Member 'charley' banned

[Tyler]

I've banned the member 'charley'.

After a conversation with him on AIM after several Private Messages on the forum, I banned him after he started to threat me by saying "You will pay for it on the Digital point forum".

It all started when I was checking the referrals area for our contest (http://www.publisherforums.com/referrers.php). I noticed that 'charley' had referred around 6 or 7 members, and noticed something strange.

All their usernames were small and simple 1-word names, several with website names, such as 'digg' and 'sedo'. Furthermore, none of the referred members had any posts.

I privately PM'ed 'charley' with the following message:


Hi Charley,

I'm contacting you to inquire on your referrals. Are these legitimate people or are they fake accounts being created by you or your friends?

For a referral to count, it needs to be a legitimate member, and one who hopefully posts...

Please be honest.

Tyler


He then replied asking me to look at the IP's, and then going on to say that he hoped I wasn't scamming him and that he has been scammed in many contests before.

I replied with:

Hi charley,

This is still very suspicious - the IP's do not match but there is other evidence suggesting that you created this accounts.

I may be forced to suspend your account if you cannot provide a truthful explanation.

Tyler

The reason I was still suspicious is that upon further investigation, while the IP's were indeed different, they were all registered under the same e-mail provider, mytrashmail.com.

Now, while this could certaily still be legitimate, adding all of these suspicious things together, I was still uncertain of the truth. Even so, I did not ban or do anything to 'charley' and was trying to sort things out.

This was when he contacted me on AIM. The conversation went as follows:


*** ACK **

I just noticed that after submitting this thread, after I directly copy/pasted the AIM message here it lost all the text and formatting. I should have saved to Notepad first I guess.

Anyhow, I don't have it anymore. If 'charley' posts the AIM message I'll check to see that he didn't edit it.

I also finished this thread with some text that was cut off:

I posted this as a pre-emptive defence in case 'charley' decides to carry out his libelous threat. I'm a very public person and am somewhat known in webmaster circles, running anything but a fair and professional contest would only hurt me. Why would I choose to run a 'scam' contest and risk everything over just a contest?

[Reckless]

I completely agree with you tyler. i also thought his Referrals could be fake.
because if somebody refers you to some site, and you sign up, you make atleast a few posts

[aloksingh]

Yes, maybe it was a good thing you did. I have full faith in your contest and I know that you would never try to run a scam contest because every experienced webmaster knows that running a scam contest will only earn him notoriety and bad fame.

[Submerge]

I just looked and questioned if Charley was banned. Came to me as a surprise but knowing you Tyler, I know you are a man of good will. Hopefully nothing will come of this, he sure could have tried harder fooling the system though.

[Reckless]

Tyler in case you didn't see, he posted on DP

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=209542&highlight=publisherforums

[Sam]

See this is what happens when you run a contest, I wish you thought of another way to promote the forums, most people are just posting for the money, not because they like the forum.

[Reckless]

See this is what happens when you run a contest, I wish you thought of another way to promote the forums, most people are just posting for the money, not because they like the forum.

i dont think tyler of this forum get a bad rep because of this problem, nobody replied to the topic, so i'm guessing nobody cares

[Submerge]

Looking at the AIM conversation, he isn't doing himself any justice in the matter. He looks like a bigger ass now. :/

[Sam]

i dont think tyler of this forum get a bad rep because of this problem, nobody replied to the topic, so i'm guessing nobody cares

Wasn't referring to that actually, I meant people would only sign up for the money. I would have done things differently like developing some usefull tools or writing good articles to promote the forums. But yeah, it was Tylers decision and I respect his decision.

[Reckless]

Wasn't referring to that actually, I meant people would only sign up for the money. I would have done things differently like developing some usefull tools or writing good articles to promote the forums. But yeah, it was Tylers decision and I respect his decision.

ow ok, i agree, there are other ways to promote a forum, but a forum evolves around its post, so a posting contest would be logic

[Sam]

I agree on it being logic, but I'm afraid that when the contest will be done, the activity will be set back again.

[Submerge]

Well, a posting contest can also make a forum look more attractive later on as it doesn't look as dead which can intrigue later members to join. I believe that is one of the motives for starting a posting contest.

[Tyler]

...I'm afraid that when the contest will be done, the activity will be set back again.

Who says I'm not planning on holding another, even bigger, contest as soon as this one ends? ;)