I agree with you on that, because how can a newbie know who @philipma1957 is to go straight and ask for merit? That's just an indication that it might be one of those merit or account farmers. If it's so then that account need to be monitored until proven otherwise.
Philipma post a lot on daily basis as regular posting habits. He is easy to notice if you are regularly browsing on mining board and wall observer thread. Probably this user is just trying his luck on asking merit to Philipma since he seems so approachable and friendly on most of his post.
We are not sure too if this user only ask to Philipma or to other user too with high merit count.
I usually sound like a soft touch most of the time. But I am not really that soft. If anything I have seen so much here on bitcointalk I am tired of repeated cons.
This just happened to be the first person to ask for free merits in a pm.
Hell I have had a lot of shit asked of me in pm's. Just never had someone ask this.
locked thread and gave all posters 1 merit for each post they made.