towards pirate, despite having been willing to trust him previously, only after the default was announced


Payb.tc, next time both your PPT account holders and pirate ask you to do something (such as pass their PPT account info through to pirate) DO IT.

I can't help but think of the 'Good Sumaritan Act' and how it saves people from being charged with assault or sued by a would-be-victim, after they break the ribs of that 'victim' who's life they are trying to save by performing the Heimlich maneuver, in order to actually save that person's life, rather than leaving them to choke to death...LOL

Joel, you give people too much credit. Some of us here are dumber than a box of hammers.

Personally I also feel that it is not the PPT operators we should be going after, but rather those who formed part of the Pirate propaganda machine irrespective of whether they operated PPTs or not. So if you operated a PPT, but did not campaign for Pirate you get away with it. Simply providing a service that the market demands.

But if you went around claiming to know the business model, saying stuff like "No-one with half a brain thinks this is a ponzi" and tirelessly shouting down anyone who dares disagree, then you were either on the payroll or so incredibly stupid that others should be warned against paying heed to anything you say. Unfortunately we can't prove who is unethical and who is developmentally delayed. So I suggest that they should be made to choose between scammer tags or dumbass tags. It has to be one of those.

This one time, yes. But next time, nobody has any excuses.

I think there are two questions to ask in each case: (1) whether they actually gave the money to Pirate as described or were effectively running their own synchronized Ponzi, and (2) whether they shilled on behalf of Pirate, by claiming to know his business model, cash flow, whatever.

Affiliate scams and confidence men certainly deserve the tag, but not flat "honest" pass throughs, who could plausibly have been duped.

Case-by-case determinations should be made, I think.

You kind of just contradicted yourself. First you say that everyone knew what was happening. Then you say the investors knew that it may be a scam. Did the investors know it was a scam?

Are you saying everyone who claimed it wasn't a Ponzi was lying and that everyone really did know that it was a Ponzi scheme all along? If so, the PPT operators who didn't say they knew it was a Ponzi were lying, just like Pirate. Right?

If it's your position that everyone knew it was a Ponzi scheme all along, then the PPT operators were knowingly participating in a Ponzi scheme. They're as deserving of scammer tags as Pirate.

Based on what I was trying to convey in the following quote that originated from the 3rd post in this thread...


Using 2 specific users for the following example....
Here is essentially what I was referring to in my post above and perhaps the basic criteria that I might apply if faced with helping to make the final decision:

PatrickHarnett
- Solid GLBSE Contract with clear default information.
- Even now, continuously working towards closing out his 'business' in a timely fashion, above and beyond original contract(s).
- Never lied about destination of certain funds, risk involved or consumer/buyer/investor protection.
- Good communication throughout.
*NO SCAMMER TAG*

hashking
- No clear contract(s) using GLBSE, rather used his own platform, for the most part, limited GLBSE.
- Currently estimates longer-than-should-be 'closing-out' business plan, even for Insured 'Securities' etc.
- Masked destination of certain funds received, misappropriations, re-invested Anti-Pirate 'Insurance' back into Pirate program.
- Complete LACK of communication, clarity and policies etc.
**SCAMMER TAG Deserving**

Disclaimer:
The above is based on common Forum knowledge. No assumptions were made by me during the above points.

This is why I feel that blanketing ALL Passthrough Operators would be unfair and counterproductive in a way, especially for those OPs who are working towards making things 'right' by their own standards and going above and beyond what even their original contracts offered.

Thanks for taking the time to read this,
bitlane.

Sorry, but everyone in the situation knew what was happening.  There was no murder, in which the murdered person didn't know he was going to be murdered.  This is therefore an invalid argument. 
The investors knew that it may be a scam. 
If someone comes up to you and says "I will steal your money if you give it to me, but I will fake very high interest rates to make it look as if you're making money." and you give him money, when he steals the money, did he really scam you?  Scamming is lying/not fulfilling a contract.  If, as you said, it was so blatantly obvious that it was a scam, then the PPT operators didn't scam anyone.  They merely offered a service that they knew no more about than we did. 

Speaking as someone that watched it unfold as a lurker, I saw it for a scam. 7% a week is always a scam.

The only question I would be interested in if I had paid a unaccountable pseudonym to give money to a BullShit trust would be:
Did they actually give my money to the bullshit trust?

This is bitcoin, if they had given the money obviously they would have proven it beyond a shadow of a doubt.  If they didn't, well I'll let you connect the dots. 

Yes, it was.

Actually, they all knew or should have known. But as I said, I'm willing to give any PPT operator who is not on record as saying they knew or suspected that this was a scam a free pass this one time. However, after this, everyone should know how to spot an obvious Ponzi scheme or related scam and I for one will no longer accept the "I didn't know for sure" answer.

In the hitman example the middleman knows what he is doing. You don't have any proof that PPT operator knew what was going on. If you just carry a bag of money without knowing that is for a hit you are not responsible for that crime.

Ok, I see your point of view.  But, I see two differences:
1)  The scam wasn't known as a scam for certain.  You KNOW that a hitman is going to kill someone in your example - you don't KNOW that people are going to lose their money in a scam until it happens in the case of pirate.  Sure, there was a strong likelihood, but it still wasn't certain.
2)  I see risky investments as a form of gambling.  If people want to gamble their monies away, or give it to a homeless guy on the street, or light it all on fire, it really doesn't make a bit of difference to me.  And I would even help them do it if they wanted and I had some incentive.  Therefore, I don't feel as though the people who invested in Pirate were wronged.  They knew the risks of investing up front, and they chose to invest anyway.  I wouldn't say they got what they deserved, but at the very least, they understood the risk they were taking by investing in the scheme.  That is far different from someone who unknowingly has a hit placed on them.

Do you also think casinos are in the wrong for letting people lose money?  And banks that let people withdraw their money to spend at casinos?

You're still responding to the argument that PPT operators defrauded their investors. That's not the argument I'm making.

I agree, but that doesn't reduce the middleman's responsibility. Especially in this particular case because it was difficult to invest in Pirate directly. That's why the PPTs started up.

I see no fruitful way of arguing this. Your money is/was with Pirate. The PPT operators only provided a service and collected a small fee for that service. I can't perceive them as having any responsibility nor can I see any value in persecuting them.

As for murder as a commodity, if somebody needs a hitman, they are going to get it without a middle-man if they are truly serious.