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A letter from curtisg
After the mess with curtisg's offer thread, and the discovery that he was also related to the Exira Systems scam, I've been talking to Curtis Gervais to set a few things straight. I've made a few things clear towards Curtis about the consequences of his actions, and I've set a few demands, one of which was that he wrote a post explaining what exactly had happened, and the honest story behind it. Below, I've included his post as he sent it to me, unedited.
I do want to request that everyone take this letter seriously. I've made it clear that I expect his letter to be honest and that this is his final chance, and judging from the conversation we have had, I have no reason to assume that there is any dishonesty in the below letter. I'll also be making sure that everyone is refunded as soon as possible, although I can't give a solid ETA. If you have a pending refund, please let me know via PM so that I have an idea of the current state of things.
And guys, really. Try to treat this situation like an adult. I believe Curtis really does have issues in coping with his 'disability', for lack of a better word, and something like this isn't easy.
Dear Lowendtalk Members,
I openly admit to multi accounting on lowendtalk multiple times under the usernames: CurtisG, ajones, datafrogs, Robert_es.
What I have done is wrong and I understand that you guys will hate me from now on, which I do not blame you.
I've had a rough life all my life, I thought computers were the best thing for years, however I always liked money.
I'd do what ever I had to, to have money (then again, doesn't most people now-a-days). Now I know I did fuck up in the past,
this is why I joined as CurtisG, I thought if I be honest for once and try to do it for real this time, that I would not be hated, so I released items I have
created, I still got hate, so I got angry with the community, I had over 5 warnings from Liam already, even though he was one-sided most of the times.
I've had a dream of being good at something in life, I was hoping that dream would come true finally, however it didn't (as usual...). Even since 2010 I have been having these issues.
I have a mental issue also(like none of you care anyways), so its really more challenging me for me do things.
Remember all the hate that was given to a kid who had a disorder and people didn't know about it? Then they found out about it and were like "oh shit" (basically).
I'd like to finish this off by saying sorry, joepie and me have agreed that the money will be refunded when I can do it(since I have no balance right now). it should automatically be refunded within 10 days if I did not reply to it (connorl made me reply to his). I did however
send a email to PayPal asking them to refund and close all disputes.
I also like'd to request you leave me and my friends/family alone, I have quit the hosting business and I am sticking to what I like, programming. You can find me on github: https://github.com/unknownself/ where I will be posting some projects I am working on / have done.
I hope you can forgive me at one point, because this will negativly affect my efforts to get a job in programming later on(as joepie stated to me).
I really didn't intend for this to happen, I was hoping it would go smooth as I planned it(I actually had a business plan), but the plan to keep it smooth failed, so I resorted to lying, now look where that got me?
Well, I know most won't forgive, thats fine. I won't be returning, I will just be programming and pushing it to github, so if you do have an interest, you can check out my github.
Thanks.
Comments
Asperger's!
I won't go into details (and won't respond to further guesses), but it's a more serious condition than that.
Personally I'd rather he stayed away - he's had enough chances, and I think it's people's own responsibility for buying into such an obvious suspicious offer.
Scammers disease. We need a new pro-genetist to identify the genes involved.
I do wish Curtis the best of luck, and I do have a little sympathy for him. ;-)
At least he's trying to be honest now.
He has already indicated in his letter that he won't be returning to this community.
Everyone has their problems but we don't use it as an excuse to scam people
I wish he had been this honest sooner. Better late than never.
@superpilesos Keep your mouth shut about mental illnesses, ok?
@CurtisG, (heh, banned so it wont flag..). You've made a mistake, don't try to butter up to the community, but come back if Liam allows you to, and be open about things, don't go money hoarding. Relax. It's a laid back community, and as @joepie91 has said, everything you do on the internet is recorded, archived and can be searched relatively simply.
Sometimes offers are too good to be true. That's why you shouldn't get greedy and complain after, if anything, blame yourself.
Curtis was just trying to do what all kids do, earn money fast. I don't blame him since he has had a hard life, and now that he has told the truth things are much easier to understand.
Adults have come and gone and received far less chances and faced far more harsh treatment. Because of his age he was given more chances to learn from his mistakes here. That is the rest of us being adults about it. This one went too far, he needed us to stop walking on egg shells and give him a taste of what happens. He could have gotten off a lot worse and done this to a community that found out his identity and harassed him to a much further extent.
As I see it, no one here reacted immaturely to his actions, but rather did the responsible thing and opened a kid's eyes to a glimpse of reality without ruining his life.
It's over, that is that.
.
Speaking of children.
And no, I don't. I have no reason to. I have no obligation to treat people as mentally disabled without adequate information about it. His legal guardians needed to know what he was doing.
The only problem is that he rushed into accepting orders without even having the servers.
Is this really a thing kids do for money on a regular basis? Even if he is 16, by his age I'd had 3 jobs (good ol' shitty labor standards in the US allowing 13-year-olds to work in the fields) but even when I had no income/job I never thought of scamming people for cash.
>
But did the orders not fund the server?
For him, the Internet was his home, somewhere he could earn money. That's why it resorted to "scams"
It's actually fairly common, sadly. Especially on forums like Hackforums and wjunction this happens quite often.
Oh I guess this makes it acceptable then, my mistake
Anyway, if he has a computer, an internet connection, and the time to post on here all day, there was no need to scam anyone for money.
Not acceptable, understandable. And as said, people will be refunded.
And what happens with the servers? Are they gonna be idle for a month?
To be clear, neither age nor mental state excuse scamming. He has to be on our watch list of potential VPS provider scammers now. It's not personal, it's reality. You can't explain it away. He did it, repeatedly. I hope he never does it again, but if I see him selling VPS somewhere I'm going to call him out, not say "Well his disability entitles him to scamming."
I hope I never have to. But I didn't make him scam people. I wish him all the best, always have.
Tons of people manage to spend a lot of time online AND have Asperger's/Autism/Depression/whatever and also manage to not do what he did.
Screw you. Seriously this annoys me.
I was never a fan of him. Regardless of mental illness or not the beauty of the internet is that majority of the first contacts are anonymous. No race is involved, no issues are really involved, and nothing is really involved except for your initial comments and discussions.
To me, I did not agree with the choices he made and the way he presented himself. The way he acted was unacceptable and while I do wish him well in the future but I do not wish to meet him (in the future).
You are not aware of what mental condition he is dealing with, exactly. While I don't think his condition is a valid excuse for his behaviour, I do understand how one is a consequence of the other, and I'd advise refraining from commenting or comparing on whether his mental ability excuses his behaviour unless you know what said behaviour is.
Don't be that guy that judges others, based on lack of knowledge about a person.
I wish you luck @CurtisG but i hope you won't try to scam people again.
The point is that it doesn't matter what it is, because I'm sure that unless he has Serial Scammer's Syndrome (SSS), the majority of people who also have the same condition he does don't scam people.
Him using it as an excuse/crutch does a disservice to others that may share his condition.
Tell me a mental condition that forces you to scam people when you obviously aren't in desperate need of the money then.
I agree, I just think that posting a families info on a public forum is out of line. I hated it when they did it to ChrisK and I hated it now. Dickhole was a harsh term, im sorry @jarland.