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Comments
@joepie91 If he is physically unable to control himself then he needs proper oversight. I believe the state can provide this in Canada but he also has living parents who appear to have working careers. One in the medical field.
Point being, it isn't our fault that he came here to scam. It doesn't matter if he can control it or not. If he can't, then we blame his parents. At no point are we guilty for being the targets of his scam.
As I said though, I wish him all the best.
@Spencer Forgiven. Keep in mind I deleted it the second he asked me to.
I feel sorry for the guy and apreciate the honesty, atleast at the end. People do deserve second chances, wish all the best to him.
On the other side - I am 18 (nearly 19) years old. I've been running Liquid since 2011, steadily. In someone's eyes I am still a kid, but that does not excuse me in actually providing good services (atleast according to the feedback I get). I want to be in the hosting industry for much longer time and sincerely hope that someday I will be pulling a decent, above the average living from this industry and this is what I aim and work for. Honestly, I do not expect to have second, third, fourth, fifth and so on chances if I screw up, no matter of my age. It is not an excuse and it shouldn't be an excuse for everyone. We all make mistakes, which might cost us a lot, but at the end, even if the are forgiven, they are not forgotten
I'm well aware. I just have a very low tolerance for the kind of know-it-all-even-if-we-don't guys that feel the need to take a 'guess' as to what kind of 'disorder' someone has, and then derive a load of judgments from that.
I'm not expecting anyone to consider his condition an excuse for what he did. I do expect people to act maturely and respectfully, and refrain from making comments about things they really have no idea about.
I disagree. It would have been possible to contact the authorities, contacting his parents was the kinder alternative (for him). This is the online equivalence of taking a kid to his parents instead of the cops when it has done something bad.
Nobody past the first reply did, I specifically pointed out "whatever" he had didn't matter in all my posts, you are projecting
There are lines, and that I feel crossed it. That's why I asked for details in a PM. The topic has now been moved to offtopic.
Connor
I've been in touch with Connor, Curtis and a few others. It seems only fair to move it to offtopic, so Google at least does not crawl it and affect his future etc. Also we will go through any family info and remove that at a later date. :-)
Thank you @infinity
What a good ole' forum this is! (no sarcasm)
When I was a teenager, I did spend a lot of time messing with my Commodore 64, Amiga 500, and Atari 400, but I also spent a heck of a lot of time playing basketball, skateboarding, etc. I suggest he try the great outdoors, might be good for him mentally and physically.
In reality, I see it as good that his parents were contacted, provided it was in a decent manner.
His parents are probably clueless as to what he does online - and since he has a habit of this, perhaps his parents will consider disconnecting him from the online world just a tad bit. Consider it rehab for a scamaholic. Either way, to say that he "got mad" and decided to take peoples money, he doesn't deserve to own a computer anymore anyway
Good work @joepie91.
I have pretty much refused to participate in this whole ordeal up until now, but I have a few things that I want to point out and say:
Anyone who thought they were gonna get some awesome deal from this is delusional.
To begin with, from how I read his original post and questions it seemed like he 'had extra space' on a server and was willing to part with the space (in a non-raided, non-guaranteed capacity). I think starting out this is actually what the case was. However, I believe when a lot of people showed interest, Curtis thought, "Hey, there is a want for this product and I can actually get server from VolumeDrive at a reasonable price, so why not?" I am sure all of us at one point or another have been in this position, think you have found that niche and want to exploit it for a little extra money. I believe he intended to deliver on the product, and it is possible VolumeDrive even told him they would deliver the servers (however anyone who knows VolumeDrive's reputation knows how they are about their support responses and delivery times... ), however, they didn't deliver.
The second issue he ran into was getting ip addresses in place on his existing server, so to start with, it was possible he intended to put people on an existing server, however VolumeDrive hadn't provided him the additional ip addresses either. Had there not been an ip issue, maybe some people would have received their servers.
I am just going to put this out there, but when I read his offer originally it didn't sound like a business, but like a guy with extra space willing to share at a low cost. I think when 90000 people joined the thread and were interested, at that point he realized he might be able to make a go of it. When you guys all made the purchase and saw the state of his WHMCS gateway, that the e-mail was going to a private paypal account and not an verified business account and just knowing that he has no other commercial offerings currently this should have been the first flag on the play. Those of you who went through with paying him had to already know in the back of your head it was a risk.
All this said, it does not excuse the fact that he didn't have the servers setup and tested before making the offer. Things should have been setup and tested before selling anything. If anything, I think he walked away having learned this. You guys for sure broke the kid down, had he been a bit more forthcoming about the issues, I am sure it would have been able to be resolved, but kids do not think that way. He was probably scared of all the above mentioned things happening to him, like you guys messaging his family on facebook and other things.
In reality, all you guys who spent the $7.00 knowing the risk, should have just been happy to help the kid out and provide him a learning experience. Beating him down over refunds to me seems childish. Had you reacted a little differently about your 'precious $7.00' I feel that he may have actually worked with you guys to deliver something, even if it wasn't in the time he originally promised.
Curtis - In the end it was the way you approached the venture, you should have outright said it was a beta platform and something you were working to develop, which could be buggy or take longer to deliver than 24-48 hours. Had you done this in advance, I think you would have been able to work things out and maybe made things work for you. Regardless of the mental issues you may face, learn from this situation and learn a bit more about communication. If you have a hard time communicating with people, in the future consider having more people on board with you who can help you where you are deficient.
TL;DR: If you seriously were willing to go after this kid over $7.00 please find someone to kick you square in the balls, cause you deserve it. It is $7.00, it isn't like this is preventing you from being able to eat, and if it is, you spent the money on the wrong thing in the first place. Sure the kid didn't fulfill your order in a timely fashion, but what were you really expecting? Even if it took him a week to deliver it, 1TB at $7.00/month is a steal and I am sure if it would have worked out you all would be raving about it. You guys just kept pushing and pushing and eventually when you do that, people just give up, thus what happened here.
Going forward you people really need to look at deals like this with a bit more scrutiny, if it looks like shit, smells like shit, tastes like shit.... a good bet is... its shit.
my 50 cents.
Cheers!
The statement doesn't really say anything apart from trying to put the blame on being lonely, greedy and/or mentally unfit.
And as per standard LET-style, we want amazing resources at rock-bottom prices.
Just saying, there is no disease that makes it acceptable to scam people. It is a matter of choice and many people will resort to it, for many different reasons.
I for one don't have the greatest of homes, and have never attempted to scam anyone out of anything. I consider the internet as my part time home as well, dealing with the fact that I spend a great amount of time on it.
Me too, minus the older systems. Which is why I always try to tell kids on here when they ask about starting a host, 'Great, but go be a kid for a bit while you have the chance'.
CurtisG seemed like a decent guy with my interactions. Maybe now I can continue to be the only, 'Curtis' on here again. =D
Well said @TheLinuxBug.
+1
@TheLinuxBug Not his first scam, been doing it for at least a year based on the history we dug up. Now I consider this over, of course, but making a mess of it is the only way he may have learned a lesson from this. Otherwise there is 0 indication that this would be different than the hackforum scams he was running in January of last year.
+1
Once again, going into it, it should have been looked at with scrutiny and not just "Ohh wow a 1TB VPS for $7.00 OMG OMG OMG PLS GIMME DAT!" which is what all the people who participated in this scam basically did. It was easy to tell he didn't have a registered business, even the WHMCS panel you signed-up on was broken. You are telling me you really expected someone with things in that current state to be selling you something you could depend on? Shame on you if you did! It didn't cross your mind to maybe... NOT spend that $7.00?
In the end a lot of you scammed your self, by not doing your research, and then got mad when it didn't all turn up roses. For that I provide you with a derisive laugh in your face.
Once again, I do not condone what he did, but you all claim to be smart people, yet you surely didn't see this coming? Is what you are trying to tell me? C'mon now.
sigh
I have been watching the whole saga from afar, but yeah, no excuses for what he has done but indeed, all the 'smart' people.
People became magpies, they saw a shiny and went for it without spending anytime thinking about it or pausing at the obvious warning signs.
He is an immature little online scammer. The only way he will learn and not return back under another name is by someone telling his mommy and having consequences. Heck, he should go on the show "Scared Straight" and learn a lesson, with a mental disorder or not.
@Jefffrey
I assume it was you who contacted his parents? That's one way to write "asshole" with a permanent marker on your forehead.
It was the right thing to do. Curtis is a minor with mental disability, I'm sure any decent parent would like to know if her son has intended to commit fraud online.
Had a pm with him about dev work re: rage4 dns/cpanel type plugin - http://www.lowendtalk.com/discussion/comment/242766 -- I mentioned that after @adly failed to deliver I wasn't ready to lose money again by paying up front. @curtisg came back asking for $100 anyway and I let it drop.
Glad that I did, it's clear from this thread I'd be out the $$
Well with the super moral people there's no end. On one hand you should know better and on the other hand you shouldn't be digging in people's personal lives. How else are you supposed to know better? The whole "too good to be true" thing has always been a big part of LEB. BuyVM's $15/year VPS was exactly that and it turned out to be a gold mine for the users who purchased them. When ChicagoVPS sold 2GB for $7 it was too good to be true, no way they could survive that! Are they dead pooled yet?
You can't ignore the entire context of where we are and the history of this place to make your point. Creative and daring products/prices is what this place breeds. Scammers have always been cast out angrily and it'll happen again next time too.
For God's sake FlipHost just offered 1TB for $7 and that's no scam. So quit your "you should know better" crap. You're not taking any of the local realities into consideration.
There's a sucker born every minute.
@heiska
I wouldn't say that it's especially nice to be contacting family and friends who have nothing to do with his business. But then again this is just me.
I can't see how having a mental disability is relevant (unless we're talking about something like jopie-narcissism or cerebral palsy)
But then again, what Curtis did wasn't exactly nice either, and parents are responsible for their underage children's actions (in most countries).
@heiska
Of course not, scamming isn't nice (and i never said so either). However his parents can't really do much apart from trying to resolve this immediate need for funds to process refunds.